Waki-gatame

The club was closed last week due to the half term holidays so most of us had had a rest. I say most of us as both Oli and Big Stuart are competing a lot at the moment attempting to gain enough points to get their black belts. Big Stuart managed another 10 points but injured his back in the process so was absent tonight. Oli didn’t manage any additional points as all his fights (4 in total) ended in draws. Oli did say that he had some success with the double lapel grip that Brian Jacks had shown us a few weeks previously and it’s a grip that Oli will continue to practice and use.




Back to tonight’s class and we started doing the leg movement for Uchi-mata and practiced this by holding on to your partners shoulder and swinging your leg backwards. This then progressed in to turning in fully for the throw but instead of reaping the leg we went past the rear leg and reaped the air. Once we had both drilled this for several minutes we got the crash mats out and completed the throw a number of times on both sides.

We then progressed to throw for throw randori, using just Uchi-mata and finally we were told to add O-uchi-gari as either the first or second attack. It was nice to get lots of lots of repetitions of these throws in and by doing them in a randori situation is was a lot more realistic than doing the throws statically. Oli and I both practiced right and left sided throws, which we very rarely do, but is encouraged a lot when we have trained at Yoshin Ryu and was further encouraged by Brian Jacks recently. I was actually quite pleased with some of my left sided Uchi-mata’s and I will make a conscious effort to practice both sides going forward.



We then practiced some turnovers and I asked specifically to practice this one as it is in the blue belt syllabus and it’s a technique I have never tried before but have wanted to for a while now. It was relatively easy to perform and get the tap so it’s definitely one I’ll be trying in Newaza.

Stewart then showed us some nice set ups for Waki-gatame. One attacking the turtle and another one attacking from the turtle. I believe these were techniques that were shown to him by Steve Gawthorpe, who is apparently a Newaza specialist, it's very difficult to explain them in words but the one attacking from the turtle was similar to this.

Brian Jacks - Yoshin Ryu

I received a text message from Big Stuart which I had to read twice. It said that Brian Jacks would be taking a class at Yoshin Ryu on the 28th May and myself and Oli would both be welcome. The price for this lesson was the normal £5 matt fee. I had to pinch myself as Brian Jacks has been somewhat of an idol of mine for many years but this wasn’t entirely due to his prowess on the tatami.


Brian Jacks was the first Britain to win a medal in the world Championships; taking a bronze in Salt Lake City in 1967 he then went on to gain a second bronze in the 1972 Munich Olympics. As I wasn’t born until 1972 you might wonder why I hold him in such high esteem. 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, 100 dips and 118 squat thrusts.



When I arrived at the club there was a real buzz around and also an awful lot of Judoka present, many of whom I had never seen. The senior Coach, Sensei Errol was also in attendance who himself is a 6th Dan. He approached Oli, Big Stuart and myself and introduced himself.

When Sensei Jacks appeared we were told to line up. The line of Dan grades stretched the entire length of the dojo and the kyu grades matched it on the opposite side. Despite being a 3rd kyu I was the second lowest grade on the mat and therefore I was virtually opposite Sensei Jacks when we bowed.



He warmed us up with some Uchi-komi and then had us practice all the techniques holding lapels only with one arm over uke’s and the other arm under. We then practiced with both hands either over or under. The purpose being that we could attack with left or right sided throws without having to change grips and without our opponent knowing which side we were going to attack. The throws we focused on were Hiza-guruma, tai-otoshi & Uchi-mata.

We then did a drill whereby we did the Okuri-ashi-barai dance and after the third step we both had to sweep, the purpose being to avoid the sweep and then sweep your opponents foot as it missed your own. Occasionally both partners fell to the ground as they had swept each other.


In between practicing the techniques he was open to questions and showed many of the dan grades other ways of doing certain techniques for example Tomoe-nage and Yoko-Tomoe-nage. He then had the person who asked the question come out and perform the throw to show that they had understood what he had said. At this point I was glad that I hadn’t asked any questions myself.



Throughout the lesson Sensei Jacks called upon the Johnson twins (both highly regarded young black belts who compete nationally) to either be his uke or perform throws on each other so that we could watch how things are done. At one point he asked them to do some throw for throw randori using the double lapel grip that we had been practicing with and I must say I was extremely impressed with their speed, power, movement and technique, none of which I could ever hope to obtain myself. Now I have randori’d with both of them and it is like trying to control an empty jacket caught in a tornado but seeing them against each other made me realise what high level Judo is all about.



We finished up with some Ne-waza which was done in a loser stays on format. I won my fight fairly quickly against a brown belt who I submitted with my old trusty favourite san-gaku-jime. Unfortunately this meant that I didn’t get to fight again as the losers then had to keep fighting until there were only a handful of them left on the mat. Still with the hot temperatures we have been experiencing recently it was nice to sit down and watch and catch my breath.



After the class we sat down around Sensei Jacks and he just talked and we asked him questions on anything we wanted to. I was racking my brain for something to ask him, especially regarding Superstars but my mind was blank. I wish I had been more prepared.

Before we left we had a group photo and then we had an opportunity to have photos taken with both Sensei Jacks and Sensei Errol. I hope to obtain these photos soon so I can post them on here but they were taken by a photographer and not by my own camera.

O-guruma

I wasn’t able to train last week due to personal reasons but last night’s session was my second of the week following a training session with one of my idols and a British Judo legend on Monday. I will write about that later on in the week, when hopefully I will also have some photos to go with it.


Back to last night and it was nice to see Dorking Judo Club legend, Graeme, back at the club and he was accompanied by his son David. Stewart took the class last night and after we had warmed up he got the crash mats out for us to practice O-guruma, which is a throw I haven’t done before. As this can be quite a big throw, we first practiced the breakfalling aspect of it. We each took turns holding our leg out and pulling Uke in towards the leg but instead of performing the throw, Uke was told to do a rolling break fall over Tori’s outstretched leg. This was a useful exercise particularly for us lower grades who still have a fear of falling.

We then progressed to performing the throw properly on to the crash mats and once we had all taken turns in throwing everyone we were told to pair up and practice the throw on the move. Stewart made sure that we all got to practice with each other which meant we had the opportunity to try this out with lots of different body types. The technique I used against Big Stuart differed from the one I was able to use against David as there is a substantial difference in weight and size. For this reason David made an excellent Uke.



Stewart then got the crash mats out again and this time we practiced O-soto-guruma following a failed O-guruma. We all took turns being Tori and therefore got lots of practice in. As this is another big throw I was thankful that we had the crash mats to fall on.



On to Newaza and Stewart showed us Gyaku-juji-jime which I was reminded by Graeme was part of the blue belt grading. To be honest, having only fairly recently been given my green belt, grading for blue seems a long way off but I have been putting in extra mat time by visiting Yoshin Ryu when I can so hopefully I’ll be there before the end of this year.

We started the technique from the knee on belly position sliding my left hand in as deep as possible. At this point Uke will normally try and tuck their chin down so Oli told me to slide my left hand under my right, which sort of crow bars Uke’s chin up and exposes his neck. Although the strangle can be finished from this position it actually works better if get the mount and then roll Uke over so that they are in your guard with you on the bottom. Then you simply perform a scissor like action with your arms and Uke will normally tap out fairly quickly. If they don’t submit straight away you can increase the pressure on their neck by pushing your foot against their hips and flattening them out.



There’s a real buzz around the club at the moment and everyone seems to be enjoying their Judo. I think this is largely due to the fact that both Oli and Stuart are actively pursuing their Black belts, I am doing the same with regards to getting blue and we have Ivan, a new starter, who is very enthusiastic to learn as much as possible. There are also some people from the Cadets who are 15-16 years old that are likely to join in with the seniors and apparently Ynez has started training again and was present last week, so good times ahead at Dorking Judo Club

Judo in MMA

Following my recent post regarding Ronda Rousey and the fact that more MMA fighters are seeing the benefits of learning Judo for MMA, I thought I’d add a collection of cool Judo throws used inside the Octagon.


Enjoy



Gripping – Yoshin Ryu

I haven’t had time to write about the class at Dorking this week but just wanted to say that we had a new beginner start. His name is Ivan and from what I could see he was very enthusiastic. Let’s hope he becomes a regular.




I was back at Yoshin Ryu this week and was joined by Big Stuart. After warming up we were told to pair up for some Uchi-komi and I was paired with a black belt whom I had not seen here before.

The Sensei told us to first practice Hiza-guruma and we then followed that with Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi. As I have mentioned in my previous posts I’ve taken a liking to Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi and I think it showed in my Uchi-komi as I was able to unbalance my Uke and finally throw him, once the Sensei told us to do so.



Moving on we were told to use Te-guruma as a counter to a failed Harai-goshi. Te-guruma is not a throw I’ve ever practiced before and to be fair my Uke, at 16.5 stone, was rather difficult for me to pick up. Nonetheless I did finally manage one clean throw and was even able to be a good Tori by dropping my Uke gently to the floor.

Next up was Koshi-guruma, again a throw I have not practiced before but it didn’t take me too long to get some success with it. I found that the version where my arm went under Uke’s arm pit worked better than the version shown on the BJA website.



Newaza was next and another very tiring 30 odd minutes without rest ensued. I managed one submission only against the blue belt whom I had a good tussle with the other week. This week he managed 1 pin on me and I submitted him once whilst he was pinning me with Mune-gatame by pushing my elbow in to his neck and grabbing the material on my trousers with the same arm and crushing his neck for a choke. He told me afterwards that I was actually crushing his jaw and, having had that happen to me before in class I could sympathise with his pain.

All of the rest of my rolls were against dan grades and thus I was largely subbed and pinned on multiple occasions.



On to Randori where a lot of grip fighting was involved and I didn’t manage a single throw. Again everyone I faced was a dan grade so it’s to be expected. One of the sensei’s, Tim, took me aside after the class had finished to help me with my Uchi-mata as he felt I had all the right components apart from one thing, and that was essentially the part where I set Uke up for the throw. He told me to pull him towards me using my sleeve arm, which then meant his back leg had no weight on it. This is then the perfect time to turn in with the Uchi-mata as my reaping leg wouldn’t feel any resistance. It worked a treat too as I was then able to perform one of those throws where you don’t feel like you have put any effort or strength in to it, he just flew through the air and landed hard and fast. Its bit like hitting a golf ball. Sometimes you hit the perfect drive which flies 300 yards down the fairway and don’t even feel like you have hit the ball. Other times you use all your strength and you get feedback from the club and the ball doesn’t travel half the distance. It’s also the same as kicking a football in that “sweet spot” or that perfect serve in Tennis. It’s all down to timing and technique and for one throw last night I had both.



One observation from last night’s training was that my arms felt totally gassed. Thursday is normally the day I train Biceps and Triceps at the gym but maybe I need to have a rethink on this as I had absolutely no strength left in my arms at the end of the class.



Another tough, good lesson at Yoshin Ryu which was made particularly good by the extra tuition I received at the end.

Ronda Rousey

Let me just start by saying that Ronda Rousey was not a guest at Dorking Judo club last week and neither is she likely to be anytime in the future, although I’m sure the instructors would welcome her if she happened to be in the area. Anyway, I’ll come back to Ronda later.


Stewart took the class tonight, that’s black belt Stewart not Big Stewart. After warming us up I paired with Oli and was told to practice Hiza-guruma which is quite similar to Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, a throw I’ve had some success with lately. Stewart then had us practice Harai-goshi, which is a bit of a hit or miss throw with me. I very rarely try this in randori as I favour Uchi-mata instead but Stewart told me to get in closer and really reap my leg and this made it very effective.

We then practiced Hiza-guruma and Harai-goshi as a combination which worked pretty well although I need to practice my footwork so that I can close the space quickly to get in for the Harai.



Anyway back to Ronda Rousey. She was a Judo bronze medalist in the 2008 Olympics who turned her hand to MMA and recently won the Strikeforce Bantamweight world title. She’s caused quite a stir in the MMA world as she doesn’t look like your archetypal female cage fighter instead she is a rather statuesque blond haired, blue eyed California blond who just so happens to be able to hurl anyone through the air and on to the ground where she will submit you with a perfectly executed Juji-gatame. She recently made an appearance on The Ultimate Fighter as a guest coach and it was quite nice watching her throw these MMA fighters using O-soto-gari, which is well known in Judo circles as being a hard throw and she certainly did not hold back any when she was showing the fighters on the show how to do this without a gi.

I just wondered whether the likes of Ronda and Hector Lombard (a Cuban Judo Olympian), who was recently signed by the UFC to fight Brian Stann, might bring some well deserved interest in learning the art of Judo. Up until now most MMA fighters favour Wrestling and BJJ as their form of grappling but there are now enough top level Judoka’s having success that I’m sure at least some fighters might start to look at Judo as a viable alternative. I’ve heard rumors that the likes of Ilias Iliadis might turn to MMA after the London Olympics, which would be a real loss to Judo but you can understand why he might be tempted as the money now on offer to the top level MMA fighters, especially in the UFC, is quite substantial.



Of course your average local Judo club would probably miss out on any increased interest in Judo through MMA as a lot of MMA gyms are bringing in Judo coaches to teach classes. Also, there are a number of BJJ instructors who also hold black belts in Judo who may now start to incorporate more throws in to their BJJ class or add in a Judo only class to their schedule. So although more people might become aware of Judo or trained in Judo techniques it’s unlikely that your average 18-35 year old male that typically frequents BJJ or MMA gyms will find their way in to their local Judo club which is a shame.

Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi – Yoshin Ryu

Although my club is now open again, with the change of our training night from a Thursday to a Tuesday it means I am able to make the Randori evening at Yoshin Ryu whenever I want to. Unfortunately my usual sidekick, Oli, is unable to make it on Thursdays at present but Big Stewart is now attending on a regular basis so I met him there.


After we were warmed up we were told to practice do some uchi-komi with Ko-soto-gari. I paired up with a blue belt and we did 20 on each side before the sensei told us to change to Tai-otoshi, which was the technique we focused on on Tuesday at Dorking. After another 40 reps Sensei showed us a Tai-otoshi faint to set up Ko-soto-gari. The point of the faint is to make Uke move backwards as they attempt to avoid being thrown forward with Tai-otoshi. When they make the move backwards you immediately switch to Ko-soto-gari. We practiced this a number of times before sensei then had us replace Ko-soto-gari with Tani-otoshi, which worked just as well. As there are so many Dan grades present at this club it’s very easy to ask one of them for further help if the technique isn’t feeling quite right.

We finished up by practicing Tai-otoshi on its own but oddly enough all the work I had put in to trying to perfect this throw on Tuesday seemed to have been forgotten as I found it hard to get my footwork right.



On to Newaza and I stayed with the blue belt I was already with who incidentally I had written about when I trained here in October last year. Back then he dominated me in Newaza with cross collar chokes and various pins and then proceeded to throw me around in randori. Tonight however I was able to submit him twice, first with a nice San-gaku-jime and then a downward facing Juji-gatame. I was particularly pleased with the San-gaku-jime as I had been having a bit of trouble finishing these lately. Black belt Stewart at Dorking told me on Tuesday that I should attempt to roll them over to my left when I secured this and it seemed to work a treat.



My next two rolls were with a couple of Dan grades and they were able to handle me pretty easily. One of them had ENG on the back of his gi and he must have subbed me or pinned me about eight times in 5 minutes. Doing Newaza against him was very similar to how I felt when I rolled with Ricardo at Nova Forca, I.e. totally helpless but I never gave up and oddly enough I enjoyed the beating.



A roll with a white belt proceeded this and so did another San-gaku-jime and another Juji-gatame but I was feeling totally gassed at this point. My last roll was against one of the sensei’s, a 3rd dan. His style of newaza against me was very methodical. He did one thing at a time and moved slowly and yet I could do nothing to stop him. When he moved he left no gaps, nothing for me to exploit. It felt like I had two bags of cement on top of me, crushing my ribs and squeezing the air out of my lungs. Even when I started on top he just tied me up and slowly rolled me over before moving in to a pin where he would stay until he let me try and escape and then would submit me with whatever technique he fancied. Again, as demoralising as some people might find this I actually find it inspiring. It gives me something to aim for. If, a few years down the line, I am able to hold my own against him then I’ll know I’ve made progress, just like I felt when rolling with the blue belt earlier who only 5 months previously had easily bested me.



Following a water break we did a couple of rounds of randori. My first was against a black belt, who I found out later was celebrating his 60th birthday. He certainly doesn’t move like a normal 60 year old though as he threw me a couple o f times before I managed to throw him with Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi.



Next up was the blue belt who I was partnered with earlier and we had a pretty good tussle. He’s a similar height to me so we both favored high grips and kind of neutralised each other out. One of my favourite throws is Uchi-mata but every time I came in for this he tried to counter with Te-guruma and nearly caught me a couple of times. This put me off trying this throw again so I tried the Tai-otoshi/O-uchi-gari combination but he was wise to this. With about 30 seconds left I managed another Sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, not quite as clean as the one I got earlier but nonetheless it worked. I’m having some success with this throw so will look at better ways of setting this up although both of my successes with this throw were as a first attack so maybe I don’t need to at the moment.



When matte was finally called on the class I was totally knackered but I felt really good about myself, especially as I could see a measured improvement since last November. My intention is to train here as often as possible from now on but that will probably be every other week for now