Ladies' Classes!!!

I know I've been a bit delinquent in updating, but I do have some exciting news.  This Saturday, we finally started a women's BJJ class!  It's being taught by our brown belt, Jess, and I think she did a great job.  It was a small class, just myself and two other ladies, both wives of men who train--one had just started coming in to regular classes the past few weeks, the other had never had a formal class.  It was nice that she could keep it intimate to start, and hopefully make things more comfortable for them.  We started out with a brief warm-up and stretching, then got to the good stuff.  We did armbar from mount and the upa, keeping it basic.  I was her "teaching dummy," and when it came to drilling, we would each take one so we could walk them through it.  Jess didn't ignore my needs, though, and once they got the hang of each move she had them rep it on each other and let me drill the moves (albeit at a faster pace) on her.  We finished up with some open rolling and a quick cool-down/stretch session. 

I think this class is going to be a big step forward for the academy.  I've heard from far too many women that they just don't want to train with sweaty dudes and they don't feel comfortable with it, but I think this will be a great gateway drug for them.  Once they get hooked, they can stay for the open class right after the womens' class, and then hopefully come in during the week as well. 

My only problem?  There's a possibility I'm not going to make it in for the next...oh, three months or so.  Unfortunately, I just finished up with a bunch of rotations that gave me weekends completely off, and my next couple will have me coming in Saturday and Sunday mornings to do morning treatments on whatever patients I may have.  I'm hoping that I'll either be done in time to get to the 10 AM ladies class, or maybe I'll be able to convince the senior clinician to let me take off from 9:30 to 11:30 so I can "help" teach. 

On that note, I've also decided that upon graduation I am going to open a fat camp for dogs in Manhattan.  Apparently, there is not a single veterinary nutritionist on the entire island, and I KNOW there must be owners willing to pay money for their precious pet to lose some weight so they can live a longer, healthier life (refer to this article). 

YAY clinics!

I finally started clinics today!!  I'm FINALLY playing vet instead of sitting on my butt all day, listening to professors and staring at slides.  I've been going through cycles of excitement and nervousness for the past few weeks, but after today I think most of the nerves are gone and I'm just excited to actually be doing stuff.  We had a pretty busy day, not made any easier by walking to the parking lot to find my classmate's car under a gigantic tree branch that was blown down during the freak 30-minute storm/tornado. 

Unfortunately, this means I won't get to train as much.  I didn't get home until almost 8 (although I did spend over half an hour with my classmate of the treed car, taking pictures and such).   Then once I got home, I had to do some research on all the crap I didn't know today.  And we need to be there by 7:30 tomorrow.  On the one hand, I really don't want to give up jiu jitsu.  But I also know that I'm only in school for one more year, and I don't want to spend this year rushing out of the clinic at the end of the day and possibly overlooking something in my rush to get to BJJ class.