cindy's world

I have panty-trim fabric burns, workout bra-trim fabric burns, a bruise on my left shin, a mat burn on my left knee, a swollen right fleshy-part-of-thumb/palm, bruise on my right upper wrist, sore right forearm, and what appears to be a spread-out, gargantuan hickey on the inside of my right forearm with a black bruise beginning to form underneath. Am I whining? Haels no. I’m BRAGGIN!

The smaller intermediate jujitsu class yesterday consisted of all guys, plus me. I felt horrible that I was slowing them down on the drills, but they were all very good about it and gave me pointers on how to fall and hit and block, where to grab, how to roll them off my back and hip. I tossed a few guys and got tossed myself. The instructor incidentally discovered an aggression button of mine when he felt I was being too mild on defending the attacks: he told me to get back at all men. As each of the guys came up to me in a line of right and left punches, I smack-stopped the punches with the back of one hand, punched their extended bicep with my free hand, did the same with their other arm, threw the heel of my hand into their face and stepped into a hammer on their crotch in quick succession. The instructor looked so proud. I’m leading the class on a crunches drill this Thursday.

That…was…AWESOME!!! =) =D
And when was the last time I used that word? 6th grade?

My dad was right; the first thing they teach you in jujitsu is how to fall. That made me a bit nervous because of how sore I was from overtraining last Saturday. The half-hour stretching and warmups to kick off the class totally loosened me up, however, and I was fine. After drills of falling back, falling left, falling right, and getting back up in fighting stance, we learned how to turn a defense move into an offensive one by using the attacker’s own momentum against him. I’m gonna need more exposure to get the “feel” of movement. It makes total logical sense to me about transferring the momentum in an arc, the arm twists and the regaining of control. I’m just gonna need time for it to become second nature. I’m gonna have plenty of chances to do that, because the instructor asked me to go in tomorrow evening for the more advanced class. I think I will, just to expose myself more.

The chemistry of the class was great. We had a mix of levels, altho it was a beginner’s class, and everyone was very nice and helpful and seemed to have good senses of humor. I put on my open-minded outgoing clowny persona and it faired well with the class. I hung out after the class and watched some of the more seasoned students practice grappling with each other. Their throws and combinations look really cool. (I did some “throws” and was “thrown” a bit too, but those were more like controlled rolls.) The instructor was very nice and seemed to take a genuine interest in my learning.

As a social observation, it is endlessly fascinating to me how in a new environment with complete strangers, we (I assume I’m not peculiar in this) instantly cubbyhole people into caste categories we’re familiar with. There are the girls we’d want to hang out with, girls you know are gonna be at the bottom of the skill level, guys whose skills you admire and would want to hang out with, guys who are around your level and would probably end up being the guys you hang out with, and guys who are creepy and you want to stay away from. One creepy guy stood around too close to my personal space and had his top off for way too long while he was changing between T-shirt and the martial art robe top, whatever those are called. One guy in the “guys you admire” category instantly caught my eye because he looks like a (much) better looking version of someone I had once taken a fancy to. I also chatted w/the instructor and 2 other more advanced students after the class and made some new friendships.

Sometimes you’re somewhere you just know you’re supposed to be.

What do “gams” refer to, anyway? Butt or legs? Both? Well, both apply.

Wow, I missed a day of posting for the first time since I started this blogsite. I got home really late last nite (or rather, early this morning) and yet I still chose to take a shower before bed, which kept me wide awake so I decided to read Calvin & Hobbes to relax me into sleep. That didn’t happen until 3a.m. and I got up early enough to still be at work this morning just a few minutes after 8a.m. Ugh. (“This early to bed, early to rise thing sucks,” I told a friend this morning. My friend said, “You’re supposed to go early to bed the night before, not the same morning.” I retorted, “Well, they did not make that clear in the quote!”) I think I’ll skip the lunchtime workout today and take a nap. I’ve got 2 hours of jujitsu after work today anyway.

How’m I gonna get thru my first jujitsu class when I can’t even bend my knees very far? Walking down the stairs was so difficult this morning. List of muscles that hurt, bottom-up: calves, quads, hip adductors, middle/lower back, front deltoids.

I had a great workout at the park. Crunches lying upside-down UPHILL (feet can’t touch the ground!), prone cobra raises lying facing downhill, sprints, push-ups, step-up lunges off the picnic table bench w/combined knee raises, side-hops, squats on those air balance disks while on a slope, on and on… in circuits… I only almost passed out once! Great job and thanks, Trainer Guy. Can’t wait to see how I feel tomorrow.

I had a roommate the first half of 2003 who was/is an excellent and creative certified personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness. He emailed me a couple of weeks ago saying he knows I have a b-day coming up at the end of the month and what would I like for my b-day? From him? What else? I wrote that I wanted free personal training. Of course this is considered theft of 24 Hour Fitness resources if we do it at a gym that employs him. Here’s the email conversation (in pertinent part only):

Trainer: If you want we can do more functional training at like a park or something like that.
Me: I’m game!
Trainer: I think I am gunna find somewhere with big hills hehehehe
Me: sounds good to me!
Trainer: okie time to dig out my torture devices, lol
Me: hey, if I wanted to be lazy and have an ineffectual workout, why would I even contact you? I’d just sit around at home and eat lard.
Trainer: lmao, cause you would never do that unless someone put you in a severe depressive state

I love how well my friends know me.
So training this afternoon at 2:30 at a (fairly) local park. I hope I can do a pull-up and not embarass myself.

While pedaling on the stationary bike at lunchtime, I had a great chat with a public defender in our building about our childhood OCD quirks. It’s nice to know that I wasn’t the only one who had to read every single word in a book and absorb everything before I’d allow myself to go on to the next line, or who had to do something a certain number of times before feeling comfortable that the task is done. Altho I may still carry a touch of OCD on things (such as math-related things which is why I avoid math so much), it seems both he and I overcame our general OCD stuff by sheer will in early adolescence. We told ourselves that this was getting ridiculous, we were gonna break ourselves of the habit, and just sit thru the anxiety attack resulting from NOT giving in to the compulsion until we see that there is no negative effect to not eating M&Ms in even numbers, for example. (That one’s not mine.) It was a great conversation as we laughed at ourselves, and I even stayed on the bike 15 minutes longer than I’d originally planned to just because the conversation was so entertaining. I bid him adieu with, “See ya later, you freak.”

Not as bad as I thought, actually. I thought I’d be at a 1K surplus, and I only burned 474 calories on the elliptical at the gym this lunch.

Breakfast Jack sandwich: 290.4 cal
Hash brown: 147.8 cal (prob less for me b/c I drained about 1 lb of grease from it before eating)
Orange juice: 140.0 cal
___________
478.2 calories

After I wrote the previous post I put up an away message on AIM that says I’m in the shower (“I’m standing in a vertical column of water. I’ll get back to you after I dry off. Or something.“), and fully intended to jump in the shower, get ready for bed, and knock out. However, as it was a few minutes into 11pm, I decided to watch the remainder of “Friends” first. The next thing I knew, it was way late in the morning, the TV was still on, and I was laying half over my covers, contacts in and everything. Of course I got into trouble at work. I deserve it, I need to manage my life better than I have been. However, I’d like to know who these clerks are that get off on going to my supervisor to bitch about why he “lets” me go in late so frequently. I don’t go in to his office and demand why he “lets” other clerks leave at 3:30pm regularly.

(no, I’m not talking about a piece of furniture from Ikea.)

I had a huge craving for MolcaSalsa rolled tacos as I drove home, so I stopped by their drive-thru and bought 5 guacamole-smothered ones. I was probably done gorging myself around 5:45 pm, and fell asleep in front of the bigscreen. The phone rang and woke me up when it was pitch black, and I assumed it was like 3am and that I had knocked out so completely that I didn’t wake back up to shower and do my nightly bedtime routine. I was kinda pissed that someone was rude enough to call me in the wee hours of the morning. I went back to sleep anyway. The next time I woke up, I struggled to read my watch. It was only 9pm! How off is my internal clock?! I’m gonna blame the food cravings, the mood swings, and the physical exhaustion on PMS. I barely made it thru my lunchtime workout today, too. I hope the body doesn’t burn less calories or make the workout less effective just because the mind is not into it. I still went thru the motions.

BTW, I talked to the person who called; the initial phone call was about 6:30pm, not 3am.

The mounting list of coincidences are so positive and affirming. The college roommie and I were talking about spa treatments, which had been on both our minds recently. We need pampering, I guess. And today, my elementary school friend (we’ve been tight friends since 3rd grade) called me up and we’re going to Amadeus Spa in Pasadena! She just booked our hour-long massage appointments. Mine’s at 3pm. Check this out:

Amadeus Signature Massage
Forget your cares and leave the world behind as you unwind with our Signature Massage. This special treatment includes Aromatherapy Oils customized for your needs, Hot Rocks laid along key relaxation points and our Lemongrass Foot Scrub. From temples to toes, enjoy your best massage ever!
1 Hour & 15 Minutes…. $140

I’ve gotta go! Don’t wanna be late!