What with the Royal Wedding, Bank holidays, Baby duties and work, I have only just now got around to posting this, so apologies if it’s a bit short as I have forgotten some of the stuff we did and am slightly pushed for time.
Before we started our warm-up tonight Graeme congratulated those that had competed at the recent High Wycombe Newaza Tournament and I was given a special mention after my 3rd place finish.
The warm up was slightly more vigorous than usual with lots of sprinting up and down the mats, but this was a good way of getting rid of the rust that some of us had from not training for the last couple of weeks due to the clubs closure. Of course having competed and taken a BJJ lesson in between I no doubt felt slightly less rusty than others but I enjoy a good workout anyway.
We started with some Newaza and instead of starting on our knee’s which isn’t a position you are ever likely to start groundwork from we started with one of us standing and the other in the turtle position as though they had just been thrown. I was paired with Jamie and started in the Turtle first. I noticed that Jamie was sporting a new red belt so I (incorrectly) assumed he must have graded recently, maybe at another club. Anyway seeing as he was no longer a complete beginner I thought I would test his ground skills.
When Graeme told us to start I quickly turned over and pulled Jamie in to my guard. He pulled against me and got one arm out leaving himself open to my favourite san-gaku-jime, which I locked on nicely and after a few seconds he tapped. I’m not sure if this was the first time he had been caught in this technique but it is a strange feeling as it’s not painful like other chokes or strangles. This one just slowly sends you off to sleep so it’s important for both Judoka to be aware of this and is why I never crank on any submissions full pelt, not in randori anyway.
Following Jamie, I was paired up with Ryan and I did pretty well against him, almost getting a Juji-gatame. Following a couple more rolls of which I cannot remember the details, Graeme proceeded to show us some pins. I’ve often discarded pins, preferring instead to go for some flashy submission, but following the Newaza Tournament that I entered a couple of weeks ago, only now am I beginning to understand the true importance of pins in Judo.
I paired up with Oli and we went over the following
Kesa-gatame
Kuzure-kesa-gatame
Makura-kesa-gatame
Ushiro-kesa-gatame
We each took turns doing the pin and trying to escape from it. The Makura-kesa-gatame was particularly nasty as this could easily be turned in to a choke.
Following the pins we went over O-goshi and as we have done before we drilled the perfect throw to do if your opponent is able to resist against an O-goshi and that is of course Uki-goshi. I do need to start memorising some combination throws as there are a couple in the 4th kyu syllabus that I need to learn especially as Graeme said at the start of the lesson that he expects Jamie, Ryan and me to all grade before the summer break.
We finished up with some Randori. I was paired with Jamie so I made a point of relaxing and encouraged him to not “Stiff arm” and to try and attack me with the limited throws that he knows. At the moment Jamie, like a lot of beginners, are too worried about not being thrown and that basically results in a stalemate against us lower grades. Of course against the 1st kyu’s and above stiff arming is not a good tactic and you are likely to be thrown, if they should so choose.
Hopefully next weeks, or tomorrows write up will be a little better.
