Following last week’s excellent lesson both Oli and I made our way back to Yoshin Ryu and we were met by Big Stewart who had also made the journey.
I mentioned that last week was a relatively poor turnout (for this club anyway), well tonight there were 12 Black belts and about the same number of Kyu grades present although only 1 of those was a lower grade than me.
As part of the warm up we paired up and practiced getting good grips on each other. Once one of us had secured a good grip we broke off and started again. This was a good exercise and one that I personally hadn’t done before. We were encouraged not only to work on securing a good grip but also to use our footwork to move in and out of range and get the best angle for our grips.
Following this we moved on to some Uchi-komi working on the Ko in to O-uchi-gari combination. This then progressed in to Ippon-seoi-nage, practiced on the move.
We were then told to work on a 4 move combination, with the throw being completed on the fourth technique. I struggled to come up with anything better than O-uchi/Ko-uchi/O-uchi/Uchi-mata. In the cold light of day I can think of a few more but in the heat of the class when you have seconds to think about it, it was the best I could come up with.
On to Newaza, and about 6 rounds of 5 minutes in duration. The highlights of which were two San-gaku-jime’s that I caught two Black belts with. Again neither of them tapped. I did ask one of them, whom I held for about a minute if it was working and he calmly replied “no, it’s just stopping me from moving” I was conscious that he wasn’t let me adjust my angle on him and that I was a little straight on, so maybe that’s the answer. It is odd because I’ve subbed people in the past with this but for some reason which I need to address urgently it isn’t quite working at the moment.
I did then have a really good technical roll with a female brown belt. I was conscious not to use too much strength so it was an excellent roll as we both went from technique to technique; more akin to a BJJ roll than your typical Judo Newaza.
I also had an excellent tussle with another Black belt where he escaped out of a Juji-gatme but I then managed to get him in an Omoplata which I believe is called ashi garami in Judo? He managed to roll out of the Omoplata in to Yoko-shiho-gatame and at this point I was so gassed I gave up trying to escape and tapped quickly.
A quick water break followed and then on to the Randori. In my last of three matches I was up against a black belt and although I was thrown many times I did manage two successful throws, both of which were Uchi-mata in to O-uchi-gari. I also very nearly scored a throw with Sasai-tsurikomi-ashi, which I’m starting to like.
Other than that I was dominated in the grip fighting again and my arms were totally gassed but this may have something to do with the fact that I done an “arms” weight session at the gym earlier in the day, so maybe I need to work something different when I train.
Next week Dorking opens in its new venue so I’ll be back there but if I am serious about progressing in this sport then I need to be training at Yoshin Ryu as often as I can as well.
