Last week we
worked a lot on newaza, in particular using the butterfly guard to sweep. This
week Graeme put the finishing touches to this sweep and showed us the Craig
Fallon Turnover. I liked this turnover especially as it forces your opponent to
engage in groundwork even if you don’t manage to turn them over, as they are in
your butterfly guard.
The second
half of the lesson was on O-goshi and various combinations and entries. I must
admit O-goshi isn’t a throw I ever use in randori but there are a number of techniques
that present themselves when getting the standard O-goshi grip that maybe it’s
something I need to look at and work on.
I’ve mentioned before that I have
been suffering with forearm tendinitis or Golfers Elbow and that it has been
inhibiting my training, well I thought I’d document what I have done so far to
try and cure myself of this annoying and sometimes debilitating condition.
I’m not 100% sure what brought this
on, although most people never know for sure as its usually just overuse but in
my case I think it all started when I fell awkwardly on my left elbow throwing
someone with Tani-otoshi. I remember my elbow hurting for a while afterwards
and then just aching for a few weeks. As I never really rested it at this point
it’s very possible that I made it worse especially when you consider the amount
of breakfalls one does with their left arm, considering most people are right
handed. Add to that my continued presence in the gym, lifting weights, and it’s
no surprise it got worse.
1) Complete Rest
When it got to the point that I was waking up in
the morning with it hurting I decided that I had to stop doing anything that made
it hurt. To my annoyance, that meant no more Judo or weights.
2) Physiotherapy
I had a physiotherapy
session with someone that visits my place of work. She thought that one session
might be enough. She gave me a deep tissue massage.
3) Physiotherapy – Ultrasound
Luckily for me I had been proscribed 10
sessions of physiotherapy due to the car accident I had in November 2013. The
physiotherapy was for the mild whiplash injury that I had suffered but I thought
I’d take the opportunity to quiz the physio about my elbow. He was able to give me
ultrasound, massage and stretching exercises (see below)
And best of all told me to resume my
normal physical activities as long as it didn’t make it any worse.
4) Physiotherapy – Complete Rest
Ok, so after a number of weeks of
physio with no change he told me to cease all activities again, including Judo.
This lasted approximately 3 weeks. After the 3 weeks I thought it was getting slightly
better so I was told again to resume physical activities. My 10 physiotherapy
sessions at this point had finished so I was sent away with some additional
stretches.
5) Elbow Support
I purchased one of these
and wore it
whilst lifting weights and doing Judo. I also avoided any bicep or back exercises
as these appeared to be aggravating the elbow the most. Not ideal but at least
it meant I was still able to train.
6) Amino Acids
I was reading up on Golfers elbow on
the NHS website and in the comments section loads of people recommended taking
Amino Acids and some even went as far as to claim this alone cured their
problem. So I ordered a batch from Holland & Barrett and will take these
along with the Glucosamine that I already take.
7) Golfers Elbow Support
Something else that other sufferers
recommended was this
form of elbow support which you basically wear all day. This looks different to the elbow support that I currently only use when
lifting weights or doing Judo as it places direct pressure over the inflamed
tendon. I have ordered this from Amazon and will wear this in conjunction with
taking the Amino Acids and see what happens.
Please feel free to comment with your
experiences and thoughts of this annoying injury.
The following post is an observation and not a rant.
Someone recently posted this video over on the Judoforum and
I found myself watching it again and again. It then got me thinking about the
leg grab techniques which the IJF decided to ban from all competition in 2013. Back
in 2010 they banned leg-grabs as a direct attack which was largely attributed
to wanting to differentiate Judo from wrestling to safeguard its acceptance as
an Olympic sport. I can’t confirm that, but it’s the widely accepted
explanation. In 2013 they went one step further and not only disallowed
those techniques as direct attacks, but as follow-ups and counters as
well.
So leg attacks can still be taught in Judo but cannot be used in Competition. But,
as most people need to compete to get their black belts, there is little point
in spending time learning something that they cannot use, thus the next
generation of Judo black belts are unlikely to be able to properly perform
throws like Morote gari.
Now I’m sure most of these techniques are preserved in Kata
and with the BJA recently making Kata compulsory from 1st kyu
gradings upwards some could say that this will in effect ensure the next
generation are at least familiar with leg grabs. However there is no substitute
for using a technique against a fully resisting opponent in randori or shiai.
Its only then that you learn not only how to perform it correctly but also how
to properly defend against it.
A lot of the now “illegal” techniques which have been
removed from Judo over the years can still be found in other grappling arts
like BJJ and Sambo and it’s been said that to learn Judo, as was originally
taught by Kano, one has to turn to these other grappling arts.
The issue I and many other judoka have with the constant
rule changes is that they are watering down Judo’s effectiveness as a combat
sport and effective form of self-defence.
I would be embarrassed if I attended a BJJ class whilst they were
practicing takedowns and I was the one constantly being taken down with a
double leg (Morote gari) because I didn’t know how to sprawl. Or I didn’t know
how to defend when someone took a double lapel grip on my gi. You could argue
that the new rules makes Judo more exciting to watch with a higher percentage
of ippons but who actually watches Judo other than people that practice it? If
you do Judo you invariably like watching high level Judo whatever the rules. The lay person is never going to be excited
about watching Judo unless someone from their country is fighting for gold in
the Olympics.
Another problem with the rule changes is that it makes Judo
less effective in MMA. Some might ask why this is a problem, well I’ll tell
you. With Ronda Rousey being the current UFC Bantamweight champion Martial
Artists are seriously looking at Judo as a viable style to learn to help them
in the octagon. However Ronda’s Judo was pre 2010 and therefore included leg
grabs, which to be successful in MMA you have to know how to perform and defend
against as this determines where the fight takes place. In my limited BJJ
training the only time I ever did anything from standing was when we drilled
how to sprawl against a morote gari. Therefore if someone has intentions of
competing in MMA why would they choose Judo over BJJ when BJJ clearly has
enough of the wrestling based techniques most widely used in MMA already
incorporated in their training?
So what’s the answer? Local clubs could ignore the rule
changes and still teach Kano’s Judo but then, as I’ve mentioned already, this
will mean a lot of time is spent on techniques that their students cannot use
in competition. That’d be a bit like teaching someone how to kick in
preparation for a boxing match. Yes Kicking works in a real fight but you
cannot use it in the rules of boxing. In
the US they have taken the matter in to their own hands and created FreestyleJudo which in essence is Judo without all the recent IJF rules regarding leg grabs
& Gripping. In addition to the normal way shiai is scored, Freestyle Judo
also gives points for things like passing the guard and sweeps which is more
akin to BJJ rules but still scores Ippon for Osaekomi-waza. Now I like the idea
of this but there doesn’t appear to be a UK equivalent as yet. Freestyle Judo
is not a governing body they just have their own competitions which allow
Judoka from any org to enter using the Freestyle rules, so you can’t be graded
in this form of Judo and neither are any of the competitions point scoring. It
will be interesting to see if Freestyle Judo ever reaches these shores.
I was very much looking forward to last night’s session, not
least because the idea of having a randori only night was something that I had
suggested to Graeme previously. On arriving I was informed that there were a
number of visitors from Kin Ryu Judo Club in Crawley, Guildford Police Judo
club and Witley. When Graeme took rei at the start of the class there were 5
dan grades and about 20 kyu grades, which is the most seniors I’ve ever seen on
the mats here.
After a 15 minute warm up we went straight in to tachiwaza
randori, with four pairs taking the mats for 3 minute rounds. This meant I was
able to alternate between 3 minutes of sparring and 3 minutes of resting.
Unfortunately I have had a niggling pain behind my right
knee since last week which has made even kneeling down quite painful. When I
tried an osoto gari on Andrew the knee felt weak so I decided to try and take
it easy for the rest of the Tachiwaza randori, which is a shame as I really
wanted to test myself tonight. Still I did manage a couple of good tussles with
Jadon, David and a brown belt from Guildford, albeit with a limited repertoire of
attacks (due to my painful knee) from me. I was also able to practice my ukemi
when I sparred with Peter Vincent, a 2nd dan GB squad member.
Other than those four the rest of the people I chose to spar
with were mainly juniors or low grade seniors, because I was concerned about
damaging my knee.
Newaza randori followed and as there was less chance of
hurting my knee doing groundwork I sought out higher grades. First up was a French
dan grade from Guildford who allowed me to work my moves without resisting
much. I’m not sure if I would have had much joy if he had been resisting but I
suspect not. Next up was 2nd Dan GB squad member Peter Vincent. He
turtled up and allowed me to try and turn him over. I wasn’t able to get a good
enough grip on his collar to threaten him with any sort of choke so I chose to
just take his back and roll him over. I tried again for some sort of collar
choke but in doing so he grabbed my right arm with his left and tried to
armlock me with a sort ude garami. My only defence against this was to keep my
arm bent, in a sort of bicep curl movement, but this was quickly draining my strength
in my bicep. Luckily for me he gave up on the ude garami before my strength left
me so I decided to switch positions and go for a juji gatame. I got in a good
position with the juji but I couldn’t separate his arms, it was like they were
cemented together. Realising that I was never going to get them out I gave him
space to get out and tried for a san-gaku-jime but the buzzer sounded for the
end before I could properly attempt it. Although I’m sure he was just working
on his defence, hopefully I made him work slightly more than he expected me to.
I then had a good back and forth tussle with the Guildford
Brown belt, which sort of reminded me of the tussles I used to have with Oli. With
my next three of four opponents I managed a number of san gaku jime submissions
as well as a few Juji gatames. Against Andrew I even managed a Ryote Jime, in
exactly the way that Graeme showed me a week earlier.
My final spar was against Jadon and rather surprisingly he
chose to play guard. I could tell he was working on some sort of sneaky sub and
when he told me that this was going to hurt I realised he had got a Bicep
slicer on me, but luckily I was able to slip out of it. The rest of the spar I
tried in vain to pass his guard all the while trying to stop him from sweeping
me or choking me. At one point I almost
managed a stack pass on him and even attempted a Gyaku juji jime. I had the
choke on fairly tight but I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish him as I was
still effectively in his guard, still it did keep him occupied enough whilst he
defended it for me to grab around the back of his head and look for an
ude-garami but in escaping this sub attempt he somehow managed to squirm out,
grab my collar and choke me. I was gutted as I had, up until then, defended
quite well.
The class ended shortly afterwards and brought to an end
almost 2 hours of continuous randori. I hope some of the guys and girls who
visited from other clubs enjoyed it enough to maybe visit one of our normal
classes sometime in the future as they would certainly all be very welcome.
Within the MMA and BJJ world the word “Choke” conjures up
fond memories of one of the best MMA documentaries ever made which followed
Rickson Gracie as he competed in Japan to defend the Vale Tudo title that he
had won a year earlier. However, for the purposes of this post it’s actually in
reference to the strangle techniques which we practised in last night’s class. Now
there is a difference between a Choke and a Strangle and what we leant were
actually strangles but I just wanted an excuse to post the below documentary
and would recommend anyone who hasn’t yet seen it to take a look.
Sore necks were guaranteed to us all by Graeme last night
as we practised a number of strangles, many of which are in the current DanGrade theory test. This has to be passed in conjunction with the competitivepart of your Dan grading before you can receive your black belt.
The main two we practised were:
Ryote-jime
Tsuki-komi-jime
I’ve always felt that one of the weaknesses in my Newaza
is actually my strangles. I get in to positions to attack with them but very
rarely pull them off, unless of course you are talking about san-gaku-jime. I
do know enough of them but in that split second when you get the opportunity to
take their collar before they tuck their chin in I often get confused and grab
with the wrong hand. I’m therefore going to make a conscious effort to try and
only finish people with strangles and see where that gets me.
Following our strangle master class we got to do a number
of 2 minutes rounds of newaza. I did actually manage a couple of successful strangles,
one of which was a Ryote-jime.
At the end of the class Graeme mentioned that next week’s
class would be a Randori only session, both newaza and tachiwaza. Hopefully this will attract some seniors
from other local clubs who are looking for some extra practise. So if you are
free on Tuesday 1st March then come on down to Dorking Judo Club
My physio told me I was free to return to Judo providing I took things easy, the rest of the conversation was a blur as I was, at that point, just excited to be able to get back on the tatami.
In my absence Ivan had returned from a very long injury lay off (Cruciate knee ligaments) so it was especially nice to see him return. Also one of the juniors had since received his junior green belt, which was well deserved.
I worked in a three for most of the night with Andrew and Ivan and we mainly focused on two techniques, one tachiwaza and one newaza.
The tachiwaza technique was Tai-otoshi which we warmed up for by doing plenty of uchi-komi with uki first walking towards tori and then uke walking away from tori. We also drilled a nice counter to tai-otoshi using a right handed, left sided tai-otoshi.
On to the newaza technique and we revisited a strangle that we were taught last year that Graeme calls Hell Strangle (Jigoku-jime) or chokehold from the Crucifix position for my BJJ cousins. We were shown two entries in to this, both attacking the turtle and also two ways of finishing, both of which are shown in the following video.
I also found this video which shows different entries in to Jigoku-jime, some of which look very nice indeed.
We finished up with some randori and as I was keen not to breakfall with my left arm (due to my elbow injury) I was going to make getting thrown particularly difficult for everyone I sparred with.
One throw I managed to pull off a couple of times, following on from the competition I was in a few weeks back, was Osoto-gari. I mentioned then that I got thrown with this by a guy who hooked his leg in and despite being too far away to complete the throw he quickly jumped through and dumped me on my back. This guy did this to other people on the day so it’s clearly his tokuwaza but nonetheless with my long legs it should be a technique that I could be good at. I will continue to work on this in randori but it is a risky throw as quite often uke can counter it with the same throw and no one likes getting thrown with a big osoto gari.
The class finished with two long rounds of newaza randori and I decided to try and get as many subs in as possible. I think I ended up with two ude-garamis, two Juji-gatames, one kata-gatame and a nice sangaku jime.
