Judo is only gentle for the guy on top

Almost there

2012-02-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post regarding last nights training.
I started my green belt grading and basically did 90% of everything I need to pass. My club is closed next week due to the school holidays but hopefully I can finish off my grading the week after.

Rather annoyingly Uchi-mata, the throw I have been focusing most of my time on recently and having some success in randori, was one of the techniques that I had to perform a few times as I wasn’t quite reaping correctly with my leg.

Expect my next post to be a write up of the Blue belt and under competition I have entered. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling at least a little bit apprehensive about this but I’m sure if nothing else, it will be good experience for me.

Witley Yamabushi Judo Club

2012-02-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

As suggested in my previous post, I decided to visit Yamabushi Judo Club in Witley on Tuesday, to get some extra training in to help prepare me for the competition I have entered on the 19th February. Graeme very kindly volunteered to give me a lift as both himself and his son David train there on a regular basis.
Unfortunately a fire on or close the A3 meant that we arrived a little late but we both quickly warmed up and joined in with the rest of the class.

Oddly enough, following last week’s class at Dorking where we worked on O-uchi-gari, the first technique we practiced was ……..O-uchi-gari. After we had practiced a couple of combinations we moved on to some Uchi-Komi. As per last week I decided to concentrate on Uchi-mata.
The class ended with about 20 minutes of Randori. First up for me was a white belt, who had only been practicing for a few weeks. Coming from a club where I am the lowest ranked it was quite nice to randori with someone lower than me as it made me realise just how much I had learnt. Obviously being a beginner I didn’t throw him around, rather I encouraged him just to try all the throws he knew on me and told him not to worry about grip fighting as I would let him take whatever grip he wanted. Following two or three failed attempts of Osoto-otoshi on me, I stiffened up and threw him gently with the same technique, in the hope that he would realise why he was unsuccessful with his attempts.

My next opponent was a green belt and we fought a bit for grips. I took a high collar grip, which worked quite well as I was able to keep good control over him. This culminated in me being able to throw him with Uchi-mata and then before the end an O-uchi-gari.

I had three more rounds of Randori after this. Against another green belt I managed another O-uchi-gari and against a brown belt I managed another Uchi-mata. Both of these throws are fast becoming my favorites. My last round of Randori was against Graeme and despite a size and strength advantage I wasn’t able to get anything going against him. Graeme commented that I needed to relax but maybe I stiffened up because he is one of my instructors and I felt like I had to make an extra effort against him. I used to have the same problem when I did Chi-Sau against Kevin Chan back in my Wing Chun days.

We finished up with a couple of rounds of Newaza and I had a particularly good tussle with one of the brown belts.

Overall I really enjoyed the class despite it being a little short due to our late arrival.

Taken from Yamabushi Judo clubs website:
The head instructor Pete Swettenham started judo at the age of 6, gaining his 1st Dan at 17, and 2nd at 21. He was very active in student judo, winning the National title several times with London University before having to retire at the age of 22 with persistent knee injuries. Whilst taking a break from judo he became a triathlete, before moving on to road racing cycling. He spent 8 years as an elite road and track cyclist, riding professionally, and being a prolific winner, especially in the South of England. On returning to judo Pete started to compete again regularly. Last year, at the age of 35, he gained his 3rd Dan before winning the National Masters Championships in the 35 - 39 category, at U73 Kg. He is currently a member of the GB Masters Judo Squad. Pete is now the Children's Judo Coordinator at Yamabushi Judo Club, teaching at the Kingston and Guildford sites. He coaches judo and personal safety full time and has a special interest in ju jitsu (not sure if BJJ or traditional Japanese) and physical conditioning.

From my personal experience Pete is very enthusiastic and clearly loves his Judo. I think this rubs off on his students as they also showed a great deal of enthusiasm. I’m sure I will be come back and train here again when time permits.

O & Ko-uchi-gari

2012-02-05T11:29:00.001-08:00

I normally write my blog either the same evening or the day after my last lesson but today is three days afterwards. In addition, I am also looking after my eleven month old daughter whilst sat here at my desk, watching her pull every book off of one of the book shelves behind me, so apologies if this entry is a little short and a touch vague.

It seems that winter has finally reached the south of England with temperatures dropping below zero and snow forecast for the weekend (As I write this I can confirm that a couple of inches fell on Saturday night). Although there is heating in the Dojo it still felt a little colder than normal so after our normal warmup Graeme had us do plenty of uchi-komi, taking turns to pull our partner the length of the mat. I stuck with one technique (Uchi-mata) a throw which I am trying to perfect.

Graeme said that O-uchi-gari was on the menu tonight but before we got started he had us practice drawing the letter “O” on the mat with our feet. This was actually a good exercise, especially for me as it emphasised the full range of motion of the leg which was doing the reaping.

After several practices of this throw we moved on to Ko-uchi-gari and again even though it’s a technique I have done many time previously I was able to improve and just tweak a couple of things which had made this a rather difficult throw for me to perform previously.

We were then asked to come up with a combination which would finish with O-uchi-gari and I decided that Tai-otoshi would be a good set up. After a few minutes trying out this combination we were all asked to perform it in front of the rest of the class. Of course I could have tried Ko in to O-uchi-gari but this felt a little too obvious.

Moving on to some groundwork and we practiced various ways of escaping the guard, something I definitely need to practice especially as I tend to favour pulling guard and looking for sweeps and subs off my back. I’m ok once I’m in a Mune-gatame position and feel comfortable moving between pins and looking for subs, and I was even praised for my top control by Stewart when we did some Newaza later on, but escaping the guard or half guard frustrates me.

One of the techniques that Graeme showed us was to slip my left hand under Uke’s right leg and grab his collar. To avoid being San-gaku-jime’d you need to make sure you put pressure on Uke’s right leg as you do this. Then once you have taken a grip of Uke’s collar you simply move to your left hand side to secure a Mune-gatame. It’s a very simple technique and its one we have been shown on numerous occasions in the past but I’ve never used it in randori as I tend to favour just putting pressure on Uke’s inner thigh with my elbow and escaping that way.
We finished off with some Newaza Randori.

Next week I hope to visit another club to get some extra training in to prepare myself for my upcoming tournament. Expect a write up to follow.

Turnovers and Ashi-Waza

2012-01-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

It was nice to nice Oli back in the class tonight as I haven’t seen him since early December. Also Stewart was also present for the first time this year which meant we had a total of 6 seniors tonight, which isn’t great but a lot better than the last couple of weeks.

After our initial warm up, Peter had us go in to some light Newaza and after 10 minutes or so he told us to practice as many turnovers we knew in a minute. At this point I was paired with Big Stuart. I started with the usual turnover in to Kesa-gatame and then a couple of variations in to Juji-gatame but then my mind went blank. Big Stuart added a couple more but he also ran out of ideas. After a few minutes Graeme and Peter proceeded to show us a nice couple of turnovers, both of which I remember being shown before but the fact that none of us remembered them showed that we needed to drill them again. The one I remember the best was, with Uke in Turtle position you grab both collars with your front hand going over uke’s back but under his arm. Then you swing over uke with your momentum turning them over and pinning them as you have both their collars pulled under their arm pits.

Following the turnovers we went on to practice some Ashi-Waza (Foot sweeps). Last week I practiced Okuri-ashi-barai and we did it again this week but instead of practicing it in the usual manor where we both take side steps which sort of resemble something from Strictly Come Dancing, we did it this time using circular movements. So I would step back and pull uke around and as his trailing foot catches up I lift and sweep the foot. We then followed a similar exercise for De-ashi-barai.

Before we progressed in to Randori, Graeme had us warm up again with some Uchikomi, Uchi-mata being the throw that I practiced the most.

My first opponent in Randori was Oli. I attacked a lot but wasn’t able to throw Oli but I did nearly get him with an Uchi-mata and an O-uchi-gari before being thrown a couple of times myself.
Next up was Big Stuart and I tried a different strategy with him. I had seen a nice video on the Judo Forum recently over a Tai-otoshi in to Tani-otishi combination which I liked the look of so I decided to try this out on Stuart. I came to the conclusion at the end that I need to practice this one a lot more and probably need to commit more on the Tai-otoshi.

My final opponent was Peter and I finally managed a throw, a nice O-uchi-gari, although I had to really drive and hop forward to get him to fall.

Something I purposely did against everyone tonight was to take a higher grip, around their collars and my initial thoughts were that I had better control over everyone. Of course they are all much higher grades than me so it’s hard to say for sure but I guess I’ll find out when I enter this competition in February.

More Green Belt syllabus

2012-01-20T07:44:00.000-08:00

On arriving at the Dojo I noticed that Peter wasn’t present. He usually sits watching the junior class, which is taken by Graeme, Big Stuart and recently Graeme’s son David, who is also a Brown belt. With Peter absent and still no Oli and a number of other seniors who have yet to make an appearance this year, this meant there were only three seniors. Now long term this is not good for the club or my personal development, but short term this meant that I was to get what was essentially a private lesson with two brown belts.

Graeme asked me if I wanted to go over my green belt syllabus, which of course I did and he then asked me if there was anything specifically that I wanted to look at. This was an easy decision for me as I feel I need some extra practice with all the throws.

We then proceeded to go over all the following throws from the Green belt syllabus:

· Uchi-mata: I got this one pretty much right first time of trying. I think it’s a throw that suits my build and is one that I think I will keep trying in randori
· Morote-eri-seoi-nage: Graeme showed me two ways of gripping for this throw. The first was two hands on the same lapel, which felt comfortable enough but I never felt like I had much power in it. However when I tried the second way of gripping, a hand on each lapel the throw felt a lot stronger. I must remember this when I am called upon to do this for my grading.
· Okuri-ashi-barai : I need to improve my timing with this foot sweep but Stuart pointed out that I need to get used to pushing my opponent down and then pulling them, bouncing them if you like. This makes the actual foot sweep part of this throw a lot easier to perform.
· Harai-goshi: I must remember that this is a hip throw and need to think O-goshi but with right leg blocking uke’s escape route. This is the throw that appears to have gained favour with a lot of UFC fighters at the moment.
· Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi : Graeme helped explain the arm movement for this throw which is pull up and behind you whilst turning your head in the same direction.
· Hiza-guruma: This was similar to Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi but my blocking leg needs to be kept straight and blocks uke’s knee and also my arm movements are wheel like.
· Hane-goshi : This is, I’m sure, the first time I have tried this throw. I found it very similar to Harai-goshi but I got the hang of this throw once I got used to springing in with my hips against uke’s

I actually feel pretty good now about grading for green belt as I think tonight’s lesson really helped me improve each throw. I’m pretty confident in the groundwork part of the grading, especially as it’s mostly variations of Juji-gatame so I have nothing to fear other than learning all the English translations for everything, which I will no doubt be getting my Wife to assist with over the coming weeks.

I’ve also decided to enter a competition on the 19th February in Redhill, which is quite local to me. Its open to Blue belts and below, so it’s likely I’ll be up against higher grades but I guess I’ve got to start somewhere.

O-Soto-Gari

2012-01-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

I was very much looking forward to my first class of the New Year especially as it’s been 1 calendar month since I last trained. Although I wasn’t training Judo, apart from 10 days off over Christmas, I have been back in the gym for nearly two weeks and have been hitting the weights hard as I attempt to bulk up a little.

Rather disappointingly there weren’t any new faces on my arrival at the Dojo, not even people on a New Years “I want to lose weight and learn how to defend myself” resolution. In fact there were a number of the regular seniors not present tonight which meant that only Peter, Graeme and Big Stuart were in attendance.

After warming up we got the crash mats out and practiced Osoto-gari. Before we actually performed the throw, Graeme had us all practicing the leg movements emphasizing the fact that this is a real committed type of throw. After performing the throw several times each we then worked on setting this throw up with Ko-uchi-gari as a first attack. Graeme then showed us a nice left handed (from a right handed grip) Osoto-gari as a different variation to the Ko-uchi-gari entry and this seemed to flow even better than the traditional right handed version.

We moved on to some groundwork shortly afterwards and Graeme showed us an interesting way of turning your opponent over if they are laying flat on their face and are trying to waste time, waiting for the ref to call matte. Lying across them, looking towards their feet, you lift up their nearest leg and put your furthest leg underneath theirs. You then put your furthest arm under the leg that you have lifted up and grab the bottom of their jacket. Then, whilst keeping hold of their jacket you simply work your way up their body and ever so slowly the movement forces them to turnover. At this point you should be looking to gather up their arms, pushing them across their own neck, making it rather uncomfortable for them as you secure Yoko-shiho-gatame.

We finished up with some Newaza and started from various positions, each taking turns to start in the turtle or lying on your stomach etc. Considering I hadn’t trained for a month I felt pretty good with my Newaza and especially with my fitness. Actually when I say I haven’t done any Judo for a month it’s not entirely true. I posted an entry back in May last year called “Newaza is for Babies” in which I spoke about how my then 3 month old daughter Florence appeared to have a very good ground game and the fact that changing her nappy was fast becoming a Newaza session. Well since then her Newaza has improved a lot, especially as she crawls everywhere now and doesn’t like to sit still for more than a few seconds. She especially doesn’t like to be put on her back, which makes changing her nappy very difficult indeed.
She is literally impossible to pin down. Even if I pin the top half of her body flat on the changing mat she is still able to turn the bottom half of her body completely over. If I had half of her flexibility I’d be a Newaza god by now and would be mentioned in the same breath as an Adams or Pedro.

Anyway, an enjoyable first session of the new year despite the lack of seniors present. Lots to think about though, especially as there is a competition in February that Peter and Graeme have recommended I enter. Should I try and keep under 90KG or continue to bulk up and enter the under 100kg division. We shall see.....

Joe Rogan

2012-01-06T03:37:00.000-08:00

Ok so I’m sitting down watching UFC 141 from the comfort of my sofa and the first fight of the night is between Nam Phan, someone I’ve seen before from The Ultimate Fighter, and Jimy Hettes, who is introduced as a Judo Brown Belt and BJJ Purple Belt. As Nam Phan is pretty experienced in MMA and also a BJJ black Belt I assume he will have too much for the young Hettes but I am proved wrong as Hettes repeatedly performs lovely Judo throws which include Harai-Goshi, O-uchi-gari and I think I saw an Uchi-mata as well. To top this off Hettes has very good control over Phan on the ground as well and is definitely a hot prospect for the future.

Another fight that night was between Kim Dong-Hyun, a 4th dan black belt in Judo and Sean Pierson. Again I was delighted to see some lovely throws from Kim, especially a lovely Harai-Goshi.

Joe Rogan, who is one of the commentators for the UFC and has been for a number of years now does an excellent job commentating and really puts over a fans perspective of each of the fights. Coupled with this Rogan also holds a Black Belt in Taekwondo and a brown belt in BJJ, so he understands a lot of what is going on and is very good at seeing techniques and moves that are being set up, particularly where the ground work is concerned. He can tell you the (BJJ) name of every submission, choke, leg lock etc and also tell you how to escape the said submission, providing of course that it’s still possible. I do however have one gripe with Mr Rogan and that is that he calls every throw a “Judo Throw” or “Judo trip”. It infuriates me that after all these years he isn’t able to name the throws correctly. Now I don’t expect him to go away and learn all 67 throws of the Gokyu but he doesn’t need to as there are only about half a dozen or so throws that are performed in MMA, due mainly to the lack of gi but also because some Judo throws can leave you vulnerable to punches or can give your opponent a superior ground position following the throw, which isn’t such a hazard when competing in Judo Shiai.

So Joe Rogan, if you are reading this, please go away and learn the correct names of these lovely Judo throws, it will make me and the rest of the Judo performing MMA fans very happy.

Review of the year 2011

2011-12-21T03:41:00.000-08:00

I missed the last lesson of the year last Thursday due to unforeseen circumstances so I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a quick review of my Judo in 2011.

In January my training was dominated by my Marathon training. I was quite often tired and sore but I was obviously feeling very fit and this was reflected when I did Newaza and would still feel fresh at the end of it. I did however have to sacrifice by BJJ training due to lack of time and energy, which is a shame as really enjoy it.

Of course the biggest event of 2011, and in fact my life up till now, was the birth of my baby daughter Florence. Her birth did force me re-evaluate my Marathon training and as a consequence I decided it wasn’t fair on either my wife or myself to continue to spend hours a week pounding the streets especially when I could be spending that time looking after my daughter and giving my wife a brief reprieve. I therefore decided to pull out of the Marathon but at least I managed to run distances I never thought I would be capable of (13 miles) and I will certainly be back some time in the future to have another crack at it.

Coincidently the London Marathon was on the same day as the High Wycombe Newaza tournament, which I had entered the previous year winning a bronze in the process. So with no Marathon to contend with I decided to enter again. The tournament had definitely grown from the previous year and there were guys there from other grappling arts such as BJJ, Greco Roman and other Wrestling forms who were competing, making the tournament a lot more competitive. This made the bronze medal I managed to win all the more satisfying but it did make me think about the differences of Judo Newaza vs BJJ.

I managed to re-visit Westcroft Judo club for a Randori only night. Westcroft is where I had trained briefly a few years earlier before getting injured and giving it up so it was nice to pay them a visit. Since I last trained there they have moved to a permanent Dojo which I was very impressed with. The head instructor, Andy Ede, recognised me and made me feel very welcome and both myself and Oli had an excellent nights training.

I got my Orange belt in July, just before my club closed for the summer months. I had already decided to train at Yoshin Ryu Judo club for the summer but unfortunately a broken toe on the last day of July meant that I was only able to attend one lesson there. However I got a lot out of that one lesson and was impressed with the guys that train there and the facilities on offer and will attempt to take as many classes there as possible in 2012.

On one of my visits to Yoshin Ryu I got totally dominated in randori by a fellow orange belt. This had the effect of making me re-evaluate my Judo training as a whole although it subsequently turned out that this orange belt was someone who had trained as a junior and was now training four times a week as an adult, so maybe it was to be expected. This is one of the reasons I want to take some extra classes.
It also made me a bit less belt hungry as I would much rather be a good orange belt than a poor green belt.

Subsequently I didn’t hit my target of getting my green belt by Christmas but hopefully I will make some good progress next year and be ready to grade before the summer.

After the summer break Ryan didn’t return to the seniors due to sciatica and Mark was also absent for the whole year due to injury. With no other new seniors joining and other senior members missing for large chunks of the year this meant that the class size was sometimes as low as 4 seniors. I understand that there are plans in the new year to try and attract some new seniors in to the club and that would be very welcome.

I made a concerted effort to weigh below 90kg as I felt I would do better in tournaments as a heavy under 90kg rather than a light under 100kg. Following a gym assessment yesterday at my work, I can confirm that I now weigh 89.5kg and have 16% body fat, which is classed as excellent for my age. My resting pulse rate is also down to 58 so I’m getting fitter as well. However I’m not sure I like the leaner looking me. I like the lower body fat but I think I’m going to try and put on some extra muscle in 2012 and get back up to 95kg. If I can do that with compromising my body fat I will be very happy indeed.

The blog is averaging around 30 hits a day and currently has 8420 in total so someone must be reading it. An anonymous person took offence to my links to BJJ and took it upon themselves to send an email to my Judo club to complain. After reading my blog I then got the full backing of all my instructors at the club to continue with what I was writing.

So there you have it, a brief review of 2011. My goals for next year are to get my Green belt and compete again in the High Wycombe Newaza tournament and hopefully at least one other tournament. Also to try and train as much as possible at Yoshin Ryu (probably on a Monday).

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Ude-Garami (Kimura)

2011-12-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

I’m a bit late with my write up, following last week’s lesson, so you’ll probably get two posts in quick succession this week.

After we were warmed up Peter had us pair up for some light Randori, basically throw for throw, not resisting much. I was paired with Oli and decided straight away that I would try and throw him with an Uchi-mata at some point. After two or three throws each I decided now was a good time to go for it and although I had to hop a couple of times he finally went over. Oli commented afterwards that he was impressed that I tried it and this gave me confidence boost especially after last week where I seemed to forget all but the very basic throws.

As we changed partners the Randori got amped up a level. First we had one attacking and the other one only allowed to counter and then eventually hard Randori. At this point I was paired with Big Stuart so I realised I was going to get thrown and even though he did throw me a couple of times I did manage to counter him with a Tani-otoshi.

We then moved on to some Newaza. First we took turns starting from the turtle position, so I used the opportunity to attack using the Juji-gatame sit back and roll technique from the green belt syllabus. Then we took turns starting on our backs with the other person in our guard, the highlight of which was a particularly good tussle that I had with Big Stuart. He had briefly passed my guard on my left hand side but I managed to shrimp and turn in to him. Then just as I was going to get back to full guard he somehow cart wheeled over my body and landed in Mune-gatame on my right side. I was impressed and to be honest I think he was too.
When it was my turn to try and pass his guard we had an equally good tussle and despite him reversing me I managed to squirm out and hold him in Kesa-gatame.

Peter called matte shortly afterwards and he then moved on to show us some Newaza techniques.

First up was Hara-gatame, which I just couldn’t seem to get right. Stewart commented that perhaps it was because of my long legs that I couldn’t get the leverage right.
We moved on to Kesa-garami and this is a technique that Big Stuart has used on me a few times in the past. The technique is done from Kesa-gatame and although you wouldn’t normally give up a hold for a submission I think its used more if the person being held managed to get their right arm free and starts causing you problems. You can then stick under your leg and apply an arm lock and get the Ippon that way.

Peter then went on to show us a technique that is no longer allowed in competition, well at least not Judo competition but I’ve certainly seen similar looking leg locks in MMA and no doubt this is used in BJJ. Anyway Ashi-garami, being a leg lock, is no longer permitted in Randori or Shiai but nonetheless it was nice to be shown it.

Before the class ended Big Stuart wanted to show us a variation of Ude-garami. Instead of being done the traditional way it is shown on the BJA website this is more like a reverse Ude-garami. Big Stuart and I, both being fans of MMA, know that it is called a Kimura by fighters practising BJJ. Masahiko Kimura was the Judoka who famously defeated Helio Gracie many years ago and he defeated Helio with a Ude-garami. Out of respect to their victor the Gracie family named this technique the Kimura and it is still called Kimura to this day.

It was quite ironic actually that Big Stuart showed us this technique as Frank Mir used it to defeat and break the arm of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 140 on Saturday night. It just goes to show you the importance of tapping when someone gets you in an armlock. I know the stakes that these guys fight for in the UFC is a lot higher than some plastic trophy most Judoka’s fight over in local Shiai but I cannot see the point in not tapping and effectively letting your opponent break your arm just to prove the point that you will never submit. If Nogueira had tapped earlier he could have been fighting again in a few months and training again within a week but now he will probably not be able to train at all for six months and all this due to his ego. I can understand it more when a fighter doesn’t submit to a choke as getting choked unconscious doesn’t usually have any lasting effects. That said I think Lyota Machida could have injured himself after he was choked unconscious in his LHW title bout against Jon Jones as he was choked out whilst standing and then just slumped to the floor after Jones let him go. Anyway I digress this is a Judo Blog not MMA.

Next week is the last class of the term so I will need to train elsewhere, probably Yoshin Ryu, until the second week in January.

How to Uchi-Mata

2011-12-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

Following my complete mind blank last week where I literally forgot how to throw, I stumbled across this YouTube video that someone posted on the Judoforum. It's a green belt level throw, so I need to practice it but it is also a very popular competition throw for all levels.

Choke

2011-12-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

I had one of those nights last night where I forgot everything. We were told to do some uchikomi Tai-otoshi and I couldn’t even think how to break Uke’s balance and to make matters worse the rest of my Tai-otoshi was sloppy to say the best. When we were then given free reign to perform any throw uchikomi, all I could think of was Tai-otoshi and O-uchi-gari. This was very frustrating as I wanted to use this opportunity to practice the throws in my green belt syllabus but I couldn’t think of a single entry to any of them.

Things didn’t get any better when we progressed on to Randori apart from a Tani-otoshi which presented itself to me. I’m not quite sure why this is. Maybe missing last week’s training due to Flu has something to do with it.

Something that I have been thinking about recently is that I need to train more than just once a week. I think I’ve come to a point in my Judo journey where once a week just isn’t enough to progress anymore so I will be looking at Yoshin Ryu and Westcroft for some additional training and will see which club offers the best days and times to fit in with my other commitments.

Other than the mind blank I had with my tachiwaza we had about half of the class dedicated to just chokes and strangles. Some of these I have seen before but a couple I hadn’t. I particularly liked the “hell strangle” which meant you ended up putting Uke in what BJJ’ers would call the “crucifix” position, and then you strangle them with the collar of their gi whilst they are totally helpless. This technique was performed against Uke from the turtle position and its one I will try and remember and maybe use sometime in the future.

New Faces

2011-11-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

The day after my last lesson I embarked on a weekend’s trip to Snowdonia in Wales for a bit of climbing with a mate. Unfortunately I returned with a serious case of Man flu which has meant a delay in updating my blog and due to my head being all scrambled with various cold/flu remedies I cannot remember much of what went on so please excuse the briefness of my report.

The first thing I noticed when I turned up for last week’s lesson were two new faces who were already on the mat. One of them was a brown belt from Crawley Judo club who was trying to get as much training in as possible to get his black belt and the other guy, also from Crawley, was a white belt.

Following last week’s Newaza based lesson we had another one this week. Peter told us to start with some light randori and I paired up with the new brown belt guy. He decided to pull guard against me and then tried to work some sweeps but due to me posturing up well and being a few stone heavier than him I was able to resist his attempts. He then decided to get back to his knees and I was more than happy to pull guard myself. Now it was my turn to look for sweeps on him but he did a pretty good job of resisting my attempts until Peter reminded us both that it was light randori and subsequently called matte.

Peter then had us working through various holds on each other, for example I would start in Kesa Gatame and then move in to Mune-gatame then Yoko-shiho-gatame then Kuzure-kesa-gatame and finally in to tate-shiho-gatame. The person being held would slowly increase resistance until they were either able to escape or the person on top got bored and gave them ago. I think this is a very good exercise as being able to hold someone in a pin isn’t that difficult but to be able to move from one pin to another whilst keeping control is a different kettle of fish entirely. Of course in Shiai you wouldn’t give up a pin but there are times when you know you are slowly losing a pin and being able to switch to another one with minimal effort is advantageous.

We went through a couple of changes of partners and eventually went on to do some free Newaza before Peter decided to show us some Kata. We have done a little kata before but not for a while now. There is a big difference between the Kata one does in Judo to that which I performed in Karate or the form’s I had to do in Wing Chun and that is Judo kata’s are performed with another person.
I think the name of the Kata that we performed was Katame-no-kate and we only went through some of it but what I did find was that it was very useful for teaching us the correct position for the techniques.

Following the Kata we did some randori and finished up again with some more Newaza. As I said earlier my brain is slightly fuzzy due to cold/flu remedies so I can’t go in to any detail.

An interesting lesson with plenty of sparring and it was great to have some additions to the senior’s class. I hope they both return next week.

Newaza

2011-11-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

It appears that someone has taken offence to my blog and has therefore taken it upon themselves to email my club and complain. I haven’t seen the offending email but from what I’ve been told by the instructors, the anonymous emailer thinks that my blog is somehow damaging to my club and disrespectful to Judo due to the links I have to other martial arts like BJJ. There is an option to leave comments on my blog so should you take offence or disagree with anything that is written within it then please use this as a way of contacting me and we can then have a sensible discussion.

Just to add, all of the instructors have now read my blog and cannot see anything in it which in anyway damages the club or Judo. In fact they are of the opinion that it is a useful way of promoting Dorking Judo Club and they encourage me to keep at it. One thing that was pointed out to me by Black belt Stuart was that I have been spelling his name incorrectly as he spells his name Stewart. So from now on he will simply be referred to as Stewart, which means I can drop the black belt part.

On to last night’s lesson and it was a sort of Newaza master class. After we were warmed up I was paired up for some Newaza first with Oli and then without pause Stewart and then Peter. Following this Peter proceeded to show me various ways of applying Waki-gatame and Ude-gatame, specifically from a standing position. Although these techniques are not always successful when standing they can cause your opponent to move to a position where they are easily thrown or at the very least, give your opponent something to think about and put them off of a certain grip.

We then moved on to Ude-garami and finished with Hadaka-jime before Peter asked me to try and use the techniques I had just been shown, in some Newaza against himself, Stewart and Oli. Again I did this without any pause in between so it was a good workout but I really enjoyed it. I did have some success in applying these techniques but I cannot remember what technique I performed on whom. Stewart commented that I had a fairly good defense off of my back and in the most part I was able to stop anyone passing my guard.

Although we didn’t work specifically on my green belt syllabus tonight I felt like I got a lot out of the lesson, specifically with regards to my groundwork. I have commented in the past that I needed to learn some collar chokes as they seem to be presented quite regularly but I have rarely been able to finish them due to my lack of understanding of them, so hopefully this is something that I can start to address and improve on.

At the end of the class Peter said that he might show us some Kata in the upcoming weeks as it’s a good way of improving our technique and as Peter has won national Kata championships I’m sure he’ll be the right person to teach us.

More green belt syllabus

2011-11-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

After I updated my blog last week I also decided to post an excerpt from my blog entry on the judo forum as I was looking for some feedback specifically around how I was dominated by another orange belt and how it made me feel. Rather oddly I was contacted, through the Judo forum by the orange belt guy from Yoshin Ryu who had crushed me, as he was concerned that I should feel so demoralized after what was after all just randori. It turns out that he did have previous experience at a junior level and had graded to Blue belt and even though he had only been training for 8 months since his return he was training 3-4 times a week. This did make me feel a bit better about how easily I was dominated by his grips and again how easily he was able to throw me. We have exchanged a couple of emails since then and I look forward to returning to Yoshin Ryu sometime soon and maybe learning a thing or two from him.

On to last night’s lesson and Graeme had returned from his world tour but he was only joined by Peter and Oli, which meant there were only 4 of us on the mat. We discussed briefly before we started, about what had happened to me a week previously and Graeme commented that it was quite common when people returned to Judo after training as a junior that they would be a lot better than their senior grade, particularly as juniors usually have a lot of competition experience which makes them rather good at randori.

Graeme and Peter then said we would again go over some of my green belt syllabus and that I would probably get my green belt within a few weeks. When you consider how I was feeling after last week’s lesson this didn’t seem right, I mean being thrown around by someone your own grade is bad enough but being thrown around by a lower grade would be a lot worse. When I’ve graded previously I’ve always felt I was ready to grade and that I was deserving of my new belt but now there is a degree of self doubt creeping in over whether I am good enough to wear a green belt. I guess this will only get worse as I get closer to the elusive black belt.

First of all we went over some of the Newaza techniques from the syllabus and they were Ude-gatame, Waki-gatame and finally Hiza-gatame. I had a bit of trouble finding the space to get my knee on to uke’s arm whilst doing the Hiza-gatame, which is odd as I’ve not had any trouble with this in the past.

On to the Tahi-waza and I was fairly comfortable with both Harai-goshi and Uchi-mata, although I totally forgot about the higher grip that Ynez had shown me previously and also the nice entry techniques.

Morote-eri-seoi-nage was easier this week as Oli was not wearing a stiff double weave like Stuart was when I was shown this last time which caused me to struggle to get a strong grip. Graeme showed me another way of doing this throw and that was two hands on the same side lapel as opposed to opposite lapels, which if you look at the link is actually the same way Fallon is demonstrating this. I also think this way of doing the throw would be a lot easier against someone wearing a double weave.

Now I really struggled with Sase-tsurikomi-ashi and Hiza-guruma, which are quite similar throws. I had a habit of pulling Oli down instead of lifting him up and breaking his balance properly. I will try and practice some uchi-komi in the week to correct this.

At the end of the lesson Graeme asked for ideas on how to get new seniors interested in joining the club. My immediate response was to try and tempt some of the parents who bring their kids to the junior sessions to try it out; we shall see how this develops.

Crushed – Yoshin Ryu Judo Club

2011-10-28T04:06:00.000-07:00

As my club was closed for the half term holidays I decided to pay another visit to Yoshin Ryu Judo Club in Coulsdon and as is the norm I was accompanied by Oli.

On arrival we made ourselves know to the instructor Neil and were again made to feel very welcome. The changing rooms are located on the other side of mats so you have to take your shoes off before you can reach them.

As before the class started with a game of football between the kyu grades and the Dan grades and just as before they managed to beat us by a single goal. As my toe still isn’t right after I broke it at the end of July, football probably isn’t the best sport for me to play, especially in bare feet, so I was very conscious not to go hard in to any tackles.

After the game we lined up and something I noticed which was different from last time was the number of kyu grades present. Whereas in August the Dan grades outnumbered the kyu grades, this time there were about 15 kyu grades, from white belt all the way up to brown.

I paired up with a fairly stocky brown belt and we did a further warm up which consisted of sit ups & press ups etc. Following that we drilled our first technique. I went in to the turtle position and uke grabbed my arm and I simply rolled him over the top of me. We drilled this for 10 goes on each side before Neil showed us a counter to this move. If the person in the turtle position rolls you over by grabbing your left arm you should, as you start to roll, take a high collar grip with your right hand so that after the roll you can grab the lapel of uke with your left hand thus enabling you to choke your opponent with OKURI-ERI-JIME. We did this for a number of repetitions before matte was finally called and we were told to start Newaza.

We stayed with the same partners and as Newaza was started from kneeling and my opponent was larger than me I decided against knee wrestling and pulled guard instead. From this position I tried a number of times to get a Juji-gatame but each time he was able to resist. I then grabbed his right wrist with my left hand pushed it between my legs and secured a san-gaku-jime. However as I started to pull his right arm across my body he managed to stand up, which meant I had to let go and start again. I pulled guard and figured I was just attack constantly from my back and I did a pretty good job in keeping him preoccupied enough with my attacked so that he couldn’t mount any of his own. Matte was called with none of us able to get a pin or a submission.

Next up was a complete beginner who was taking his first class, so I just showed him a few basics. He was a big lad and mentioned that he had started training MMA so when I explained the techniques to him I also gave him the BJJ/MMA equivalent, for example I mentioned side control when describing mune-gatame and spoke about passing the guard. I showed him the basics of passing the guard and the importance of the guard so hopefully he learnt something from it.

Next up was a blue belt who I had trained with previously. This is where it all started to go wrong for me. He was constantly looking for cross collar chokes from within my guard. I’ve read on a number of forums, like the judo forum, that this is just an invitation to be juji-gatame’d, so I tried just that but every time I did he managed to get out and pass my guard and secure either a Mune-gatame or kesa-gatame of which I was unable to escape from.

My next opponent was a rather stocky black belt and again I favored pulling guard to knee wrestling and as per my previous roll he was able to pass my guard and secure a pin of his choice by baiting me in to trying either a juji-gatame or san-gaku-jime. I wasn’t successful with either of these subs and neither was I able to get anyone near sweeping him. Now I know all these guys outrank me and maybe I am being a little too hard on myself but I always thought I had quite good Newaza skills for my rank.

We had a quick water break and despite sweating profusely I was a little less gassed than when I last trained here. My first opponent was yet another black belt and he was kind enough to point out that my arms were too stiff and that he could feel everything I was attempting to do before I even moved. This has been highlighted to me on numerous occasions before but where I am able to relax at my own club now, against people I know who allow me get my grips, against strangers who fight for grips I felt a little lost. This was to be highlighted in my next match against a fellow orange belt.

As there were so many people present we couldn’t all take to the mats at the same time when we did Randori so we all took turns in sitting out a match. It was whilst I was sitting out after my first match against the black belt that I asked the guy next to me if he wanted to spar next. As he was a fellow orange belt I commented that it would be nice to actually train with someone of similar skill and he agreed.
When the fight started we fought for grips and as I mentioned previously, I was totally dominated by his grips. He was able to control me and move me where he wanted to every time he took hold of me whereas I was just holding on for dear life. He then proceeded to throw me not once, not twice but four times for ippon and that doesn’t include the couple of times where I didn’t quite land flat on my back. The instructor, Neil, was watching us closely and told me to take a higher grip on his collar or around his back but at that point it didn’t make much of a difference. I was glad when matte was finally called and slumped down in the corner feeling totally demoralized.

I’ve been dominated before by higher grades and that’s to be expected but this guy was the same belt as me and what made it even worse was the fact that he told me he had only been training for 8 months. If I could have snuck out back to my car and driven home at this point, I would have. Lots of thoughts were going through my head the main one being that I wasn’t actually any good for an orange belt and yet last week I was talking about grading for my green belt soon. But how could this be that I’m not good at Judo. Where sport is concerned I usually pick things up pretty quickly and have gone on to excel at a number of them. Hell my first Judo competition in April of last year, when I had only been training for two months, I managed to finish third, so where did this all go wrong.

I didn’t have too long to reflect on this as my next opponent was the blue belt who I had rolled with earlier. Yet again I struggled with the grip and he scored 3 Ippon’s against me, with the highlight being a perfect Tomoe-nage. I did however manage a throw of my own, which was following a failed Harai-goshi, which I turned in to an Uchi-mata. What was really annoying is that I had planned to try out Harai-goshi & Uchi-mata tonight but I never got the chance to mount any attacks because I was dominated in the grips.

My match against the blue belt was the last of the evening and Neil told us to find a space on the mat. He then proceeded to work us some more with a number of sit ups, press ups, squat thrusts and star jumps before we finally finished with a light stretch. At the end of the lesson I was eager to leave as I still felt totally demoralised and I wanted to confide in Oli on the car journey home. Oli reasoned that maybe this orange belt had trained Judo in his youth or that just maybe he was exceptional. Still this is the lowest point I have felt so far in my Judo journey and I would be lying if the idea of quitting hadn’t crossed my mind.

The day after and although I feel like I have been hit by a truck, I have had time to reflect and I certainly won’t be quitting. What I will need to do is tell my instructor how I was dominated and that I feel I need to work on my grips. I’m sure I will go back to Yoshin Ryu again in the near future and hopefully I can show an improvement. I would also like to thank everyone at the club for making both myself and Oli feel very welcome yet again.

Morote-eri-seoi-nage

2011-10-21T02:13:00.000-07:00

A frozen neck kept me away from doing any training last week so I was eager to get back to class tonight especially following my last lesson, which was basically a one to one private with Ynez. Unfortunately it was bit of strange lesson tonight as, yet again the turnout was pretty bad, in fact I was the only student with Peter, Ynez and black belt Stuart as instructors. I think I’ve worked out why Ryan hasn’t been to Judo since June and that is because his BJJ club now has two dedicated Judo lessons a week so it would make sense if he attended those especially as they precede the actual BJJ classes that he takes. This will be a great loss to our club though, especially as he brought with him some good newaza skills and was similarly matched, skill wise, to myself. I still think it would be a good idea to invite a BJJ club to come and give us a BJJ class as something different to the normal Judo that we have. If nothing else we may get one or two BJJ’ers who maybe live locally that might then start taking Judo.

Back to tonight’s lesson and following on from my lesson two weeks ago, Peter decided I should go over some techniques from the green belt syllabus. We went over all the various entries to Juji-gatame which I feel I have got down pretty well. We then went over Ude-gatame, Waki-gatame and Hiza-gatame, all of which are fairly simple techniques but ones that I haven’t used much before so they do need a little perfecting. Tachi-waza wise I was shown Morote-eri-seoi-nage and I must admit this did not come easy to me. I’d like to think it was because Stuart’s gi is so thick that I couldn’t get a proper grip on it but I’m sure it’s more than that and besides, if I can grip and throw people wearing heavy double weave gi’s then throwing someone wearing a single weave will seem fairly easy in comparison.

As I said at the beginning of this post, tonight lesson was a bit strange and Peter decided to finish 30 minutes early tonight. I guess I can’t complain as again I had effectively had my own private lesson with three black belts. Maybe that’s one of the positives of having such a low turnout in the senior class, that I am getting a lot of personal instruction and if this keeps up I will likely start my green belt grading sooner rather than later.

The Darkness

2011-10-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

On approaching the club tonight I thought it looked very dark and once inside I realised that half the lighting was not working due to an electrical fault.
The cupboard that we normally use as a makeshift changing room had no light whatsoever but I found Black Belt Stuart in there and Jamie with only a torch as a means of light.

I hadn’t seen Jamie for a number of months and with the continued absence of Ryan I was glad that he had decided to come back.

Peter got us warmed up with some light Newaza which then progressed in to one of us applying a hold, with the other trying to escape. The person applying the hold then had to move to another hold without losing control. Whilst being held in Kesa-gatame by Stuart I noticed how heavy he felt on me and how much it felt like he was crushing my ribs. Even Ynez, who is half my size, felt like a dead weight when holding me in Kesa-gatame. Ynez said it’s not about using strength or size to hold a person down its more about just making your body feel heavy, and of course using the correct technique.

Following the Newaza and with everyone nicely warmed up and due to the fact that both Graeme and Big Stuart were away with work, Peter decided that he was going to give Jamie the opportunity to start his first grading for Red belt.

As Stuart was to be Jamie’s Uke and Peter would do the examining, Ynez said that she would work with me and Peter suggested that we go over the Green belt syllabus.

As we had already been doing some Newaza we started with the various versions of Juji-gatame that are needed for green belt:

Juji-gatame
Juji-gatame sit back entry
Juji-gatame roll over entry
Juji-gatame entry from beneath
Juji-gatame over the shoulder entry

It was great to cover so many different variations of the same technique and also to do a number of repetitions of each variation.

The other Newaza techniques in the syllabus that we practised were Ude-gatame, Waki-gatame & finally Hiza-gatame. At some point over the last 18 months I have probably practised all of these but again it was really nice to really go over each one for repetitions.

There are a number of throws needed for green belt and Ynez decided that we should start with Okuri-Ashi-Barai, of which I have previously devoted an entire thread to. I mentioned to Ynez that Graeme called this throw the oomph throw, as that’s the noise that Uke generally makes when he hits the matt as all of his air is knocked out of him. Ynez actually liked being thrown with this technique, providing it’s done right. Her comments were that there was something nice about being thrown by a perfectly executed throw. I’m not sure if I agree with her sentiments entirely but I agree that landing flat on your back is preferable to being dumped on your head.

Having got the timing down for Okuri-ashi-barai we moved on to Harai-goshi. Despite needing quite a bit of hip, and for me to pull this off against Ynez, who is considerably shorter than me, took a lot of knee bending, I still very much enjoyed this throw. Ynez showed me a couple of nice entries and we practised these after the normal static version. The first was literally just a hop in but the second one involved pulling Uke to my right, but instead of following them you stay still and then proceed to hop in with the throw. It seemed so simple but very effective.
With time running out with progressed on to Uchi-mata, a throw we practised before the summer break and one I got the hang of. For some reason this time I kept on muddling this up with Harai-goshi as I was reaping with my leg on the outside rather than in between Uke’s legs.
If you look at the example from the BJA website, Fallon’s left leg just clips the inside of his Uke’s left leg. You can also perform Uchi-mata by clipping the inside of their right leg but this usually required you to hop around until their fall off balance. Ynez said its better to attack the inside of the left leg, Like Fallon’s example, because if they try and manoeuvre out of it you always have the right leg with the hoping technique to fall back on, whereas if you go straight for the right leg and they move out of the way, you have missed your opportunity for this throw.

Looking up at the clock we realised it was 10.pm and Peter called matte. I had covered a hell of a lot of the green belt syllabus in the last hour and having what was effectively a private 1 hour lesson with Ynez was fantastic and probably rates as the most productive Judo lesson to date. It also made me realise that I’m not that far off of being ready for green belt grading and hopefully I can hit my target of achieving it before the end of this year.

Yoko Tomoe Nage

2011-10-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

I found this linked to on the Judo forum, which although its a variation of Tomoe-nage I felt it was useful to keep and share.

Tomoe-nage

2011-10-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

There has been a bit of a delay in updating my blog since the last lesson due mainly to the fact that the morning after the lesson I was driving 300 miles to Cornwall for a week’s holiday with my Wife and Baby Daughter. Holidaying in the UK, even in the summer, can be unpredictable where the weather is concerned, but going in late September you are simply asking for wind and rain. Luckily for me the UK was experiencing some of the warmest days ever recorded for September (26-28c) so I needn’t have packed so many jumpers and coats.

Back to last week’s lesson and it was great to see Black Belt Stuart back at the club after a long absence due to a nasty toe injury/infection. Hopefully this is the start of more of the old regulars returning.

As for the finer details of the lesson, I’m afraid after a week’s holiday, where I consumed my own body weight in Cornish pasties, cream teas and Ice Cream, I can remember very little other than the main throw we worked on which was Tomoe-nage. Graeme commented that this was the throw most used in films during the 60’s and 70’s, I can just imagine Roger Moore pulling this one off in a James Bond Film followed by a “Judo Chop”.

We all took turns throwing everyone else in the class and to be honest I wasn’t too shabby at it. When it was my turn to be Uke I noticed that the fall can be a little hard, something to remember should the instructor ask for a volunteer Uke to demonstrate this throw next time.

As I said the rest of the details of the lesson are a little hazy but I should hopefully have a better reports on tomorrow’s lesson on Friday.

New Term

2011-09-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

After a summer of disappointment, where my Judo training is concerned, I was finally back at Dorking Judo club for my first lesson of the new term. As mentioned previously, I had intended to train at both Yoshin Ryu and Westcroft Judo club’s in the summer months but unfortunately a broken toe on the last weekend of July put paid to that, coupled with a mysterious stomach bug which has kept me laid low over the last week, although I did manage one outing to Yoshin Ryu a couple of weeks with Oli.

Anyway I was back tonight and although my stomach was still playing up a little bit, I was very much looking forward to getting back in to training.

Unfortunately, despite a very good exhibition stall at the Capel Flower Show (yes I do live in the countryside) that the club put on and lots of interest from people watching, there were no new seniors. In fact there were only 6 seniors in total, Graeme, Peter, Ynez, Big Stuart, Oli and myself.
What was new tonight was a giant crash mat that the club purchased with Sainsbury’s vouchers (over six thousand apparently) and before the class had started both Graeme and myself were practicing flying break falls on it and generally acting like a couple of juniors.

After a quick warm up we lined up at one end of the mat and practiced some Uchi-komi, finishing off with a throw of our choice on to the lovely new crash mat. Feeling rusty as I did I went with O-goshi and then progressed on to Tai-otoshi, the throw I’m determined to make my own but am still sadly some way off of doing. After several throws each, Graeme told us all to practice Ippon-seoi-nage. At this point I was paired with Ynez, who being over a foot shorter than me was probably to worse person I could have been paired with for this throw especially as the old knee’s aren’t what they used to be.
Graeme critiqued my throw as Ynez had got a little stuck on my back and he remarked that I needed to turn my head more to the left, which in turn would help drop my right shoulder, allowing her to drop on to the mat. A good tip and one I must try to remember for next time.

Peter called a halt to our fun with the crash mat and said we would be concentrating on throwing combinations this term, which is something I definitely feel I need to work on so was pleased about this. Tonight we would be working on the O-uchi-gari/Ko-uchi-gari combination, taking it in turns to attack with each throw first. Although this is a combination we have worked before I’ve never been any good at Ko-uchi-gari but tonight, whilst partnering Ynez, I felt like I started to get the timing right for this throw and also improved my O-uchi-gari, especially in regards to my reaping leg.

Following on from this combination we then worked on Ko-uchi-gari in to O-soto-gari and then progressed in to a left handed O-soto-gari, which seemed to flow better than the right handed version preceding the Ko-uchi-gari.

The last throw we looked at this evening was Ko-soto-gari, another one of these tricky foot sweeps that require good timing and balance.

We finished off with some Newaza, the highlight of which was a nice Juji-gatame from the turtle that I managed to pull off against Oli.

It was great to be back doing Judo again and I even managed to get through the whole session without causing too much pain to my broken toe. At the end of the class Graeme mentioned that both he and Stuart will be away quite a bit this term, with work commitments abroad, so it’s likely the class will be even thinner on the ground. I do hope we can soon get some fresh blood in to the place as I’m sure the club is sustainable, certainly not from a senior’s point of view, if this continues.

Judo Tips and Tricks

2011-09-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

Looking Good

The smoother and more controlled you are when you do Judo the better you look, because smoothness and control come only with skill and technique this isn’t easy to achieve. However there are some little tricks to make yourself look good.

The Serious

How you conduct yourself on the mat is important.

When you’re tired, worn out, feeling useless it’s important that you still conduct yourself like a man.

Don’t slump in a heap when watching a demo sit in seiza or anza (crossed legs) if your knees can’t take it.

If you’re knackered don’t just wonder off the mat and sit down.

Take yourself to a corner stay on your feet and just get your breath back, tidy your kit, sort yourself out. When you’re feeling ready rejoin the class and go with a sense of purpose to pick out your randori partner or whatever the situation is.

Sort your belt out.

If you haven’t done your belt properly you look like a complete chump. No one will ever take you or your Judo seriously if you don’t tie your belt properly.

If your belt looks like this

Sort it out quickly or expect people to laugh at you.
Even more so if you have a ‘dick belt’

Just, no.

Being knackered
Shiai

We’ve all been there its minute 4 of the contest and you are absolutely knackered. You need some time to get a breath, but when the fighting breaks you have to go back to your spot and start again right away, there aren’t any timeouts in Judo, or are there...

So you’re on a Judo contest mat. There’s the contest area, in green, the danger area, in red, and the two spots for the guy in the white belt and the guy in the blue belt.

Whenever there’s a break in the contest you return to your respective spots, white for white – blue for blue, and start again.
However, here lies the perfect opportunity to catch a few seconds of air.

Most people when the contest breaks they walk back from where it broke, at the X, to their spot.

The smart and experienced player knows that this is there opportunity to catch some breaths and so will take the longest and most circuitous route back to their spot they can

If you’re knackered 3 or 4 extra seconds of sucking in air makes a massive difference.

Those who are even cannier and or even more knackered can upgrade this little breath catching trick.

The fight should only restart when you are at your appropriate spot, so if you go to the wrong spot then it shouldn’t restart.

If the contest breaks at the X and blue walks back to whites spot and waits there ready to go.

This means that you not only look sincere in your attempt to continue, but also means that quite a few seconds will pass, because the ref won’t actually speak to say you’ve got it wrong. They will just gesture with their hands. You can game out the confusion for a good 5 maybe 10 seconds before ‘realising’ what you’ve done and then walking back to your correct spot.
You’ve broken your opponents concentration because of the deliberate mix up, you’ve gained maybe 15 extra seconds of air and are now in a much better state to get going again.

Now, obviously, you can’t do the second one more than once a match. However, the first you can milk for a good 3 or 4 goes depending on how blatant/subtle you are, and in a close fought match those few extra seconds you gain to get your breath can mean the difference between eking out the win and losing.

Randori

In randori its a million times easier to catch some breath and stay on the mat than it is in shiai, because there’s no ref to chide or penalise you.

If you’re 10, 5 minute randoris into your 1hr 30 randori session most likely you’re going to be sucking wind, unless you’re one of the top guys on the mat, in which case you won’t be reading this.

So you get thrown, attempt a throw and fall down, block a throw and fall down, or maybe even throw and you’re on a busy mat.

You’re the red circle, your partner right and all the other couples black.

However, you’re knackered the other guy is amped up and you need to catch a breather. Now you could just stand up and go straight back at it or you could be smart and get a few seconds of air and take yourself in a loop back to your partner, ideally behind another pair doing randori.

This is so you can gain even more time by, undoing your belt just as you past behind the other randori pair, marked by the X.

This means that when you get back to your partner you have your belt in your hand and can have a legitimate excuse to stand still for 10 seconds whilst you tie your belt. If you’re truly knackered make a hash of it first time round and take it off, re-adjust your jacket and then start the whole process of tying the belt again.

WINNING!

Getting a choke

Often from this position against an experienced opponent it can be difficult to get your hands in to apply a shimewaza. However, there is a simple and effective method to break even the toughest of defences.

Take your opposite side elbow and place it against uke’s ear, so right elbow against uke’s left ear.

Note it must be against the ear, no higher or lower, otherwise you will lose leverage.

Then simply drive your elbow across trying to get uke’s other ear to touch their shoulder. As the space is created slip your hand in to secure either the collar or bring the forearm across the neck for the Hadaka jime.

If your elbow and upper body is not strong enough to move their neck, then, well, you probably weren’t going to get anywhere anyway...

Being Fast
Usually fast is good.

Here is one way of creating acceleration into a throw from a static or slow moving situation during uchikomi and nagekomi.

I call it the ‘touch step’ because you bring your feet so that they almost touch to create speed for the step.

We start with the usual positioning

Then tori brings his foot to his other foot

This generates energy that can be released into the step.

Thanks to Judoka_uk for letting me publish this and apparently he does have many more tips and tricks, however, a true martial artist never reveals all of his moves and always keeps some in reserve so that the student can never become the master.

Judo Newaza Grappling International Fights

2011-08-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Although BJJ and Judo share a lot of common techniques I think this clip shows how differently Judo groundwork has evolved compared to the more patient style of BJJ, Personally I find this a lot easier on the eye than BJJ but still appreciate both arts.

This is why i do judo!!

2011-08-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Yoshin Ryu Judo Club – Coulsdon

2011-08-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

Following the injury to my Toe 4 weeks ago I decided I had rested enough and finally made it to Yoshin Ryu for some training as Dorking JC is still closed until the 8th September. As always I was accompanied by Oli.

Yoshin Ryu is located in an old church but is a permanent Dojo with matted floors, changing areas and showers and even a nice reception area where you can watch the lesson taking place via a nice TV up on a wall.

Oli and I were greeted by the head instructor and shown in to the changing rooms which are oddly situated across the matted floor area, so shoes had to be removed. Once we were changed we were told that our warm up would consist of a game of football. Whilst the game was going on we were joined by more and more guys who nearly all were wearing Black Belts. The football match seemed to be going on quite a long time and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that at this point I wasn’t a little worried that maybe I had made a mistake coming here and that maybe we would not be doing any Judo at all.

Once the match was finally over, my team losing 10-9, the head Instructor asked if we were all suitably warmed up which to be fair we all were. We then proceeded to go through some stretches before we partnered up for some Uchi Komi. We changed partners a couple of times, whilst still doing Uchi Komi before we then were then told to pick a throw we wanted to do and then to practice various set ups and entries to this one throw. I decided to pick O-uchi-gari and drilled various set ups such as Tai-otoshi, and Ko-uchi-gari. My Partner, a black belt, picked Drop Seoi-nage as his throw but rather kindly he dropped very slowly allowing me a very soft ukemi.

On to Newaza and I was paired up with the same black belt. I pulled guard and was able to keep him from passing my guard by using my legs and my hips to great effect. I even managed to catch him in a san-gaku-jime but was unable to finish him from this position. He did finally manage to pass my guard and got an osaekomi on me but matte was called shortly afterwards.

My next opponent was another black belt and again I pulled guard and did manage a nice flower sweep in to Tate-shiho-gatame. He did manage to turn to his side to escape this but I then took his back and worked for some sort of collar choke. I thought I had him but he refused to tap and eventually he managed to get out and again matte was called.

At this point I was pretty tired; I had just had two hard rolls with Black Belts and wasn’t feeling too strong anymore. The next couple of rolls went the same way, we knee wrestled, they got me down and passed my guard and either pinned or subbed me with a cross collar choke. Of course being submitted by Black belts is nothing to be ashamed of but I know I could of put up a better fight had I had more gas in the tank.

Randori was next and luckily half the class had to sit out due to mat space so I got a quick breather. They guys I did end up sparring with took it pretty easy on me, which I was grateful for, especially as at this point I was physically unable to put up much of a fight. As I mentioned when I attended Westcroft, I was dominated by grips again. Of course I was by far the lowest grade attending so it’s to be expected but I must work on ways of defending against dominant grips and learn to recognise when I am being out in an inferior position by my opponents grip.
After 3 rounds of Randori of which I only performed one throw successfully, a sloppy Tani-otoshi, the lesson came to an end.

Oli and I chatted briefly to the guys afterwards and it seems that we had missed a Brian Jacks visit by only 1 month which means if I hadn’t had broken my toe I might have been able to have taken part in a lesson by him, which as per my previous post is a real shame.

On reflection the standard at the club was very good and it was a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending this club and I will be back there myself next week.

Injuries and thoughts

2011-08-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

My summer training plans have been ruined somewhat by a freak accident that occurred to me the weekend after my end of term Judo lesson which resulted in me breaking my second toe on my right foot. I would like to report that this happened in Judo Randori or whilst someone attempted an ankle lock in BJJ but alas that is far from the truth. The truth is that in the early hours of Sunday morning my wife and I were woken by the loud meow’s of my blind Cat Freddie. Freddie often does this when he cannot locate my other cat, Frankie. The reason he wants to locate Frankie is so that he can beat him up.

Well Frankie was clearly hiding and not making a sound and as such Freddie’s meows got louder and louder. Fearing that these loud meows would wake my 5 month old daughter, Florence, I leapt out of bed and ran downstairs to make him quiet. Unfortunately, with the lights switched off I fell down the stairs and broke my toe.

Just to rub salt in the wounds I have been advised to lay off the weights for 10 days to allow my suspected tendinitis in my wrists to calm down which means I cannot run nor do any upper body exercises, which has left me nothing more than a keyboard Martial Artist for now.

I have therefore been trailing YouTube for some training advice and have been reading lots of Martial Arts related forums and have been thinking about the type of Martial Artists who have or continue to inspire me.

I’ll start with my old Wing Chun instructor Kevin Chan. I started Wing Chun when I was about 19 years old and at this point Kevin only had two clubs, one in Portsmouth, where he lives, and one in Croydon. I remember even back then that Kevin was already cross training in Maui Thai and would often take trips to Thailand to supplement his training and would then incorporate some of the leg techniques into the Wing Chun that he taught us. I guess it wasn’t until I quit Wing Chun that I truly understood what an impressive and inspirational Martial Artist Kevin was and I’ll explain why. Kevin’s Wing Chun Empire had grown exponentially, with clubs covering most of the south London area. But unlike a lot of other traditional Martial Artists, Kevin was not too proud to don a white belt and start training as a beginner in another martial art, namely BJJ. I’m not sure what Kevin’s reasons where for training in BJJ but I can guess that as Wing Chun is focused on stand up techniques he clearly felt he needed to know what to do should a fight go to the ground. Now not only did Kevin win numerous competitions in BJJ but he eventually received his Black Belt from Mauricao Gomes. Kevin now has a couple of Gracie Barra affiliated BJJ clubs where he teaches, in addition to the still expanding Wing Chun clubs that he runs and for these reasons he is truly a modern day Martial Artist and a true Master.

Next up is Brian Jacks, a Judoka who was the first Britain to win a medal in the world Championships, taking a bronze in Salt Lake City in 1967 and also gained a second bronze in the 1972 Olympics. Now I wasn’t born until 1972 so you might wonder why he would inspire me. Well it wasn’t until he started competing in the BBC TV show Superstars that he achieved real fame, winning it 4 times. I remember as a young kid cheering him on as he went on to win nearly every event that he entered. He was especially remembered for that famous gym test dual with another hero of mine Daley Thompson, the 2 x Olympic gold medal winner in the decathlon and probably Britain’s greatest ever Athlete. Jacks still holds the world record for the number of Dips and Squat thrusts he was able to do in a minute.

I had the pleasure of meeting Brian Jacks a couple of times. The first time was when I did Judo as a child and he was the club president and would occasionally pop in and give a lesson. Then a few years later he gave a Judo demonstration at a holiday camp that my dad had taken me to one summer and I was able to get his autograph.

So Brian Jacks was a hero of mine because he showed that Martial Artists could be the fittest and strongest of athletes and because Judo was the first Martial art that I studied.

When I am not training, one of my favourite pastimes is watching, reading or talking about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). The premier MMA organisation is called the UFC which stands for the Ultimate Fighting Championships. The UFC was established in 1993 and the early events had few rules, no gloves and was marketed as a Style versus style tournament which was held in an octagon shaped cage. These early events were dominated by a rather slim built, unimpressive physical looking specimen called Royce Gracie who was a black belt in Gracie Jiu-jitsu which has since essentially become more commonly known as BJJ. Royce won 3 events by taking much larger opponents to the ground, where there stand up skills were neutralized, and submitting them either via a choke or a joint lock. I remember buying these early UFC videos from HMV in Wimbledon and rather luckily they had already released the first 3 so I had a feast in one night watching all three. At this point in my Martial Arts training I had dismissed the likes of Judo as an effective Martial Art and thought that Kung-Fu was the most lethal form of self defense. I was very surprised then when this little man used techniques very similar to those found in Judo to win all his fights often against Kung-Fu, Karate & Kick boxing experts.

Now fast forward eighteen years and all the top MMA fighters have skills on the ground and on their feet. They are, if you like, a Martial Arts equivalent of a Decathlete as they can do everything very well indeed and just like a Decathlete will probably have an event that they excel in so does most of the top MMA fighters. Let’s take George St Pierre (GSP) as an example of a modern day MMA fighter. He has a 3rd dan Black belt in Kyokushin Karate and a black belt in BJJ. He also has some seriously good wrestling skills, so much so that he has considered trying out for the Canadian Olympic Wrestling team for next year’s Olympics games. Added to those skills he also trains extensively in boxing and Maui Thai and he comes across as a bloody nice bloke and a true gentleman and champion.

Royce Gracie at the age of 39 made a comeback against the then UFC Welterweight champion Matt Hughes. Unfortunately for Royce he hadn’t evolved like other MMA fighters and Royce still relied on the one thing he did exceptionally well, his BJJ. Matt Hughes was not only able to neutralize Royce’s ground skills but he almost finished Royce with a Kimura before finally stopping him via ground and pound in the first round. I think this fight showed how far MMA had evolved and Matt Hughes was then beaten just as easily by GSP, who does not appear to have any weakness in his game.

So Royce Gracie is the reason I wanted to explore grappling again and is the reason that so many people are now training BJJ but GSP, in my opinion is one of the finest Martial Artists that ever lived so I salute you both.

End of Term

2011-07-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

Not much to write following last night’s lesson as with it being the end of term lesson we generally don’t have a structured lesson and last night there were only 4 seniors on the mat. Quite a shame really as someone came in to watch the class, which is the first time anyone has actually come in to watch a class since I’ve been here. It was explained to him that what he was watching was not the normal class and that the club would now be closed until September. I hope he does come back.

I have decided to have a week off from Judo next week but after that I will attend Westcroft or maybe Yoshin Ryu in Coulsdon and will likely be accompanied by Oli. I’m also hoping that my old sparring partner Richie makes it down from Liverpool sometime in the summer and I have promised him a BJJ class at Nova Forca for his efforts.

I’m hoping by having next week off that the pain I have been getting in both my wrists and my left elbow may subside. I’m assuming the wrist pain is some sort of repetitive strain/tendinitis and have been dosing up on Ibuprofen. I’m also laying off the free weights for a couple of weeks which means I have been running a bit more this week and have already seen the benefits as I have been getting closer to the times I was recording when I was training for the marathon.

On another note, I hit 39 next week. Yikes, where did those years go?

half butterfly guard sweep

2011-07-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Just thought i'd add this as its a very simple and effective way of sweeping someone from the half guard and something I must try next class

Sumi-Gaeshi

2011-07-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

Before the class tonight both Oli and I were discussing ways of increasing the profile of the club especially with respect to getting more seniors through the door. Inez then walked in and has the exact same discussion with us both so I’m glad I’m not alone in realising we need more students.

Thankfully Ryan was present tonight but it appears that he is only managing to attend every other week at the moment. He was the first to congratulate me as he walked in as he noticed my shiny new, un-blood stained orange belt. I told Ryan that I had recently seen him on YouTube as I was watching a video of Tim getting his BJJ black belt on Nova Forca. Its traditional at this club for the recipient of a new belt to get whipped by the other students and seeing as Tim was getting his black belt he had to take the whipping with nothing but his boxer shorts to protect him. I was very grateful for the firm handshake I got from Peter for my orange belt and was glad we did not copy BJJ in this regard.

The throw for tonight’s lesson would be Sumi-gaeshi, a throw we have been shown before and a throw that I often try in Randori but very rarely am successful with.

When I was shown it last time it was with Tori gripping uke over his back and almost grabbing his belt. It was a good throw to do against someone who was bending over and being defensive or against someone who was maybe attempting a leg grab. Tonight we were shown how to do this throw with the normal collar and sleeve grip, first as a direct attack and then as a counter to Tai-otoshi. I was paired with Inez at this point and she proved to be an excellent Uke and really helped with my technique so that I was able to perform the throw and then follow straight in to Tate-shiho-gatame.
Unfortunately as this throw favours a taller person, when she attempted the over the back belt grip, she proceeded to pile drive my head straight in to the mat. For the sake of my head and much to my relief, she decided that maybe that version of the throw was not for her, at least not against someone over a foot taller than her anyway, and decided not to attempt it again.

We drilled this for quite some time which was refreshing as often we are shown 2-3 throws and never really feel like we practice them enough. However after 20 minutes of drilling the same throw, albeit with different grip variations, I felt like I could possibly pull this off in randori.

We moved on to some Newaza and kept with the same partners. Peter told us to flow from one technique to another and conscious that Inez always remarks that I use to much strength I tried to use little to none at all. This actually proved to be a really good roll with Inez as we both freely moved from one technique to another and by being loose and not using strength I felt I was able to react better to what she was trying to do and the whole roll probably looked very technical.

Next I was paired with Ryan and if my roll with Inez was gentle then this was completely the opposite. As mentioned before, Ryan is a BJJ blue belt and as such his ground game is pretty good. I spent most of my roll with Ryan trying to stop him passing my guard and was actually quite pleased that I managed to do so. I really enjoy the Newaza aspect of Judo and do wish they would give us longer to roll with each person before calling matte.

Peter then stood us up for some randori and Ryan and I continued our battle on our feet. Peter remarked that this was Randori and not shiai as we were both going for it a little too much. Of course there is no malice between Ryan and I, we are just quite evenly matched both in skill and physically and therefore we often reach a stalemate when we spar.

By the time we changed and I was paired up with Oli, Peter told us to go throw 4 throw. Oli was clearly working on his left handed throws and to be honest I was left completely flummoxed by them. The technique he had the most success with was a left handed Tai-otoshi. It’ll be interesting to see how he fairs when we go back to Westcroft in a couple of weeks time.

We then went on to some situational Newaza, where we took turns starting on our back or with Tori in our guard and then Peter went on to show us some nice broken variations of Yoko-shiho-gatame and kami-shiho-gatame.

Fighting or Playing? The Martial Art vs Sport Debate

2011-07-11T14:07:00.001-07:00

I was at work the other day and was walking back to my desk with a nice cup of tea and as I walked past this new guy’s desk I noticed he had Google open. Now there’s nothing wrong with using Google at work but what drew my attention was what he was Googling and that was Jiu-jitsu in Guildford. As I don’t work directly with this new guy I’ve never really spoken to him before but I had to just stop dead in my tracks and speak to him about this as I was very excited at the prospect of someone in my office being a fellow grappler.

So I asked him if the type of Jiu-Jitsu he was looking for was Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and he said yes but not specifically for him, more so for his girlfriend but he would accompany her anyway. So I told him of a website he could go to that has links to all the BJJ clubs in the UK and when I got back to my desk I swiftly emailed him. As there aren’t any BJJ clubs in Guildford and he wasn’t willing to travel far I suggested Judo to him and gave him links to a couple of Judo clubs in the Guildford area.

A week passed and I bumped in to him in the gym at work so I asked him if he had found somewhere. It turns out that his girlfriend really wanted self defence so has taken up Taekwondo. I could see that I would be wasting my time trying to explain what a good self defence Judo is, especially compared to Taekwondo, so I just said fair enough and I haven’t mentioned it to him since.

Now, why am I writing about this? Well I hear a lot of ill informed people discuss Martial Arts and quite often you hear people say that Boxing, Judo, BJJ, Kickboxing etc are all sport orientated and not really for self defence whereas Aikido, Wing Chun, Karate, flip flan foo (that last one was made up btw) is the real deadly stuff that will protect you on the streets and in fact it is so deadly that they cannot spar as they would kill each other. I recently came across this piece By Neil Ohlenkamp, which explains the difference between the training methods adopted by different Martial Arts and I think he says perfectly what I and a lot of other Martial Artists believe.

Many people think of Judo and Taekwondo as sports because they are included along with other major sports in Olympic competition. Boxing, wrestling, Judo, taekwondo, and kickboxing are examples of martial sports. I often hear martial artists who use the term "sport" as if referring to a game with no usefulness. The implication is that a sport is only for "play" and cannot be effective for self defense, fighting or combat. Many martial artists think that the distinction between sport and martial art is that martial artists train for real life.

Actually the distinction is more complex and rather surprising. In discussing it I will make generalizations that may not apply to the way you train in your sport or martial art. However I hope to give you a new way to look at the potential value of sports principles for martial arts training.

One of the primary differences between martial sports and arts is in the value of the training methods. Because of their alleged danger or lethality, many martial arts engage in artificial and even counter-productive training which involves "pulling" techniques, modifying the point of contact, and adding in a precautionary element of movement that, rather than training the body, can inhibit its natural action and the ultimate conclusion of a technique. Slow, careful, non-contact training is not an effective approach to prepare for actual fighting situations that require the opposite reactions. Typifying this approach is a student who falsely equates the ability to break boards with the ability to punch a person in the face. As another example, I have never seen realistic training in throat strikes or eye gouges in any martial arts class, even though these are often recommended for self defense. The teaching generally done for these techniques helps students to understand what to do, but does not provide effective results for fast, reflexive and accurate application of these techniques against an unwilling opponent in real life combat.

Sport, by removing some of the potential dangers, achieves the opposite. That is, sport more typically produces natural, fast, reflexive movement with full power application, achieving a result against a struggling opponent who is also utilizing full power while engaging in strategic and tactical resistance using all of his or her resources and training. Techniques that don't work are soon abandoned, and successful skills are honed against different attackers under a variety of conditions. Maintaining control in various combat situations, both in attack and defense, is difficult when faced with the unpredictable nature of an opponent's efforts, but facing these situations in contest prepares you for similar situations. Each opponent in competition is operating at the limit of physical and psychological skill. By pushing that limit contestants are continually realizing and expanding their potential.

Sometimes the "combat" arts substitute intellectual perception, a highly subjective and deceptive frame of reference, for genuine training of the body and mind. Some martial arts don't train effectively for self defense and combat because they can't train for combat without severe risk to training partners. Many martial arts have instead adopted highly stylized, ritualistic, and even dysfunctional training methods. Ironically, martial sports may provide the superior training in effective combat techniques because martial arts can't be practiced in a real life way without injury.

In martial sports, one purpose of competition is to take the place of the older shinken shobu (life-and-death fights) in developing technique, knowledge, and character. You never see yourself so clearly as when you face your own death. Competition can provide a safe, controlled glimpse at this kind of defeat. Fighting spirit can be developed only through fighting. Surely it is not the same as the battlefield, but it serves a similar purpose, and it is closer to a combat situation than any other form of training.

Of course this can go wrong. Winning and losing can become too important and start to pervert the training process. The ultimate goal should not be the winning of medals. Using sport competition as a metaphor for real fighting can be quite different from playing it as a game. Matches, along with free practice and sparring, are simply different methods for training the mind and body to deal with the adversity of fighting situations.

Just as non-competitive martial arts training may not provide the benefits of competition, training for sport competition may not provide the full scope of self defense training. Martial sports often include non-competitive components. For example, competition is only a part of the Judo curriculum, and Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, was very concerned about preserving those self defense techniques that could not be used with full force in competition. However, Judo remains a remarkably effective self defense training, even after the development of other modern "combat" methods, and even when Judo is practiced today largely as a sport. Jigoro Kano applied modern sport training methodology to the traditional koryu jujutsu and found that it produced a better combat art, which has proven itself again and again over the last 120 years.

Although martial arts and sports both have loftier goals, it is still a fact that many people train in martial arts primarily for self-defense. For those who have never used sport training methods, or those who have never explored traditional bujutsu training, it is easy to discount the effectiveness of the other. As martial artists we should continually seek opportunities to challenge ourselves by examining the weaknesses in our training and keeping our minds open to other methods. I encourage you to discover for yourself how "playing" with a partner in sparring or free practice, or competing against an opponent in contest, can be an effective method of training for self defense.

4th Kyu

2011-07-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

I got to class a few minutes early tonight and watched the juniors finish up their training. Judo is definitely a great Martial Art for kids to start with especially as there are no kicks or punches to contend with. It’s definitely something I would like Florence to try when she gets a little older.

Yet another poor turnout for the seniors with only Oli and myself making it along with Peter and Graeme, although Graeme’s son David joined us again.

After we were warmed up we paired up for some Newaza and we all sparred with each other. One of the techniques that I managed to pull off against both Oli and David was Turnover in to Tate-shiho-gatame, which was particularly satisfying as it was one of the techniques that I still needed to perform for my grading. Following the Newaza Peter and Graeme decided I should finish up what was left of my orange belt grading. As I did the bulk of my grading a couple of weeks ago there wasn’t much left to do this evening and within 15 minutes Peter had presented me with a nice new orange belt.

Only a couple more lessons left until the club closes for the summer months and Oli and I have already decided that we will be training at Westcroft Judo club over this period. Hopefully this means that when the club opens again in September I can hit the ground running and concentrate on my getting my green belt, the first of the darker coloured belts and considered by most as the start of the senior belts.

In to the valley

2011-07-05T07:34:00.000-07:00

I was glad to see that Ryan was back tonight after a longish absence but again it was a poor turnout for the seniors. Graeme and Peter took the class and Graeme’s 15 year old son David, a brown belt, was also in attendance.

We warmed up with our partner by carrying them across the mat. First in a sort of fireman’s carry and then we took an O-goshi position, with uke on our back and walked across the mat.
On to the throws and Graeme said he would be showing us both Tani-otoshi (Valley Drop) and Yoko-otoshi (side drop)

As mentioned before I have had some success already with Tani-otoshi as it seems to suit the taller Judoka but I have not been shown this throw properly since I was first taught it at Westcroft Judo club many years ago. One of the things that I was doing wrong with this throw was that instead of planting my foot on the ground behind my Uke I was instead using it to try and sweep his leg, usually at the back of his knee. Although you can still be successful with the throw doing it this way it ends up being very similar to kani basami or Scissor throw, which is illegal in Judo competition and can therefore get you disqualified.

After Ryan and I had practiced this throw many times, Graeme then went on to show us Yoko-otoshi, which is very similar to Tano-otoshi but instead of getting round the back of Uke you merely go to the side.

Graeme and his son David left shortly after this which meant Peter took over the class. Peter said he was going to show us some elbow locks and proceeded to show us Ude-garami, Ude-gatame and finally waki-gatame.

Then with time quickly running out we finished with some Randori. As there were only 3 of us we would each take turns having two fights together for two minutes each. It doesn’t sound much but after a couple of rounds we were all breathing a little heavy.

I was first up against Ryan and continuing my philosophy of attacking Judo I went straight in for a Tai-otoshi but Ryan, having learned today’s lesson well countered with Tani-otoshi and proceeded to drop me accordingly. Peter also allowed the fight to continue on the ground, unless the throw was an Ippon or unless there was a stalemate on the ground. Following Ryan’s successful Tani-otoshi I managed to regain guard and was actively looking for a san-gaku-jime when Peter called time and made us stand again. This time I was a bit more hesitant to attack Ryan as he was clearly going to counter my Tai-otoshi all day long with Tani-otoshi. Ryan then attacked me and low and behold I threw him with Tani-otoshi. Ryan got guard and Peter called time whilst I was trying to pass his guard.

I got a rest now as Ryan and Oli battled it out but I was soon back in there, this time against Oli.
Now this is where the rest of the evening was a bit hazy but I do know that I was able to throw Oli for Ippon with O-uchi-gari. I was particularly pleased with this throw as I really drove forward, after I hooked his leg, until he eventually fell backwards.

I then managed to throw Ryan with O-uchi-gari and another throw in combination with something else but I have no idea what this was, only that Oli commented on it afterwards saying that he was impressed with my set up. Peter called matte shortly after this and we warmed down with the usual putting away of the mats.

Ryan and I were buzzing after our session tonight as we both really enjoy randori, both tachiwaza and newaza, especially in the format we trained in tonight. Hopefully with both of us moving up the gradings there will be more of these type of sessions in the future.

Overall I was pleased with my Randori tonight and was also impressed with Ryan’s standup especially considering he hadn’t been for a few weeks. I guess the real test will be when I go back to Westcroft in the summer for one of their Randori only nights.

Flower Sweep from guard

2011-06-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

Just been looking at Youtube and found this sweep that I have used before in Judo. I;ve since found out that it's commonly referred to as "The Flower Sweep" by BJJ'ers.
Funny thing about this video is that I was actually present at this class when it was being filmed but am just out of shot on the right of the screen.

Uchi-Mata

2011-06-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

Following last week’s poor turnout in the seniors we had two extra headcount (Oli & Ynes) joining us tonight. Unfortunately there was still no sign of Ryan or Jamie. I do hope Ryan, especially, hasn’t quit. Hopefully I will find out more following the text I just sent to him.

I had been very much looking forward to tonight’s lesson as I was sure I would be finishing my Orange belt grading that I started last week. Trying to learn, parrot fashion, all the English translations for the Japanese techniques when you have a four month old crying baby in your arms isn’t easy but I had sufficiently learnt them, with the help of my Wife, to be confident that I would be able to remember them when asked.

Following a quick warm up we were told to partner up for some Newaza, starting with one of us on all fours. I paired up with Ynes and volunteered to be first in the all fours position. Ynes attempted to roll me over but somehow I managed to end up in her guard where on passing she turtled up. I took her back and tried in vain to sink in a choke before matte was called.

Now it was her turn to start on all fours and I tried a basic turnover but she wasn’t having it. Again I took her back but she managed to turn around until she was in my guard. I pushed her arm out and started applying San-gaku-jime slowly but was picked up on this by both Peter and Ynes herself. I had the right arm of Ynes in the triangle and was about to move to my right to get the right angle to choke her but she insisted I move to her left, which was odd. Peter agreed with me, that I should move to my right but his criticism was more about the length of time Ynes was in the choke without tapping. I’m not sure why I didn’t slap on the choke full pelt as I would normally. Maybe it’s because Ynes usually comments about me using too much strength against her or maybe subconsciously I was aware that she is a female, albeit a 2nd Dan international female, but still someone who is about a foot smaller than me and did not want to hurt her.

We changed after this and I was paired with big Stuart. This time we started in the guard and Stuart, after several attempts managed to pass to half guard where I basically hung on for dear life. Stuart started applying a collar choke but I managed to sweep unfortunately ending up in his guard. As he applied more pressure to the collar choke I was preparing to tap but wanted to see if I could hold out and luckily Graeme called matte just in time. We changed positions again shortly after with both of us starting, lying on our stomachs. The first time Stuart was able to pin me and the second time, after Stuart turtled up I attempted a turnover in to Juji-gatame, but Stuart hung on to his arm long enough until matte was called.

Peter then went on to show us both San-gaku-jime and San-gaku-gatame. As Stuart isn’t the most flexible of people his San-gaku-jime wasn’t having the desired effect on me. I told him that I had seen a slight variation on this move from a Youtube video that Tony, a regular reader of this blog, provided me with a little while ago whereby you under hook on your right side and are basically side on to your opponent. This means that instead of squeezing your thighs together, which requires a certain amount of flexibility, you are doing a sort of leg press movement with your right leg, which is easier to perform. Stuart then tried this on me and got me to tap quickly, which he seemed pleased about.

Going on to tachiwaza and tonight’s focus would be on Uchi-Mata. After being showed the correct entry to this throw I again paired up with Stuart. After a couple of attempts I was able to feel quite comfortable with this throw. Whist writing this post I noticed that I had previously remarked on the 20th November 2010 that I wasn’t able to perform this throw very well, but tonight couldn’t be further from the truth as I was even able to throw Stuart who due to his size is quite often difficult to throw. Does this prove a distinct improvement of my understanding of Judo? I hope so.

Once we had both practiced this throw a dozen or so times Graeme asked us to think of a combination to this throw. I suggested to Stuart that Ko-Uchi-gari would be a good combination and he concurred. We then continued to practice this combination until Graeme finally called matte. Being asked to think of combinations of techniques and putting them together reminded me a little of my Wing Chun days when we would often be told to come up with combinations from a punch blocked with a Bong-sau or a Tan-sau. Learning in this way really helps a student to understand the flow of a technique and the Ko-Uchi-gari to Uchi-mate combination is one that I will try next time we do Randori.

Realising that I would need at least 10-15 minutes to finish my grading I glanced up at the clock and was disappointed to see that it was already 10.00pm. Peter remarked that we would finish my grading before the end of the term but I couldn’t help but feel a little deflated as I expected to be leaving here tonight with a shiny new Orange belt. Oh well, as Mr Miyagi would say, patient’s Stuart-san.

BJJ Brown Belt Demonstration

2011-06-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

We had a discussion at Judo the other night about how in BJJ there is no formal grading, well Roy Dean's Academy seems to be an exception to this rule. This may be in part due to his many years of formal training in various Japanese Martial Arts as he holds a 1st Dan in Judo and Aikido as well as a 3rd Dan in Japanese Jujutsu. Of course he is also a Black in BJJ.Anyway I stumbled across this on Youtube, which is a BJJ Brown Belt grading and was really impressed with how smooth the transitions are between each technique and thought it was worth putting on here for reference.

Orange is close

2011-06-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

If I’m walking around with a certain spring in my step today it’s because at last night’s Judo I surprisingly did a big chunk of my Orange belt (4th kyu) grading. This was made possible because oddly I was the only senior student who turned up last night, which meant I had Peter, Graeme and Big Stuart all to myself.

In my post dated 1st June 2011 I commented that there were still several techniques which I had never performed in the class and therefore I was unsure whether I would grade before the club closed for Summer but I somehow managed to perform these techniques adequately enough to pass, although both Graeme and Peter kindly allowed me a couple of goes to get the techniques right.
I literally only have a couple of techniques left to perform next week, along with Randori and a verbal test on the translation of each technique, so with any luck I’ll get my Orange belt next lesson.

With the combinations one has to learn for Orange belt I can see that this level is where one begins to understand the concepts of Judo. The techniques I learnt for Red and Yellow belt were just throws, with some emphasis on Kuzushi (breaking Uke’s balance). Now I can start to see how one throw leads to opportunities for another. Additionally I am also beginning to see counters to the throws that my opponents are trying on me.

After attending the Randori night at Westcroft Judo Club I was immediately aware that I had little idea of how to set up the throws that I knew, unless my opponent was making an obvious mistake. As the lowest grade at Westcroft (apart from myself) was a Green belt, I was dominated in the stand up and could not find any opportunities to throw my opponent and was often countered every time I went for a throw myself. Since then Oli has helped me with a couple of combinations, one of which is Tai-Otoshi – O-uchi-gari and Big Stuart has helped me with my grips.

So for the rest of this term my plan will be to always think 1 throw ahead when I do Randori, i.e. never try a single technique without thinking about another technique that may become available on the back of it. I’ll work out maybe 3-4 combinations that I will try and drill until they become second nature and then as I get more experienced I can add to them.

I really appreciated the lesson tonight and the opportunity that Peter, Graeme and Stuart gave me to grade, so a big thanks to all of them. Although tonight the lack of seniors worked out in my favour I do hope this is only temporary and that those seniors who have been absent recently soon return.

Looking forward to next week now and hopefully I’ll be changing my belt colour.

Stiff Arming and Grips

2011-06-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

Another fairly small turnout last night, along with Peter & Inez there was only 3 seniors including myself. I’m hoping the absence of the likes of Ryan & Jamie is only temporary.

For the second week running I was sporting a new pair of Gi Bottoms which I had purchased from Black Eagle, due to my old pair shrinking a little too much. Now the reason I was wearing my second new pair in a week was because the pair I received last week shrunk about 6 inches after one 30 degrees wash, which is totally unacceptable. To their credit Black Eagle agreed to send me a replacement pair straight away, which I think is excellent customer service. I haven’t however washed the new pair yet so I will wait before I pass judgment on the quality.

As part of our warm up Peter had us pair up and practice pulling our partners up and down the mats. We then progressed to a double collar grip and we pulled our partners in to position for Morote-eri-seoi-nage. I had trouble getting used to the entry for this throw as I couldn’t get my feet in the right position or get my grips and wrist in the correct position either. Now I was expecting that we would then go on to practice this throw but instead Peter told us to go in to some Newaza and practice going from Pin to Pin, with our partner offering resistance.

As usual the groundwork is where I feel most comfortable. Just moving from Pin to Pin I felt in control and everything flowed well between the moves.

Peter then showed us Hiza-gatame, first from a kneeling position, which is how it’s taught in Kata and then from our backs with uke in our guard. I liked this technique especially how the pressure is immediately on the elbow and a tap is usually forthcoming very quickly. Another good aspect of this submission is that by hooking your leg under uke’s chin and pulling their gi across their neck you also have a nice choke.

We then stood up for some light throw for throw randori. I was paired with big Stuart and it was whilst sparring with him that he showed me a nice entry in to Osoto-otoshi, which is especially useful if your opponent is “Stiff arming” you. Basically, assuming you are attempting a right handed throw and your opponent is stiff arming using their right arm, you take a grip on their gi under their right elbow with your left hand and pull down quickly, thus bending their arm. At the same time as you do this you come in for Osoto-otoshi. Even if your opponent is not “stiff arming” you, it’s still a useful entry as quite often your opponent will block your entry in to Osoto-otoshi with their right arm.

Following this Peter then showed us an alternative technique to do if someone “stiff Arms” you and makes you fail an Osoto-otoshi and this was a Yoko-guruma. It’s an interesting throw and I’m not sure how easy it would be to pull off in competition but I was able to perform this fairly well after only a couple of attempts.

We then progressed in to some more competitive randori where I tried and succeeded with a Tai-otoshi /O-uchi-gari combination and also a successful Tani-otoshi, after Peter told me to not attack the legs but rather the floor behind their legs. This made a difference and hopefully I will have further success with this throw going forward.

After we had all spared with each other Peter had one of us stand in the middle of the floor and the rest of us would take turns attacking for about 1 minute at a time. Once the person in the middle had fought everyone it was someone else’s turn. Following on from my observations last week where I noticed that I was being dominated by grips, this happened again against Oli and Big Stuart. Inez commented that I was using too much strength in fighting for my grips and I admit I could feel my arms getting heavier as the randori went on. Still both Oli and Big Stuart have years more Judo experience than me and it’s only fair that I should expect to be dominated by both these guys. What will be interesting is how I fair against the likes of Ryan and Jamie, assuming they come back that is.

An excellent lesson from Peter and I left in good spirits.

Westcroft Judo Club - Randori only night

2011-06-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

With my club, Dorking, being closed for half term I decided I wanted to get some practice in elsewhere. In the past I have attended BJJ at Nova Forca in Epsom when my Judo club is closed and although I really enjoy BJJ I think I need to concentrate on pure Judo for a while and maybe go back to BJJ once I’m a higher grade in Judo.

Before I moved to the Surrey countryside I used to live in South London and trained Judo at Westcroft Judo club so despite the rather long drive I decided to pay them a visit especially as I knew they had a Randori only night on Tuesday evenings.

As usual my partner in crime was Oli. After a 30 minute drive, which on reflection wasn’t as long as I thought it would be, we got to the Dojo with 15 minutes to spare.
When I used to train at Westcroft, about 7 years ago, they were based in the local leisure centre and mats had to put out and put away before and after each class. Now Westcroft have a purpose built Dojo in a Sports hall, with permanent matting on spring loaded floors and matted walls. They also have use of changing rooms and showers for both male and females.

We got changed and paid our subs (£5) and waited for the junior Randori session to finish. The Instructor Andy Ede not only recognised me from years ago but also recognised Oli from a coaching course they had both been on recently. Andy introduced both of us to the rest of the seniors present and we then proceeded to do a quick warm up and stretch before moving on to a workout.

The workout consisted of Breakfalls, Shrimping, Firemans carry with squats and various other exercises. Although it couldn’t have lasted longer than 10 minutes everyone was breathing heaving afterwards and totally warmed up and ready to spar.

We started with some Newaza from the usual kneeling position and I was paired with a green belt. I decided to pull guard and see if I could work something off my back but he was strong and wise to my attempts at subs and sweeps. Eventually though I was given an opportunity to reverse positions and I got a mune-gatame on just as Andy called matte.

Next up was a black belt and somehow I almost caught him in a Juji-gatame but he managed to escape. I’m not sure how much effort he was putting in to his roll with me but I was pleased nonetheless.

The rest of the rolls I had ended in my opponent getting some sort of pin on me but all of them were Brown belts so I wasn’t too disheartened.

Andy then changed things slightly to some situational Newaza where we started first from the guard and then from a turtle position. Following this we stood up and, still with our partners, Andy would call out a throw for one of us to perform on the other and following the throw we would continue in to Newaza. I was very impressed with this way of training Newaza as we seemed to really cover all the possible outcomes of shiai. Additionally I was suitably impressed with the skill level of their ground skills and Oli confirmed this afterwards.

By the time we finished with the Newaza I was very tired but Andy only allowed us a quick drink break before we got on to the standing Randori.

Andy wanted two pairs up at a time so luckily I was able to sit out the first round of fights whilst I caught my breath but was called on to the mat for round two. I paired up with the same green belt that I had paired up with earlier for Newaza (I’m no good at remembering names). What I found when sparring with him and indeed everyone in the club was that they were able to dominate me with their grips, thus allowing them to throw me more easily. I remembered that when I last trained here several years ago I got injured trying to avoid being thrown so this time I went with it and practiced my Ukemi. To be fair none of the guys went too hard on me but they did enough to make me realise that Tachiwaza is my weak point. After several rounds of Randori and many opportunities for me to practice my Ukemi I finally managed to throw someone, a Brown belt as well, with an O-uchi-gari.

We did a quick warm down and stretch and then Andy lined us all up and thanked both Oli and I for visiting the club. If I lived nearer and didn’t have so many responsibilities, had more money and time I would definitely train here more regularly but alas, for now my visits to Westcroft will have to be restricted to times when my own club is closed or maybe if a competition is coming up and I need the extra training.

On reflection both Oli and I were made to feel very welcome, not only by Andy but by all of the seniors that we trained with. The standard of Judo here is high and the level of their fitness is equally so. Anyone reading this that lives in the area could do a lot worse than to pay this club a visit.

Thanks Andy for a great training session.

Tai-Otoshi & Kata-gatame

2011-05-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

Only four students tonight with Peter and Graeme instructing and after a very quick warm up we were told to partner up. We were then told to pull our partner across the mat and whilst doing so we were to get in to position to throw with Ippon-seoi-nage. We practiced this a few times up and down the mats with each of us taking turns being uke. There was a particular emphasis on turning in to our partners using just two steps. Being taller than everyone in my club this isn’t a favourite of mine and I doubt I would ever attempt it in Shiai but breaking the throw down like this definitely helps.

Following this we then went on to some groundwork and Pater had us go through various holds, and made us practice moving from one to the other, whilst ensuring that we had control at all times.

We started in Kesa-gatame, and then moved to Kata-gatame, then Tate-shiho-gatame, then into Yoko-shiho-gatame before finally finishing in Kesure-kesa-gatame. I was with Big Stuart for this and we practiced first with no resistance from Uke and then with Uke resisting each hold.

Finally Peter showed us the submission from Kata-gatame, which is basically an Arm Triangle in BJJ although the way Peter applied the submission it was more like a neck crank than a choke, which is technically illegal in Judo Shiai. Still the pain was so sudden that you had to tap straight away, which would very likely be missed by a potential referee.

You can see from the pic of Kata-gatame (this is not on the BJA website,) that this differs from your usual Arm Triangle strangle due mainly to the angle from which it is applied. An Arm Triangle puts more emphasis on pushing the arm across your opponent’s neck and using that to choke him with whereas with the high angle of Kata-gatame you can see why the neck is cranked.

We then went back to the throw we had started to break down at the beginning of the class and Peter got the crash mats out. We all took it in turns to throw everyone else and for some reason I just wasn’t on form tonight. In fact the best throw of the night went to Jamie, who threw Big Stuart right over his head with a near perfect Ippon-Seoi-nage. When I was throwing I seemed to be using too much effort, probably because I wasn’t getting down low enough, but like I said earlier this throw does not suit tall people.

Our next throw to practice was Tai-otoshi and again it just never felt quite right, probably because we haven’t practiced this throw in a while. Despite my throws not being the best I really enjoyed having the crash mats out and wish that we could have more lessons with the crash mats out so we could just practice all the throws we have learnt.

Looking back at the nights lesson I can see this was tailored towards someone taking their 5th grading, i.e. Ryan. Unfortunately Ryan wasn’t there tonight but it was good for me to go over these techniques again, although looking at the Orange Belt Syllabus I have a lot of throws that I haven’t done before or done in a long time and they are:

Ko-uchi-gari
Tsuri-komi-goshi
Ko-soto-gake
Ko-soto-gari
O-soto-gari
Seoi-otoshi

So as you can see I have my work cut out to learn all of these. Hopefully the next lesson will have some of these throws on the lesson plan.

Newaza is for babies

2011-05-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

So there I was yesterday evening changing the nappy of my 3 month old daughter Florence. Like most babies of her age she likes to grab fingers and last night she had a firm grip of both my pinkies. Another thing that babies do is bring their knees up to their chest and kick their legs around. So last night she had both my pinkies and her feet were planted firmly against both my hips and all of a sudden I realised that she had me in a Spider Guard. Realising that this was not a good position to be in I tried to break her grip but she has new baby strength in her grip at the moment so that didn’t work. I finally managed to cartwheel over to my right, gaining side control and went in for a mune-gatame but alas the hold was broken as her little legs scooted under me and now I was in her guard. Luckily enough she isn’t yet able to roll on her side, so I had no fear of her sweeping me but I doubt it will be too long before she is able to.

I wonder if I am the only new father who does Newaza with their 3 month old baby?

Seoi-nage

2011-05-16T02:56:00.000-07:00

Peter and Graeme took the class tonight and present amongst the students were Big Stuart, Oli, Ryan and myself.

After a quick warm up Peter got us started with some Newaza. Graeme told us to start on all fours, side by side, as though a throw had been attempted and both of us had fallen to our knees. Graeme also said that he would make us re-start if no progress was made thus simulating shiai Newaza conditions.

My first roll was with Big Stuart and although I started off pretty well Stuart was eventually able to pass my guard and get kazure kesa gatame on me. Fortunately I was able to trap his leg and return to half guard before we both finally rolled off the matted area and at this point Graeme had already called matte. As I changed partners I realised that I hurt my neck and was finding it painful to turn my head either fully left or right and looking upwards was even more painful.

My next roll was with Oli and this time we started by both laying on our stomachs next to each other, again trying to simulate a position we might find ourselves in during shiai. When Graeme called hajime I was the first to rise and decided to pull guard. I held the material on his gi pants to control his legs and moved to side control where I attempted to get Mune-gatame. Oli was defending against this so I got the mount and then went for tate-shiho-gatame and at this point Oli bridged and turned me over and as I rolled onto my back I took his arm and went for a juji-gatame. Although initially this lock was on Oli managed to flip out of it and he then ended up in my guard and at this point Graeme called matte.

At some point in our roll I had briefly gotten Oli’s back and Oli commented after that I should have choked him with a collar choke. I have noticed in the past that when I get someone’s back I get confused as to what collar I should grab and in which direction I should pull it and this is something I am going to make a conscious effort to look at so I will be visiting youtube and looking through my various Judo books over the coming week.

For the benefit of Ryan, who will be grading shortly for his Yellow belt, Peter showed us Kami-shiho-gatame and we worked with our partners on holding and trying to escape.

Now on to Tachiwaza and Graeme took us through the details of Ippon- Seoi-nage. We first drilled kuzushi and then added the entry before we strung the whole thing together and started throwing one another. As I am the tallest person at the club this isn’t an ideal throw for me as I have to bend my legs quite a lot to get my hips bellow my opponent. But I was able to throw Oli, my uke, fairly comfortably.
Graeme then went on to show us a couple of set ups for this throw, for example attacking your opponents right leg with Ko-uchi-gari often results in them stepping backwards with their right leg to avoid the throw, thus leaving a nice bit of space for you to get under with Ippon-seoi-nage.

After we drilled this several times we got the crash mats out and Graeme showed us drop-seoi-nage which involved the thrower dropping on to two knees, so not for people with dodgy knees then.
I was again quite surprised that I was able to pull this throw off quite nicely, as we all took turns being the thrower and throwing the rest of students on to the crash mat.

Despite my neck injury, which 4 days later is feeling a lot better but still a little stiff, another very enjoyable lesson. As I mentioned above I am going to make a conscious effort to learn and drill some collar chokes and I want to be writing about how I submitted someone with a collar choke in the near future.

One Legged Judo

2011-05-06T05:47:00.000-07:00

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.

The Kesa's

2011-05-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

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.

The High Wycombe Newaza Championship 2011

2011-04-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in previous posts I had already withdrawn from the London Marathon due to new family commitments but this did mean that I was able to compete in the High Wycombe Newaza Championships for the second year running which was more than a good substitute.

Oli picked me up around 7.30am as we had to weigh in before 9am in High Wycombe and despite taking the wrong exit off the M40 we made it with about 15 minutes to spare.

With all the training that I had been doing for the Marathon I was in pretty good shape and a fair bit lighter than I was the previous year, or so I thought. Last year I weighed in at 93.5kg and had to fight in the under 100kg category but because the over 100kg was a little short on competitors they merged them in with the under 100kg’s. This meant there were some guys who were 5-6 stone heavier than me in my category. Seeing as I had, only a few weeks earlier, been weighed at 88kg I was confident that I could keep that weight and fight in the under 90kg category thus ensuring I didn’t come up against the Judo equivalent of Brock Lesnar. The previous day I passed on Cake and Chocolate and beer whilst I was dinning at a friend’s house with my wife to further ensure I didn’t needlessly put on extra weight, but when it was my turn to step on those scales at High Wycombe I was gutted when the lady told me I was 1kg over.

So here I was again being the lightest in my weight category and again being a lowly 5th kyu fighting in the 3rd kyu and under division I was one of the least experienced. Oli weighed in and only just made his weight of under 90kg but he was fighting in the Blue/Brown belt division. We walked in to the dojo and scanned around the stands looking for Ryan who had made his own way here with his daughter, Rachael.

Once we located Ryan we made our way up to him and Ryan quickly confirmed that he also missed his weight and had weighed in at 93kg, so both Ryan were still to be fighting in the same category. It was at this point when I started to scan the dojo for my potential opponents and it was then that I saw Godzilla walk in wearing a Judo gi and a green belt. Yikes, this guy was huge and being a green belt would likely be in my category. I was silently hoping that Ryan would have to fight this guy instead of me.

We all managed a quick 5 minute warm up before everyone was called off the mats. The head referee then went over the rules and etiquette and shortly afterwards my category was called out to mat 2.

It was now that both Ryan and I were able to see who we would likely be fighting. As suspected Godzilla was in our category but there were also some other large looking guys, maybe not as tall as Godzilla but certainly wider.

After only a couple of fights my name was called and I was told to wear the white belt and wearing the blue belt would be……………Godzilla. Now if you want to win these types of tournaments you have to, at some point, fight the best but you really don’t want to have to fight them in your first match.

On the hour long drive up to High Wycombe I was discussing tactics with Oli as last year I favored pulling guard as I was fighting guys considerably larger than I. This year however I was expecting to be the heaviest in my category so all my tactics had been based around attacking my opponent and looking for pins and or submissions should they arise. I favored a Mune-gatame, with the option of grabbing an arm and going for an Ude-garami should my opponent start to escape, however all this had gone out of the window with me missing weight and I was back to the “pulling guard” and hoping they made a mistake tactic.

Both Godzilla and I took our position on the mat and bowed and then stood on one knee. The referee shouted Hadjime and Godzilla attacked me straight away by grabbing my gi collar and pushing me back thus forcing me to pull guard. He postured up and tried a cross lapel choke but I was never going to be submitted with that whilst he was in my guard despite it being very uncomfortable. I tried in vain to pull him down as his posture was so strong and still he was trying this cross lapel choke on me. After a little while the referee called matte due to inaction and made us start again and Godzilla did the same thing, just literally charged me and pushed me down forcing me to pull guard. I grabbed his gi collar with both arms and actually hung in mid air whilst trying to pull him down but he was so strong he was able to keep his posture still. The referee again made us restart and I was beginning to lose heart a little as I was quickly running out of ideas as to how to beat this guy.

When we restarted I decided attack was my only option as pulling guard would have just meant Godzilla winning on points. I went for grips and tried to push him over but Godzilla was able to get me off balance and he ended up in side control and quickly got a kesa-gatame hold on me. As if the hold wasn’t enough he grabbed the collar of my gi and pulled it across my neck, applying a very uncomfortable choke and much as I tried to not tap, I had to as I was starting to get that feeling of drifting off to sleep.

The only positive thing I could take from my first fight was that unlike last year I was not completely drained. In fact I still felt pretty good. The only problem was that everyone looked bigger than me so I couldn’t see any easy fights for me.

I then watched Ryan struggle against someone much larger than him and despite Ryan having a very good guard he was not able to do anything off his back and he also lost his first fight. I asked the scorekeepers what the format was and she told me that as I had lost my first fight I would have to fight against another guy who had lost and that I would have to win that in order to advance further. The guy I did eventually end up fighting against, although heavier than me was not as tall. This fight followed a similar pattern to my first fight. He attacked and pushed me over on my back where I pulled guard and from here he was trying cross lapel chokes on me. Does anyone ever have any success with these whilst in someone’s guard??

Unlike my first fight he didn’t posture up, instead preferring to keep close to me. I attempted a flower sweep but he was wise to my efforts. I tried to push one of his arms out to get a san-gaku-jime but he was having none of that either. The referee re started us a couple of times for inactivity and with about 1 minute left of the fight I could see he was tired so I attacked him and got him on his back. I quickly passed his guard in to mune-gatame and got the hold on. Unfortunately he managed to escape after about 17 seconds but in doing so he gave me his back. I got the hooks in and turned him on his side ready to go for a choke but the buzzer went and I got the referee’s decision. I was delighted that I had won as I did fear that I might lose all my fights. Now I could relax and enjoy my remaining fights.

Ryan’s next fight was against a very stocky looking guy wearing a blue gi. He powered through Ryan, pushing him back and eventually passed Ryan’s guard and pinned him with Kesa-gatame. I chatted to Ryan’s victor afterwards and it turns out that this guy fights MMA and has a 3-1 record.

Rather surprisingly I was told that I was in the semi-finals and that I would be fighting the MMA guy. Ryan warned me that this guy was very strong and coming from Ryan, who as a tree surgeon wrestles tree’s for a living, I knew I would have my hands full.

As soon as we started Mr MMA attacked and tried to get side control. I managed to defend with my legs and pretty soon he was in my guard. He didn’t posture up, in fact he was quite low down in my guard, just where I wanted him so I decided to try and sweep him with the flower sweep but as I grabbed his right arm he shock my grips off and started to try and pass my guard by pushing down on my thighs. I grabbed the sleeves of his gi and went for spider guard control. He postured up and got one hand free and slipped it under my leg to pass to my right. Seizing the moment I went for a San-gaku-jime but he managed to get another arm out so I again grabbed his sleeve and had a sort of spider guard but I knew it was only a matter of time before he passed my guard properly as he had both arms under my legs.

I tried to hold on hoping the referee would restart the match for stalling but he kept active enough and eventually he got to Kesa-gatame which he held for the full 25 seconds to get the Ippon. I had no complaints, I was beaten the better man who knew the techniques I was trying on him and was able to defend them. Mr MMA fought well but lost via submission to Godzilla in the final so I was beaten by the best two guys here so I take some comfort from that.

The award ceremony for my category was shortly afterwards and I got a trophy for finishing joint 3rd which was very satisfying indeed. The chap who presented me with the trophy seemed to recognise me and he told me that he would like a word with me latter to discuss my blog. I wasn’t quite sure whether this was because I had maybe insulted someone I shouldn’t have or whether he was just enjoying the reading, I mean someone has to right? It turns out that my blog entry on last year’s tournament actually helped promote this years and quite a few Judoka entered on the strength of reading my write up, which has actually inspired me to continue with this blog. Still I would appreciate the odd comment just to let me that someone other than my wife actually reads it :)

Anyway, I could now sit back and relax and watch Oli compete in his category and Ryan compete again in the Open division.

Unfortunately despite winning a fight Oli wasn’t able to medal and Ryan was unable to win a fight in the open division, which when you consider was full of big heavy dan grades was not that surprising.

One thing the organisers had improved on from last year was announcing some of the fights, for example if there was a final in a particular weight category it would be called out. Still I think they could improve this more as only the people on a very near the matted area could hear this and I think if they had a loud speaker system and called out when each final took place it would create a lot more interest from the people watching.

One other small gripe was that there were no practice mats in which to warm up on, although I couldn’t see any obvious space where one could be placed quite a few people who were fighting in the divisions that fought later in the day remarked that they had gotten very stiff sitting about waiting and fighting when you are not warmed up means you can easily get injured.

On reflection the standard of competition had definitely gone up a notch from last year. I noticed several people wearing various BJJ and MMA related apparel and whilst that alone does not mean that they train BJJ or MMA the fact that Ryan is a BJJ blue belt and that one of my opponents trained MMA probably means there were a lot more people who cross trained than previously. Of course that’s not to say a pure Judoka cannot win these Newaza tournaments, on the contrary I think Ryan’s BJJ passive style of Newaza was proved not suitable to the explosive Newaza found in Judo and I think Ryan needs to be a lot more aggressive next time.

Of course the biggest lesson I have learned for next time is to make sure I make weight. Fighting guys who are almost 10kg heavier is not a smart thing to do. Either I need to bulk up to 95kg + or I need to stay lean and cut 1-2 kg a few weeks before hand. I also need to improve my sweeps from the bottom and my escape’s from the various pins but basically Kesa-gatame and Mune-gatame which at my level are most used. . . Overall another very well run tournament and one I will certainly be back for next year, London Marathon permitting/

Oli (left) Me (middle) and Ryan (right) With my medal

On the podium

The De la Riva Sweep. BJJ Nova Forca

2011-04-14T04:04:00.001-07:00

With my Judo Club being closed for the Easter holidays and the Newaza competition coming on Sunday the 17th April it was obvious what I would need to do and that was to go back to Nova Forca for some Newaza BJJ style.

Oli accompanied me again and we were greeted by some familiar friendly faces on our arrival and we made ourselves known to Ricardo who welcomed us back. The warm up was unusually easy tonight but I wasn’t complaining as I had come here for some groundwork as I feel my cardio is pretty good at the moment.

Ricardo wasn’t wearing a gi tonight as he was mainly focusing on teaching some of the guys MMA style techniques. The vast majority of us however were wearing gi’s and we were shown by another Black Belt a De la Riva Sweep. Now I have heard of this sweep but it wasn’t until I read Meerkatsu’s post on his excellent blog about Ricardo de la Riva’s recent seminar in the UK that I realised that it was named after a person, who obviously invented the move.

The technique involved the person on the bottom using the spider guard, a technique I have wanted to learn how to use since Ricardo used it against me when I rolled with him last summer and made me feel totally helpless. The only problem with the technique that we were shown last night was that it involved Uke standing up, something which is not allowed in Judo Newaza, thus making the move redundant. Still it was a very nice sweep to learn and the mere fact that I got to play spider guard made it very worthwhile.

Following this sweep we worked on some variations and by the time we had drilled those we were almost 2 hours in to our 3 hours class.

For the last hour we got to spar and first up for me was Oli. I decided not to do my usual, which is to pull guard and instead attacked Oli and got him on his back and ended up in half guard. From here I struggled to get my other leg out and all the time Oli was attempting to sweep me. I remembered something that Graeme showed me many months ago in Judo which was a technique to get out of half guard by lying on Oli but sort of on my side and across his body so that he cannot see what I am doing. I then proceeded to work my leg free and had full mount. I was then looking for an armbar but unfortunately Oli defended this ended up in my half guard where he then attempted to pass. The rest of our roll mainly consisted of me on my back whilst Oli tried to pass my guard. I think he actually got the mount on me when we were told to change partners.

Next up was Ryan, a blue belt and fellow Judoka Red belt. This time I decided to pull guard on Ryan and he was quick to posture up. I tried Spider guard on him and as he attempted to free his arms I could hear his gi ripping. He said not to worry about it as the gi was very old so we carried on regardless and the more he struggled to more ripping noises I could hear. I eventually got Ryan close enough to me to attempt this pass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng7kjXO77Eg which I was shown last September by Ricardo. Ryan sensed the danger and defended himself and slowly but surely got himself free of my guard and eventually got full mount on me. From here he attempted an armbar but luckily I defended this and I ended up in his guard. I then concentrated on keeping a strong base so that he could not sweep me and time was called quickly afterwards.
So after two rolls with a Judo Brown belt and a BJJ Blue belt I was yet to be subbed, which is not bad.

Next up was a senior white belt who pulled guard immediately and tried spider guard on me. I managed to break his grips but then he played the rubber guard, a move only the very supple can pull off. It did feel weird to be held in this guys guard with his legs around my head and it was the first time anyone had ever done this against me. Still I did manage to posture up and break free of his guard but in doing so he threw up a triangle. I managed to get both my arms back inside his guard but he was then able to sweep me and had full mount . Time was again called quickly afterwards.

I was now starting to feel pretty tired but after a short time sitting out I was ready to go again. I scanned the room and found a small looking white belt and figured I might have an easy roll with this guy. We started and he pulled guard quickly but I never indulged him and controlling his legs I passed to side control or Mune-gatame. I stayed in this position for a little while as I was trying to grab his arm for a Kimura or Ude-garami. Sensing this he kept his arms close to his body so I quickly got full mount and slowly worked my way up his body in preparation for getting an armbar. I grabbed his right arm and slowly got in to position and viola I had my first sub of the night.

We started again and this time he seemed reluctant to pull guard, preferring instead to wrestle with me. I then grabbed him close and actually threw him with a sort of Uki-goshi where I ended up in Kesa-gatame. He seemed a little surprised by this, maybe because BJJ’ers don’t normally try this sort of thing but I do know that a couple of the guys sitting out suddenly took notice of our little tousle.
From Kesa-gatame I turned in to Mune-gatame and from there I was able to submit him with a Kimura or Ude-garami.

I was pretty pleased with my two submissions against this guy even though I was a lot bigger than him but next up was a guy who was at least my size and a Blue Belt. Again he pulled guard and was able to control my posture and sweep landing in the mount position. I kept my arms close by as I didn’t want to give him any presents and then tried to bridge and roll but in doing so he grabbed my arm and went for an arm bar. I managed to escape by turning in to it but he was then able to take my back and he then got a body lock on me. He was squeezing pretty hard around my waist whilst trying to get a choke on me and as I was defending his choke I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to throw up. I quickly tapped and he could see I wasn’t feeling great. I actually had a mouth full of vomit but not wanting to make a mess I swallowed it down and excused myself. There was only about 10 minutes of the class left at this point but I as I couldn’t get the taste of vomit out of my mouth I decided it would be wise to sit out the remainder of the lesson.

So I have learned that it may be possible to last the distance should I fight Ryan on Sunday but I am unlikely to get the opportunity to attack him and therefore would lose on points.
I’m still not sure whether I should pull guard in my first fight and try for the old faith full San-gaku-jime or if I should try and get them down first. At least if I am on top it looks like I am being the aggressor.

A good lesson tonight despite being sick and this morning I am as usual covered in bruises and feeling a little stiff. Hopefully this is good preparation for Sunday.

The Guruma's

2011-04-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

Both Ryan and Big Stuart were absent this week along with Mark who hasn’t been in a while and Troy, who is currently injured but comes and watches anyway, due mainly to the fact that Ynez, his significant other was taking part. It was also nice to see that Jamie was back after a 1 month hiatus. With the warm up out of the way we went in to Newaza and I paired up with Oli. Graeme mentioned that we would only have a few rounds of Newaza and that the duration would be one and a half minutes, which is half the length of the matches in the upcoming Newaza competition that I have entered. I decided I wasn’t going to pull guard against Oli and instead pushed him back and attempted to pass his guard. I managed to get one leg out but he trapped the other one. Whilst I struggled to release my leg Oli went for a double color choke but as I was in half guard I never felt threatened by this and continued to try and work my way leg free. When I did finally pass Oli’s guard he turned in to me and immediately got back to full guard and at this point Graeme called matte. Next up was Black Belt Stuart but this time we were told to start with one of us in the turtle position. BB Stuart turtled up first and when Graeme told us to begin I decided to try the Jimmy Pedro turnover in to Juji-gatame that I have seen a few times on YouTube. Amazingly I got this to work first time and I think BB Stuart was quite impressed. He allowed me to try this same technique a couple more times on him before Graeme told us to swap over which meant it was my time to assume the turtle position. I quickly decided that I would try and roll out and get to guard and when Graeme told us to start I did just that. BB Stuart tried to pass my guard a couple of times and did manage to get to half guard before I was able to recover to full guard again. He commented after that I had good defense from my back.

My last roll was with Jamie and being a white belt and a new white belt at that he doesn’t know much in the way of technique. This time one of us had to start flat on our backs as though we had just been thrown with the other person kneeling between our legs. When we started my intention was to quickly sweep Jamie but although he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing he resisted my efforts to turn sweep him. He was clearly using all his strength against me and I wished that we could have had a 10 minute roll as he would have then realised why that is not a good idea. Still he didn’t give me much to work with and because he didn’t attempt to move even my old trusty favourite San-gaku-jime didn’t work on him.

We then swapped over and as soon as we started I passed his guard and quickly got mount and was looking to get a tate-shiho-gatame hold on him with the intention of finishing with an arm triangle but he was again using all his strength and actually grunting and straining and making all sorts of noises usually associated with weight lifters. As he was pushing me off with his arms I grabbed one and started slowly applying Ude-garami, again he screamed and bucked. I told him to tap if it hurt be he didn’t so I cranked some more but annoyingly I couldn’t quite get the leverage from full guard to finish but once I thought about passing to side control he got his arm out. Realising that time was running out, and still in the mount I moved up his body and tried to isolate one of his arms again to go for a Juji-gatame but again I was too eager and although I had the arm he managed to squirm out and he ended up in my guard but was now in a perfect San-gaku-jime position but before I had time to apply it Graeme called matte. Jamie looked knackered whereas I was just a little warm, which is a good sign that I am fit enough for this upcoming competition. I was however slightly annoyed that I wasn’t able to submit Jamie. I really didn’t want to resort to using my strength against him but with him using all of his I realised that my technique was slightly lacking or maybe I just didn’t follow the old rule of “position before submission”

On to Tachiwaza and we learnt two new throws tonight which were Hiza-guruma and O-guruma (This Tenchique is not listed on the BJA website so I will try and add a video at a latter time. I was paired with Peter for these two and with Peter being fairly heavy and strong he’s not the easiest person to throw so if you manage to throw him you must be doing something right. With the Hiza-guruma, after a couple of amendments to my foot placement and the position of my body, remembering to step across with my left foot so that it was almost in line with Peter’s feet, I was able to throw him quite well.

With the O-guruma I think my arm movements were not right as I was trying to replicate the movement you would do with a Tai-otoshi instead of the wheel movement that I should have been doing. Unfortunately we never really had the time for me to perfect this before we went on to Randori.

Now, normally I would provide a blow by blow summary of the Randori I did last night and with whom I did it but I honestly cannot remember which could mean a couple of things. Either nothing of note happened and due to being in a permanently tired state at present which is all down to the broken sleep my daughter has introduced me to, I have forgotten. Or I got thrown hard on my head and have lost my memory. I’m gonna go with the first one as I don’t feel any pain in my head.

One thing I do remember is that Graeme mentioned that next week is the last lesson before the Easter break when the club will be closed. Not good timing when you have a tournament coming up. Still I will now definitely do back to BJJ for a couple of weeks which actually works out ok as I will be able to brush up on my groundwork. It will be interesting to see how much more advanced the white belts have gotten since I last rolled with them especially the likes of Seb who started when I did. I’m guessing I will get owned by most of them but it will still be good fun nonetheless.

O Gosh-i

2011-03-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have taken the decision to put off my Marathon dream until next year due to my new family commitments which meant that getting time to train properly was becoming increasingly difficult. This does however mean that I am now able to compete in the High Wycombe Newaza tournaments on the 17th April. Both Oli and Ryan are also competing so no doubt we shall all travel up together. Last year I was able to get a bronze after only 2 months of Judo so you would think that my chance of progressing further this year would be improved. Unfortunately it is very likely that Ryan will be competing in my weight class which at present is the under 90kg category. Last year I weighed in at 93.5 kg and fought in the open weight division which was 90kg + with no upper limit but what I lacked in weight I made up for in fitness and speed. If I manage to stay below 90kg ( I was 88kg two weeks ago but this was due to my marathon training) then I would be amongst the heaviest but would no longer have advantage of speed. Also as I am 6ft 3 I will likely be one of the tallest. Anyway I have a month until then and my training will consist mostly of weights and a couple of short 4 mile runs a week. I will also try and get down to BJJ for a couple of lessons as this is the best and quickest way to improve my groundwork.

Back to last night and Ryan was asked to warm the class up, unusual as he is the least senior person in the club. Ryan’s warm up closely resembled the type of warm up that we do in BJJ, although he toned it down somewhat for us as the full BJJ workout would most likely give some of the club a heart attack.

When I taught Kung fu I would often take the class through a 10 minute warm up but having not done so for while I will have to have a good think about a structured warm up that includes stretching etc just in case I am asked to do this next week.

Following Ryan’s warm-up we went in to Newaza. One of us was told to lie on our back whilst the other stood over him as though a throw had just been performed. When Graeme gave the signal the standing person would take a grip and attempt a hold or pin. The person on the ground could not move until Graeme called yosh. Getting the hold was not a problem when you had a few seconds before yosh was called but as this went on the time got shorter and getting the holds became harder.

The purpose of this exercise was to stress the importance of controlling your opponent before attempting the hold. What I was doing was trying to go straight in to Kesa-gatame without ever controlling the person under me first. This meant that they were able to defend. When I was paired against Peter or Stuart they would first control me with their body or knee on belly and slowly and methodically move in to a hold one move at a time, never giving me an opportunity to wriggle out. This was a good lesson learned especially with the Newaza tournament coming up.
Something I did realise from doing this exercise is that Kesa-gatame is my favourite and most effective hold along with probably tate-shiho-gatame, but only when coupled with pushing uke’s arm across their body, kind of like an arm triangle. Submission wise my go to move is a san-gaku-jime but I also like ude-garami.

When we got on to tachiwaza we were told that we were be concentrating on the goshi’s or hip throws, and from then on the class was almost a carbon copy of a class we had in October of last year and my post dated the 8th October refers.

We started with O-goshi, and I was paired with Black belt Stuart. I concentrated more on the entry and breaking his balance than on the actual throw and I think this really helped me improve this throw. We were then asked to try O-goshi and then go into Uki-goshi, which is the natural throw to go to should Uke stiffen up and stop O-goshi.

Graeme then showed us a nice entry in to O-goshi using our sleeve hand instead of our collar hand to go behind their back. It felt a little awkward at first as it makes it a left hand throw but is a good way of mixing things up and confusing your opponent.

We then finished up with Harai-goshi and I was able to pull this off quite well. Now I don’t want to jump the gun but recently the throws have started to become a lot easier and I seem to be “getting” them more now. This was in slight contrast to Ryan who was struggling to put the components of Harai-goshi together although the fact that both Peter and Graeme were constantly watching and critiquing him couldn’t have helped.

Okuri-ashi-barai ( The Oomph throw)

2011-03-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Judo has had to take a bit of a back seat for the last couple of weeks due to the early arrival of my Daughter Florence, who decided she wanted to make an appearance 10 days earlier than expected and low and behold a future Ju-Dan was born.

So with the birth of Florence and with the continuing physiotherapy I am having on my shoulder, the result has been no Judo for almost a month.

Anyway I was back last night and although I wasn’t exactly raring to go, due to weeks of broken sleep, I was looking forward to seeing everyone again.
We warmed up with some pushing and pulling exercises and then we all took turns running up and down the mat before throwing each member of the club once, which meant we were all nicely warmed up.

The lesson focused mainly on two foot sweeps, De-ashi-barai and Okuri-ashi-barai , which is apparently known as the “oomph” sweep (the noise uke makes when he hits the floor and all the air is knocked out of him).
This was very similar to a lesson we had in November “foot sweeps” but whereas I struggled slightly with my timing, especially with Okuri-ashi-barai, tonight I was able to perform it fairly well. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that my Uke was Ynez who is considerably lighter than Black Belt Stuart, whom was my Uke previously, but I’d like to think that I’ve just got that little bit better since then.

Following this we did some Randori and for the first time ever I got to spar with Peter. Understandably I found Peter particularly difficult to control, of course when I say control what I really mean is that he controlled me and put me down with ease but again I attacked constantly and he complemented me on some of the entries to my throws, even though I wasn’t successful with them.

We changed partners and this time we were told that from a throw we were to go into ground work. I was paired with Ryan and managed to get him down with Osoto-otoshi but I ended up in his guard. I attempted to pass but was quickly reminded by Ryan that he has superior ground skills as he almost reversed me. Luckily for me you are only given a short amount of time on the ground in Judo and I managed to stay in his guard without being swept for the next 20-30 seconds before matte was called.

We then changed to Newaza and I got a chance to roll with Peter. I got side control and got a nice Yoko-shiho-gatame on him, to which he complemented me on. Not wanting to sit there with the pin for the whole of my roll I mounted which gave me Tate-shiho-gatame. I held this until matte was called. We then had a second roll and this time I decided to pull guard and try for a sweep but Peter gave me the opportunity to get my favourite San-gaku-jime and although it took a while I did eventually make him tap.

As I sit here writing this I’m trying to work out just how hard Peter was trying against me. I could never submit Ricardo, my BJJ instructor and he would never let me submit him, not because he has an ego but because he wants you to be able to gauge your progress by how long you can survive against him. When I did Randori against Peter he took it easy on me by not smashing me to the ground but he never let me throw him because that would have given me false confidence. So why then was I able to submit him? I know that when Big Stuart and Oli are really trying that they have too much for me and maybe if we rolled ten times I could submit them once or twice so surely I couldn’t submit a black belt. All this has fuelled my desire to go back to BJJ and do some more training but I know that until I have gotten the Marathon out of the way that I just don’t have the energy and also training BJJ increases my chances of getting injured so I will wait until after April 17th.

At the end of the class we were informed that Graeme had recently passed an advanced Dan grade theory test which meant that he was a black belt but unfortunately he could not wear the belt for another year as he had only been a 1st kyu for 4 years and the minimum time spent as 1st kyu is 5 years unless you earn your black belt in competition. This is good news as Graeme is very deserving of a Dan grade especially with all the time and effort he puts in to the club and with the coaching of the juniors so well done Graeme.

I really enjoyed last night and I was pleased that I didn’t show any signs of being rusty. Hopefully my shoulder can hold out and I can now start pushing towards my 4th kyu which I would like to get before the summer.

London Marathon

2011-02-22T01:51:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to take this opportunity to put a link to my London Marathon “justgiving” page, which I am using to help raise money for charity.

Any contributions no matter how small would be appreciated.

Anniversary

2011-02-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

Well it’s been 1 year since I started Judo at Dorking Judo club so I thought I’d reflect on what I had learnt and how my thoughts have changed since my first couple of posts in February 2010. In my first lesson only 3 people were present, Big Stuart, Peter and myself. Oli was absent for the first couple of lessons as was Ynes, Troy and Gill. Then Mark returned to Judo after a long absence and Black Belt Stuart came back to Judo, also after an absence. We have had a number of new people who have come and gone and this is quite typical with Martial Arts and can be a little frustrating for the Instructors who give their time and effort to teaching someone who then just disappears, usually without even saying goodbye or providing a reason. For bigger clubs who turn over a profit and pay the instructors this doesn’t matter so much but for most small, locally run clubs, they usually only break even and all the instructors teach for nothing other than for the joy of teaching.

In fact the only person to start after me and stick with it is Ryan. We do have Jamie who started in January of this year but he was absent from last night’s class so I hope he isn’t yet another name to add to the list of people who give up.

Looking back at my first post I wrote that I was able to hold down Big Stuart with a Mune-gatame and Kesa-gatame and that he was not able to escape therefore I must have learnt the technique perfectly. I also thought that I was able to best a big Brown belt Judoka in Newaza because I nearly caught him in a San-gaku-jime. Oh dear, I’m glad Big Stuart didn’t read my early posts otherwise he would have got the wrong impression of me and maybe of crushed me the next time we did Newaza. Of course none of the senior grades try much at all against the noob’s as they usually let us get submissions in Newaza and throw them in Randori. This is in complete contrast to my experience of BJJ where as a beginner you are crushed by everyone from the beginning. The only time you get any joy is when some other new person starts and you are then eager to crush them and welcome them to BJJ.

So which way is the best?

Well at least when I did BJJ I didn’t have delusions of grandeur, thinking that I was able to submit brown belts because I had watched a few UFC’s. Of course before I had my first BJJ class I did think that I might do ok but I did very quickly realise that I was way out of my depth.
With Judo on the other hand I am still not sure how I stack up against the more senior grades as I never know how much effort they are putting in when we do Tachiwaza randori or Newaza. Yes I have submitted nearly everyone in the club at some point and thrown everyone as well but would I be able to do so if they were really trying?

It would be nice if we did occasionally have a Randori only night where we didn’t learn any techniques and all we did was fight. I know my club is very recreational and we are all the wrong side of 30, so we are never going to make the Olympics, but surely even if we did this once a month it would be nice. Now I’m not saying we never spar, because we do in every class, but usually it’s only for about 25 minutes in total when you add the Tachiwaza and Newaza together.

One thing I have done that I mentioned in one of my first posts is train some BJJ. Although I did suggest I would try and attend a BJJ seminar held by Kevin Chan, who was my Wing Chun Instructor, which never happened, I did still manage to make it down to Nova Forca in Epsom for a couple of months in the Summer and had some seriously hard training sessions with the guys down there. Their attitude to training is very much that you learn on the job and by your mistakes. So as I have already said a complete beginner will get crushed by everyone in his first lesson and probably only be taught 2 techniques. But he would learn so much more from his first lesson and usually by about lesson 4 you can start to see a huge difference in his game and he would probably be able to control someone else who has just walked through the door for their first lesson.
Now I would imagine if my Judo club took this approach then they would seriously limit the type of students that would want to learn as only someone very fit and athletic and who can take a beating would want to attend Judo week after week if they were being dumped on their heads by the seniors. When I attended Westcroft Judo club their attitude to training was more in line with Nova Forca but I was a lot younger then and able to take the beating, or so I thought because I ended up getting seriously injured tearing both my Pec major and minor.

So to summarise I like the way my Judo club teach, it is right for our club but now and again it would be nice to be a little bit more like Westcroft or Nova Forca but only now and then as we don’t want to get everyone injured.

What else has happened in the last year?

I have gone up two belts having gained my red (6th kyu) in May 2010 and my yellow (5th kyu) in December 2010. This year I hope to go up two more belts by gaining first my orange and then green which would hopefully mean by the end of 2012 I would be near Brown belt level.

I injured by shoulder in May whilst doing front breakfalls incorrectly and have since injured it again whilst doing a rowing challenge in the gym at work. I do have a weakness in my left shoulder ever since I injured my chest doing Judo about 8-9 years ago. The injury basically restricts the movement I have in my left arm which means if the chest is tight one side of your body then the rear deltoids on the other side are probably not aligned correctly and thus are prone to injury. I am seeing a sports massage therapist at the moment who thinks that with plenty of stretching and some deep tissue massage it may solve this problem once and forever. If it doesn’t then I guess surgery is the alternative but it would be worth doing if it finally cured my shoulder problem and then allowed me to start doing shoulder exercises in the gym again.

I got accepted in to the London Marathon which is on April 17th of this year. This has obviously meant that I am doing a lot of running which has helped with my general fitness and has meant that I now weigh in at 90kg, having lost about 4kg or 8.8lb. Most of the weight I have lost is from around my stomach, which is good but I am already fantasising about getting back in the gym after the marathon so that I can start lifting some proper weights and getting lumpy again. Once the Marathon training started I quickly realised that I was going to struggle to keep up both the Judo and BJJ training so I had to give up BJJ but I do hope to revisit this sometime this year although finance may be a problem due to the most important thing which happened last year and probably the most important thing ever in my life which is that my Wife became pregnant, with the baby being due on the 9th March.

That’s it, a quick summary of 1 years worth of Judo and how my thoughts have changed throughout. The club is closed next week due to the school holidays which isn’t a bad thing as it will give my shoulder another week to recover. In the meantime Ryan leant me a good book called Guerrilla Jiu jitsu by Dave Camarillo. Having had a quick look already this seems like a good fusion of both BJJ and Judo so I shall enjoy reading this over the next couple of weeks until I can hopefully try out the moves in Judo, until then enjoy.

Ko-Uchi-Gari into O-Uchi-Gari combination

2011-02-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

A relatively small turn out last night, only 6 seniors including two instructors, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable session.

Black Belt Stuart took us threw a gentle warm up before going in to some O- Goshi Uchikomi. I was paired with Big Stuart and what we did was practice the entry to the throw 9 times before completing the throw on the 10th repetition. This was a great way to get a sweat on and really helped me with the technical aspects of what is an orange belt throw.

Following that Peter took over and had us work on Ko-uchi-gari, again breaking the throw down in to the entry before we completed the throw. Again this is an Orange belt throw so I feel like I am definitely slowly learning techniques from the Orange belt syllabus.
After a little while Peter then added O-uchi-gari to the Ko-uchi-gari. I was paired with Jamie by now so I would first attack him with Ko-uchi-gari and if he stepped back I would continue the attack with O-uchi-gari. As combinations go it’s a fairly simple one to pull off but nonetheless effective. Peter also slightly modified this attack so that after the initial Ko-uchi-gari instead of going straight for the O-uchi-gari you grab uki’s right leg first. This made the fall slightly harder for Uke but increased tori’s chances of getting an Ippon.

Peter then had Big Stuart and myself face off in Randori but after the 1 minute time limit Stuart would immediately fight Jamie and then Ryan before Ryan then fought everyone and so on until I did the same.

This effectively meant you were fighting for 4 minutes without a break against fresh opponents each minute. It doesn’t sound much but was a good workout.

There were too many throws to remember but the highlights for me were a Tani-otoshi against Big Stuart, an Osoto-otoshi & Sumi-gaeshi against Ryan and an O-uchi-gari and Osoto-otoshi against Jamie. I was particulary pleased with the Sumi-gaeshi that I threw Ryan with and both Peter and Stuart commented that I did well to even attempt it.

The Randori was definitely performed with a lot more aggression and was more akin to Shiai than the usual randori we perform in the club. This was probably largely due to the fact that everyone was watching and no one wanted to be thrown. I did abandon my usual attack attack attack philosophy for this very reason but I still made sure than I attacked more than I defended and was pleased that Big Stuart was the only person who managed to throw me.
What I did notice though was how stiff armed Jamie, the white belt was. I found it difficult to even get a grip on him as he was moving backwards the whole time. The only way I was able to throw him was to get quite physical and drag him off balance. The fact that he had stiff arms meant he was quite easy to off balance. We spoke briefly afterwards about how stiff armed he was and I commented that to the higher grades I still appear stiff armed and that with practice and confidence he will loosen up.

We finished up with some Newaza but it was quite light and we just went from hold to escape to hold. Peter showed us an escape from the guard into Yoko-shiho-gatame which was quite nice and yet again I notice this is an Orange belt technique.

At the end of the lesson Peter remarked that he was already starting our grading and would test us in the coming weeks and months until we had ticked off everything we needed for our next belts. Looking back at the techniques we learnt in the lesson I assume he was talking to me and probably also Ryan. When I get time I’ll post a link to all the Orange belt techniques I need to master.

As I said at the beginning of my post I really enjoyed tonight’s lesson despite my shoulder feeling worse than ever. I’m just a little gutted that I won’t be able to enter of the upcoming tournaments due to my Marathon commitments.

More Goshi's

2011-01-28T04:29:00.000-08:00

I managed 12 miles last Sunday which took me 2 hours and 3 minutes of pure hell. From about the 10 mile mark the muscles in my legs were in pain and my joints were aching a lot. I’m glad I did it though and will again this weekend run another 12 miles before lowering the mileage for 1 week to aid recovery before upping the mileage to following week to 15.

Graeme took last night’s Judo and I must say it was an excellent lesson. Our warm-up started with various commando crawls across the mats and also lots of dragging another person across the mat using nothing but the belt to hold on to. We ended the warm up with various breakfalls and then Ynez took us through some stretching. I must say the warms up are more and more starting to resemble the type of workouts I was doing in BJJ, although not tiring the intensity is definitely slowly being raised week on week. It’s hard to say if this is a conscious effort on behalf of the instructors to improve everyone’s cardio but it’s very enjoyable non the less.

As we were all nicely warmed up we went in to some Newaza and I first paired up with Oli. Oli was being slightly defensive so I attacked and Oli willingly gave up his back so I got my hooks in and tunred him on his side and looked for a choke. Oli was defending his neck well so I decided to try and pull one of his arms away from his neck and try for a Hiza-gatame. Oli managed to posture up and somehow ended up in my guard but had his left arm outside so I quickly went for a San-gaku-jime. I think Oli had recognised the danger he was in had already started to posture up so I never really had full control of his head. Nonetheless I tried in vain to get him to tap but Graeme called matte before I could do so.

Next up was Jamie and as he has only had 3 lessons I just pulled guard and talked him through passing my guard using his elbows and then getting him to use Mune-gatame once he has passed. This is the first time I have rolled with Jamie and he feels pretty strong so once he starts progressing more and learning the techniques he could be quite a handful.

My last roll was with Big Stuart but this time we took turns in starting on all fours. I quickly jumped on his back and tried in vain to get a choke. I must say it’s really difficult for me to get any sort of choke on and I can’t remember a time in Judo when I have. In an attempt to get some sort of submission I tried the same move that I did against Oli earlier, i.e. the Hiza-gatame and again it didn’t work but this time Stuart ended up with Mune Gatame on me. Graeme called matte and we swapped over with me on all fours. When we started I tried to roll in to guard but I messed this up slightly and Stuart got Mune Gatame and then he got full mount. I tried the trap and roll technique and almost had him but he managed to get me back down again. The rest of our roll then consisted of me struggling underneath him but with no success.

Graeme then stood us all up and said he would be showing us some Goshi’s or hip throws. We stayed with the partners we were already with which meant I would have to throw Big Stuart, which I’ve always struggled with because he is a lot heavier than I am. However for some reason I was able to throw him with quiteeasily with O-goshi. Even when Graeme then showed us Tsurikomi-goshi, which I had previously found difficult due to the grip, I was still able to throw him well. This really pleased me as with me being the tallest in the club, hip throws are not particularly easy for me to do. The last hip throw we learnt was Sode-tsuri-komi-goshi and with the help of Ynez I was even able to pull this one off quite well. I’ve since realised that two of these throws are in the Orange belt syllabus., my next grading.

Before we started Randori Graeme had us pair up but instead of actually throwing we would stop just short of doing so. There is a Japanese name for this but at the moment it escapes me. We would take turns in attacking and Graeme then said we had to do 2 throws and then finally a 3 throw combination. I found this really helpful as I was able to try a throw, of which Stuart would resist or move out of and then I could physically see what throw was then available or best to use from that position.

On to Randori then and I was paired up first with Oli. Oli seemed to be attacking slightly more than he usually would against me which was good as sometimes I need to be brought back down to earth. However I did manage a Sumi-gaeshi against him right at the end which is a technique I have been successful with recently.

Next up was Mark and this was a good tussle as Mark is quite strong and more senior but not enough that he has to go easy on me. I was thrown a couple of times, as I continued my “attack attack attack” resolution, but I almost got Mark with a Tani-otoshi, well he did fall over but not flat on his back for an ippon.

My penultimate Randori was against Ynez and I was conscious not to stiff arm her and try to much strength as she has told me in the past that I am too stiff. So I lightly took hold and she let me try a couple of throws before I finally threw her with Osoto-otoshi. Ynez commented that I needed to pull harder when doing the throw. This was very frustrating to hear as I had made the conscious effort to be light and elusive. Not that I doubt what she is saying and I know I have lots to learn but I felt I had made improvements this week in my Randori and it kinda took the edge off a good nights training.

My last Randori was with BB Stuart and throws me about 5-6 times with relative ease. This didn’t bother me so I still attacked and every time I was thrown I bounced straight back up to my feet. Finally in the last seconds he let me throw him with Osoto-otoshi and he thanked me for a good fight. I hopefully impressed him with my tenacity if not my skill but I was thankful that he threw me all over the place as it’s nice to see the difference in class between a Black Belt and a 5th Kyu.

Overall a great lesson tonight despite my shoulder hurting more than it

Random stuff

2011-01-27T07:55:00.001-08:00

Ude-garami

2011-01-21T06:46:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote on my Facebook page that it’s not normal for a person to run more than 10 miles, well not for me anyway and I still stick by that. Although the 10 miles of running was, from a cardio vascular point of view fairly comfortable, the strain it puts on my leg joints and muscles is not normal and is why no matter how fit a person is you have to put the miles in to run a marathon so that your body can adjust to the extraordinary strains running a Marathon puts on the human body. Unfortunately before my body can fully adjust to running 10 miles I will be upping the mileage to 12 miles this Sunday which should take me roughly 2 hours to complete, providing I stick to the very comfortable 10 minute a mile pace that I intend to run the while marathon in.

In between all the running I have been doing I still manage to get a couple of free weights sessions in and also the Judo, which is only once a week. The gym that I train in is located in my office and they are currently running a challenge to help promote the Gym and gain new members who may be thinking of losing weight for their new year’s resolution. One of these challenges is a 1000m rowing time trail which I thought I’d have a go at. Without any prior training of ever using the rower for anything other than a quick warm up I managed to clock a time of 3.21 which, until yesterday was the quickest time set and was only beaten by the gym instructor himself, who clocked 3.20 and a new guy who has just started work at my place who managed to clock an impressive 3.18. I later found out that this new guy has cycled professionally and is at least 10 years younger than I am so no shame in losing to him.
Anyway the upshot of my rowing challenge is that my shoulder has been hurting to buggery since I did it, which is a shame as it had been ok for 6 months or so.

On to last night’s class and we did a slightly more active warm up than usual with some shuttle runs, press ups, sit ups and squat thrusts which got us all sufficiently warmed before we went in to some light Newaza where we just went from hold to escape to hold etc. Technique wise we were shown Ude-garami or the infamous “Kimura”, which the Gracie family called the submission after the Japanese Judoka, Kimura, defeated Helio Gracie with it many years ago. It’s a fairly simple technique to pull off and one that I have personally used to great success in BJJ and Judo and yet Graeme was still able to point out something that I didn’t know about this technique which is that before you crank it up you should turn your wrist, like you are closing the throttle on a motorbike, this makes Uke tap a lot quicker. The link I have attached on the BJA website does now show Fallon doing this but it definitely makes the technique better so I will use this going forward.

On to the tachi-waza and we first practised tai-otoshi and then a Ko-soto-gari counter to tai-otoshi and finally an O-goshi or uke-goshi and even a Tai-otoshi counter to Tai-otoshi. Some of these counters were easier than others to perform but it’s really nice to get some decent counters under my belt as I need to be able to pull these off if I’m to progress. Graeme did show us all Brain Jack’s version of Tai-otoshi which has a different entry to most. If he is performing a right handed throw he would step across with his left foot almost pass the left foot of his opponent before swivelling and turning in to the throw. I have tried to find a Youtube video of Brian Jacks performing this throw but I’m unable to find anything. As Brian Jacks was my Judo Instructor when I first dabbled with Judo as a small child and then with his great success in Superstars, he became one of my first sporting idols so any information about him is of great interest to me.

We finished up with some Randori and again I went in to all out attack mode. First up was Mark and although I managed a sloppy Tani-otoshi I was told by Graeme that I was stiff arming and not relaxed enough. It’s strange because I am making a conscious effort to be relaxed and I’m not bothered if I get thrown. Also with my experience in Wing Chun and chi-sau, where relaxation is key I thought It would be something I would naturally do.

Next up was Ryan and he was stiff arming me and Graeme stopped him once for being too passive as he tends to stick his arse out, which you are not allowed to do for a certain length of time and again for grabbing the same side of my lapel with both of his hands. I think the latter is a natural thing for a BJJ’er to do as it gives them more control on the ground but again you can only do that in Judo if you immediately attack, which he wasn’t doing. However I attempted a Osoto-otoshi and Ryan countered my throw with the same technique and would have got an ippon. I could see he was pleased with this especially as he has said that he really hasn’t been able to perform many of the throws in Randori. Hopefully this will have given him more confidence going forward.

I finished up against the new guy Jamie, and he was very stiff so I told him to relax and to just try and throw me with whatever he knew. He did try three of four throws but I was never in any danger of falling over but still I congratulated him on attacking and said he should do it more.

After the lesson Graeme mentioned that there were several senior tournaments coming up but unfortunately the High Wycombe Newaza is on the same day as the London Marathon so that’s one I definitely won’t be entering. Also I am even a little hesitant about entering the others but only because I am worried about getting injured this close to the marathon. Maybe I’ll just end up watching a couple until after April 17th, I’ll think about it........

Tomoe-Nage

2011-01-14T06:34:00.000-08:00

It was the first class tonight after the Christmas break and I was already aching from a week of intense running (25 miles in total) but I was still looking forward to training.
Black Belt Stuart took us through a warm up as Graeme had left early and Peter had a bad back and would therefore only supervise.

We also had a new student tonight called Jamie who seemed like a friendly chap so BB Stuart took Jamie to one side and taught him some basic ukemi whilst Ynes got us doing Newaza. As there was an odd number of seniors we couldn’t all pair up so one of us stood out whilst the rest tried to get the other person in a hold or Pin. Once you had them pinned the person who was stood out would dive in and take over the pin or hold, but this usually resulted in the other person escaping. This was good fun and went on for about 10 minutes or so but meant we were all thoroughly warmed up.

BB Stuart and Jamie joined us after we had finished the Newaza for some Tachi-waza and tonight we would be practicing Tome-Nage. We got in to groups of 3 to practice this, the third person in the group would hold on to the belt and collar of Uke and act as a brace so that you could practice the entry to the throw without constantly slamming your back on to mat.
I was in a group of 3 with Oli and Big Stuart and we all took turns doing the entry to the throw, being Uke and being the person doing the bracing.

Once Ynez was happy that our entries were good enough we performed the throw for real. Being thrown was quite a weird feeling as I lost all sense of where I was so the first time I was thrown I landed quite hard on my back. The idea with this throw is to breakfall with your feet, something that I’m not particularly good at but it’s amazing how quickly one learns when the alternative is being winded.

When it was my turn to perform the throw on Oli I kept on throwing him slightly to my right. Ynez commented that this was more like a Yoko-Tome-Nage. Peter called matte and said that we were going to learn a variation of this throw and that it is called Yoko-Tome-Nage, the throw I had inadvertently just been performing. He also wanted us to perform this as a continuation of a failed O-soto-otoshi, so that Uke has resisted being thrown by leaning forward which then leave them open to taking a tumble over using Yoko-Tome-Nage.

Once we had this throw down we then went over Tai-Otoshi in to Ko-Uchi-Gake. Again these throws went really well with each other and in Oli I had the perfect Uke to refine my technique.

We finished up with some Randori. I had recently commented on Jauregui’s blog found here http://wwwthegentleway.blogspot.com/ that when doing Randori he should attack and not worry about being thrown as, after all Randori is free practice so why does it matter if friends from your own club throw you. At the very least you end up practicing your ukemi. Anyway now was the time to practice what I preached so I literally attacked everyone I did Randori with and it resulted in one of my best experiences thus far with Tachi-waza. Although the higher grades usually don’t resist too much and therefore allow the lower grades to get some throws on them I was still able to string together some combination throws which actually worked. I was particularly pleased that I managed to throw a couple of people with Tomoe-Nagi and Sumi-Gaeshi.

Ynez pointed out that I was still a little stiff in the arms when doing Randori with her but I’m sure that will lesson as I get more comfortable. When I was paired up with Ryan he mentioned that when he does Randori that he finds it hard to think of any combination throws or not to use strength all the time and I commented that that was exactly how I felt up until a few months ago and that once he got nearer to Yellow belt standard that would slowly pass. I think he took comfort in that as Tachi-Waza is the hardest thing to learn in Judo and he already had good Newaza skills due to his BJJ.

After the lesson I spoke with Ryan some more and told him about the idea I had emailed to Graeme about the possibility of getting one of Ryan’s BJJ instructors to come down I week to give us all a Newaza lesson. One of Ryan’s friends is a BJJ Brown belt and Judo 1st Dan and apparently he is keen to come and check out our Judo club so there is a good possibility of it happening. All I have to do now, of course, is convince the senior instructors at the club that this would be a good idea which might be difficult as they are quite old school and don’t really understand what BJJ is all about. Anyway he who dares……..

End of Term

2010-12-18T15:51:00.001-08:00

A shorter than normal lesson took place on Thursday as it was the last of the term before the Christmas break. Normally I update my blog the day after the lesson as it ensures that I don’t miss anything out but due to a couple of nights out drinking I can’t quite recall of the techniques that we did so this will be a shorter than usual write up.

It was the first time I had worn my newly earned yellow belt tonight and it felt nice not having to worry about being asked to perform part of my grading which meant I could relax. We started the lesson with some Newaza and I paired up with Mark. I pulled guard and was looking for a San-gaku-jime. Whenever I have caught Mark previously with this he has left his left arm in and again he was trying to pass my guard to my left so I grabbed his left arm and was preparing to throw my legs up but then he decided to try and pass to the other side so I quickly changed arms and grabbed his right arm and threw my legs up and caught him. It took me a little while to pull his right arm across my body but once I did he tapped. We restarted and this time I tried to get him on his back but as he is quite stocky and heavier than me I decided pulling guard was the safest option. This time I was looking to sweep him but I couldn’t quite manage it before Graeme called matte.

Graeme decided it would be a good idea for one of us to wear a blindfold. We changed partners I paired up with Troy. Troy wore the blindfold first and as he couldn’t see we both took grips before we started. I wrestled Troy to the floor and held him in Mune-gatame before I grabbed his arm and submitted him with Ude-garami. We restarted and this time I pulled guard and managed to submit him again with San-gaku-jime. The last person I did Newaza with was Big Stuart and this time I wore the blindfold. Yet again I was able to pull off a San-gaku-jime this time I went for the Ryan Hall version which worked well for me the previous week and Stuart duly tapped.

We went on to do Blindfolded Randori and I actually found that this improved my Tachi-waza as I was relying on feeling and therefore felt more relaxed. I found this similar to when I would do Chi-Sau or sticking hands, back in my Wing Chun days. Chi Sau is a drill used for the development of automatic reflexes upon contact and the idea of "sticking" to the opponent. In Wing Chun this is practiced through two practitioners maintaining contact with each other's forearms while executing techniques, thereby training each other to sense changes in body mechanics, pressure, momentum and "feel". This increased sensitivity gained from this drill helps a practitioner attack and counter an opponent's movements precisely, quickly and with the appropriate technique. Although I have my doubts weather Wing Chun is the most effective form of fighting there are definitely certain training aspects which I think are useful and Chi-Sau is one of them.

I suggested to Graeme before tonight’s lesson that it might be a nice idea to have group photo so before we put the mats away the below photo was taken. We then all retired to the local pub for a well earned end of term pint.

Back Row, left to right: Stuart, Mark, Peter, Me, Oli

Front Row, left to right: Troy, Ynez, Stuart, Graeme.

5th Kyu

2010-12-10T02:55:00.000-08:00

No Judo last week due to the heavy snow, so the club will stay open an extra week to compensate which means next week will be the last class until January 13th.

With the last class of the term usually being a shorter session followed by a Christmas drink in the Bar, I knew tonight’s class would be my last chance to pass my yellow grading before the New Year. Whilst checking the BJA website I realised that there were one or two techniques that I had never practiced before so I felt sure that I could not pass. However these techniques were simple looking turnovers so I memorised the moves from the video just in case I was called on it.

It was a fairly small turnout tonight with just seven seniors including the instructors making it to class. Graeme took most of the class and he said he would be trying to finish off both Ryan’s and my grading. After a warm up Graeme asked Ryan to lead us all in performing various breakfalls which were in the 6th Kyu syllabus and he duly received ticks next to them.

The rest of the lesson was structured around the techniques that both Ryan and I needed for our respective new belts. For instance, Graeme would ask me to show the class basic grips and variations on those and after I did this Graeme would then have us practice various grip fighting techniques. That way I could get this ticked off my grading sheet before he taught the rest of us. If we had had a normal turnout he would have taken myself and Ryan to one side and graded us whilst the rest of the class got on with their normal lesson but because there were so few of us he couldn’t do that.

After the grip fighting Graeme asked me if I could perform a turnover in to Kesa-gatame. Now as I said earlier I have not been taught this technique before but I told Graeme I would give it a go and luckily enough not only did I perform this one correctly I also managed to perform turnover in to Mune-gatame and turnover into Yoko-shiho-gatame (who said you can’t learn from the internet?)

All that was now left for me to do was two minutes of Randori whereby I would need to show good technique with a variety of throws and good ukemi when I was thrown. Graeme asked me to pick an Uke and of course I picked Oli. I mainly used throws that are in the 6th and 5th kyu syllabus but I did end the Randori with a nice Sumi-gaeshi, which I was very pleased, worked.
Peter then quizzed my knowledge of Japanese by asking me to translate all of the 5th kyu techniques and once I had done this I was presented with a shiny new Yellow Belt. As Ryan had also passed I gave him my Red Belt as they didn’t have any new ones at the club. I joked to Ryan that we should get a belt whipping ala BJJ but luckily in Judo all we got was stiff handshake from both Graeme and Peter.

No more Judo now until the 13th of January and with NCT classes (Anti Natal) taking up my Tuesday evenings I won’t be able to substitute with BJJ either. Still the Marathon training is going up a notch with a 10 mile run due this Sunday so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.

Ukemi

2010-11-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

The weather has taken a turn for the worse at the moment and leaving my very warm house to get in to my very cold car at 8pm last night suddenly didn’t feel very appealing but I am yet to miss a lesson for any reason other than holiday and I’m certainly not going to start now.

We warmed up with shrimping and other various other movements across the mats and then were told that we were going to learn San-gaku-jime , or triangle choke to my BJJ/MMA friends. Under the BJA this is a 1st kyu (Brown Belt) technique but I have been shown this technique in BJJ and have pulled it off in Newaza as recently as last week. Strangely enough I had been told to check out a variation of the traditional way of doing this technique by someone following my blog and was told to type “Ryan Hall triangle” in to youtube. I was anxious to try out this variation myself but I had to wait until none of the instructors were looking before doing so.

I was paired with Big Stuart and we both got this technique working first time out. When Stuart applied the choke to me apparently my face very quickly turned red even though I didn’t feel overly in trouble but then I could slowly feel myself passing out but Stuart had already released the choke and I recovered very quickly. The beauty of this choke is that generally the person being choked doesn’t realise it and like I almost did, can slowly drift off to la la land. I mentioned to Stuart that I had just last night seen a variation of this technique and youtube so got to try it out. luckily enough I think I remembered it pretty well as Stuart commented that the choke was very tight, very quickly.

Graeme then showed us San-gaku-gatame , again this is a 1st kyu technique. We were shown this from a turnover situation exactly the same as the one on the BJA website, the link of which I have provided.

Moving on to some Tachi-waza we practiced Ippon-seoi-nage and Graeme broke down the throw in to different stages, i.e. breaking the balance, lifting Uke on to your back, and finally dropping you shoulder so that Uke falls to the floor. I was paired with Mark and when we got to the stage where he actually threw me I forgot that I was at Judo and forgot to breakfall, landing flat on my back. Lesson learned, Thou must remember to breakfall when thrown. Of course I didn’t admit to Mark that I had forgotten or that I had no breath left in my lungs, I just got on with being thrown again and this time slapped my arm down hard. Eventually I got my breath back and hopefully no one was any the wiser.

Before the class finished I got to do some more of my Yellow belt grading and was asked to pick a Uke. Without hesitation I picked Oli, who had been Peter and Graeme’s Uki for most of the techniques we did that night. This is probably due to two reasons, firstly Oli is fairly senior and secondly he was probably the lightest senior in attendance. I had to perform O-uchi-gari into Tate-shiho-gatame followed by Tai-otoshi into Yoko-shiho-gatame. Both done reasonably well and Peter ticked them both off. Next up was Escape from Kami-shiho-gatame and despite the fact I have only been shown this once many months ago, I did this well enough to pass.

I’m almost there now with this grading, just the turnovers and a couple more escapes to do before becoming a 5th Kyu. Ryan also made a start on his 6th kyu grading and Mark made a start on his 2nd kyu so some new colour belts could soon be worn all round.

Before we left Graeme asked if any of us were interested in a Newaza competition against another local club, probably to take part early next year. Everyone seemed keen so hopefully this will happen as I think we have a good chance of getting some medals particularly with Ryan who will no doubt be performing against other novice Judoka, but hopefully not against me.

Aching

2010-11-22T07:37:00.000-08:00

The ache’s that the title of this post refers to are due to the running that I’m doing which again totaled 20 miles this week. I read somewhere that your body takes about 3 weeks to get used to running 4 times a week and this is my third week since I had man flu so hopefully by next week I should be feeling a bit better.

On to the Judo and Graeme took the class and as Peter had to leave early I didn’t do anymore of my grading. After the warm up we did some Newaza. First a light roll with Ryan where we just went through different holds and reversals and then a more strenuous roll with Big Stuart. Big Stuart certainly seems to be trying that bit more now when he rolls with me, whether that’s because he has to as I have improved I’m not sure yet but when he does try he is certainly a formidable opponent. Obviously his size can be an advantage to him and when he lays across your face and puts his weight down its uncomfortable to say the least. Stuart did manage to secure some sort of color choke but it was only very slowly choking me so I decided not to tap and luckily for me Graeme called matte just in time.

Next up was Mark and this time we had to take turns starting from the turtle position. I started in turtle first Mark attempted to roll me bit I pulled guard and as he tried to pass I threw up a San-gaku-jime (triangle). Again as per my previous roll with Mark he left his left arm in so I had to remember which leg I was to choke him with and fortunately I had learnt from my mistakes and correctly applied the pressure with my legs around his neck and pulled his left arm across my body and after about 10 seconds he tapped.

His turn now to start in turtle and I ended up in his guard but was able to pass into Mune-gatame but I didn’t really have good control from here so I decided to change to Tate-shiho-gatame (the mount). Mark tried to bridge and buck me off but I kept hold of him and was slowly working my way up his body as I intended to go for a Juji-gatame (Arm bar). Unfortunately Graeme called matte before I had the chance but I was pleased nonetheless as this was my first proper roll with Mark and I was able to submit him. I would think that next time he will know what to expect from me and I might find it that little bit harder but for now I was happy.

Tachi-waza was next and we practiced Uchi-mata, which previously I found difficult to pull off against Black Belt Stuart but tonight I was paired with Big Stuart. Surprisingly I was able to throw Stuart a number of times. I’m starting to realise the importance of not only using my legs when I throw but also my arms and my body. After I break Stuart’s balance its really important to pull his arm around my body and also to turn my head as this aids in the twisting motion.

We finished up tonight with some Randori and first I paired up with Oli and we went throw for throw which was good practice for me. After some more light Randori with Inez and Big Stuart I paired up with Ryan. Looking back at my blog I realised that Ryan had been training since May and should really have started his Red belt grading by now. I realise the club is small and its difficult for them to concentrate on more than one persons grading at a time so hopefully after I get my Yellow they can quickly grade Ryan.

Foot Sweeps

2010-11-17T03:34:00.000-08:00

Due to being busy at work and my continued running commitments I’m late blogging this week. I will therefore keep it short, partly because I am still busy but mainly because I’ve forgotten what I did last week.

On the Marathon training front I did manage 3 x 4.5 mile runs in my lunch hour last week and topped that off with a 7 mile run on Sunday morning, which is my longest ever run. I actually felt ok after the run, not really out of breath just a little achy. My time was quite slow, 1 hour and 8 minutes, but at this stage it isn’t about how fast but rather how long I run for.
So that’s just over 20 miles run last week and I will continue to do this for the month of November before I up my long run to 10 miles in December.

On to the Judo and there was yet another new face but I can’t remember his name. He was however another Black Belt, who hadn’t practiced for about 5 years but was looking to get back in to it. He had travelled all the way from Wimbledon to our club, which is quite a long way so I questioned why he didn’t train in Wimbledon as Ray Stevens has a club there but apparently he wanted to get back in to training gently and the Randori at Ray Stevens was a little too full on. I guess when you’re a Black Belt some students see you as having a big target on your back, I certainly felt this way when I was teaching Kung Fu to some of the knuckle heads that used to walk in off the street.

I also mentioned to our newest recruit that there was another club “ Westcroft”, which being based in Carshalton, is between Wimbledon and Dorking and he seemed quite keen to find out more about that club. I then realised that I may just have talked him out of coming back to our club but let’s hope not as he seemed liked a nice guy and more students are always welcome.

Peter took the class tonight and said we would be concentrating on foot sweeps. We first went over De-ashi-barai and I was then shown Okuri-ashi-barai , which is similar, to De-ashi but the aim is to take sweep both feet instead of the one.
I was paired with Mark for this and because he is quite a lump I was finding it hard to lift him off the ground properly and time my sweep. In fact the position of my sweeping foot was too high and at one point it appeared that I was kicking him in the thigh instead of sweeping his foot.

Shortly after this Peter asked me to perform some more of my Yellow belt techniques and I was able to get another chance at Tai-otoshi, this time using Black belt Stuart as Uke. I was a little apprehensive as previously Stuart has been very difficult to throw and I cocked this throw up last time. Fortunately my apprehension was misplaced as I performed it correctly right off the bat. I then went to perform O-uchi-gari and again this went well.

Looking at the grading syllabus, I still have to perform the three throws and follow them in to the holds, and then I have to do three turnovers in to holds and three escapes from the holds. Providing I continue with my grading this week I should hopefully have a new belt within three weeks.

Uchi-mata

2010-11-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

Not only was I recovering from a dose of Man Flu but I had also injured my neck on Tuesday lifting weights, which meant I wasn’t able to turn my head fully left or right. Not the best shape to be doing Judo in but, as the club was closed last week for the holidays, I wasn’t going to miss training for another week.

Inez took the class tonight and after the initial warm up we did some Newaza techniques where you have to reverse/sweep Uke from inside your guard with you on your back. We partnered up and Inez told us to perform any techniques that we already knew so she could first gauge what we did or didn’t know. I was partnered with Oli and the only reversal I have ever been taught was one that I was shown in BJJ which was as follows: You start on your back with Uke in your guard grabbing your gi near your sternum. To break Uke’s grip you use both hands and grab his gi around his wrist and pull hard upwards and then to your right side. Then your left arm grabs around Uke’s back and grabs their gi by their right shoulder and at the same time you move your head towards Uke’s left knee. You then slide your right arm under Uke’s left leg and lift them up with your right arm and pull them with your left arm thus ending up in full mount.
Whilst performing this technique Inez actually commented that it was a nice move but what was even nicer was that I was able to remember this from BJJ.

Inez then went on to show us a couple more sweeps. The first one involves bringing your right knee across Uke’s body. Then you push with your right leg whilst at the same time your left leg pushes against Uke’s right knee, this flips Uke over to your left hand side where you can easily follow them into a hold or full mount.
The variation on this technique was using a butterfly guard with your right leg only and flipping them over in pretty much the same way. Oli then showed me how to do this with a double butterfly guard which I have had done to me on a number of occasions in BJJ.

Following this we did some Newazai Randori and after my initial roll with Oli I paired up with Ryan. Although Inez told us to try and keep it light it’s not always an easy thing to do especially when you are trying to defend yourself against Ryan. We started with Ryan in my guard and he attempted to pass but my hip escapes are definitely improving as I was able to keep full guard until he eventually got to half guard. After a few failed attempts by Ryan to get side control he attacked my left arm and was looking for an Ude-garami. I let him have the arm as I was trying to regain full guard and I didn’t think he would have the leverage to submit me in half guard but I was wrong as he cranked it on and forced me to tap.

We started again, this time with me in Ryan’s guard. I tried to pass a few times and Ryan was trying hard to sweep me but I managed to keep a good posture. I grabbed both of his legs in an attempt get side control but in doing so he trapped an arm and I could see that he was close to getting a Sangaku-jime (triangle) choke on me. I was lucky in that I was able to force my other arm through his legs and I was back to where I started, in his guard. Inez called Matte shortly after this.

It was refreshing to have had so long to do Newaza as usually Matte is called after sixty seconds. Although I understand that in Judo competition you don’t get long on the ground to advance your position before the referee’s stand you back up, when doing Newaza in your club I think you should be given a lot longer so tonight was a step in the right direction.

Following my roll with Ryan I paired up with black belt Stuart. He let me dictate our roll and work my holds and positions. He commented afterwards that I felt strong and in control.

We then went on to some Tachi-waza and Inez said we would be working on Uchi-mata. We stayed with our partners which meant I was with Stuart. I practiced my entry in to this throw a few times before I actually attempted the throw but I couldn’t quite get the technique right. Stuart then performed the throw on me and I was impressed with how easily I was thrown and the fact that there was nothing I could do to stop it. Stuart was reluctant to actually let me throw him, preferring instead to resist, and although he gave me good feedback and commented that I was doing it right I didn’t feel like I really got the hang of this throw.

We finished up with some Randori and I got a chance to spar with Mark who is a green belt. After failing with Tai-otoshi the week before last in my Yellow belt grading I made a conscious effort to try this as much as possible on Mark but I wasn’t able to get him with it and every time I tried, he stepped out and threw me instead. I did manage a sloppy Tani-otoshi towards then end but I ended up feeling a little despondent.
I know the learning curve for Tachi-waza is a lot higher than for Newaza but I do feel that my throws are particularly poor. Maybe I’m just being hard on myself as the only person in the club who is a lower grade than me is Ryan and everyone else, bar Mark, is a Brown belt or above. In fact when we do Newaza it’s even worse because although Ryan may be a White belt Judoka he is a Blue belt in BJJ so I get beaten by everyone.

Maybe I need a competition to gauge properly what my true level is or maybe I just need to train at another Judo club every once in a while. I know Westcroft have a Randori night on Tuesdays so maybe I could persuade Oli to join me in a trip there sometime.

We didn’t get the chance to go over anymore of my yellow grading this week but I would expect, with the return of Graeme next week that this should continue.

Sumi-gaeshi

2010-10-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

My Marathon training has started slowly due mainly to a niggling knee injury but I was able to get a couple of four and a half mile runs in this week during my lunch hour at work. The problem is that, because I am literally training every day bar Saturday and on some days (Tuesday and Thursday) I am training twice a day, something has to give. This is the reason I have not been to BJJ for the last couple of weeks as doing those hard workouts after a run is taking its toll on my body. This doesn’t mean I have stopped BJJ altogether but while my body adjusts to the extra workload it makes sense to give it a rest for a while.
The workouts in Judo however are a lot easier on the old body and so despite running in my lunch hour I am to complete a Judo class with no problem.

Graeme was back tonight but had injured his ankle doing Judo in the week at another club he attends so Peter took the class and Graeme assisted from the sidelines.

We worked mainly on one throw tonight, Sumi-gaeshi , which incidentally is a 1st kyu throw, so quite advanced. It does look quite complicated when you first see it but in fact I got the hang of this fairly quickly. Big Stuart was my Uke for this throw, so I knew I had to get the technique right to throw him properly. We were shown two versions of this throw, the first is like the one on the link I’ve provided which clearly shows separation between the person throwing and Uke. This is important if you want the throw to count in competition and score an Ippon. The other way of doing this throw is, instead of letting go of Uke you roll with them and end up in the mount position. In a Judo competition this would be a good idea if you wanted to get your opponent to the ground but you would be unlikely to score as a throw this way as it would be judged as a takedown rather than a throw. I do wonder whether this throw would work in BJJ as this would be an excellent and unusual way of getting mount from a standing position.

Juji-gatame or the classic armbar was then shown to the class. In Judo this is a Green Belt technique and in fact looking at the Green belt syllabus there is five different versions of this submission that you have to know for that grading. I would therefore imagine any newly promoted Green belts would be particularly proficient with this technique, something to take note of should I face a Green belt in competition anytime soon.

Although I have been shown this technique in BJJ it was nice to finally be shown this in Judo. Again this does show the different goals within Judo Newaza and BJJ as in BJJ this is one of the first submissions you learn and I was shown this within my first month of lessons. In Judo, if I waited until I was grading for my Green, it could have taken over a year before I was shown it. I’m not sure what Ryan made of this, as being a Blue Belt in BJJ this will be a bread & butter move to him.
However I was shown a slightly different version to the one I have been shown before because you only put your leg across Uke’s neck and your second leg is bent and lodged under their body rather than both legs over Uke.

Just before the end of the class I was asked to perform Tai-otoshi, as part of my Yellow belt grading. I hadn’t practiced this throw since before we had the summer break so I was more than a little rusty. I was expecting that I would have to perform O-uchi-gari as this was the throw that we had practiced a lot in previous weeks. Oli was Uke for my throw and I thought I performed it pretty well as I threw him with no effort. Unfortunately my technique wasn’t quite right so I was asked to perform it again and again I was doing something wrong. After my third and final attempt I was shown my Graeme what I was doing wrong which basically me using my leg too much for the throw. Tai-otoshi is classed as a “hand throw”, which means that ideally the throw should work even if my leg wasn’t there blocking Uke’s leg. I think was slightly reaping Oli’s leg, which is why I failed. All this means is that I will have to perform the throw again in the next lesson so I’m not too upset about it. I’d rather know how to do the throw properly than get a pass as getting my yellow belt is not my goal, getting better at Judo is.
After my failed attempt at Tai-otoshi I was then asked to perform three holds. Yoko-shiho-gatame , Tate-shiho-gatame and kami-shiho-gatame . Having practiced all of these in recent weeks I was fairly confident I could perform these correctly and I did.

The club is closed next week for the half term holidays so my grading will have to wait a couple of weeks. I still have three turnovers, three escapes, one throw and three throws into the holds which I performed today, left until I pass so it could take me another 2-3 weeks.

Harai-goshi and my first combination

2010-10-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

Looking back at my first post I noticed that I was the only senior student who attended my first lesson. Recently there have been as many as 11 seniors, which is about as many as we could comfortably have on the mat when you consider the size of the matted area. I thought I would also take this opportunity to list everyone who regularly attends at the club in Rank order so that I don’t have to keep referring to their rank in my posts.

Inez – 2nd Dan
Peter – 1st Dan
Jillian – 1st Dan
Stuart – 1st Dan
Graeme – 1st Kyu (Brown)
Big Stuart – 1st Kyu
Troy – 1st Kyu
Oli – 1st Kyu
Mark – 3rd Kyu (Green)
Stuart – 6th Kyu (Red)
Ryan – not yet graded (White) –Blue Belt in BJJ

After the warm up we went in to some light Newaza and I was paired up with Ryan. We both managed to start lightly but as we continued, the resistance level went up a bit before matte was called. Next I was paired against Jillian and I made a conscious effort to go light against her. At one point I took Jillian’s back and she showed me a way of choking her from this position which involves me reaching around with my left arm and trapping her left arm by grapping on to the wrist or gi sleeve. Then with my right hand I simply reach around her neck and grab the far side of her collar. Funnily enough Inez was to show the class a very similar move to this later on in the lesson.

Next up was Big Stuart and by this time the lightness went out of the window. Stuart pushed me onto my back and tried to pass my guard but I was managing to control his hips well with my hand. He did eventually manage to get a mune-gatame (Chest hold) on me and then when he transitioned to Kesa-gatame (scarf hold) I tried to scramble out backwards but matte was called before I could complete it. Kesa-gatame is not often used in BJJ because if you escape out the back then you have your opponents back and will most likely choke them. In BJJ they prefer Kazure-kesa-gatame (Broken Scarf Hold) as you have control over more of your opponent’s body than basically just the arm and head like in Kesa-gatame.

Following on from all the hip throws we did last week Inez concentrated on Harai-goshi (sweeping hip throw). I worked on this throw with Oli and felt I had got it going pretty good. Inez then showed us a couple of set ups but Oli simplified this further for me and it was his set up that I think I would try and use next time we do Randori. This was an O-soto-otoshi attempt and when/if uke stepped out of it they were in a perfect position for a Harai-goshi. Although I have been shown a couple of set ups before this one really flowed especially as O-soto-otoshi is one of my more favourite throws so this is a combination I can really try and work on and maybe make my signature move.

I have UFC 120 to look forward to this weekend and I am attending the UFC Fan Expo at Earls Court on Saturday so hopefully I’ll have some photos to post on here from that next week.

The Goshi's.

2010-10-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

No Graeme this week as he’s away on one of his many business trips so Peter took the class. There was another Black Belt tonight and another Stuart, that’s three Stuarts in one club. I’m not quite sure who Stuart was but some of the more senior people knew him but I hadn’t seen him since I had been coming to the club which is since February so maybe he stopped training or found another club.

Inez took us through our warm up and then we did plenty of Ukemi, which is always a good thing to practice. My Ukemi has improved a lot since I first started and unless I totally mess it up I never get the dizzy feeling anymore.

After the Ukemi we went straight in to Newaza. I paired up with Ryan first and immediately pulled guard. I managed to keep Ryan from passing my guard for a little while before he finally got to half guard but I was then able to regain full guard and even went in to butterfly guard and attacked him. Ryan then pulled guard on me and I could see he was trying to sweep me but I managed to posture up and keep my balance. Just before Peter called matte Ryan pulled my head down and got the sweep but it was too late for Ryan to do anything. In BJJ Ryan would have got the mount and probably a submission would have followed but under Judo rules you have to keep very active otherwise you are stood back up. Although Ryan, being a BJJ Blue belt, is clearly better than me on the ground, he plays a patient game which may not work so well should he enter a Newaza tournament so he might have to tweak his game slightly. Last week Graeme did mention that there may be an opportunity for our club to compete against another Judo club in a Newaza tournament and I’m sure we would do quite well. Ryan and I would both compete in the Green belt and below section which to be honest Ryan should have a very good chance of winning. Also with my BJJ training I fancy my chances, providing I don’t end up in Ryan’s weight category that is.

Peter did point out to both Ryan and I that we should conserve our energy as this was only to be the first of many rolls we had this evening, but I think Ryan and I could quite happily keep going all night if we had to, due mainly to the BJJ training we’ve both been doing.

After Ryan I got to roll with Mark who is quite a big guy, probably an inch shorter than me but probably a stone heavier. Mark was treating me like a complete beginner, giving me advice on what to do, which to be fair to him my Red belt would suggest I am, so I probably surprised him when I pulled guard and threw up a San-gaku-jime. Unfortunately for me this was on my weaker side and I got confused as to which foot I needed to hook under the other leg. I had this same problem a couple of weeks ago at BJJ so I need to practice this submission on my left side. When I didn’t get the tap from San-gaku-jime, I went back to guard again and thought I’d try one of the sweeps that I had learnt in BJJ recently. I managed to control his body and shrimp and it was only when I put my right arm under his leg that he realised what I was going to do so he managed to sprawl his legs back to defend. Matte was called quickly afterwards but hopefully I had done enough to convince Mark that next time he doesn’t need to be quite so nice.

Reading this back I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m being arrogant. Mark seems like a nice guy which is why he was trying to help me. I would have just preferred it if he had attacked and subbed me first and then on our next roll point out why he had managed to do so.

After some further rolls with Oli, Big Stuart and Black Belt Stuart (this is getting complicated now), Peter stood us up and said we would be practicing hip throws.

I paired up with Oli and the first throw we tried was O-goshi. It took me a while to get the hang of this but it really helped me when Oli threw me with this. Oli’s control of me was such that he could stop half way through the throw and drop me very gently to the floor. When I threw Oli he always hit the floor with a thud as I wasn’t able to control him. Gill did point out to me that I needed to get my hip further across his body when doing this which did really help and is something I need to remember next time I practice this.

Peter then showed us what throw to go to if Uke resists or stiffens up when trying O-goshi and that is Uki-goshi and also Harai-goshi. We then finished up with Tsurikomi-goshi before we went on to some Randori.

I paired up with Big Stuart and tried a couple of times to get in for an O-goshi but again Stuart must be able to see these coming a mile off. Not deterred I tried for Osoto-otoshi and Stuart stepped back before I was close enough but left himself open to a Tani-Otoshi which I just about got him down with.
Stuart then threw me a couple of times before Peter called matte just to put me in my place but I was very pleased that I managed to throw him as, as I have said before the throws are by far the hardest part of Judo.

I really enjoyed tonight’s lesson as it was not only technical but very physical too.

O-uchi-gari.

2010-10-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

I got home from work on Thursday evening and picked up the post that was on the mat as usual. I quickly realised that there was a large letter from the organisers of the London Marathon and that, low and behold, I had been successful in my application to run at next year’s event. Although the amount of training I will need to do between now and then is slightly daunting it has certainly put me in a good mood as I have been trying, via the ballot, to get in for the last 5 years. So off I went to Judo with a spring in my step.

On arrival I noticed another new face, Chris, who has previously trained in Japanese Jiu-jitsu. I later found out that he was a green belt in JJJ but I’m not sure how senior that is.
Graeme took as through our warm up and then he told us that we would be working on O-uchi-gari tonight, which coincidentally is one of the throws I need to perfect for my Yellow belt grading.

Graeme had a great way of breaking this throw down in to different parts. First off he had us practicing our footwork and entry in to the throw. Then the arm movements and finally we put the whole thing together. I was paired with Ryan and before long we were both pulling off really nice O-uchi-gari’s on each other. We were then told to do the throw whilst moving and this actually made the throw easier as, providing you timed it right, you could catch their foot just before it hit the ground.

After we had properly drilled O-uchi-gari Graeme then told me to pick an Uke to throw with Ippon-seoi-nage so that he could tick this off my grading. I picked Oli and performed an average throw on him but it didn’t quite feel right as I threw him more around my right shoulder than over the top. Graeme asked me to do the throw again and this time Oli felt as light as a feather and flew right over the top of me. I knew straight away I had preformed a perfect Ippon-seoi-nage as it was effortless and Graeme agreed.

With the Tachi-waza out of the way we went on to some Newaza and in particular Kami-shiho-gatame, another Yellow belt technique. I was still paired with Oli at this point and we both drilled this hold before Graeme showed us a variation of the technique where instead of the normal grip, both arms under uke’s arms and grabbing uek’s belt, one of your arms grabs over Uke’s arm and then back towards your legs and grabs Uke’s collar. This was actually a stronger hold than the traditional way of doing Kami-shiho-gatame and one that I would certainly use in competition.

We finished up with some Randori, first standing and then groundwork. First up Big Stuart handled me with ease and threw me a couple of times then Oli did the same. Again what I noticed most about Randori with these two is that they really know what they are doing with their grips whereas I just try and get the traditional Judo grip as I don’t really have any idea what throw I want to perform or how I want them to react. For a relative beginner like me there is so much to think about with throwing that you end up telegraphing exactly what you are going to do which means you have no chance in throwing a brown belt like Stuart and Oli.
I did finally manage a rather scrappy Osoto-otoshi on Ryan but we largely cancelled each other out. I did have a quick go against the new guy Chris and he clearly has a bit of experience with throws as he was able to trip me and was difficult for me to throw.
Still, overall considering that I hadn’t done any standing Randori since early July I wasn’t that bad and at least we then went on to do some Newaza randori.

I had a good roll with Big Stuart and actually managed to submit him with a Sangaku-jime (triangle). I’m not quite sure if the two months of BJJ has started to pay off or if I got lucky or if Stuart wasn’t actually trying too hard but it made me feel good nonetheless.

Tonight’s lesson was just the tonic I needed after last week’s when I was clearly having a bad one and had a little rant about Judo in general. Graeme’s teaching tonight was first class and totally made sense once we pieced everything together. Unfortunately he will be away on business for the next two weeks so I’m not sure how much of my Yellow belt grading I will do in that time but there is no rush.

The Guard. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-09-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

I was feeling slightly lethargic today and when Oli text me to say that he wouldn’t be able to train I was looking for an excuse not to train myself. As no excuse was forthcoming I plodded off to BJJ but I’m so glad I did.

Tonight’s warm up and workout were slightly easier than usual but nonetheless we still worked up a really good sweat especially going from knee jumps to sprawls.
We were then shown a couple of techniques by Ricardo which emphasised using your legs to help retain guard.
So with me on my back, knees bent, Uke stands by my feet and then steps with his left leg across to my left side and places his foot by my waist. My reaction to this is to shrimp on my left side and then bring my right leg over and place my right foot on Uke’s left leg and push off of it to regain guard and shrimp to my right where Uke then steps with his right leg and repeats.
After a while Ricardo then showed us an extension to this technique where, after the initial shrimp to my left I grab Uke’s leg with my hands and roll across my shoulders and pull guard. Annoyingly I don’t know if this technique has an exact name so I can’t find any videos of it but if I do I may add them later.

We must have drilled these techniques for about 30 minutes before we lined up. Then six of the senior guys were called on to the mats and we all had to take it in turns to try and pass their guard but we started by holding both of their legs together at the knees. This is a pretty good position to start off with but I was first paired up with a black belt and not just a BJJ black belt but a Judo black belt as well. As you can imagine I was unsuccessful in my attempt but I wasn’t alone. Some of the other seniors eventually had their guard passed but not the Black Belt and neither did Tim, a brown belt.

After ten or so minutes we were given a couple of minutes to take water before we started sparring. I paired up with James who was roughly my size and had been doing BJJ on and off for a couple of years. Although he caught me early on with Sode-guruma-jime for the rest of the roll I was able to defend pretty well and almost caught him at the end with a reverse triangle (San-gaku-jime) so I was pretty pleased with myself.

Ryan was next up and I got subbed with an Americana (Ude-garami) and then later on Ryan got full mount and was working towards an Arm Bar (Juji-gatame) when Ricardo called time. I really need to work on my escapes from the mount as at the moment I only know one and I’m usually not very successful with it.

My final roll was with a guy, whose name escapes me. He was quite small but also practised Japanese Jiu-jitsu. I caught him early on in a triangle (San-gaku-jime) but was not able to finish him as he was keeping his head close to my chest and trying to stack pass me. Also the fact that, for most of the time I had him in the triangle, I had locked my legs the wrong way. By the time I realised this my legs were getting tired and he was trying to pass my guard to my left. Realising that it was inevitable that I was going to have to let go of the triangle and that he was going to immediately end up in side control (mune-gatame) I was preparing to turn in to him and shrimp. I was therefore really pleased when my plan worked and I was able to shrimp back to full guard.

Although I couldn’t finish him with a submission I was really pleased that I was starting to think steps ahead and that my shrimping was improving.

Judo awaits me on Thursday and the continuation of my Yellow belt grading. I can’t wait.

Mellow Yellow

2010-09-24T04:15:00.000-07:00

My first Judo lesson for two months, due to the club being closed for the summer holidays, and I was very surprised that Peter told me that he was going to start my Yellow belt grading. As with my Red Belt grading this doesn’t have to be done in one go, which I was very grateful for as I did feel more than a little rusty especially with my throws and use of Japanese words.

There was a new senior tonight, new to me anyway, his name is Mark and he is a Green belt. He used to train here about 18 months ago but due to work commitments hasn’t been able to attend in that time but he was back and according to him, enjoying himself.

Having someone a little bit closer to my level can only be a good thing as apart from Ryan, who is a white belt but also a Blue belt in BJJ, everyone else in the club is either Brown or Black Belt. I didn’t get the chance to train directly with Mark tonight but at least when I do he will be less likely to be “taking it easy” with me, which I’m sure most of the others do.

After a quick stretch and warm up we went in to various breakfalls (Ukemi) and as I was doing them Peter ticked the ones that I have to for my grading off of a sheet. One of the breakfalls I did was Mae Ukemi which is a front breakfall. This was the breakfall I did several months ago which gave me my shoulder injury and I was little nervous about doing this but I managed to get through it ok and got another tick from Peter.

Following this we went in to some turnovers when Uki is laying flat on his stomach trying to stall for time. This is something I have not seen at all in my BJJ training as giving up your back in BJJ is like Boxing with your hands by your waist, sooner or later you’re gonna get put to sleep. However in Judo competition the referee will call matte if you are not able to improve your position very quickly when your opponent is just defending like this.

We then did some Newaza and I was paired with Troy. We were told that this was to be light Newaza so I was conscious not to use too much strength but although Troy is considerably lighter than me he is a Brown Belt so is obviously technically better which then means I resort to strength over technique. I took Troy down and tried to work towards Mune-gatame (side control) but couldn’t properly hold him down so I tried to get full mount but Troy managed to get half guard. Peter was watching and said that I shouldn’t have given up my Mune-gatame as now, unless I quickly got out of side control, a referee in competition would stand us back up.

This is the fundamental difference between Judo Newaza and BJJ. In BJJ your main objective is to submit your opponent by either a joint lock or a choke. If your opponent does not give up by tapping you continue until the joint is broken or until the person is choked unconscious. This is why BJJ works so well in MMA where the focus is to make your opponent submit or knock them out. Judo on the other hand now has such a large focus on what works in Judo competition.

If I got in to a real fight that went to the ground I would not want to hold someone in Mune-Gatame as it would achieve nothing. I would try and get a superior position, ie the mount and then punch them into submission or look for a joint lock or choke. I personally think Judo is losing its way as a form of self defense by concentrating so much on what can be done in competition and I think this focus is wrong but who am I to voice my concerns openly to experienced Judo Black Belts.

We went on to practice Ippon-seoi-nage which is a throw I need to perfect for my Yellow grading. We broke the throw down in to entry, braking Uke’s balance and picking Uke up and holding them on your back. Then when we finally got to do the throw I was able to perform it pretty well. I was paired up with Oli for this and he allowed me to just practice my throw on him rather than the other way around as he knew I had to nail this throw for my yellow belt. Of all the people I train with at the club Oli is probably the best Uke for me as he is reasonably close in height and weight, he resists just enough to ensure my technique is correct and always gives good feedback.

The lesson finished with some light Randori and I paired up with Troy again. Apart from the Ippon-seoi-nage, which I was never gonna get on Troy as he is a lot shorter than me, I am very rusty at throws so not surprisingly I struggled to get anything to work and even my trusty old Tani-otoshi failed me. Troy did point out that I was very stiff in the arms which I need to work on.

Next week I will have to perform Ippon-seoi-nage ona resisting opponent to get a tick on my Yellow grading and no doubt we will then concentrate on the other two throws (O-ochi-gari & Tai-otoshi).

I’m fairly comfortable with O-ochi-gari but my Tai-otoshi definitely needs some work on as does my knowledge of Japanese words for all the technique’s.

Providing I pass my yellow grading I should get this within a month which means I might be able to grade for Orange before the end of the year or at least be well on the way towards it which would be great.

Now on to BJJ and last week I mentioned that I had purchased an A-5 size BJJ Gi from eBay, well the bloody thing would not shrink at all in the wash despite a 95c wash and two at 60c. As I can’t send it back I have now put this up for sale on eBay and once sold I will purchase an A-4 from the same company as I know it should fit me. If however I bought an A-4 from a different company then their Gi’s would more than likely shrink and end up being too small like my Judo Gi is now although I’m gonna keep it for a while as I’m not sure my wife would appreciate me buying two new Gi’s in quick succession.

Next week I intend to write two blog entries, one for BJJ and one for Judo so I’ll be busy

Analyse This. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-09-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

Since last week I’ve realised that I can’t give the BJJ up neither can I just take the odd BJJ class when my Judo club is closed for three reasons.

1) I want to keep pace with the other beginners and if I didn’t train until the next holidays i.e. Christmas, I’d get totally owned by them.

2) There is so much to learn with ground fighting and taking what is essentially a Newaza lesson every week can only help my Judo.

3) I just enjoy it too much.

I’ve also purchased a BJJ gi from eBay as, with my BJJ class on a Tuesday and Judo on a Thursday I’ll struggle to get my gi washed and dried in time. Also my Judo gi has shrunk quite a bit and to be honest will also need replacing but I’m going to wait until I get my Judo yellow belt before I treat myself. The name of my blog will still remain the same though as I still consider myself a Judoka first and a Brazilian Jiu-jitsuka second.

I went to Tuesday’s class with one eye on the two day spa break that my wife and I were going on the next day so I was slightly conscious that I didn’t want to be sitting around the pool at the Spa or having a massage whilst covered head to toe in bruises and for that reason I wasn’t quite on the ball tonight, at least that’s the excuse I’m sticking to.
After another tiring warm up Ricardo showed us a really nice sweep/reversal (not sure what the difference is between a sweep or a reversal btw)

So you start on your back with Uke in your guard grabbing your gi near your sternum. To break Uke’s grip you use both hands and grab his gi around his wrist and pull hard upwards and then to your right side. Then your left arm grabs around Uke’s back and grabs their gi by their right shoulder and at the same time you move your head towards Uke’s left knee. You then slide your right arm under Uke’s left leg and lift them up with your right arm and pull them with your left arm thus ending up in full mount. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng7kjXO77Eg

I practised this with Oli and he seemed to like this one as it was one he hasn’t seen in Judo and he was clearly quite looking forward to trying this out at Judo sometime.

When Ricardo shows us a technique he gives us a good twenty minutes or so to drill it so by the time we go on to sparring we have all really got something that we know works and that we know we can make work. As usual when Ricardo walked over to check on me I had just swapped sides from doing this on my right to my left side which usually takes a few minutes to get the hang of as everything is in reverse and so of course I did it all wrong and he had to show me the technique again. The same thing happened last week so I’m not sure if he thinks I’m totally useless or just not trying.

We finished up with sparring but I didn’t manage to pull off a submission on anyone tonight and I left feeling a little deflated. In fact the title of this blog was going to reflect how I felt at the time but since I have had a few days to analyse things I realised that I rolled mainly against Blue belts and I’ve never managed to sub one yet. I only rolled with two white belts one of whom is a big stocky guy who has been training quite a while and I did manage to escape a few subs and try a couple of my own before finally being subbed twice but we rolled for about 5 minutes with each person so again that wasn’t too bad. The other White belt was Oli who is of course a Brown belt in Judo so again there is no shame in being submitted by him. In fact I did manage to sub Oli once with an Ude-garami or an Americana. I also tried a Juji-gatame (armbar) from my back a couple of times and got close to catching him but he was able to get out of it twice and then able to get side control. I did feel when rolling with Oli that I was maybe using too much strength at times which is a habit ’ve tried to get out of as it doesn’t really achieve anything in the long run. So maybe on reflection I was being a bit harsh on myself and next week I should maybe seek out some other white belts to roll with so I can check my progress a bit better.

One thing I did learn was that trying to use the spider guard that Ricardo totally dominated me with the previous week is not something that you can pick up just by watching YouTube video’s, especially not against blue belts.

Next week will be interesting as it will be the first time I will have trained both BJJ and Judo in the same week so I’ll see how my old body holds up. I should also find out in a couple of weeks if I have been successful in my application to run next year’s London Marathon and if I have then I really better start doing some serious running as at the moment I’m only running two miles on a Tuesday and 4 miles on a Thursday which is someway short of the sort of distance I should be running.

Oh and before I forget, I’ve been reading Forrest Griffin’s book “Got Fight?” I haven’t finished it yet but so far it is one of the wittiest and ‘laugh out loud' funny books that I have ever read. While it may not be a "how-to" guide for MMA, it certainly provides useful information peppered in amongst hysterical stories and anecdotes. Griffin's self-deprecating humour and unique writing style make for an extremely entertaining read that will you have you laughing until your sides hurt. I would recommend this book to anyone even vaguely interested in MMA or to anyone with sense of humour.

Things to work on. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-09-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've been youtubing since my last lesson to see if I could find out what the technique was that Ricardo used on me on Tuesday to control me and I can confirm it was the Spider Guard.

I've attached the youtube vid below as I think this is maybe something I can work on in my next lesson against the beginners and hopefully I can perfect it enough so that it might work on some of the more experianced guys.

Crushed. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-09-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Oli and I turned up at 7.45 but we didn’t realise that because the school holidays were finished the class would revert to normal and start at 8.30 so the pair of us sat in my car discussing Judo and BJJ techniques. Oli has a lot of knowledge on Judo as he has been practicing for quite some time so I picked his brain as best I could.

This was to be my first “normal” lesson tonight then as previously we had literally just sparred for 2+ hours so I was expecting a real hard warm up and workout and I wasn’t disappointed.

We ran, jumped, star jumped, sprawled did various types of press-ups, sit-ups, leg raises for about 20 minutes. We also did a lot of neck exercises which I felt later on when we were started practicing techniques.
Anyway I managed to complete the workout but I had certainly worked up a good sweat. The class was then split into two groups of white belts and junior Blue’s and Senior Blue’s, Purples and Browns.

We were then shown an armbar technique from your back by Ricardo which is the first time I have been taught this. With Uke in your guard and with their right arm grabbing your gi by your sternum you use your right arm to pull Uke’s elbow and arm across your body and then using your left foot you push off of Uke’s right thigh to create an angle. You then ensure that your right leg is high up on their back which stops them from pulling away and then you lift your hips up and place your left leg over their head trapping their right arm. If done right you should be able to make them tap just by raising your hips instead of flattening them out like a normal armbar. We practiced this for about 30 minutes but because we did so many neck exercises both Oli and myself had to change over regularly as keeping our necks off the floor when on our backs was uncomfortable to say the least.

A short drink break followed before we started sparring and like last week half the class spared for two minutes thirty seconds whilst the other half rested and then we swapped over. As the class was slightly shorter tonight this only lasted about 30 minutes. I did have the pleasure of having a roll with Ricardo tonight which is my first time rolling with a BJJ black belt and it was an experience. Ricardo exploded in to various submissions on me and totally controlled not only both my arms but both my legs as well rendering me totally useless and unable to defend anything. It made me feel like I did as a small child when I used to try and wrestle my Dad only for my Dad to grab both my wrists with one hand and sit on me until I gave up.
I was subbed numerous times but two of the subs that stood out were Sode-guruma-jime (not sure of BJJ name) and a very tight triangle which I had to tap to immediately as I could feel myself passing out.

The Sode-guruma-jime which Ricardo subbed me with was done from inside his guard with him on his back. He basically grabbed the back of my head and pulled it down towards his chest and slapped it on so quickly I didn’t know what hit me. This particular sub I was shown in Judo in one of the last lessons I had before the summer break. I didn’t realise it could be used from your back as we were shown it from full mount. This is one I will try and pull off next time I roll.

I got to roll with Seb again this week and every week I roll with him he improves a little. His posture was a lot stronger this week and as I decided to pull guard I had real trouble stopping him from passing my guard. I did let him get full mount on me as I wanted to try a reversal that one of the Purple belts showed me earlier. Unfortunately Seb seemed to be wise to this and was able to defend it. I then noticed he was looking for an arm to try for an Americana so I basically just muscled my way back to half guard and then regained full guard. I know this is a bad habit to get in to as against any of the more experienced guys I would have been arm barred but hey I hadn’t subbed anyone at all tonight and I’d be damned if I was gonna get subbed by Seb as well. Time was called shortly after so it was kind of a draw but he did have dominant position on me tonight so I’ll give him the win on points.

As I said above I didn’t manage a single submission tonight but apart from Seb I rolled with Blue, Purples and one Black Belt so maybe next time I need to choose someone nearer by own level.

Next week Judo starts up again after the summer break but I am away with the wife at a Spa hotel so I won’t be able to go. When I started BJJ my initial intention was to only do it when my Judo club was closed but now I don’t think I want to stop. That’s not to say I’m giving up on the Judo, far from it, I really want to push on and get my Yellow belt before Christmas. So have I got the time and effort and money to train both? …………………..i’m going to try.

Rolling, rolling, rolling. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-09-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

Oli (Judo Brown Belt) accompanied me again this week for another BJJ session and we arrived around 7.50, 10 minutes early. Ricardo got us all warmed up by doing various breakfalls and shrimping across the mats before we settled down to do some light stretching.

The class started with some techniques which is different to how it’s usually structured on a Tuesday. The first technique was a defense from a double leg takedown attempt which basically involved me sprawling and pushing down on Oli’s back and taking a grip around his back and under his chest. Oli then isolates my right arm by pinning it with his left arm and then by keeping his head in contact with my body he reaches his right leg across his body and scoots out before taking hold of my back. We both practiced this technique for about 15 minutes before Ricardo had us try a variation whereby the person defending the takedown gets an underhook with one arm, which is the best way of defending. Again we practiced this for a while until it was really drilled in and by this time everyone was really working up a sweat.

As there was a lot of people in the class Ricardo split the class in two and had half of us sparring for 3 minutes while the other half rested and then we swapped over. This went on for over an hour so I must have sparred for about 40 minutes.

First up I rolled with a blue belt and we went at it pretty hard. He was able to get the better of me choking me out with my gi a couple of times in the 3 minute period. Next up for me was Dan a Brown Belt and he totally blitzed me getting 4 or 5 arm bars from different positions all in 3 minutes. I think he must have been specifically practicing his arm bars as this was all he attempted. I noticed whilst rolling with him that he controlled my legs with his own legs which meant I could never get a good base from which to attack from. Now I don’t expect to submit a brown belt but it would be nice to at least make him work a little.

After Dan I rolled with a purple belt who let me control his legs with my arms so that I was able to get side control. Actually control is not the right word as he was able to easily sweep me and then submit me. Again when we restarted he let me pass his legs to get side control but I just couldn’t work anything from there.

After we finished our roll he said he had gotten an under hook when I got side control which meant he was able to control me easily. I will look on YouTube sometime this week to see if I can find out what he was doing, if not I’ll ask him next week as he seems like a nice guy and this is the second time he has given me some good pointers.

I noticed that a couple of the beginners from a few weeks ago were now sporting nice bright white gi’s and I was approached by Seb to have a roll. When I rolled with Seb previously I commented that he was strong and I basically let him attack me and caught him from my back. For some reason he didn’t look as big as I remembered so I decided that as had about a month’s experience he was fair game so I attacked him and took him down and got nice side control. I passed to mount and he turned over giving me his back. I quickly got my hooks in and went for a gi choke by grabbing his left lapel with my left hand across his neck. Despite cranking it on hard he never tapped so I eventually gave this up and tried for a rear naked choke but he defended his neck well. I then let him roll on to his back but I didn’t let go so I was still in mount. This time I worked my way up his body as I was intending to go for an arm bar but he recognised what I was trying to do so he kept his arms close to his body. Eventually we ran out of time so Seb did a good job defending. Although I was able to totally dominate him I could definitely see an improvement in his grappling awareness.

After I rolled with Ryan I rolled with one of Sebs friends, and like Seb he had a new gi. He attacked a lot more than Seb but he was a bit lighter and once I got hold of him I was able to get a good position and submit him with a couple of Americana’s and eventually an arm bar. He was good though and if it wasn’t for the strength and size difference he would have given me a harder fight.

Before the end of the class I got another roll with Seb and it went pretty much the same as our first roll with the only difference being that I was able to armbar him right at the end.

Because the sparring was brutal and constant quite a few people either left early or sat out a couple of rolls but I managed to go until the end so I’m pretty happy with my fitness at the moment. I did learn from my previous mistake of going for a 4 mile run on the day of training which meant I got cramp in my calves, although I did still manage a cheeky 2 mile run but this was done at a slow pace (18 minutes).

On the way home in the car Oli and I chatted about Judo and the techniques I need to learn to get my Yellow belt. I think once I go back to Judo I will make a concerted effort to drill my Yellow belt techniques as I’d like to get it before Christmas. Not long to go now, which means only 2 more BJJ lessons. Although I do enjoy the BJJ, Judo is my first love so BJJ will have to take a back seat for a while, probably until the next school holidays when my Judo club will close again.

Looking tired but still going after two hours of training

Arm bar hoo-ha. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-08-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

After missing last week due to food poisoning I was very much looking forward to training this week. I got there slightly early (7.45) but there was already around 20 guys changed and ready to go. Whilst I was getting changed myself Ricardo reminded everyone that it was an open mat session so start rolling.

I did a quick 5 minute warm up and learning from my mistakes of the other week I was fresh today as I did not do a 5 mile run in my lunch hour.

My first roll was with a guy who was a blue belt in Judo from Westcroft Judo club and in fact I remember him from when I last trained there. He was strong and stocky and even though he had been training BJJ for a few months I could tell he was a Judoka. He managed to get me in a sort of guillotine choke, but he never had it sunk in properly. This didn’t stop him from continuing to try and submit me and he had me in this for a couple of minutes before I finally tapped more so because he was crushing my jaw than because he was choking me out.

My next roll was with the only female in the club or at least she was tonight. I was conscious whilst rolling with her not to try and muscle my way through and tried to use technique instead. This caused a kind of stalemate as although she was quite technical and was able to pass my guard I was able to reverse her and then pass her guard albeit only to side control where, not wanting to just force a kimura I struggled to get a dominant position. Towards the end of our roll I did finally manage to get mount and sink in a kimura which forced her to tap and this was all done using technique so I was quite pleased.

There were a couple of complete beginners in tonight and whilst I grabbed a quick drink of water and waited for someone to roll with I thought I’d grab one of the new guys. The first new guy I rolled with had a bit of an idea and was quite strong so I just let him attack and let him go from side control to mount before I reversed him and did the same back.
The second new guy I rolled with had never done any grappling and had no idea what even the guard was and this was a slightly difficult roll as I spent most of the 5 minutes explaining why rather than showing him.

Shortly after wards Ricardo showed us all a technique to practice and I paired up with a young guy who had just purchased a shiny white new gi. The technique was quite complicated as it was first an escape from side control and then in doing so uke gets an underhook and tries to go for full mount but you end up shrimping out the other side and getting their back. I’ve basically broken this down in to 2 separate techniques. The first one being the escape from side control and the second one being a good way of taking someone’s back if they are about to get full mount.

When we went back to sparring I got to roll with this young guy and before we rolled he told me he had been training a month which is 1 week longer than I have. When I preceded to Arm Bar him twice followed by a kimura and then an arm triangle he looked a little bit frustrated so I told him that I had a couple months of Judo but he didn’t know that they did ground grappling in Judo. I was very happy with the two armbars I got as they are my first in a BJJ class and they were exactly as Ricardo had shown me the other week.

My last roll was with the guy I first rolled with i.e. the ex Judo guy. I was surprised that he still had his strength considering he uses it a lot when he rolls. I managed to have a better roll with him this time around though. In this guy I think I have found someone who is just that little bit better than me but not by a huge amount. I think I can use him as a yard stick for my improvements going forward.

Bruises, Cramp and Pain. BJJ Nova Forca

2010-08-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

I was back for my second BJJ lesson last night and I was accompanied by Oli (Brown belt) from my Judo club. We got there just after 8pm only to find some guys already rolling on the mats. Ricardo the instructor approached us and I introduced him to Oli. Apparently for the next month or so Tuesday nights will basically be sparring sessions, which is why some guys were already on the mats. We were told to warm ourselves up and then to start rolling.

My first roll was therefore with Oli who I have done Newaza with on numerous occasions at Judo. However I think the shackles of being a senior student were lifted here as he was more aggressive than usual and was able to land a couple of submissions on me. After about 10 minutes of rolling I reminded Oli that we had another 2 hours of this left yet so we better conserve our energy but we were quite tired as we had both expended a lot of effort.

My next roll was with a Brown belt who started off sitting back on his arse, remembering what I had been told last week I grabbed the gi of his trousers and tried to control his legs so that I could pass. Of course being a brown belt this was never gonna be easy and so it proved futile but I was at least able to keep him at bay a little longer before he was able to submit me.
One thing I was able to make work was a technique I had learnt from one of the DVD’s that Tony from AV Forums had sent me. This was basically a technique to stop someone from passing your guard but it’s very difficult to explain in words without a supporting video.Anyway I was able to stop the Brown belt from passing my guard using this technique but he was able to move to something else of which I had no answer to. Still it proved it worked.

Next up for me was Ryan (Blue Belt) and again he was being nice but it was whilst rolling with Ryan that I first got cramp in the calf of my left leg. Now I say “first” as throughout the rest of the lesson I kept getting cramp in both calves and then in my hamstrings which were very unpleasant. I’m pretty sure that the 4 mile run that I did in my lunch hour was the cause of my cramps and maybe next week I need to look at my training routine.
Back to Ryan and I was able to sub him with a Kimura and almost a triangle (before the cramp put an end to that) but again he doesn’t appear to be putting too much effort in against me.

After Ryan I was approached by a young lad (Seb), well I say young he was probably 19 or 20 but compared to me he was a young lad. Anyway this was his first lesson and as such he had no gi. We went on to the mat and he asked me what he should so I asked him what he knew already. As he was a fan of MMA he said all he knew was the guard and side control but I told him that was a good start as you need to learn defense before you can learn attack. So I told him to try what he knew so I pulled him in to my guard and he postured up and dug his elbows in to my thighs to pass. I managed to stop him from passing for a while until the pain in my thighs proved too much and he managed to get side control. I was then able to get back to half guard and at that point he said was stuck for ideas and asked me to show him a submission.

I thought the Kimura would be the easiest one to show him and after a few attempts he got the hang of it.
With renewed vigor he was eager to roll again with me so off we went again with me pulling guard. Yet again he was able to eventually pass to side control and then got mount and of course he went straight for the Kimura. I thought I better prove my worth so I reversed him and quickly got side control myself. From here I sunk in a Kimura and slowly cranked it up forcing him to tap.
At this point I mentioned to him how important it was to have control of your submissions and that there was nothing more dangerous than a noob who knew submissions as they were much more likely to crank them on too hard and injure their training partner than a higher grade would. I also told him not to hold on too long before tapping as this is only practice and unless you know a specific escape there was no point.
We continued to roll a couple more times and I was able to submit him a few more times but he was strong and young so it was a good workout nonetheless.

At this point we stopped sparring and Ricardo showed us a couple of armbar techniques which was good for me as this is a technique I’ve not been officially shown yet as an Armbar or Juji-gatame is a green belt technique in Judo.

Armed with my new improved submission we went back to sparring and I again rolled with Oli. Unfortunately I was dogged with cramp again in both thighs so I took some time out to stretch.

I got back on the mat and was paired with the young lad again who, after learning the armbar had another submission to add to his limited arsenal. At this point I was feeling very tired as we had been sparring for about an hour and a half with only a 30 minute break for submissions.

Again I pulled guard on Seb but this time I quickly swept him, passed his guard and caught him first with a kimura, then after we restarted I got him with a technique of which I’m not sure of the name, but I had full mount and from there I put my right arm under his neck and pushed my right shoulder under his chin to get a sort of neck crank. Following that I then subbed him with an arm triangle and finally from my back I was able to land Hiza-gatame.

This roll made me realise that there is a big difference between me and a complete beginner but I also knew that the difference between me and a blue belt was just as vast.

I then had a good tussle with another white belt and although he dominated me he only managed one submission in about 5 minutes. Shortly afterwards Ricardo called time and we stretched out before lining up. Just like last week we were all told to take our belts off as someone was getting a whipping. This time the whipping wasn’t so much a punishment as a good bye gesture to one of the guys who was heading out to Japan to train for 6 weeks and again it was done in good spirit

The morning after I’ve yet again woken up very stiff, covered in bruises (including one under my right eye) and with very sore ribs and chest. I’m sure my old body will eventually get used to this but I might have to look at my training in the week and stop running on the days that I train BJJ.
Hopefully Oli will be back next week as I’m sure I will.

Nova Forca BJJ

2010-07-28T08:46:00.001-07:00

So due to my Judo club being closed for the summer I finally made it to my first BJJ class and what an eye opener it was.

As I approached the club I was hit with a smell which can only be described as men’s sweat. This smell intensified as I walked in to the club and was an indication of what my body would be doing very shortly, I.e. sweating……a lot.

I introduced myself to the instructor Ricardo and was made to feel welcome I then made my way to the corner of the room where I changed in to my gi. I noticed as I was doing so the chiseled physiques of most of the other guys which made me realise that this was a serious dojo.

After a short wait we started to warm up which involved us running around the mat for about 5- 10 minutes before we took it in turns to do various break falls and various methods of shrimping up and down the mat. Apparently tonights class would be different to the normal lesson which would normally consist of 45 minutes of warm up and cardio followed by 45 minutes of techniques and 45 minute of sparring. Tonight our warm up only lasted 15 minutes but then we went straight in to light sparring.

First up I paired off with Ryan, my friend from Judo who had incidentally only recently received his blue belt. This was to prove the most gentle roll I had all evening as Ryan was clearly being nice to me and allowed me to work some submissions and transition from side control to mount although he did sub me a couple of times just to keep my ego in check.

After Ryan I was feeling good, and thought that my 4 months of Judo Newaza was going to stand me in good stead for the rest of the lesson. I then paired up with a young lad who didn’t have a gi. This meant he was either a beginner or maybe an MMA guy who prefers no-gi BJJ because it more closely relates to the grappling in MMA fights. We started to roll and he immediately caught me in a triangle but I managed to squeeze my other arm between his legs thus forcing him to give up on the sub. I then worked on trying to pass his guard and was able to do so and go straight in to kesa-gatame. As this isn’t Judo holding him down in Kesa-gatame would not score me any points so I transitioned in to Mune-gatame and then I got mount. From here I managed to work an Americana until he tapped.

I was feeling good now as I thought I had just subbed an MMA fighter. We started again and this time I pulled guard. I was then able to sweep him so that I got full mount. He tried to bridge but I let him turnover and then I had his back with both hooks in where I was then able to sink in a choke.

We started again and this time he was slightly more aggressive. Again I pulled guard but this time he passed and got side control where he tried to work a Kimura and almost had it when Ricardo called out to change partners so I was saved. We shook hands and I asked him how long he had been training. He said this was his second week and then it suddenly hit me, I was a complete beginner doing BJJ and unless we started sparring from standing I was gonna have a long tough night.

As there were probably around 30 guys everyone took it in turns to grab a drink and I didn’t mind sitting out for a few minutes so I could catch my breath. I was then approached by a blue belt for a roll and off we went again. In Judo you bow before you spar but at this club you kinda shake hands and then touch fists which fits in with the more modern feel and as this is a Brazilian Martial Art certainly feels more normal than bowing would be which is a Japanese custom.

From here on in the rest of the night was a total blur as I was submitted and totally controlled by everyone else I sparred with. I did manage to spar a Purple Belt who managed to submit me 4 times in 60 seconds, surely a record. What I would say though is that, certainly with the Blue and Purple Belts, they were very willing to give me advice and help me. In fact everyone I sparred with seemed like a nice guy even though a couple of them looked like the kind of people you would cross the street to avoid.

We had a brief respite from the sparring when we stopped to do a couple of techniques but this only lasted 30 minutes before we went back in to sparring.

Things I learnt from tonight’s lesson were as follows:
· 4 months of Judo equates to about 4 lessons in BJJ where Newaza is concerned. Obviously this is because each Judo lesson is split about 60/40 in favour of throws to Newaza whereas every 2 hour BJJ lesson is 2 hours of Newaza.
· Passing the guard and good guard control is essential in BJJ and is probably the most important thing to work on rather than flashy submission.
· If someone is sitting down trying to pull you in to their guard do not grab the lapel of their gi or go straight in to their guard with your arms stretched forward as they can easily control and probably sweep you. What you should try to do is to control their legs so that you can pass their guard.

Towards the end of the class the mats, in some places were so saturated that puddles had formed and if you were unfortunate enough to walk on one of these puddles your feet squelched beneath you.

When the lesson finally finished we all lined up to shake hands with the instructor and give each other a manly slap on the back. There was just one more thing however. One of the guys in the club had been disrespectful towards Ricardo, not in a malicious way but more of taking the Mickey out of Brazilians type of way, which is not clever when your Black belt instructor is a proud Brazilian. Anyway as punishment this guy had to run a type of gauntlet between the rest of the club whilst we are whipped him with our belts. Again this was all done in good spirit but was a lot different to what I am used to at Judo.

The morning after I am aching like I have never ached before so there is no chance of me going to the next class on Thursday however will I be fit for next Tuesday’s lesson? Just watch this space.

Decisions, Decisions

2010-07-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

The club closes for the summer period so tonight’s lesson was the last until September which kinda sucks. I’m not sure yet where I’m going to train for the next 7 weeks but I do have a few options with Reigate and Witley, nr Guildford, the obvious choices. The only issue I have is that my shoulder still isn’t right after I injured it so I’m not comfortable turning up at a new club and asking them to take it easy on me.

I also have the option of training some BJJ at either Nova Forca in Epsom or Novagen in Sutton. Ryan (the BJJ guy from my club) trains at Epsom so at least I would see a friendly face if I trained there. Of course I would still have the issue about informing everyone that I have a slight injury but at least with BJJ the chances of being thrown hard are less than they are with Judo.

Last night’s lesson was cut short because it was the last one before the summer break so we finished 30 minutes early and retired to the Bar for a Shandy. The club is based at Dorking Rugby club so when we went in to the Bar and asked the barman for 6 Shandy’s he looked confused, like we had just ordered some exotic cocktail. I’m pretty sure that no self respecting Rugby player would dare to water down their lager with lemonade but luckily there were no Rugby players in the bar at that time so I think we just about got away with it.

Not much to report technique wise from the lesson, we just went over some entries to throws and worked on combinations or set ups, so basically I would act like I was going to try Tai-otoshi but then use Osoto-otoshi instead. I got paired with Inez (2nd Dan) who is technically very good and a good teacher so it was a shame that the lesson was cut short.

Now to decide where I train for the next 7 weeks, decisions, decisions.

Visitors

2010-07-09T07:14:00.001-07:00

We had a couple of visitors tonight, Sophie and Peter, from a Judo club near Guildford. Sophie is a 2nd Dan and Peter is a 4th Dan. Sophie was given the task of warming us up and she soon had us running around the mats and then practicing various break falls. With it being so warm lately it didn’t take long before we started getting sweaty and I have never been so glad to have got this lightweight gi as I did last night. I can only imagine how hot I would have been had I been wearing my double weave Blitz.

Graeme took charge of the lesson tonight and had us practicing Ippon-seoi-nage which for someone tall like myself will never be my best throw but as I was paired with Oli, who is really good at explaining the throws, I soon got the hang of it. We then all lined up at the edge of the mats and took it in turns sprinting up and down the mats and then throwing the person to your left before continuing until you had thrown everyone. Once you had the next person would start. My mind went blank when doing this so I threw everyone with Ippon-seoi-nage( because I couldn’t remember any other throws) even Sophie who is about 4ft 11.

After this we did some Randori and I got paired with Peter the 4th Dan. Although he was quite a bit smaller than me he totally controlled me with his grip and really gave me a lesson in grip fighting. The tips of my fingers are all aching this morning because of this. Peter was able to move me around the mat at will and really made me work for my throws. He did let me throw him with O-soto-otoshi and I also tried Tani-otoshi but I didn’t set this up right and anyway he’s a 4th Dan so I’m unlikely to throw him.

Graeme called matte and it was time for me to move on to Ryan, the BJJ’er. Ryan and I fought for grip and I am sure we resembled a couple of noobs at first as we were both a little defensive. I noticed Ryan’s stance was literally side on to me so I pulled him in the direction he was facing and then pulled him back the other way and successfully got him with Tani-otoshi, lovely. I haven’t officially been shown this throw in class yet but it is one I remember from when I attended Westcroft Judo Club for a few months several years ago. I then went on to get Uki-goshi so I was pretty pleased with that.

All change again and this time I was against Big Stuart, again I got controlled with grip and pulled all over the mat and thrown a couple of times, all good though. When we changed again I even got thrown by little Sophie although I did manage an O-soto-otoshi on her.

Graeme then went on to show us a couple of choke’s, one was a fairly basic rear naked choke and the other a nice one using the sleeve of the gi. Basically your arms are parallel to each other with Uke’s head in between them. You then grab the sleeves of of your gi with both hands and twist your wrists which then crush’s Uke’s neck between both your arms. It was effective because you can pull this off from a lot of different positions, either on your back with them in your guard or even the other way around with you on top but in their guard. The beauty of this choke is that Uke is not aware that they are in danger of being choked until it is too late.

We then followed on to some Newaza and first up for me was Big Stuart. He was quite aggressive and attacked my neck straight away and at one point I thought he was going to guillotine me but then I remembered that this is an illegal move in Judo and maybe he remembered that as well as he allowed me to pull guard. From here he was constantly trying to pass but I worked hard and maintained position and then managed to land Hiza-gatame which forced him to tap. I think this was the first time I had subbed Big Stuart when he appeared to be trying properly. Although I felt that he ignored some chances of pins to go for a submission which then allowed me to get one myself.

We then changed and I wanted to roll with Peter the 4th Dan but I was too slow so ended up with Oli.

Oli was able to get me on my back but I straight away managed to sweep him and go to half guard. Oli was then attempting to choke me but I chose to ignore this and work on passing his guard which I did getting side control. I tried to trap his right arm with my left leg but he then managed to get out and before I knew it I was on my back but with Oli in my guard. From here I managed a perfect Hiza-gatame which is quickly becoming my favorite submission which is strange because I haven’t been shown this yet. Again i'm never quite sure how hard Oli or Big Stuart try when doing Newaza with me, I guess they must be letting me get some submissions.

What I have noticed after tonight’s lesson is that I now know all three throws required for yellow belt. The other techniques required seem fairly rudimentary in comparison so I am pretty pleased. Who knows maybe a Yellow belt grading will be on the cards within a couple of months.

A really good lesson tonight and Peter and Sophie were a welcome addition to the class.

Summer Gi

2010-07-02T05:07:00.000-07:00

This was my first lesson for a couple of weeks because the club was closed due to legionnaires being found in the water systems.

Peter was present but was unable to teach due to an injured back, Graeme left after he taught the juniors due to jet lag which left Big Stuart to take the class.

The shoulder injury still hasn’t gone away either but now it’s more of a nuisance then something that will stop me from training but for obvious reasons competing is not an option.

I was also wearing my new Black Eagle lightweight Gi or my summer gi as I am now calling it. I wasn’t the only one sporting a new gi as Oli had a new Adidas gi which really looked nice. I’m tempted to try and sell my Blue Blitz Olympian and buy an Adidas myself but I’ll leave it a while as there is no point in me having a competition gi if I’m not competing.

Back to the class and after warm up Big Stuart was keen to show us San-gaku-jime (Triangle) as he had perfected this technique recently with the help of another black belt instructor, Richard, who is Gill’s husband.
Big Stuart showed us first the slight tweak he had made on Oli and basically it was just insuring that Uke’s neck is in the crook of your right leg. Providing you have control of Uke’s arm you can almost submit him without the need to use your left leg but of course once you used the left leg Uke tapped.

I got to try this out on Ryan who being a BJJ’er must be very used to this technique so I was pleased when he told me straight away that it was on.
Big Stuart then showed us some interesting turnovers which are useful if Uke turtles up or is laying flat on his stomach protecting his neck.

http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/yellow/turnover-into-kesa-gatame/
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/yellow/turnover-into-mune-gatame/

We then went on to some throws where we first practiced O-uchi-gari and then set this throw up by first attacking Uke’s right foot before going in to O-uchi-gari on Uke’s left foot.

Then we used the same throw but first we attempted Tai-otoshi and when Uke stepped over our right leg we went straight in to O-uchi-gari. I really love the way one throw opens up options for other throws and I can see why, for advanced Judoka you really need to think a couple of moves ahead to actually get a successful throw when competing.

At this point Ryan had to leave so we finished off with some Newaza between myself, Oli and Big Stuart.

Oli and I had quite a tussle and I nearly caught him with Juji-gatame but he grabbed the sleeve of his other arm to prevent me from pulling it free, although I did eventually loosen his grip I didn’t control his arm properly so he was able to re-grip his sleeve again.

Round two and this time I did manage to submit Oli with what I thought was a submission I had just made up but was in fact Hiza-gatame

Following this Oli and Big Stuart rolled and then afterwards I got to roll with Big Stuart but unfortunately he was able to pass my guard quickly and gain side control where he pinned me with Mune-gatame. As I only know one escape from this position he was easily able to stuff my attempts and get what would have been in a competition a win with a pin.

Despite only four of us training and Big Stuart taking the class for the first time since I have been training I really enjoyed the lesson and got a lot out of it especially linking the throws together. The new gi felt good and despite the humidity I wasn’t overly hot so for £28 I think it was a smart purchase.

UFC 116 this Saturday and I am literally dribbling at the thought of Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin swapping punches. I think Brock will win this but Carwin definitely has a punchers chance.

Richie "the Neck"

2010-06-27T16:12:00.001-07:00

The club has been closed for the past two weeks as the water has been contaminated with legionnaires or something like that but as I have been having treatment with a Chiropractor on my shoulder maybe it’s a good thing.
I met up with a friend of mine, Richie who I used to train freestyle Kung Fu with some years ago, at the weekend. Richie took up Judo about 6 weeks after I did but as he lives somewhere up north (Nr Liverpool I think) I don’t get to see too much of him. Anyway he came over to my place and we watched some UFC and checked out some BJJ DVD’s that Boris sent me and then we decided it would be a good idea to try a few things out.

As there isn’t really enough room for throws in my “Den” we decided to look at some groundwork techniques as I was interested to see what he had learned in his Judo lessons and compare that to what I had learnt.
Also as it was 30c outside I had no intention of wearing a gi so we just grappled in our t-shirts, no-gi style if you like.

We started off with me on my back and Richie in my guard. Straight away I noticed he was very compact and wasn’t leaving my much to go for but maybe not having a gi had something to do with it. Richie said his favourite technique was Ude garami (Kimura) and tried this on me even though he was in my guard. I’m not sure if it’s possible to pull this off when you are inside someone’s guard but he had a go. I hadn’t told him about my bad shoulder on my left side but I was ready to tap to protect it but luckily I didn’t have to as I managed to escape and then almost pulled of a nice reversal but the coffee table got in the way lol. Richie was still working and making himself heavy so I tried to isolate and arm and threw up an attempt at Juji-gatame (arm bar) but I was never really in the right position for this and Richie easily got out of this and almost got side control but luckily I was able to quickly retain full guard.

At this point I showed Richie the benefits of San-gaku-jime which is my “go to move” so we broke this down and both tried it on each other. When we used to train in freestyle we did some chokes and strangles and Richie was/is very hard to submit with a choke which is why he was nicknamed Richie “the Neck”.
“the Neck” was still evident as although I got the triangle on him pretty tight and he said it wasn’t comfortable there was no way I was ever gonna get him to submit.

Not a bad little workout really but it is such a shame he lives so far away otherwise we could both really improve our Judo dramatically.

Hopefully Judo will be open this week as I haven’t had a proper Judo lesson for 2 weeks now. I would normally go to another club to get some training in but when you have an injury like I do its hard turning up at a new club and asking them to take it easy on you.

Just to add, I’ve ordered myself a cheap white single weave gi as in this heat my double weave will be unbearable. Hopefully it will arrive before my next lesson.

Staying Frosty

2010-06-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

A bit of strange of lesson this week as apart from Peter and Big Stuart only Oli and I turned up and then Peter had to leave early due to work commitments. To make matters worse my shoulder still isn’t right so I have to be careful.

Before Peter left he showed us a couple of interesting throws which I believe were Sumi-gaeshi & Hikikomi-gaeshi. I can’t find Hikikomi-gaeshi on the BJA website but I have a link to Sumi-gaeshi which is a Brown belt level throw. They put the crash mats out especially for me when we were practicing these throws so I had something nice to land on. Because of the nature of these throws, you have to sit down and pull uke to the floor before you throw them over you, I was a little hesitant to fully commit as I was very conscious of my shoulder. This meant that I was never really able to get this one properly but Big Stuart was able to do them both pretty well and was even able to continue rolling so that he ended up in the mount position afterwards which would enable him to go straight in to ground work.

When Peter left the three of us played with a few submissions.
First up was Ude-garami or a kimora as its known by BJJ’ers. As I explained previously an Ude-garami can be pulled off from the mount and side control. In BJJ I believe they call it an Americana if it’s done from the mount, they seem to give every variation of a technique its own name whereas with Judo each technique can be done a variety of ways. Being a Judo blog I’ll always try and use the Judo name for a technique but will try to also add the now more common (due to MMA and the UFC) BJJ name.

There was a technique I had seen in a Judo book that I wanted to try and that was Kakato-jime or heel strangle. Looking at a picture in a book I couldn’t tell how effective this would be but when you can do it against a live person it works very nicely. Again I cannot find this on the BJA website but basically from your back they are in your guard and you choke Uke by crossing your hands and grabbing both sides of his collar and pulling his head towards your left leg which stretched across their neck. If I find a link to this technique I might add it later.

Finally we went over Sankaku-jime or triangle choke which is my favourite go to move. While we are on the subject of triangle chokes I saw possibly the best bit of fight choreography I have ever seen in a TV show called Generation Kill, which is similar to Band of Brothers but based on the Gulf war. Anyway these US marines were playing American Football and one the guys gets upset and rugby tackles this other guy from behind when the ball isn’t even in play and then starts wailing punches on him. The guy that was tackled throws up a wicked triangle choke on the wailer and locks it in pretty tight before reversing him so that the guy in the triangle is now on his back with only his head poking out between this guys leg and then he just starts pummelling him. It doesn’t sound much but it was pretty slick. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come where fight scenes are concerned in films although they have certainly come a long way since Roger Moore used a “Judo Chop” in one of his early James Bond outings to show what a highly trained killer he was.

Anyway back to the Sankaku-Jime technique and neither of us could quite get this right which is strange considering Graeme showed me the right way of doing this a little while ago. Since the lesson of course I have consulted a DVD that Boris from AV Forums sent me and realised the error of our ways. What I and the others were doing wrong was not creating a slight angle when throwing your legs up to get the triangle as we were directly parallel with each other.
We finished up shortly afterwards and as there were only three of us left we had plenty of mats to put away.

The next day I decided to finally get someone other than my GP to look at my shoulder so I booked an appointment with a Chiropractor. I’ve not had good experiences with Chiropractors and Osteopaths in the past so when I called up to make the appointment I asked to speak directly to the Chiropractor to explain my injury and ask what they would be able to do. I liked what I heard on the phone and when I got to the practice about 30 minutes later I was not disappointed with the treatment as it involved not only joint manipulation but also a deep tissue massage and all the time she explained what she was doing and why. While I was there I thought I would see if I could get my long standing shoulder injury which I know is Rotator cuff related, looked at and also a stiff left knee. Surprisingly she gave me treatment for these as well and thinks that I would probably only require a couple more treatments before all is back to normal. If this is the case I will be very happy as I will be able to lift some proper weights again as for the last few years I have avoided direct shoulder presses, although I am still able to bench which works the front delts. Anyway if the treatment does work and I’m hopeful it will, I’ll put a link to their website on my blog which should give them at least a few more hits a year lol.

Busy weekend for me as the World Cup starts and UFC 115 is on Sunday at 3.00am on ESPN. All I can say is thank god for SKY+ as my days of staying up all night to watch fights like the Mike Tyson Vs Evander Holyfield fight ,where Tyson bit off half his ear, are long over.

Back from my Hols

2010-06-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

There’s been a delay in writing this as I went on holiday the day after my last lesson and as my memory isn’t great I doubt I’ll remember everything I was taught but here goes anyway.

My shoulder still isn’t right since injuring it the other week so I told all concerned that I was going to take it easy and would sit out any randori. Inez took the lesson in Peter’s absence and after the warm up we went in to some light Newazi ,basically just going over various pins and transitioning between each pin whilst ensuring you have control of uke at all times. So we went from Keza-gatame into Kuzure-kesa-gatame into Mune-gatame into Kami-shiho-gatame into Yoko-shiho-gatame.

Inez then showed us some very good escapes from each pin but this is where my memory deserts me as I cannot remember how they were done. They are not the usual ones that you might find on the BJA website under the grading syllabus so they are probably a little more advanced but I’ll be sure to ask her to show me again in the next lesson.

Ryan the BJJ guy was back for his third lesson and he seems to be enjoying himself. I found out that his BJJ club has a class on the same evening as Judo so I was curious to know why he didn’t go. Apparently Thursday nights is no-Gi night at his club and his doesn’t like rolling without the Gi so he figured he would take up Judo. I had a quick roll with Ryan and tried to pull him straight in to my guard but he was quick to pass to half guard and after several attempts he finally got in to side control where he applied Mune-gatame. I managed to reverse him using the classic escape from Mune-gatame that I had learnt for my recent grading and then I got full mount but he reversed me almost immediately, at this point matte was called. I would really like to roll for a good 5-10 minutes with Ryan just to see how quickly he can submit me but we only ever get a couple of minutes at the most with each partner when we do Newaza which can be a little frustrating but this is Judo and not BJJ.

We then went on to practice some entries in to throws and Inez has a great way of breaking down a throw so that we can practice the movement without a partner. As we have done previously she gets us to visualise that we are throwing someone and practice the movements a dozen or so times for each side and for each throw before we partner up and do it for real. As I wasn’t to be thrown my partner (Oli) would hold back on dropping me to the mat but I was able to practice throwing him. The main throw we practiced was Tai-otoshi but I seem to be getting this throw down pretty good by the end of the evening. This throw is part of the Yellow belt syllabus so I will need to perfect it before I can even think about grading again. I will add the Yellow belt techniques to the side tab some point in the future but not until at least a couple more months have passed.

I spoke to Oli after the lesson and asked him if he fancied checking out Ryan’s club sometime and doing a bit of BJJ. He seemed keen so hopefully when my shoulder is fully healed we can pop down there. Another good technical lesson from Inez

Injured

2010-05-21T05:30:00.001-07:00

During last week’s lesson we practiced front break falls and I messed up slightly by falling on my left elbow which resulted in my left shoulder taking the full force of the fall. The morning after I could hardly lift my left arm above head height so I had obviously injured it in some way. Unfortunately as I was looking after my two nieces over the weekend who at age 6 and 2 like to use me as some sort of climbing frame I was not able to rest the shoulder and probably made it worse. The upshot of all this was that I had to miss training this week which is very frustrating.
I went to the club anyway last night to pay my term fees and had a quick chat with everyone there to let them know that I was injured. It was a good turnout last night so it frustrated me even more that I wasn’t able to train and a sleepless night followed.

Hopefully another week of rest will be enough so that I can return to normal next week otherwise I will be like a bear with a sore head.

What made not training yesterday even more frustrating was the fact that I had bought myself a new Gi. It’s a Blitz Olympian Double weave and my god is it heavy and big. I’m not quite sure that I’ve made a good choice with this yet but chatting to various Judo people on martial arts forums like Bullshido and the Judo Forum website they all say you need a good double weave for competition so maybe I will just wear it in in training and then save it for competitions. I will of course still need a new everyday single weave Gi for training so I will do some more investigations before I part with my hard earned cash.

BJJ comes to Dorking

2010-05-14T08:29:00.001-07:00

Whilst waiting for the juniors to leave the matted area so we could start our lesson I noticed someone wearing a strange faded black gi top with white trousers. I quickly realised that the gi was a BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) gi so I approached him and asked his name. Ryan trains BJJ at Nova Forca in Epsom which funnily enough is a place I have trained at before many years ago but due to work commitments I had to give it up after only two lessons. Anyway Ryan said he had trained there for 3 years so I couldn’t wait to Newaza with him.

Ryan was introduced to the rest of the class and apparently his daughter has just enrolled in the junior’s which is why he has decided to give Judo a go as he liked the look of it.

After a quick warm up we went straight to Newaza and I was paired with Ryan. He quickly pulled guard but before I could settle he reversed and almost got full mount but I managed to hip escape in to half guard, he then passed to side control and was setting up a submission when he was interrupted by Gill who told him that as he had side control he should go for the pin or hold known as Mune-gatame. I can imagine that for a BJJ guy this would seem quite an alien thing for him to do as even for me, an avid watcher of all things MMA I still give up holds to go for subs.

Regardless I had seen enough of Ryan to know that his ground game was streets ahead of mine and I can definitely learn something from him as I’m sure even the more senior grades can. After reading some Judo forums I sense some animosity from some Judoka towards BJJ guys but that couldn’t be further from the truth as far as I was concerned. Firstly Ryan represented someone new and different to train with and secondly he has some skills from which I can learn from.

We changed partners shortly after Gill’s interruption and I paired up with Oli and then eventually big Stuart. I had a good tussle with big Stuart and nearly caught him twice, first in a San-Gaku-jime and then with Juji-gatame but he eventually escaped and after several attempts at passing my guard he got full mount and was I’m sure just about to go for a sub when Graeme called matte.

We spent some time going over Kesa-gatame and Mune-gatame and the various escapes and I was paired again with Ryan. Kesa-gatame was new to Ryan which really surprised me. I know they don’t use pins per say in BJJ but I thought they would use them to transition. He was having some difficulty with the escape from Mune-gatame so we broke down the escape without the use of a partner by lying on our backs and bridging to each shoulder, then adding the pushing movements with our arms followed by turning on and over our shoulder so that we are laying on our fronts. Done with a partner you end up lying on their chest, hopefully performing Mune-gatame on them.

We then went on to some stand up and practiced Osoto-otoshi and Osoto-gari. To the untrained eye both throws are very similar, the only difference being that with otoshi you place your sweeping leg on the floor behind uke and straighten it up whereas with gari you totally sweep uke’s leg which generally makes for a harder through for uke. This is where Ryan’s general lack of throwing experience showed but he was getting to grips with them by the end.

I hope Ryan comes back next week as he seems like a nice guy and he will offer something different to the club. Who knows, maybe some of us can pay a visit to his BJJ club some time to polish up our ground work and maybe extend an invitation to them to come train some Judo to help with their standup.

Red is in the bag

2010-05-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

Peter and Graeme explained that this evening’s lesson would be totally geared towards me finishing off the Red belt grading that I started last week. As before the techniques that I had to know were done within the normal lesson and just ticked off as I went through them all.

There was a young guy who had joined us from the juniors this evening for the first time. He’s only 15 but quite tall so he’s probably too big for most of the juniors but was still way to light for the seniors. Still we all took it easy on him and I’m sure he’ll learn a lot from us all. All of the seniors apart from myself are parents anyway so he’ll be well looked after.

We started with some groundwork and I went over again the three holds and the three escapes from these holds. One thing I’ve noticed is that you need strong abs especially for the escape from Kazure-kesa-gatame using sit up and roll as you have to basically do a sit up whilst the other person is laying on you, not easy if you don’t have abs like giant Ravioli. I’ve started adding some Abs work in to my workouts again, I know they should have always been in there but no one likes doing sit ups.

On the subject of workouts I currently train every day of the week apart from the weekend, although sometimes I go for a long walk with the Wife. I usually do a couple of days of free weights, 1 five mile run, some circuit training, 1 Yoga class and then my Judo. I’ve entered next year’s London Marathon again, I’ve entered the last 3 but haven’t got in but I’m hopeful that next year I’ll get lucky, so I may have to start doing lots more running. I figure if I can be running 13 miles by the time the ballot results are out in October then I should be fine.

After the groundwork we went over some throws, specifically the ones I needed to do Osoto-otoshi, De-ashi-barai and Uki-goshi. The Uki-goshi throw that I did on Oli was particularly good for me and it felt effortless. After the throws we had to perform them and go straight in to a hold so we did Osoto-otoshi in to Kesa-gatame, de-ashi-barai in to mune-gatame and then Uki-goshi in to Kazure-kesa-gatame.
Apart from that I had to know several Japanese names like Matte and Hajime and once they ticked those off they told me I had passed.

Tonight’s lesson was cut short due to the election as both instructors were assisting in the counting so we finished 30 minutes early.

Next belt is Yellow and ideally I would like to be Orange by Christmas this year that would leave me 1 year to get Green, Blue and then Brown. I’ll probably look back at these predictions this time next year and laugh but you have to give yourself some tough goals.

The next day after training I looked online for a new Judo suit as the one I have currently is about 20 years old. I found a nice Blue Adidas one so hopefully I can wear that to my next lesson with my nice new Red belt.

Achilles

2010-05-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

Peter mentioned to me that they would start my Red belt grading this evening and that they would probably use Clive as Uke or the receiver of the technique as he was the closest size wise to myself. Although Clive was a Brown belt he was new to me as apparently he hadn’t been to the club for about 4 years due to other commitments.

Inez was taking the class this evening for the first time and her warm up was a little different to that of Peter’s. Ten minutes in to the warm up we all heard this noise like a pencil breaking and Clive, who was right next to me, asked who had just kicked him. At first I thought he was messing about but then he suddenly grabbed the back of his right ankle and collapsed to the floor in pain. He had snapped his Achilles tendon in his right leg and this unfortunately would put a premature end to his return to Judo.

Peter helped Clive off to casualty and we continued with our warm up. Inez’s style of coaching is different to Peter’s and she said that we would have a light session with little sparring. I hope she didn’t see the face I pulled as I love sparring. However my face pulling was to be short lived as this lesson really helped with my throws. Basically she broke down each throw in to 3 sections which we would first drill with an imaginary partner. For example if we were doing Tai-toshi, part one would be to step forward with my right foot. Part two would be to step across to my right with my left foot behind my right foot and part 3 would be the arm movements with the right foot moving across to my left whilst turning my back. It’s difficult to explain without showing but if you know the throw then you’ll understand. Anyway we did this for three or four throws and then we partnered up and did them with a partner and then eventually we moved on to some light Randori where we practised the throws we had just done. All the while this was going on Graeme was walking around marking me for my Red belt grading, so when we did Deashi-barai he ticked that off the list of techniques I had to perform. None of the other styles I have done have gradings like this so it was refreshing and meant there were no nerves.

After Randori we went to some groundwork where we worked on 5 holds and moved from one to the other whilst at all times trying to keep control of Uke. I was thus able to perform all 3 of the holds that are in the Red belt syllabus plus refine Yoko-shiho-gatame and Kazure-kami-shiho-gatame and then took turns with our partner, first doing the holds whilst the other tried to break free of the hold and then we swapped over. When I was being held down I managed to pull off the Escape from Kazure-kesa-gatame, that I needed for my grading so again I had ticked off another technique.

YOKO-SHIHO-GATAME

KAMI-SHIHO-GATAME

Overall apart from poor Clive this was a really good technical lesson which I really got a lot out of.
Graeme confirmed they would finish my Red belt grading next week so hopefully my next post will have the word “red” in the title.

Triangle

2010-04-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to say that I have added a Gadget on the left called “Judo Techniques” where I have logged all the techniques needed to grade for Red Belt. Each technique is a link to the BJA website which has either a video or photo of the technique. With a grading surely on the horizon very soon for me this should come in handy as I will be able to easily access my blog and quickly remind myself what I need to know.

Following on from my success at the Newaza tournament I was very much looking forward to last night especially as the club had been closed over the Easter holiday. The only thing I wasn’t looking forward to was my hay fever which is causing my nose to constantly run, not nice if you are doing Newaza with someone.

Going back to the Newaza tournament I noticed that I was able to pull off San-gaku-jime or triangle on both of my opponents but was not able to submit them. In last night’s lesson I caught Oli in it but again I was not able to submit him. Luckily enough Graeme, one of the senior brown belt instructors, was on hand to show me where I was going wrong with this and basically I was not pulling the left arm of Oli and not squeezing my thighs together or just tensing the muscles in my thighs. Once I did this Oli tapped. Slightly gutted I wasn’t able to go back and try this out again at the Newaza tournament as I might have got gold.

I noticed from the BJA website that San-gaku-jime is a technique needed for Brown belt which could explain why the green belts in the tournament walked right in to it. It would explain why Oli, a brown belt, would not expect me to be trying this sort of technique at white belt level.

Overall a good lesson last night with plenty of Randori and Newaza and I’m more hungry than ever to keep learning.

The High Wycombe Ne-waza Championships

2010-04-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

High Wycombe Judo club was the venue for the First Judo Newaza Championships that myself and two other guys (Stuart and Oli) from my club entered. We got there around 11.30am to see the seniors fighting which gave us a flavor of what was to come. I then started eyeing up all my potential opponents and at this point I thought I was gonna get crushed as there were some seriously large dude’s there. One in particular caught my eye as he was like a shorter version of Brock Lesnar but with Tattoos and a northern accent. I hoped to god he wasn’t in my category.
The three of us weighed in and I weighed 93.5kg and so competed in the heavyweight division in the Green belt and under category. Normally they also have a 100kg+ category but unfortunately not at this tournament.

We got our seats in the stands near the front and waited for them to announce who was fighting who etc and I was called first. I was in such a daze and a rush to get over to the mats that I forgot to ask Oli and Stuart to film me on the camera I had brought with me.

The people from St John’s Ambulance were on standby and seeing them didn’t help to settle my nerves especially as I had already seen one guy get his elbow popped from an arm bar.

All the guys from my category were standing around our mat and then I saw him, the Brock Lesnar lookalike that I had hoped wasn’t in my category, was. Bugger.
After watching a couple of fights my name was called. In Judo competitions you are either a white belt or a blue belt so that the judges and the referee don’t confuse two same belted competitors. I was told I was white so I kept my own belt on. The other guy looked mean but nervous whereas I had on my usual poker face and yawned as I took to the mat as if I had done this a million times before. Of course inside I was yearning to be at the family picnic which my wife had attended for her Uncle Eric on Epsom Downs and which I had passed on for the chance to wrestle lots of big men in their pajamas.

We took our kneeling position and bowed and then the Ref called Hajime. I got a good grip and pulled him in to my guard, I figured as he was a big guy there was no point wasting my energy trying to get him on his back, especially not when I prefer fighting from my back. From this position I tried a triangle (Sankaku-jime) on him which I held for 30 seconds but never quite worked and then I tried a couple of times for an arm bar, again unsuccessfully. The ref then stopped it and made us start again from our knees. I was already feeling tired but when I look at the clock and realised I still had 2 minutes and 15 seconds left of a 3 minute fight I wondered how I would have the energy to finish this. As we restarted I attacked him and pushed him to his back where he eventually crawled out of the matted area so again we were re-started. Again I pulled guard and tried a number of subs whereas all he was trying to do was choke me with my Gi inside my guard. The ref stopped us again and re-started and I noticed there was only 25 seconds left so I pushed hard and got his back. I got my hooks in and went for the choke but the buzzer went signally the end of the fight. I got the judge’s decision and we shook hands and I then collapsed in a heap waiting for my next fight.
Although I felt gassed I was pumped after my first win. I walked slowly back to Oli and Stuart and just said “water”. Stuart offered to film my next fight but the way that I felt right then I didn’t think I could win again so I told him not to bother which in hindsight I am a bit gutted about as I would have loved to have posted it on here.

After taking on some water I walked back to the mats to await my next fight and I was asked by someone called Ben, fighting in the weight category below mine, whether I did BJJ. I told him no, but I do watch a lot of UFC and MMA. He laughed and said “so did he” but he was also a four stripe white belt in BJJ at Gracie Barra Nottingham. He was impressed with my guard play and assumed I was a fellow BJJ’er which I took as a compliment. Ben had won his first two fights and looked as tired as me. He said he always gets a massive adrenaline dump in competitions which totally drain his energy and I think this is what happened to me as I would consider myself pretty fit.

Eventually after what seemed like ages but in reality was probably only 15 minutes I was called to the mat to have my second fight, but who was I fighting? Bugger, it was Brock Lesnar. Still I had nothing to lose as I had already won one fight which is more than I expected to so I didn’t feel any pressure to win this, especially as he was a Green Belt who outweighed me and had a physique that looked like Michael Angelo had carved out of stone. We started and not surprisingly he was the aggressor so I immediately pulled guard. He then proceeded to try and choke me with the Gi which I easily stopped and as he tried to pass my guard I trapped an arm and threw up a Triangle choke (Sankaku-jime). At this point I was thinking that I might actually beat this guy and even though I got a good lock on he managed to wiggle out of it. The ref then forced us to re-start and again I went in to guard on my back and threw up another triangle ( Sankaku-jime )but this time he got out and passed my guard and then got me in a pin (Kesa-gatame) which I was not able to get out of. He held me there for 25 seconds and got his victory. I was a bit annoyed but also pleased that I had made him work for his win. Brock went on to the final where he was beaten by an equally big dude. I was supposed to then fight someone for 3rd and 4th place but as he was injured they decided to give us both 3rd place and I certainly wasn’t going to complain about that.

After my fights had finished I sat back in the stands and watched the other Stuart and Oli fight in their respective Brown Belt categories and they both also finished 3rd so all in all a good day out for Dorking Judo Club.
I managed to catch up with Ben again as we watched the last few fights and we discussed the UFC and the merits and history of BJJ and Judo. It’s a shame Ben lived so far away as he is the type of person I would like to train with. Of course being blokes we didn’t exchange numbers but if anyone reading this knows of a Ben who trains at Gracie Barra in Nottingham then let me know.

Thats me on the left with Big Stuart in the middle and Oli on the right.

Receiving my trophy.

I must also add that my old training buddy Richie “the neck” is starting his Judo training tonight somewhere in Liverpool or wherever he now lives, so hopefully we can meet up again soon and get some training going.

Ne-Waza

2010-03-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

Since last week I have decided that I would like to compete in the upcoming Judo Ne-Waza competition held in High Wycombe on the 11th April. Oli and Big Stuart are also going to enter, although they will be in the Blue/Brown belt category whereas I will be competing in the Novice to Green. My only concern is that the highest weight category is +90kg, now I weigh about 94-95kg so I could in theory come up against a much larger and more skilful opponent.

The class was split tonight with the first half being Ne-Waza. I did fairly well against everyone and actually got dominant position a couple of times. Peter, the head instructor keeps telling me not to use too much strength as although it works against the smaller people there will always be someone stronger and then I’ll be buggered unless I have good technique also.
When sparing Graham I got his back and he laid flat on the mat on his stomach with his legs stretched out and I had no idea how to turn him over. I tried choking him but he had his neck pretty well covered to so I ran out of ideas. This might be a position that I’ll find myself in in this upcoming comp so I’ll need to work out what to do before then.

After the Ne-Waza we did some Randori and drilled a few throws mainly Ko Uchi gari and O uchi gari. We also used either technique as a feint or set up for the other. For instance if I tried O ochi gari and my opponent moved his foot back it would be a perfect position for me to then go to Ko Uchi gari.

Ko Uchi gari

O Uchi gari

One throw that I did try tonight, which I had been taught when I did Judo a number of years ago was Tani-otoshi. I was reminded of this throw whilst watching some BJJ instructional DVD’s that someone from AV Forums kindly sent me. At the beginning of each DVD you see the two instructors (Mario Sperry and Murilo Bustamante) doing some techniques and one of the throws they do is Tani-otoshi. Anyway I tried it and it worked. I think it’s perfect for someone with long legs like me.

Tani-otoshi

Next week is that last before the clubs closes for Easter so I will need to train somewhere different before this Ne-waza competition. I might drop an email to one of the local BJJ schools and see if they mind taking me for a couple of weeks. I could go to another Judo club but they may be concentrating on throws or Kata, at least with a BJJ club I know I’m going to get some excellent ground work in.

Red Horizon

2010-03-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

Looks like I have impressed the instructors enough over the last couple of months as they want me to grade before Easter for my Red Belt. Tonight we basically went over all the techniques I need to know for 6th Kyu (Red Belt) namely

Throws
Osoto-otoshi
De-ashi-barai
Uki-goshi

Groundwork
Kesa-gatame
Mune-gatame
Kuzure-kesa-gatame
Escape from Kesa-gatame by trapping Uke’s leg
Escape from Mune-gatame using a bridge and roll action
Escape from Kuzure-kesa-gatame using sit up and push

We also did some free sparring Ne-Waza but this time the Brown Belts were being a bit more aggressive and I realised that just watching MMA will not enable me to out grapple well trained Brown Belt Judoka’s. We did discuss MMA tonight as Big Stuart (I know my name is Stuart and I’m 6ft 3 and weight 15 stone but trust me the other Stuart is bigger) is clearly fan as he wore an MMA t-shirt under his Gi.

There is apparently either a Judo Ne-Waza competition coming up or just a groundfighting competition coming up which I would like to go watch. Oli (another Brown belt) is keen to compete so maybe we will go together. I wouldn’t mind having a go myself but i don’t feel like I have enough experience and I have a feeling that some BJJ guys might turn up in their white Belts just to mess up a few Judoka who are unaware of the groundfighting skills of BJJ even at white belt level. I’m still keen to cross train in BJJ at some point but I want to get the old body used to the Judo first before I risk Limb, if not life, doing BJJ.