Ne-Waza

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

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.

Burn Baby Burn

Not quite worked out the best way of posting video clips on here yet but I’ll get there.

We started with some Newaza (groundwork) and it was performed in a fairly relaxed manner, basically we took turns in going for a sub. I did manage to pull off what in BJJ is called an Americana but I can’t quite find the Judo equivalent. Looking on wiki it appears that Ude-garami is used to describe an Americana, Keylock and a Kimura.


Anyway I pulled an Americana which pins an opponent’s arm to the ground so that it is bent at the elbow, with the opponent's palm upwards. The wrist is grabbed with the opposite hand, and the arm on the same side is put under the opponents arm, gripping the attacker's wrist. This results in the necessary figure-four hold. While keeping the opponent's hand pinned to the ground, the attacker begins sliding his or her pinned arm down and parallel to his or her thigh while cranking the elbow upwards. The opponent will feel pressure on their elbow and/or shoulder. I did this both from the mount and side mount. This was one of the techniques I remember from a couple of BJJ lessons I had a number of years back.


After the Newaza we went on to Kata. I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to this as if it is anything like the Kata in Karate or Forms in Wing Chun then IMO it’s a waste of good training time.
However surprisingly it was ok. I think Kata is only needed for the higher grades and even then it’s not essential but it does teach you good form and for a beginner like me it was useful to go over Kesure Kesa Gatame


and also to learn Yoko Shiko Gazame



Basically I put the hold on my opponent and he tries 3 different set ways to get out of it and I defend each one in a set manner., we then swap over. Not as exciting as Newaza but certainly better than Karate Kata.




Next up we worked on a couple of throws and first up was Ogoshi,



which is a hip throw. Being tall like me makes this throw very difficult to pull off as I really have to bend my knees to get my hips under my opponents. The instructor showed us what to do if your opponent resists this throw or in my case if I cock it up and that was to go straight in to Uke Goshi


which basically allows me to swing them round kinda of in a discus throwing way, over your right leg. This was easier to pull off for me especially against the heavier guys.






We finished off with some light Randori again where we both alternated between throwing and being thrown. I worked on my Osoto otoshi



and De Ashi Barai and tried but failed at Ogoshi.
I did manage to drag the top of my foot across the mat at one point which gave me a nice friction burn from my big toe half way down my left foot, hence the title of this thread.






The pictures I have used on this thread I got from this website http://www.judoinfo.com/ which has been quickly saved to my favourites.
Definitely worth a look as it has every technique listed and plenty of videos of great Judo players past and present on there.

Full House

A much better turn out this week and another white belt so I’m no longer the FNG. There was also a Husband and Wife, she is a Black Belt and GB squad member and he is a brown belt. So there are 3 black belts, 4 brown belts and two white belts.
After the warm up we practiced our break falls and then shortly afterwards we go straight in to Newaza or groundwork. As I said before this is my favourite part of Judo and also what I am best at partly due to a few BJJ lessons and many years of watching the UFC.
I’m not sure how hard they were trying on me but I managed to submit some of them. I think I probably surprised them as I’m sure they were not expecting a white belt to Triangle choke( Sankaku-jime) them. They all seemed to find it hard to pass my guard, again not sure if they were really trying or if I just have good hips. Funny thing is I have been doing Yoga for the last few months to try and improve my flexibility and prevent injuries but I can still barely touch my toes, however I seem to be able to pull off body triangle’s at ease which is strange considering I’m not that flexible.
Apparently a body triangle or Dojime is illegal in Randori or competition, which I only found out when I looked through my “A-Z of Judo” book when I got home, because it can cause damage to the internal organs.

On to the throws and I practiced De-Ashi-Barai and then the counter to this throw which is called Tsubame Gaeshi.
This looks a very simple throw but is very effective and I could imagine pulling this off in the real world.

I then did Osoto-otoshi and then we added a second throw as if the first was stopped and I decided on Tobi-Goshi which due to the excellent instruction from my partner I managed to pull off quite well.
Again I can’t say enough how friendly everyone at this club is, even the new people who I hadn’t seen before were very approachable and had absolutely no ego’s.

According to the head instructor these throws with the counters were Dan grade moves, done for the benefit of a couple of the Brown belts who are due to grade sometime soon so I was really pleased that I was able to pull these off to a reasonable standard.

We finished with some light Randori.

So far this was easily my best lesson and I look forward to next week.

2nd Lesson

Just a quick post while I still remember this but I mentioned to someone that when doing break falls it made me feel giddy and even nauseous and he told me to “tuck my chin in”, which has really helped.
My 2nd lesson was taken by two different instructors and there was also a brown belt student. Again not a good turnout but I’m not concerned at the moment.
One thing I do like about doing Judo is that other clubs are usually quite welcoming, so if you can’t make your usual class then you can go someone else and train.

Talking of training elsewhere, my old Wing Chun Instructor, Kevin Chan, is now also a BJJ Black Belt and runs a BJJ club in Portsmouth. In addition to this he also has monthly BJJ workshops/seminars which I might look in to attending as I’m sure this would give me an edge with my Judo groundwork.

Back to the lesson and we did a lot longer warm-up with plenty of rolling exercises where, starting on your back you first roll over your left shoulder and touch the floor with your feet and then roll back to the start position before rolling over your right shoulder and repeat. This seems like a good exercise for your core muscles like Abs and also strengthens your neck, which I would imagine is essential.

Technique wise I went over the three throws from my first lesson ie.
Osoto-otoshi
De-ashi-barai
Uki-goshi

These still don’t come very naturally to me so I will study some Youtube vids before my next lesson to hopefully help me improve this.
As the moment my main problem is trying to do everything together, for example with Osoto-otoshi, you have to pull them towards you to so that they resist and pull away, then you have to move in close and sweep the leg whilst at the same time pushing them back over it. Sounds simple but not when you are thinking about all these things.
Also I have a habit of doing the throw and then letting them go, which would rob me of a potential Ippon in a competition as I don’t have control of my opponent.

No class this week as it’s a half term but will do a workout and maybe if I feel really brave I will try some of the techniques out on the wife.

First Lesson

My first lesson at Dorking Judo Club was a little unusual in that I was the only senior student who turned up, I was however assured by the instructor that this was not the norm and it meant I would be having a pvt lesson with two instructors, one black belt and the other a senior brown belt so I wasn’t complaining.


The instructors were both aware of my previous martial arts experience as I felt it was only fair to be honest about this rather than trying to impress them as a total noob. After the initial warm up and break falls we went straight in to some ground work (Osaekomi-waza).

The first thing they showed me was a chest hold (Mune-gatame) http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/mune-gatame/
Which is used as a pin, quickly followed by (Kesa-gatame) http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/kesa-gatame/
And then (Kuzure-kesa-gatame)
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/kuzure-kesa-gatame/

I was then asked to test these out on the Brown Belt instructor to see if I could hold him down. Now I’m a fairly big guy at just over 6ft 3 and 15 stone but this guy must have outweighed me by about 4 stone so I didn’t think holding him down would be easy but I seem to have got the technique down good as I was able to hold him down pretty well.

After trying out all the holds I got to do a little bit of ground sparring with the big fella but was told this was to be a gentle back and forth exercise rather than a life or death grapple which is how I would have taken it several years back.
As I had done a little Judo before and a couple of BJJ lessons the ground work is my favourite and at the moment the strongest part of my Judo game. I think I surprised them both when I managed to get a pretty good triangle choke (not sure of Japanese name for this just yet)

After the ground work I was shown some throws and for ease I have put links to these below.

First off was Osoto-otoshi
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/o-soto-otoshi/

Then De-ashi-barai
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/de-ashi-barai/

And lastly Uki-goshi
http://britishjudoeducation.org.uk/red/uki-goshi/

The throws are not coming easy to me compared to the holds I was shown but maybe I am being a little hard on myself especially as this was my first lesson in 7 years.

The warm down consisted of putting the mats away which when there is only three of you took us about 20 minutes which was a pretty good work out on its own.
Overall a really enjoyable first lesson

Back to Judo

I thought I’d start my blog with the title “Back to Judo” as Judo was the first Martial Art I ever did when I was about 6 or 7 years old.
In an act of vandalism unfortunately the hall where I practiced Judo was burnt down and was moved further from my house than my parents were willing to travel to so my first foray in to Judo only lasted a couple of months.

Wado Ryu Karate was my next venture when I was 10 years old and I managed to stick with this for about 3 years where I reached the grade of Purple belt or 4th Kyu. At the age of thirteen football and Table Tennis were much more important to me than Karate and also the A-Team was on TV on a Friday evening (the same time as my Karate class) and in 1985 there was no Sky+ and relying on your mum to hit the record button on the video was very hit and miss so I gave up on Karate (Crazy fool)

Then at age 19 I missed not doing Martial Arts so I looked around for something different and found Wing Chun Kung Fu.
Wing Chun was very different to Karate and a lot less physical but more technical. It also seemed to flow better and when I found out that Wing Chun was the system that Bruce Lee started with I was very happy with my new art.
Whilst learning Wing Chun I met some very interesting people, one of those people was a Junior Instructor called Marc who I found out was teaching his own style of Martial Arts from his Garage with a select few students. This new style incorporated high kicks, locks and throws and even some grappling. I’ve highlighted grappling because at around this time I had read an article in a Martial arts magazine about a tournament in America which pitted Martial Artists from different styles against each other in a cage with no rules and this was called the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
I managed to locate a video of this in HMV and watched with fascination as Royce Gracie, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) Black Belt defeated everyone by tripping them up and submitting them on the ground.
BJJ to me looked very similar to the Judo I did as a child so the fact that someone in my Wing Chun Club was teaching his own style which had grappling very much appealed to me.

So at the age of 24 I left Wing Chun and trained with Marc twice a week in a hall near Croydon. The style was just called Freestyle but it was very similar in concept to Jeet Kune Do (JKD).
It was whilst training with Marc that a brother of my friend Gerald approached me and asked me to teach him Martial Arts. So along with training twice a week I was now teaching twice a week privately for free (as he was a guinea pig for my teaching).
Marc decided to branch out and open another school in Cheam and wanted his students to turn up for support, so I decided to take my own Student (also called Mark but spelt differently, pay attention) Mark along to see what Marc thought of him. It was whilst at the Cheam club that I befriended Richie who would become my training partner for both freestyle and some seriously heavy Gym sessions.
Marc was very impressed with the work I had done with Mark and I think this eventually led to Marc taking me under his wing and giving my PVT lessons with a vision of me teaching in one of his clubs as part of my ongoing progression.

I did eventually start teaching for Marc in one of his clubs in Streatham but due to some serious injuries I had gotten from one to many drinking sessions (I managed to break my Ankle which kept me away from training for quite a while) when I returned I felt very rusty and then never quite felt worthy of teaching people so just after I turned 30 years old I decided to quit.

Soon after I quit I started to miss the buzz so I dabbled with BJJ but this was quite a drive (Battersea) so it was a short lived affair.

Then when I was 31 I decided to give Judo a try again and went to Westcroft Judo club and loved it, especially the ground work as I felt like I was Royce Gracie and would quite often try things I had seen in the UFC. Unfortunately after only a couple of months training I tore my Pec Major and Minor trying to avoid a throw. I have since realised that one needs to leave ones ego outside the dojo as trying too hard can result in injuries.

Anyway the injury kept me out of anything physical at all for almost a year so I gave Judo a wide berth but now at 37 years and 6 months I have decided to go back to Judo, this time at my local Dorking Judo Club.
I have so far had 2 lessons and will shortly start logging all the techniques I have learnt so far.
The instructors at the club all seem friendly and there certainly doesn’t seem to be any ego’s in the dojo.

Anyway that’s my Martial Arts history so far, hopefully this blog will continue until I reach Black Belt and beyond.