Well, my cornea injury from August apparently never healed properly. According to the two eye doctors I visited on Thursday and Friday (big ups to the missus for carting my half-blind ass around Renton and Redmond all day on both days), the cornea healed with a sort of flap of loose tissue that was being increasingly irritated every time my eyelid moved.
The long and short of it was that the loose eye tissue had to be scrapped off, and a new "hole" cut so that my cornea could have a second shot at healing properly.
As I wrote to Tommy in a probably incomprehensible e-mail, as painful as it was on Thursday and Friday (and most of Saturday), eyes tend to heal pretty quickly. By late night Saturday I was feeling a bit better and by Sunday morning was in good enough shape to watch (albeit behind sunglasses) the Seahawks come back against the Rams.
I won't be training at all until next Monday. And even then I'm going to have to be extremely careful about the contact, not letting anyone get anywhere near the eyes. I stopped by Tully's Monday night to let Rodrigo and Mamazinho know what was up, to thank Tommy for checking in, and just to see how my jiu jitsu family was doing. Monday was a nice big class, but a bit of a bloody one as Michelle got part of her big toenail ripped off and Tommy took a shot to the mouth that bloodied his gums or lip. Hopefully, both injuries looked worse than they were--even in my blurred state I could see more red that I wanted to.
Mamazinho had the class learn two sweeps that were similar to ones Tommy showed us way back in what I think was the first class I ever took that he taught. The Feitosa swing-out, is how I think of them collectively, and they are for use against someone who stands up in your guard. I took notes Monday night, but don't have them right here so I'll have to add them later or make a separate post. Essentially, the sweeps have you sitting up around the guy's "post" leg, taking the arm on that side under and between his legs and then either grabbing the far collar and sitting in to bring him to the mat, OR--if he steps into you or forward to keep his balance, underhooking that far leg by the knee and shoulder rolling him into the sweep.
A little tricky, but I tried the move on my own when I got home so I'd remember how it basically went. I want to make sure I understand the rolls involved in each sweep, so I'll be sure to ask upon my return on Monday (though there's a good chance I'll stop by on Thursday just to see what everybody is up to).
