A much better turn out this week and another white belt so I’m no longer the FNG. There was also a Husband and Wife, she is a Black Belt and GB squad member and he is a brown belt. So there are 3 black belts, 4 brown belts and two white belts.
After the warm up we practiced our break falls and then shortly afterwards we go straight in to Newaza or groundwork. As I said before this is my favourite part of Judo and also what I am best at partly due to a few BJJ lessons and many years of watching the UFC.
I’m not sure how hard they were trying on me but I managed to submit some of them. I think I probably surprised them as I’m sure they were not expecting a white belt to Triangle choke( Sankaku-jime) them. They all seemed to find it hard to pass my guard, again not sure if they were really trying or if I just have good hips. Funny thing is I have been doing Yoga for the last few months to try and improve my flexibility and prevent injuries but I can still barely touch my toes, however I seem to be able to pull off body triangle’s at ease which is strange considering I’m not that flexible.
Apparently a body triangle or Dojime is illegal in Randori or competition, which I only found out when I looked through my “A-Z of Judo” book when I got home, because it can cause damage to the internal organs.
On to the throws and I practiced De-Ashi-Barai and then the counter to this throw which is called Tsubame Gaeshi.
This looks a very simple throw but is very effective and I could imagine pulling this off in the real world.
I then did Osoto-otoshi and then we added a second throw as if the first was stopped and I decided on Tobi-Goshi which due to the excellent instruction from my partner I managed to pull off quite well.
Again I can’t say enough how friendly everyone at this club is, even the new people who I hadn’t seen before were very approachable and had absolutely no ego’s.
According to the head instructor these throws with the counters were Dan grade moves, done for the benefit of a couple of the Brown belts who are due to grade sometime soon so I was really pleased that I was able to pull these off to a reasonable standard.
We finished with some light Randori.
So far this was easily my best lesson and I look forward to next week.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
2nd Lesson
Just a quick post while I still remember this but I mentioned to someone that when doing break falls it made me feel giddy and even nauseous and he told me to “tuck my chin in”, which has really helped.
My 2nd lesson was taken by two different instructors and there was also a brown belt student. Again not a good turnout but I’m not concerned at the moment.
One thing I do like about doing Judo is that other clubs are usually quite welcoming, so if you can’t make your usual class then you can go someone else and train.
Talking of training elsewhere, my old Wing Chun Instructor, Kevin Chan, is now also a BJJ Black Belt and runs a BJJ club in Portsmouth. In addition to this he also has monthly BJJ workshops/seminars which I might look in to attending as I’m sure this would give me an edge with my Judo groundwork.
Back to the lesson and we did a lot longer warm-up with plenty of rolling exercises where, starting on your back you first roll over your left shoulder and touch the floor with your feet and then roll back to the start position before rolling over your right shoulder and repeat. This seems like a good exercise for your core muscles like Abs and also strengthens your neck, which I would imagine is essential.
Technique wise I went over the three throws from my first lesson ie.
Osoto-otoshi
De-ashi-barai
Uki-goshi
These still don’t come very naturally to me so I will study some Youtube vids before my next lesson to hopefully help me improve this.
As the moment my main problem is trying to do everything together, for example with Osoto-otoshi, you have to pull them towards you to so that they resist and pull away, then you have to move in close and sweep the leg whilst at the same time pushing them back over it. Sounds simple but not when you are thinking about all these things.
Also I have a habit of doing the throw and then letting them go, which would rob me of a potential Ippon in a competition as I don’t have control of my opponent.
No class this week as it’s a half term but will do a workout and maybe if I feel really brave I will try some of the techniques out on the wife.
My 2nd lesson was taken by two different instructors and there was also a brown belt student. Again not a good turnout but I’m not concerned at the moment.
One thing I do like about doing Judo is that other clubs are usually quite welcoming, so if you can’t make your usual class then you can go someone else and train.
Talking of training elsewhere, my old Wing Chun Instructor, Kevin Chan, is now also a BJJ Black Belt and runs a BJJ club in Portsmouth. In addition to this he also has monthly BJJ workshops/seminars which I might look in to attending as I’m sure this would give me an edge with my Judo groundwork.
Back to the lesson and we did a lot longer warm-up with plenty of rolling exercises where, starting on your back you first roll over your left shoulder and touch the floor with your feet and then roll back to the start position before rolling over your right shoulder and repeat. This seems like a good exercise for your core muscles like Abs and also strengthens your neck, which I would imagine is essential.
Technique wise I went over the three throws from my first lesson ie.
Osoto-otoshi
De-ashi-barai
Uki-goshi
These still don’t come very naturally to me so I will study some Youtube vids before my next lesson to hopefully help me improve this.
As the moment my main problem is trying to do everything together, for example with Osoto-otoshi, you have to pull them towards you to so that they resist and pull away, then you have to move in close and sweep the leg whilst at the same time pushing them back over it. Sounds simple but not when you are thinking about all these things.
Also I have a habit of doing the throw and then letting them go, which would rob me of a potential Ippon in a competition as I don’t have control of my opponent.
No class this week as it’s a half term but will do a workout and maybe if I feel really brave I will try some of the techniques out on the wife.
Monday, 15 February 2010
First Lesson
My first lesson at Dorking Judo Club was a little unusual in that I was the only senior student who turned up, I was however assured by the instructor that this was not the norm and it meant I would be having a pvt lesson with two instructors, one black belt and the other a senior brown belt so I wasn’t complaining.
The instructors were both aware of my previous martial arts experience as I felt it was only fair to be honest about this rather than trying to impress them as a total noob. After the initial warm up and break falls we went straight in to some ground work (Osaekomi-waza).
The first thing they showed me was a chest hold (Mune-gatame) http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/mune-gatame/
Which is used as a pin, quickly followed by (Kesa-gatame) http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/kesa-gatame/
And then (Kuzure-kesa-gatame)
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/kuzure-kesa-gatame/
I was then asked to test these out on the Brown Belt instructor to see if I could hold him down. Now I’m a fairly big guy at just over 6ft 3 and 15 stone but this guy must have outweighed me by about 4 stone so I didn’t think holding him down would be easy but I seem to have got the technique down good as I was able to hold him down pretty well.
After trying out all the holds I got to do a little bit of ground sparring with the big fella but was told this was to be a gentle back and forth exercise rather than a life or death grapple which is how I would have taken it several years back.
As I had done a little Judo before and a couple of BJJ lessons the ground work is my favourite and at the moment the strongest part of my Judo game. I think I surprised them both when I managed to get a pretty good triangle choke (not sure of Japanese name for this just yet)
After the ground work I was shown some throws and for ease I have put links to these below.
First off was Osoto-otoshi
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/o-soto-otoshi/
Then De-ashi-barai
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/de-ashi-barai/
And lastly Uki-goshi
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/uki-goshi/
The throws are not coming easy to me compared to the holds I was shown but maybe I am being a little hard on myself especially as this was my first lesson in 7 years.
The warm down consisted of putting the mats away which when there is only three of you took us about 20 minutes which was a pretty good work out on its own.
Overall a really enjoyable first lesson
The instructors were both aware of my previous martial arts experience as I felt it was only fair to be honest about this rather than trying to impress them as a total noob. After the initial warm up and break falls we went straight in to some ground work (Osaekomi-waza).
The first thing they showed me was a chest hold (Mune-gatame) http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/mune-gatame/
Which is used as a pin, quickly followed by (Kesa-gatame) http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/kesa-gatame/
And then (Kuzure-kesa-gatame)
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/kuzure-kesa-gatame/
I was then asked to test these out on the Brown Belt instructor to see if I could hold him down. Now I’m a fairly big guy at just over 6ft 3 and 15 stone but this guy must have outweighed me by about 4 stone so I didn’t think holding him down would be easy but I seem to have got the technique down good as I was able to hold him down pretty well.
After trying out all the holds I got to do a little bit of ground sparring with the big fella but was told this was to be a gentle back and forth exercise rather than a life or death grapple which is how I would have taken it several years back.
As I had done a little Judo before and a couple of BJJ lessons the ground work is my favourite and at the moment the strongest part of my Judo game. I think I surprised them both when I managed to get a pretty good triangle choke (not sure of Japanese name for this just yet)
After the ground work I was shown some throws and for ease I have put links to these below.
First off was Osoto-otoshi
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/o-soto-otoshi/
Then De-ashi-barai
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/de-ashi-barai/
And lastly Uki-goshi
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/uki-goshi/
The throws are not coming easy to me compared to the holds I was shown but maybe I am being a little hard on myself especially as this was my first lesson in 7 years.
The warm down consisted of putting the mats away which when there is only three of you took us about 20 minutes which was a pretty good work out on its own.
Overall a really enjoyable first lesson
Back to Judo
I thought I’d start my blog with the title “Back to Judo” as Judo was the first Martial Art I ever did when I was about 6 or 7 years old.
In an act of vandalism unfortunately the hall where I practiced Judo was burnt down and was moved further from my house than my parents were willing to travel to so my first foray in to Judo only lasted a couple of months.
Wado Ryu Karate was my next venture when I was 10 years old and I managed to stick with this for about 3 years where I reached the grade of Purple belt or 4th Kyu. At the age of thirteen football and Table Tennis were much more important to me than Karate and also the A-Team was on TV on a Friday evening (the same time as my Karate class) and in 1985 there was no Sky+ and relying on your mum to hit the record button on the video was very hit and miss so I gave up on Karate (Crazy fool)
Then at age 19 I missed not doing Martial Arts so I looked around for something different and found Wing Chun Kung Fu.
Wing Chun was very different to Karate and a lot less physical but more technical. It also seemed to flow better and when I found out that Wing Chun was the system that Bruce Lee started with I was very happy with my new art.
Whilst learning Wing Chun I met some very interesting people, one of those people was a Junior Instructor called Marc who I found out was teaching his own style of Martial Arts from his Garage with a select few students. This new style incorporated high kicks, locks and throws and even some grappling. I’ve highlighted grappling because at around this time I had read an article in a Martial arts magazine about a tournament in America which pitted Martial Artists from different styles against each other in a cage with no rules and this was called the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
I managed to locate a video of this in HMV and watched with fascination as Royce Gracie, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) Black Belt defeated everyone by tripping them up and submitting them on the ground.
BJJ to me looked very similar to the Judo I did as a child so the fact that someone in my Wing Chun Club was teaching his own style which had grappling very much appealed to me.
So at the age of 24 I left Wing Chun and trained with Marc twice a week in a hall near Croydon. The style was just called Freestyle but it was very similar in concept to Jeet Kune Do (JKD).
It was whilst training with Marc that a brother of my friend Gerald approached me and asked me to teach him Martial Arts. So along with training twice a week I was now teaching twice a week privately for free (as he was a guinea pig for my teaching).
Marc decided to branch out and open another school in Cheam and wanted his students to turn up for support, so I decided to take my own Student (also called Mark but spelt differently, pay attention) Mark along to see what Marc thought of him. It was whilst at the Cheam club that I befriended Richie who would become my training partner for both freestyle and some seriously heavy Gym sessions.
Marc was very impressed with the work I had done with Mark and I think this eventually led to Marc taking me under his wing and giving my PVT lessons with a vision of me teaching in one of his clubs as part of my ongoing progression.
I did eventually start teaching for Marc in one of his clubs in Streatham but due to some serious injuries I had gotten from one to many drinking sessions (I managed to break my Ankle which kept me away from training for quite a while) when I returned I felt very rusty and then never quite felt worthy of teaching people so just after I turned 30 years old I decided to quit.
Soon after I quit I started to miss the buzz so I dabbled with BJJ but this was quite a drive (Battersea) so it was a short lived affair.
Then when I was 31 I decided to give Judo a try again and went to Westcroft Judo club and loved it, especially the ground work as I felt like I was Royce Gracie and would quite often try things I had seen in the UFC. Unfortunately after only a couple of months training I tore my Pec Major and Minor trying to avoid a throw. I have since realised that one needs to leave ones ego outside the dojo as trying too hard can result in injuries.
Anyway the injury kept me out of anything physical at all for almost a year so I gave Judo a wide berth but now at 37 years and 6 months I have decided to go back to Judo, this time at my local Dorking Judo Club.
I have so far had 2 lessons and will shortly start logging all the techniques I have learnt so far.
The instructors at the club all seem friendly and there certainly doesn’t seem to be any ego’s in the dojo.
Anyway that’s my Martial Arts history so far, hopefully this blog will continue until I reach Black Belt and beyond.
In an act of vandalism unfortunately the hall where I practiced Judo was burnt down and was moved further from my house than my parents were willing to travel to so my first foray in to Judo only lasted a couple of months.
Wado Ryu Karate was my next venture when I was 10 years old and I managed to stick with this for about 3 years where I reached the grade of Purple belt or 4th Kyu. At the age of thirteen football and Table Tennis were much more important to me than Karate and also the A-Team was on TV on a Friday evening (the same time as my Karate class) and in 1985 there was no Sky+ and relying on your mum to hit the record button on the video was very hit and miss so I gave up on Karate (Crazy fool)
Then at age 19 I missed not doing Martial Arts so I looked around for something different and found Wing Chun Kung Fu.
Wing Chun was very different to Karate and a lot less physical but more technical. It also seemed to flow better and when I found out that Wing Chun was the system that Bruce Lee started with I was very happy with my new art.
Whilst learning Wing Chun I met some very interesting people, one of those people was a Junior Instructor called Marc who I found out was teaching his own style of Martial Arts from his Garage with a select few students. This new style incorporated high kicks, locks and throws and even some grappling. I’ve highlighted grappling because at around this time I had read an article in a Martial arts magazine about a tournament in America which pitted Martial Artists from different styles against each other in a cage with no rules and this was called the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
I managed to locate a video of this in HMV and watched with fascination as Royce Gracie, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) Black Belt defeated everyone by tripping them up and submitting them on the ground.
BJJ to me looked very similar to the Judo I did as a child so the fact that someone in my Wing Chun Club was teaching his own style which had grappling very much appealed to me.
So at the age of 24 I left Wing Chun and trained with Marc twice a week in a hall near Croydon. The style was just called Freestyle but it was very similar in concept to Jeet Kune Do (JKD).
It was whilst training with Marc that a brother of my friend Gerald approached me and asked me to teach him Martial Arts. So along with training twice a week I was now teaching twice a week privately for free (as he was a guinea pig for my teaching).
Marc decided to branch out and open another school in Cheam and wanted his students to turn up for support, so I decided to take my own Student (also called Mark but spelt differently, pay attention) Mark along to see what Marc thought of him. It was whilst at the Cheam club that I befriended Richie who would become my training partner for both freestyle and some seriously heavy Gym sessions.
Marc was very impressed with the work I had done with Mark and I think this eventually led to Marc taking me under his wing and giving my PVT lessons with a vision of me teaching in one of his clubs as part of my ongoing progression.
I did eventually start teaching for Marc in one of his clubs in Streatham but due to some serious injuries I had gotten from one to many drinking sessions (I managed to break my Ankle which kept me away from training for quite a while) when I returned I felt very rusty and then never quite felt worthy of teaching people so just after I turned 30 years old I decided to quit.
Soon after I quit I started to miss the buzz so I dabbled with BJJ but this was quite a drive (Battersea) so it was a short lived affair.
Then when I was 31 I decided to give Judo a try again and went to Westcroft Judo club and loved it, especially the ground work as I felt like I was Royce Gracie and would quite often try things I had seen in the UFC. Unfortunately after only a couple of months training I tore my Pec Major and Minor trying to avoid a throw. I have since realised that one needs to leave ones ego outside the dojo as trying too hard can result in injuries.
Anyway the injury kept me out of anything physical at all for almost a year so I gave Judo a wide berth but now at 37 years and 6 months I have decided to go back to Judo, this time at my local Dorking Judo Club.
I have so far had 2 lessons and will shortly start logging all the techniques I have learnt so far.
The instructors at the club all seem friendly and there certainly doesn’t seem to be any ego’s in the dojo.
Anyway that’s my Martial Arts history so far, hopefully this blog will continue until I reach Black Belt and beyond.
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