Week wrap up: To tell my class or not to tell my class. Also Rolling sucks.

This week was a Tuesday, Saturday week for me.
I had to scale down my training to twice a week because unfortunately I have responsibilities outside of BJJ. Lesson 1 this week:
For the forseeable future, I will look like I am leaving work to go to fight club. The first two bruises on my face I did not capture on picture (and they were MUCH worse).
I didn't take pictures of them because I thought they may be aberrations and not the norm. As I am quickly finding out, bruises are par for the course, even on my face. Below is a small sample of some fresh and some healing bruises around my body since I have started:

Under eye cut, smile mark cut.

This one hurt like a mofo. Not great pic of elbow bruise from take down drills.

Old bicep bruise. My biceps get the MOST bruises.

Another old Bicep bruise

I had some neck and chest bruises on film too but they are healing nicely and don't really come up great on camera. Anytime I get a blog worthy bruise I'll try and post it.

Getting beat up is not the hard part for me. I mean I have an older brother who is 7 years older, so it was NEVER a fair fight, and most of my friends are gargantuan so I've been beat up my whole life. The hard part is that I am a teacher of 7 year old children and I don't want to set any sort of bad example. And once I got that first very noticeable bruise on my face, I knew my exceptionally observant students would question me.
The question is how would I respond?
At first I thought, I would say I got the bruise from playing basketball. But in the end I decided to tell them the truth. My favorite teachers in my lifetime treated us as people first and students second. They never patronized or talked down, I try and model myself after them the best I can.
Sure enough one of my best and brightest noticed my face before I even told them to line up to come to the classroom. I explained my whole story,
"As you know class Mr. M just celebrated a birthday. Who remembers how old I turned? They knew.
Thats right! 29.  What comes after 29 class? They knew. That's right 30! Well to make his 30th birthday a special one Mr. M decided to challenge himself to try something new......" and the rest is history.
They were surprisingly satisfied with my answer and not too inquisitive which was great because the last thing I wanted to do is waste class time on my training.  I am worried though that if I keep coming to work with my face all bruised up that I will not look very professional.
Second lesson I learned this week: Rolling sucks, and I suck at rolling.
So here's the deal. I got lucky my first few times rolling. The more I rolled the LESS successful I have become and I am starting to understand (for me at least) this is going to be the norm for a while.
I have NO experience in combative sports (wrestling, martial arts, etc.) and most of these guys have been training for 6 months to 3 years and have some other background. Even though I am game during our rolling sessions and I put up a good fight, and show some technique, ultimately I am submitted or lose my position. I would think I am the perfect sparring partner for the more advanced white belts. I am someone who tries really hard, but is incompetent, a real live tackling dummy. Someone to practice moves on without fear of reversal because of my lack of knowledge. This is my fate for at least a few more months, especially since I am only training twice a week. I am trying to come to terms with it.
It is exceptionally difficult to come to grips with giving your all in something and failing and not understanding how to fix it or what you are doing wrong. This is why rolling sucks.
I look forward to the day when things begin to click more and I write to you all gloating about how I actually used the techniques I have learned to win rolling sessions. 
The best way I can explain it is this.
We practice the move of the night over and over. Just when you feel like you are comfortable with it,  you learn part two, usually a way to submit. Just when you feel comfortable putting those pieces together, you roll at 100 percent and are supposed to "practice" the moves you just learned.
This is not only easier said than done, but when you are a rookie, nearly impossible.
You practice the moves at 5 percent speed. When you roll, you go ALL out. You do not have time to sit and think what is the next step. Everytime we roll my mind goes blank. I am sure I go back into terrible form and survival mode and I feel like I get systematically taken apart until I lose position or get tapped out.
I know that the more I train the more comfortable I will get with this, but right  now,
Rolling Sucks.