Another small turnout this evening as both Ivan, Oli & Peter were not present. However, returning after breaking her elbow was Ynez.
Stewart took the class tonight with Big Stuart only assisting due to his ongoing back injury. First up was Ura-nage, which we practiced using the crash mats. We also did the knee assisted version which is called Hiza-Mae-Ura-nage.
We then progressed to Uki-otoshi, a completely new throw to me. We practiced this by taking two steps backwards and on the third step Tori puts his knee on the ground and performs a large wheel motion with his hands. I commented that this technique looked more like an Aikido move than a Judo throw but it did seem to work and I certainly didn’t flip myself in the air like Aikidoka appear to do. Ynez and I paired up and practiced this in a throw for throw randori setting with plenty of movement. She said that you could use this throw in Randori/shiai if your opponent over reaches to get a grip on your collar. I must admit it would be a pretty cool way to win a contest.
On to Newaza and we focused on sweeps, mainly using double butterfly guard. We both started on our knees, in the position one would start in a Newaza contest. You take a double grip on Uke’s right sleeve and pull his arm across his body and immediately close the gap and take a double grip on his belt around his back, trapping both of his arms. Then you roll backwards, making sure to hook both of your feet under Uke’s legs and then basically you can roll them anyway you want.
We then went on to work a couple of variations of this move.
The last throw we practiced was Kata-Hiza-Te-Ouchi-Gake-Ashi-Dori, which Stewart said sounded more like a train station in Wales than a Judo throw. However it is in the Brown belt syllabus, as is the other two throws we practiced this evening. The throw is basically a hand assisted O-uchi-gake.
The class finished up with me doing some Randori against Ynez and Stewart and I had some success with Uchi-mata, including a left handed one, and towards the end I managed a Tani-otoshi on Stewart.
It was good to see Ynez back on the mat tonight and I hope she is able to attend more often.
