Ude-garami

I recently wrote on my Facebook page that it’s not normal for a person to run more than 10 miles, well not for me anyway and I still stick by that. Although the 10 miles of running was, from a cardio vascular point of view fairly comfortable, the strain it puts on my leg joints and muscles is not normal and is why no matter how fit a person is you have to put the miles in to run a marathon so that your body can adjust to the extraordinary strains running a Marathon puts on the human body. Unfortunately before my body can fully adjust to running 10 miles I will be upping the mileage to 12 miles this Sunday which should take me roughly 2 hours to complete, providing I stick to the very comfortable 10 minute a mile pace that I intend to run the while marathon in.


In between all the running I have been doing I still manage to get a couple of free weights sessions in and also the Judo, which is only once a week. The gym that I train in is located in my office and they are currently running a challenge to help promote the Gym and gain new members who may be thinking of losing weight for their new year’s resolution. One of these challenges is a 1000m rowing time trail which I thought I’d have a go at. Without any prior training of ever using the rower for anything other than a quick warm up I managed to clock a time of 3.21 which, until yesterday was the quickest time set and was only beaten by the gym instructor himself, who clocked 3.20 and a new guy who has just started work at my place who managed to clock an impressive 3.18. I later found out that this new guy has cycled professionally and is at least 10 years younger than I am so no shame in losing to him.
Anyway the upshot of my rowing challenge is that my shoulder has been hurting to buggery since I did it, which is a shame as it had been ok for 6 months or so.


On to last night’s class and we did a slightly more active warm up than usual with some shuttle runs, press ups, sit ups and squat thrusts which got us all sufficiently warmed before we went in to some light Newaza where we just went from hold to escape to hold etc. Technique wise we were shown Ude-garami or the infamous “Kimura”, which the Gracie family called the submission after the Japanese Judoka, Kimura, defeated Helio Gracie with it many years ago. It’s a fairly simple technique to pull off and one that I have personally used to great success in BJJ and Judo and yet Graeme was still able to point out something that I didn’t know about this technique which is that before you crank it up you should turn your wrist, like you are closing the throttle on a motorbike, this makes Uke tap a lot quicker. The link I have attached on the BJA website does now show Fallon doing this but it definitely makes the technique better so I will use this going forward.


On to the tachi-waza and we first practised tai-otoshi and then a Ko-soto-gari counter to tai-otoshi and finally an O-goshi or uke-goshi and even a Tai-otoshi counter to Tai-otoshi. Some of these counters were easier than others to perform but it’s really nice to get some decent counters under my belt as I need to be able to pull these off if I’m to progress. Graeme did show us all Brain Jack’s version of Tai-otoshi which has a different entry to most. If he is performing a right handed throw he would step across with his left foot almost pass the left foot of his opponent before swivelling and turning in to the throw. I have tried to find a Youtube video of Brian Jacks performing this throw but I’m unable to find anything. As Brian Jacks was my Judo Instructor when I first dabbled with Judo as a small child and then with his great success in Superstars, he became one of my first sporting idols so any information about him is of great interest to me.


We finished up with some Randori and again I went in to all out attack mode. First up was Mark and although I managed a sloppy Tani-otoshi I was told by Graeme that I was stiff arming and not relaxed enough. It’s strange because I am making a conscious effort to be relaxed and I’m not bothered if I get thrown. Also with my experience in Wing Chun and chi-sau, where relaxation is key I thought It would be something I would naturally do.


Next up was Ryan and he was stiff arming me and Graeme stopped him once for being too passive as he tends to stick his arse out, which you are not allowed to do for a certain length of time and again for grabbing the same side of my lapel with both of his hands. I think the latter is a natural thing for a BJJ’er to do as it gives them more control on the ground but again you can only do that in Judo if you immediately attack, which he wasn’t doing. However I attempted a Osoto-otoshi and Ryan countered my throw with the same technique and would have got an ippon. I could see he was pleased with this especially as he has said that he really hasn’t been able to perform many of the throws in Randori. Hopefully this will have given him more confidence going forward.


I finished up against the new guy Jamie, and he was very stiff so I told him to relax and to just try and throw me with whatever he knew. He did try three of four throws but I was never in any danger of falling over but still I congratulated him on attacking and said he should do it more.


After the lesson Graeme mentioned that there were several senior tournaments coming up but unfortunately the High Wycombe Newaza is on the same day as the London Marathon so that’s one I definitely won’t be entering. Also I am even a little hesitant about entering the others but only because I am worried about getting injured this close to the marathon. Maybe I’ll just end up watching a couple until after April 17th, I’ll think about it........