Four stitches in a finger pointing to the moon

So, my trip to Singapore for Rodney King's weekend seminar tend out to be a bit of a bust. Having received four stitches in a freak accident a week before meant that the chances of me training were slim to none; less my stitches suddenly exploded and believe me, the thought of paying for a restitching in Singapore Dollars was not an appealing one

But it was a good trip for other reasons. I got some inspiration for poetry, which my friend Kathleen is helping me with and also met up and made some new friends (always a good thing). There's always a silver lining in a cloud and a stitch in time (or four), saves nine. :-)

One really serendipitious moment was seeing Rodney roll with Yuri before class started. As I told my coach, Vince of KDT academy, that completely blew me away. Why? Mainly because he didn't roll like what I had envisaged.

It was amorphous, yet highly structured and rational. The best way to describe it would be diaphonous. Amazingly smooth and silk like. But to say it had no strength or power would be completely wrong as well. The positions that Rodney got were as strong and as solid as they come.

That's beautiful BJJ :-)

I had expected either a plodding, safe game or a strength/power based set from him but not that, which goes to show sometimes that stereotypes can be wrong. And I'm glad I was because I got to see something really special that day. And I think what was special was not that I saw a BJJ black belt's skill or a collection of techniques.

Rather, it was a culmination of years of experience, muscle memory, thought processes, techniques and mat time distilled in the present (or now, the past). It's not a set of moves - it's a state of mind and body. But that aside..

..it looked da bomb!