So...apparently, people from my gym read this blog. Lots of them. I was not aware of that. I came to the realization last night at Christian's birthday party, when 90% of the guys I was talking to started referencing things I've written about and trying to guess whose nickname refers to who. It was kind of funny and kind of WTF because I had no idea so many of these dudes - yes you, lurkers, you know who you are - had found the link, presumably through Facebook, let alone read through it and were following it. I mean seriously...stalk much? It's making me reconsider an upcoming post that features a photo of me in my pink fleece froggie jammies.

It was a good night though. A little crazy, a lot of fun and kind of surreal to see everyone outside of the usual gym setting. I got to the bar around 10 pm, was only going to stay for an hour or so, and ended up leaving a little after 3 am. Luckily, I was in a responsible enough mood to space out my drinks because I get very friendly when I'm drunk and I didn't think that grappling partners were an appropriate crowd to unleash my wilder side on, so I spent the night in a happy, chilled out zone. The same cannot be said for some others, but that's another story. I'll just say that it was damn amusing and I enjoyed getting to know some people that I'd only worked with once or twice before. For example, I've discovered that Krypton is as much of a cat person as I am and we spent an unhealthy amount of time swapping pictures of the furry little critters and discussing how cool it is that they are natural BJJ practitioners (ever seen cats grapple?...'nuff said). Got to know C-Bear much better too, talked with him a lot, then Diesel and Curly, who has finally gotten his hair under control. He seems very zen about the whole thing.

Training continues to be great. There was a sudden blizzard on Saturday so I wasn't sure if anyone would even be there and almost didn't go. I'm glad I did though, because I learned a lot of good things to do when trying to stave off attacks from open guard. I'm especially fond of the one where someone's trying to underhook you, you shrimp, kick the leg up, around and back in, and they have to start again. Later on, I kept doing that to Big Boy and Homeboy, and they were getting very frustrated. I've also finally gotten to the point where I'm passing guard more consistently and slightly less flaily-like, so Christian gave me props for that, which made me happy.

During open mat, I got a good ass whooping from Thumper, who I sorely underestimated because he's not as bulky as most of the other guys. But he kept getting side control and mount, and tapping me out time after time. I tried an armbar (hadn't officially learned it yet, was just imitating Youtube) and ended up getting the leg movements reversed. He used the opportunity to armbar me back, but gave me points for trying. I did manage to tap him once though, with a North South Choke, which was awesome. Dom was thrilled when I told him about that.

Just got home and am feeling so invigorated. I smell like a monstrous combination of man sweat, old cologne and gym funk and I couldn't be in a better mood. Something was different today. Five classes in and it's like I finally found my groove. Do I still have tons of catching up to do? Duh. Do I know everybody yet? Course not. But my confidence has magically gone way up.

When I walked in today, it was the first time I didn't have that imaginary audience everyone's-watching-me feeling. I said hi to some folks I'd seen around, talked quite a bit with people I've gotten to know and then when class started, for the first time since day one, I had no trouble. No staring blankly trying to figure out what the fuck everyone else was doing and how the fuck they were doing it. No struggling to keep up with the warmups. No overwhelming HUH?? feeling when Christian demonstrated the move. No requests for extra help because I was totally lost. I just...did it. Not perfectly, but as well as any other beginner. The biggest sign that I'm feeling more at home is that instead of hanging back when the class was told to pair up, waiting for whoever was unlucky enough to be left over and stuck with the newbie, I turned straight to the guy next to me, who I'd never seen before, and said "let's go." Ambitious, perhaps, but I was finally in that zen I can totally do this shit too place.