5th Kyu

No Judo last week due to the heavy snow, so the club will stay open an extra week to compensate which means next week will be the last class until January 13th.

With the last class of the term usually being a shorter session followed by a Christmas drink in the Bar, I knew tonight’s class would be my last chance to pass my yellow grading before the New Year. Whilst checking the BJA website I realised that there were one or two techniques that I had never practiced before so I felt sure that I could not pass. However these techniques were simple looking turnovers so I memorised the moves from the video just in case I was called on it.


It was a fairly small turnout tonight with just seven seniors including the instructors making it to class. Graeme took most of the class and he said he would be trying to finish off both Ryan’s and my grading. After a warm up Graeme asked Ryan to lead us all in performing various breakfalls which were in the 6th Kyu syllabus and he duly received ticks next to them.

The rest of the lesson was structured around the techniques that both Ryan and I needed for our respective new belts. For instance, Graeme would ask me to show the class basic grips and variations on those and after I did this Graeme would then have us practice various grip fighting techniques. That way I could get this ticked off my grading sheet before he taught the rest of us. If we had had a normal turnout he would have taken myself and Ryan to one side and graded us whilst the rest of the class got on with their normal lesson but because there were so few of us he couldn’t do that.


After the grip fighting Graeme asked me if I could perform a turnover in to Kesa-gatame. Now as I said earlier I have not been taught this technique before but I told Graeme I would give it a go and luckily enough not only did I perform this one correctly I also managed to perform turnover in to Mune-gatame and turnover into Yoko-shiho-gatame (who said you can’t learn from the internet?)


All that was now left for me to do was two minutes of Randori whereby I would need to show good technique with a variety of throws and good ukemi when I was thrown. Graeme asked me to pick an Uke and of course I picked Oli. I mainly used throws that are in the 6th and 5th kyu syllabus but I did end the Randori with a nice Sumi-gaeshi, which I was very pleased, worked.
Peter then quizzed my knowledge of Japanese by asking me to translate all of the 5th kyu techniques and once I had done this I was presented with a shiny new Yellow Belt. As Ryan had also passed I gave him my Red Belt as they didn’t have any new ones at the club. I joked to Ryan that we should get a belt whipping ala BJJ but luckily in Judo all we got was stiff handshake from both Graeme and Peter.



No more Judo now until the 13th of January and with NCT classes (Anti Natal) taking up my Tuesday evenings I won’t be able to substitute with BJJ either. Still the Marathon training is going up a notch with a 10 mile run due this Sunday so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.