Young at Heart

I’ve had a spike in interest in my blog recently which I traced back to a recommendation from Jadon on the Reddit website. I’m not sure how I feel about being described as a middle aged man but I guess I am 40. Still with a VO2 score of 51, resting pulse rate of 58, body fat at 14%, the ability to bench 100kg for 8 reps, I’m not in bad shape for a guy my age. I’ve also just signed up for the JP Morgan run, which is a massive event held in Battersea park each year and open to people in the Finance and Banking world. The distance is fairly short at only 5.6km but I haven’t done much running since my London marathon training came to an end two years ago so I’m trying to get out once a week just to blow the cobwebs away. The race date is the 10^th July, so I have a couple of months to get in running shape however there is the small matter of baby number two being due on the 19^th June, which will no doubt interrupt my training somewhat. I could of course just wing it as, like I said earlier, 5.6km isn’t far but I’d like to get a fairly decent time of around 28 minutes.

Jadon joined us for Tuesday’s class and was partnered with me for most of the evening. Following the warm up Graeme got us practicing the foot movement for Ko-uchi-gari in to Harai-tsuri-komi-ashi and once we had got used to that we partnered up and completed the throw. Kuzushi and timing is paramount in order to successfully throw your uke with all throws but particularly with Harai-tsuri-komi-ashi and this throw definitely favours the taller person due to the lifting motion.

The entry is different on the vid above as he is attacking with O-uchi-gari but the result is the same

Graeme had been given a masterclass in Juji-gatame at Witley JC, which is his other main club, by visiting Coach Chris Doherty 5th dan. He was therefore eager to share Chris’s version of Juji-gatame with us. Essentially there is only one way to do Juji-gatame and that’s the right way, the way that gets your opponent to tap. There are however many slight variations which suit different body types, whether you are fat or thin, short or tall, flexible or not flexible etc. So in learning as many different ways as possible you can hopefully find the one that suits you best, stick to it and master it.

Anyway Chris Doherty’s version, done against Uke’s right arm has you sitting in the usual position with your right leg either over their body or tucked under. Your left leg over their head but tucked in tight so that their head is almost touching their right shoulder. Then your trap their arm and hold your gi with your right arm but you do this quite low down on their arm, around their elbow. Then as you lean back their arm slowly straightens and because it’s so tight it forces them to tap long before you are lying on the ground, well it did for Jadon and myself anyway.



A good few rounds of Newaza randori followed with one of us starting in the turtle position. Carrying on from my change in newaza attitude i.e. attacking more from the top position rather than pulling guard, I went on the attack. However passing Jadon’s guard is not easy and I found myself in his half guard trying to defend a collar choke that he was slowly applying. When I tried to defend the choke he looked for the sweep and when I defended the sweep the choke was back on. Pretty soon I had that feeling that I was going to pass out so I tapped. Starting again with me in turtle was a case of surviving as long as I could. He managed to get both hooks in and was looking for the choke. I knew he had no intention of trying to roll me over for a hold so I played defensive but was still looking for ways to get him off me. I was pleased that I had managed to stop him from subbing me until matte was called. I’d be really interested to see how Jadon gets on at Yoshin Ryu where they have some very good Newaza players who can crush me with ease. I hope I get the opportunity to train there in the next couple of weeks so I can take him with me.

San-gaku-jime in to Ashi-garami - Yoshin Ryu

I got myself back to Yoshin Ryu last Thursday for their randori night which turned out to be a pretty tough session. Unusually there were only 12 of us on the mats, 7 dan grades and 5 kyu, which is about half of what I would normally expect to see.


Tim got us warmed up and then went on to show us Waki-gatami from turtle, something I have been shown before at DJC. Following this he showed us a variation where we bail on the Waki-gatame and end up taking Uke’s back instead. We got to drill them a number of times before we were told to start Newaza randori with the partner we were already with. I just so happened to be with Mark, a green belt whom I have chatted to before on E-Judo. It was a tough roll with Mark managed to pin with me with a Kesa-gatame before I was then able to catch him with a San-gaku-jime. Unfortunately I was not able to finish him with this despite try to shift my angle, pull his arm across to my right, hold his arm straight, and pull down on my leg, all the usual things you’d try before giving up. As I was fresh at this point I held position for a little longer than normal before trying to secure a Juji-gatame but matte was called. My legs were now a little tired from holding the san-gaku for such a long time and the rolls got harder and harder from there on in. I had good tussles with a brown and black belt, both of whom were considerably smaller than me. I probably used a little too much strength with some of my techniques as I was determined not to be subbed or pinned, which of course tired me even more. I did catch the black belt in another San-gaku-jime and again I was not able to finish him but this time instead of spending too much time and effort trying to get it I progressed in to Ashi-garami (that’s triangle to Omoplata for my BJJ/MMA readers). I then spent a while trying to get him to tap from this position but nothing I did seemed to work and eventually he made enough of a gap that he managed to squirm out. I’m going to try and work on finishing from the Omoplata position and go back to the drawing board again with my San-gaku-jime as I should be subbing a lot more people than I do.

Ashi-garami or Omoplata

This is a pretty cool entry in to Ashi-garami but not sure if this would be legal in Judo.

My last rolls were against two of the sensei’s and by this time I was knackered and really couldn’t put up much of a fight, not that I would have fared much better had I been fresh. Sensei Tim passed my guard at will rendering my legs totally useless. I may as well have tired them both together for all the good they did me. However, as I’ve said before in the past, I don’t find it demoralising to be crushed by the sensei’s I actually find it inspiring and gives me something to aim for. Now it’s unlikely at my age that I’ll ever get any higher than 1st dan but I think Newaza is something that you can probably be good at for longer as there is little to no impact like there is with tachi-waza.



I only managed two and a half rounds of standing randori. My first opponent, a yellow belt, was so tired that he had to leave the mat halfway through the 3 minutes to be sick. Up to that point I was able to throw him a couple of times with O-uchi-gari and Uchi-mata.

I then followed this up with two tough rounds against dan grades one of whom was constantly fighting for grips with me, which really tired my arms out. This fight actually went on for about 10 minutes as the Sensei’s were busy seeing to someone who had gotten injured and forgot to call matte. We were therefore both very tired at the end.

O-soto's

We had a bit of an O-soto masterclass this evening practising both Otoshi & Gari. Myself and Andrew were able to get in to a good rhythm, going throw for throw and getting plenty of reps in. We got the crash mats out for the O-soto-gari as this is a big throw. I was quite pleased that I got Andrew airborne and hitting the ground hard and flat on his back even when I did a left sided version. Graeme then showed us a slight variation on the O-soto-otoshi where, instead of planting your leg you pretend that your reaping leg has a roller skate attached to it so that when you reap, you reap all the way back along the floor and end up on top of your uke in Kesa-gatame. Again this throw has quite a heavy landing so we practised on the crash mats.



Normally when I do randori against the cadets (under 16’s) I take it very easy and allow them to throw me without resisting too much. Last night I was encouraged by Duncan and Graeme to attack more and refine my technique against them without using any strength. I managed a text book Okuri-ashi-barai , something that I don’t think I’ve ever had success with before in randori. I was fortunate in that my opponent allowed me to bounce them across the mat, moving from side to side before I swept their legs and made them horizontal. I did of course cushion their fall, as this can be quite a heavy throw, so much so that Graeme calls this the oomph throw, which is the noise Uke makes when hitting the mat and all the air leaves their lungs.

Another nice throw I was able to execute was a Sasae-tsurkomi-ashi. Normally when I throw people with this they sort of stumble to the floor but tonight my opponent went airborne and landed flat on their back. I’m really enjoying my Judo at the moment and feel like I’m making small adjustments to throws that I already know which are making them just that little bit more effective.

2nd Kyu

I was up all night Saturday with some sort of stomach bug and bed ridden most of Sunday. I managed a mouth full of toast on Monday morning which was the first bit of food I had eaten since Saturday, and another piece of toast on Monday night. I was much the same on Tuesday with a bloated stomach and severe lack of appetite so my wife was a little confused that I chose to go to Judo on Tuesday night.


We did a light warm up but I was already blowing out my arse and questioning my sanity for training when all I had eaten to sustain myself were a few dry pieces of toast.

Following the warm up we went straight in to some newaza randori and oddly enough, despite my lack of cardio I decided to attack from the off and make sure I got and maintained top position. I even managed to submit Oli with the bow and arrow choke that I attempted but failed with last week.

Graeme then told me that we would be finishing off my blue belt grading tonight. I was told that I had to pick four techniques not on the blue belt syllabus and perform them so I first chose San-gaku-jime. I had to perform this technique on my uke and explain the important parts of it. I then had to also perform the version of this where you attack the turtle. Graeme said that the next three techniques had to be tachiwaza so I went a bit safe with O-uchi-gari. I also had to show counters and combinations to this throw, Ko-uchi-gari and Tai-otoshi being the obvious choice.

My next throw was Uchi-mata. Again this was a little safe for me as it’s my 2nd favourite show, next to O-uchi-gari. For my final throw I chose something from the brown belt syllabus, Sumi-gaeshi and just about managed to pull it off to a satisfactory level.

The last part of the grading was some randori where I was told to use lots of different attacks, counters, combinations etc and despite being very tired I did enough. I was presented with my blue belt by Graeme at the end of the class.

I was told that I could grade for brown belt by the end of this year which would mean that by the start of next I would begin my dan grading….Yikes

Space, the final frontier

This was the first class back at DJC since the Easter break, although I had trained at Yoshin Ryu and Nova Forca in the interim.


Peter had us warm up with some assisted break falls from a kneeling position. Then we practised rear breakfalls by pushing each other backwards. The person doing the breakfall had to do so with their eyes closed, which makes certainly made it interesting.

The warm up progressed in to some light newaza and I made a conscious effort to practise my top game, which I definitely need to do. I was actually quite pleased that I was able to hold Oli’s legs down on one side and sort of cartwheel to the other side where I had him in Mune-gatame. He was quick to turn away from me and roll on to his stomach so got my hooks in and attempted to roll on to his side. I was actually looking to get something similar to a hell strange or bow and arrow choke after seeing this lovely technique on the E-Judo forum.

Unfortunately I was sure about all the parts of this choke which gave Oli the opportunity to escape.

I found another nice entry to a choke, this time a San-gaku-jime, by the same person so thought I’d share this as well. I was actually very close to getting this one to work at Nova Forca last week.

We paused briefly to go over a Juji-gatame from the top position when Uke has one leg trapped (half guard) and then back on to Newaza. With many of the seniors still out injured I was paired with one of our juniors who was about 14. I was reminded that I am not allowed to armlock or choke anyone under the age of 16 in Judo, but I had no intention of being that rough anyway. I ended rolling with 3 of the juniors, all of whom were around 14-15 years old. I made a real conscious effort not to use any strength instead relying on pure technique to sweep them and go from hold to hold. Occasionally, when an obvious opportunity presented itself to apply a choke or an armlock I simply got in to position to do so and then verbally told them, or in the case of applying a Juji-gatame I held their bent arm but did not extend it. I was impressed with all the juniors, especially the last Orange belt I rolled with who had this annoying habit of trapping my leg in half guard every time I swept him.

We probably spent around an hour doing Newaza, either randori or techniques, which was really good. The last half an hour of the class was spent standing or being thrown. With the same partner, which for me was the junior orange belt, we were told to do throw for throw Tai-otoshi’s. This junior had really good technique and did that springy thing with his outstretched leg which really made me fly through the air. Most of the seniors are not able to do this, usually due to not being as flexible as the youngsters and not wanting to put that amount of stress on the old knee joints but the juniors certainly showed me up with regards to good technique. We then changed it slightly so that Uke had stepped over our first tai-otoshi attempt and tori had to attack with Tai-otoshi again but this time a really low down version. This was a good exercise as it got you in to the habit of stringing techniques together in an attack rather than just trying one and stopping, then trying another and stopping again. I felt I was doing well as my young Uke was easily airborne, however when I changed partners and paired up with Ynez she pointed out that my Tai-otoshi had too much hip in it. Duncan agreed and said the reason was that I was to close; I needed more space between me and Ynez so that I had somewhere to throw her in to. I think with my previous Uke, who was very light, it didn’t matter as much as I was simply able to strong arm him to the ground but against someone as experienced as Ynez my poor technique soon showed up. Being too close to uke was something that Roman Stawisinski, the coach to Aneta Szczepanska, pointed out to me at the seminar I attended last month. On that occasion I was practising Uchi-mata, but the principle is the same. Whilst the rest of the class practised doing other combinations using Tai-otoshi, for example O-uchi-gari, Ko-uchi-gari, Tai-otoshi, I decided to stick with Tai-otoshi on its own and try to get it working better, which I did but it still wasn’t perfect.

We finished up with some light randori, which was the prefect end to a very good enjoyable session.

Return to Nova Forca BJJ

I managed to find some time to pay Nova Forca a visit last night for some BJJ training and was accompanied by Oli. I didn’t realise it had actually been two years since I had last trained there and since then the club has had a change of venue to a much better permanent matted room within the Energie Gym located on Epsom High Street. There is a half Octagon in one corner of the room, for their MMA training and a row of Muay Thai kick bags along one side of the room. There was also a large TV with the UFC playing on it for extra motivation.


As per my previous visits here I was made to feel welcome by the head coach Ricardo and all of the guys I spoke and rolled with seemed very friendly. After the warm up, which would be enough of a workout on its own for most people, Ricardo showed us a variation on a guillotine choke. This was done against someone who had shot in for a single leg takedown. With their head under your left armpit you slide you right forearm under their chin and grab your left hand. Your left forearm then presses down on their right shoulder, which keep them from turning out and escaping the guillotine. The choke is then finished by twisting slightly upwards towards your left. When Ricardo showed us this technique he added a roll, which sort of resembled a Sumi-gaeshi, but both Oli and I had trouble with this which must have had something to do with our Judo instinct not to throw whilst a choke is applied.

We drilled this technique for about fifteen minutes before we were told to grab a quick drink as sparring was next. First up for me was a stocky looking white belt that I was able to pull guard and quickly sweep to mount. From here I was trying to get a kata-gatame choke but he realised what I was going for and defended against it, however I saw an arm tried a hiza-gatame but he was able to escape and I ended up on the bottom with him in my guard. I swept him to mount again and this time I managed to choke him with Sode guruma jime

Next up was a stocky blue belt and this roll was more about survival for me as he was able to constantly threaten me with submissions. I think I did pretty well to only get subbed once. One thing I did consciously do was no panic when I was mounted. In Judo this would be Tate-shiho-gatame but in BJJ it’s just a good position in which to attack from. Anyway I kept my arms close in and protected my neck and waited for him to make a move and then tried to explode out and although he was quickly able to get back to this position or side control it at least kept him busy and kept the submissions down to one.

My last roll was with another white belt who was pretty good. He was able to pass my guard pretty easily and attack me from side control. As before, I concentrated on keep my arms close to my body and protecting my neck, hopefully dispelling the myth that Judo guys always give up their back. He did finally mange to submit me with a cross collar choke which was the least he deserved.

We finished with a gentle warm down and stretch and then an obligatory belt whipping was given out to someone for forgetting their belt. Overall a really enjoyable session and hopefully I’ll be back there again before another two years pass.

.Random Guy VS. Teddy Riner.

This could be bad for your health but funny nonetheless