Sweat Angels

You roll to see how you’ll escape, to see how this will end.

Don’t give up your back, they’ll shout. Turn into your opponent.

It’s hard to hear when there’s two hundred pounds on your sternum. Hard to listen when your face is smothered. It’s hard to focus when you can’t breathe.

Shrimp away, they’ll say. You have to bridge.

They call Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu the “soft art,” but it’s hardly gentle. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is ground fighting, grappling, wrestling—rolling.