I was recently asked by Graeme if I wanted to write a small article for the Surrey Judo News letter on DJC’s (Dorking Judo Club) recent success at the Newaza Championship. Upon arrival at the club last night I was shown the published article. Hopefully such articles will help attract some new blood in to the seniors especially as there were only 6 of us last night, including two instructors.
Furthermore the DJC’s website has finally been updated after nearly 2 years of being dormant. Again thanks to Graeme for the time and effort of updating it, although he did say he chose the day of the Royal Wedding to do so.
After our warm-up we went on to Newaza but with a slight difference. We would both start standing up with each one of us taking turns to drop to the mat with the other person following and attempting to gain an advantageous position. Following this Peter showed us some interesting turnovers. One straight in to Juji-gatame and the other in to tate-shiho-gatame. If I can find videos of these techniques I’ll post them but as yet I have not been able to.
On to some Tachiwaza and Graeme first had us trying to break each other’s balance but by standing on one leg only. As I was paired with Ynez I didn’t have too much trouble making her put one leg on the ground as she is about half my size. By the time I was paired up with Oli Graeme was allowing us to add throws in to the mix and Oli managed to throw me a couple of times. It was at this point I could see the reason behind this one legged randori. When you go in for a throw you first break your opponents balance and then usually you hop in quickly on one leg to get in close enough to perform the throw. Having us practice Randori on one leg was a good way of forcing us all to do the following:
• Use attacking Judo
• Practice breaking our opponents balance
• Practice keeping our own balance
• Practice hoping in to close the distance and perform a throw.
We then went on to practice O-uchi-gari before finishing up with some Randori.
At the end of the class Graeme mentioned that we had all been invited to train at Surrey Police Judo Club for the next couple of weeks as Craig Fallon, World Champion in 2005 will be training there for a while. If I do manage to train with Craig then expect some photos and special write up to follow.
