u/counterhit121

I started watching Danaher's arm drag instructional today and he explicitly called out a lead leg stance switch in order to set up an arm drag situation. (Use your mirrored lead arm to push their collar tie up and over your head, then down, palm facing out). This reminded me that I never understood how in wrestling, switching your lead foot just ain't no thang. But in boxing, judo, etc., it is basically heresy to do so.

Grapplers (probably prior wrestlers, but anyone who actively switches can answer too) with a lot of experience with this, can you articulate the big when's and why's of doing this? Is it often because of a grip that you will concede stance for a more advantageous counter, like clearing a collar tie with a 2on1 Russian, or an arm drag setup like I saw Danaher talking about? How did you get your reps, both offensive and defensive, in on your "off" side in practice? What situations would automatically trigger muscle memory and make you switch, or want to switch, when they happen?

I started Leviathan Wakes on a whim, back around the start of the pandemic. It helped me break a decade-long reading slump and I knew, as I was reading it, that the writing was a 10/10 for me and the series would likely end up in my Mount Rushmore of SFF greats. Having also blasted through The Wheel of Time around that period, I also resolved to take my time to savor this series. I did just that, and its been about five years start to finish.

I read recently that Holden may have been modeled after the DnD paladin class and that detail really impacted my experience of the finale in LF. In the last couple of books before the time jump, it started feeling to me like Holden was taking on some messianic traits, along with a sense of strong plot armor for the Roci crew. Without that paladin idea, I think the finale might have landed a little less well for me because it would have felt like, "oh there goes Jesus Holden again doing savior of humanity things again." Instead, I finally understood his nature and really contextualized all of his actions and decisions at the end of this book.

I don't have a lot else to say. I appreciate the endings for the remainder of the Roci crew, how the ending was bittersweet, yet swift-- how it didn't loiter in sentiment especially-- sowing the seeds in our imagination for how things might have turned out in the near to medium future. The nature and magnitude of the dark cosmic snake gods remain elusive to me, like a deliberately vague Lovecraftian cosmic horror, but I suspect that was part of the intent. I really liked how the ring gates were destroyed and humanity had a chance to evolve from 1300 different new starting points.

I will say that I am a little sad at Duarte going out the way he did. But I recognize that as a personal bias towards the idea of god-emperors and supreme networked intelligences. That's about it. What a ride.

Looking forward to reading Long Price Quartet and Dagger and Coin in the near future.