I started writing this post a week ago but I’ve only just
managed to finish it. This means I have forgotten a lot of what actually
happened so the below is a condensed version of events.
I managed to train on consecutive nights last week at Yoshin
Ryu. First I did the Newaza randori night on the Wednesday and then I also
managed the randori night on the Thursday evening. It felt nice being able to
train hard on consecutive days as I’ve had so many injuries this year that I
really haven’t put in enough sessions to improve. I must admit though that
getting out of bed on Friday morning was a struggle as I felt like I had been
in a train wreck.
Sensei Dave took the Wednesday night Newaza class and
despite it being rather hot (by UK standards) he still had us warm up properly
doing pyramids. This entails running up and down the mat doing first one sit,
one squat thrust and one press up then you run up and down the mat again but
this time you do two of each and so on until you get to ten of each. Anyway my
double weave gi was at this point saturated in sweat and ready for the next
part of the class which focused on a couple of options when you are unable to
finish a juji-gatame from the top position, so basically the below position.
I guess you could use this if your opponent had a very
strong grip that you were unable to break. Anyway from the position above you
slide your right leg in-between uke’s arms so that it is over their right arm
but under their left. At this point you remove your left leg from over their
head and lay it on the floor behind them. Uke’s normal response to this is to
seize the moment to escape and sit up thus giving you the opportunity to slide
your left leg behind their head. You then simply link your right with your left
leg and get the san-gaku-jime.
We got to drill this technique a number of times, enough so
that I think it will stick with me, which is a good thing.
I sparred with a number of guys at the end wearing various
coloured belts so that I was able to practice my submissions one minute and my
escapes the next. My roll with Sensei Dave was particularly good as he manages
to operate at a level just above the person he is sparring with.
Thursday nights randori night was equally as hot as Wednesday’s,
added to that I had the ache and bruises from the previous night’s class but I
managed to have a very productive lesson nonetheless and took away a few things.
1)
I did randori with a newly promoted 1st
dan and wasn’t far off the pace. I was able to successfully throw him with
uchi-mata and tani-otoshi.
2)
Sasae-tsuri komi ashi is one of my favoured
techniques and usually I use a normal right handed grip and throw using my left
leg to block ukes right foot. An opportunity arose, admittedly against a yellow
belt, to throw using the same right handed grip but this time using my right
leg to bloke ukes left foot. The result was an airborne uke and a technique I
will be trying to improve on. The below video shows both entries in to this
throw as well as a nice set up using O-uchi-gari.
3)
As I’m not good enough to throw people using
unconventional grips I need to improve on my grip fighting and work on some
strategies. This becomes apparent when I spar with higher grades (Brown and
Black Belts)
