Space, the final frontier

This was the first class back at DJC since the Easter break, although I had trained at Yoshin Ryu and Nova Forca in the interim.


Peter had us warm up with some assisted break falls from a kneeling position. Then we practised rear breakfalls by pushing each other backwards. The person doing the breakfall had to do so with their eyes closed, which makes certainly made it interesting.

The warm up progressed in to some light newaza and I made a conscious effort to practise my top game, which I definitely need to do. I was actually quite pleased that I was able to hold Oli’s legs down on one side and sort of cartwheel to the other side where I had him in Mune-gatame. He was quick to turn away from me and roll on to his stomach so got my hooks in and attempted to roll on to his side. I was actually looking to get something similar to a hell strange or bow and arrow choke after seeing this lovely technique on the E-Judo forum.

Unfortunately I was sure about all the parts of this choke which gave Oli the opportunity to escape.

I found another nice entry to a choke, this time a San-gaku-jime, by the same person so thought I’d share this as well. I was actually very close to getting this one to work at Nova Forca last week.

We paused briefly to go over a Juji-gatame from the top position when Uke has one leg trapped (half guard) and then back on to Newaza. With many of the seniors still out injured I was paired with one of our juniors who was about 14. I was reminded that I am not allowed to armlock or choke anyone under the age of 16 in Judo, but I had no intention of being that rough anyway. I ended rolling with 3 of the juniors, all of whom were around 14-15 years old. I made a real conscious effort not to use any strength instead relying on pure technique to sweep them and go from hold to hold. Occasionally, when an obvious opportunity presented itself to apply a choke or an armlock I simply got in to position to do so and then verbally told them, or in the case of applying a Juji-gatame I held their bent arm but did not extend it. I was impressed with all the juniors, especially the last Orange belt I rolled with who had this annoying habit of trapping my leg in half guard every time I swept him.

We probably spent around an hour doing Newaza, either randori or techniques, which was really good. The last half an hour of the class was spent standing or being thrown. With the same partner, which for me was the junior orange belt, we were told to do throw for throw Tai-otoshi’s. This junior had really good technique and did that springy thing with his outstretched leg which really made me fly through the air. Most of the seniors are not able to do this, usually due to not being as flexible as the youngsters and not wanting to put that amount of stress on the old knee joints but the juniors certainly showed me up with regards to good technique. We then changed it slightly so that Uke had stepped over our first tai-otoshi attempt and tori had to attack with Tai-otoshi again but this time a really low down version. This was a good exercise as it got you in to the habit of stringing techniques together in an attack rather than just trying one and stopping, then trying another and stopping again. I felt I was doing well as my young Uke was easily airborne, however when I changed partners and paired up with Ynez she pointed out that my Tai-otoshi had too much hip in it. Duncan agreed and said the reason was that I was to close; I needed more space between me and Ynez so that I had somewhere to throw her in to. I think with my previous Uke, who was very light, it didn’t matter as much as I was simply able to strong arm him to the ground but against someone as experienced as Ynez my poor technique soon showed up. Being too close to uke was something that Roman Stawisinski, the coach to Aneta Szczepanska, pointed out to me at the seminar I attended last month. On that occasion I was practising Uchi-mata, but the principle is the same. Whilst the rest of the class practised doing other combinations using Tai-otoshi, for example O-uchi-gari, Ko-uchi-gari, Tai-otoshi, I decided to stick with Tai-otoshi on its own and try to get it working better, which I did but it still wasn’t perfect.

We finished up with some light randori, which was the prefect end to a very good enjoyable session.

Return to Nova Forca BJJ

I managed to find some time to pay Nova Forca a visit last night for some BJJ training and was accompanied by Oli. I didn’t realise it had actually been two years since I had last trained there and since then the club has had a change of venue to a much better permanent matted room within the Energie Gym located on Epsom High Street. There is a half Octagon in one corner of the room, for their MMA training and a row of Muay Thai kick bags along one side of the room. There was also a large TV with the UFC playing on it for extra motivation.


As per my previous visits here I was made to feel welcome by the head coach Ricardo and all of the guys I spoke and rolled with seemed very friendly. After the warm up, which would be enough of a workout on its own for most people, Ricardo showed us a variation on a guillotine choke. This was done against someone who had shot in for a single leg takedown. With their head under your left armpit you slide you right forearm under their chin and grab your left hand. Your left forearm then presses down on their right shoulder, which keep them from turning out and escaping the guillotine. The choke is then finished by twisting slightly upwards towards your left. When Ricardo showed us this technique he added a roll, which sort of resembled a Sumi-gaeshi, but both Oli and I had trouble with this which must have had something to do with our Judo instinct not to throw whilst a choke is applied.

We drilled this technique for about fifteen minutes before we were told to grab a quick drink as sparring was next. First up for me was a stocky looking white belt that I was able to pull guard and quickly sweep to mount. From here I was trying to get a kata-gatame choke but he realised what I was going for and defended against it, however I saw an arm tried a hiza-gatame but he was able to escape and I ended up on the bottom with him in my guard. I swept him to mount again and this time I managed to choke him with Sode guruma jime

Next up was a stocky blue belt and this roll was more about survival for me as he was able to constantly threaten me with submissions. I think I did pretty well to only get subbed once. One thing I did consciously do was no panic when I was mounted. In Judo this would be Tate-shiho-gatame but in BJJ it’s just a good position in which to attack from. Anyway I kept my arms close in and protected my neck and waited for him to make a move and then tried to explode out and although he was quickly able to get back to this position or side control it at least kept him busy and kept the submissions down to one.

My last roll was with another white belt who was pretty good. He was able to pass my guard pretty easily and attack me from side control. As before, I concentrated on keep my arms close to my body and protecting my neck, hopefully dispelling the myth that Judo guys always give up their back. He did finally mange to submit me with a cross collar choke which was the least he deserved.

We finished with a gentle warm down and stretch and then an obligatory belt whipping was given out to someone for forgetting their belt. Overall a really enjoyable session and hopefully I’ll be back there again before another two years pass.

.Random Guy VS. Teddy Riner.

This could be bad for your health but funny nonetheless

Dead leg, BJJ and Ronda

I managed to train last Thursday at Yoshin Ryu but got thrown hard and then had a knee hit me in my upper thigh, giving me a dead leg and ending my training for the night. This was only my second randori session of the evening so it sucked that I had to sit out with an ice pack strapped to my thigh whilst everyone else carried on sparring.
In my previous fight I had a good tussle with Steve (as usual) and managed a Tani-otoshi. The rest of our session we kind of cancelled each other out and I even managed to stuff his obligatory Tomoe-nage attempt.

Before the class started I noticed a new guy wearing a BJJ gi and after chatting to him I found out that he trains BJJ at Roger Gracie’s place in London and that he is a Blue belt. I was partnered with him for our warm up and Uchikomi, but I never got the chance to roll with him in Newaza. However I’ve got the urge to do some BJJ training again, probably at Nova Forca, but I need to work out if this will be possible with work, looking after my daughter and Judo taking priority.


As this post is a little short and rushed I thought I’d share the following video of Ronda Rousey.

This is from the current season of The Ultimate Fighter or TUF for short and shows Ronda, who was brought in as a guest coach, doing some grappling training with TUF middleweight fighter Uriah. Uriah is the most feared fighter in the TUF house, having already KO’d two opponents in brutal fashion and is favourite to win the whole show. This video shows just how good Ronda’s grappling and Judo is as the 135lb female throws and armbars her 185lb male opponent. Enjoy

Update

It’s been a particularly busy period at work over the last couple of weeks which is why I haven’t blogged for a while. Seeing as I stare at a computer screen all day the last thing I want to do after training is to sit in front of my Laptop and stare at a computer screen some more. I am however still training and slowly working my way through the blue belt grading syllabus. I was hoping to have gotten a nice new blue belt before the Easter break but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. But Graeme spoke to me this week and assured me that we would finish it soon after the Easter break.


Dorking Judo club is now closed for a couple of weeks but I’ll be training at Yoshin Ryu tonight, although I’m unlikely to get the chance to blog about it, unless of course I manage to throw Przemek for Ippon. I haven’t yet decided where I’ll be training next week as I need to consult my diary (the Wife) first but expect to see me back to blogging as usual.

One last thing, I’ve been promised a gi to review from Black Eagle, not sure yet whether this is going to be a single or double weave (hopefully a double) so I’ll review that after I’ve worn and washed it several times.

O-soto-otoshi

It was an interesting lesson on Tuesday as my partner for most of the class was Andrew who has only just begun his Judo journey. What was interesting was that a lot of what he was doing was how I used to do things a few years ago. For instance, in randori he only really tried Osoto-otoshi , the first throw most of us are shown, but he never stepped in far enough with his left leg and never unbalanced me enough to be successful with this throw. Instead I was able to simply stiffen my leg and make him slowly fall to the ground with an Osoto-otoshi of my own.  I can see why this is one of the first throws they teach to beginners as it encourages the thrower to use movement and kuzushi. Done static it’s fairly simple, however the throw becomes a lot more complex when trying to throw someone who doesn’t want to be thrown and normally ends up with the thrower being countered with the same throw. In fact in all my time doing Judo I can’t remember ever successfully pulling off this throw as a direct attack.  Any success I’ve had with it is usually as a counter or combination.

Aneta Szczepanska Seminar – Yoshin Ryu

I was informed a couple of weeks by Przemek that Aneta Szczepanska, 1996 Olympic Silver Medallist, would be taking two classes at Croydon Judo club on the 2nd and 3rd of March and also an additional class at Yoshin Ryu on Monday the 4th. Luckily I was able to attend the Monday night class at Yoshin Ryu. Upon arrival I counted 40 people on the mats, which is as many as I have ever seen.

Aneta was accompanied by her Coach, Roman Stawisinski and Przemek acted as translator due to her limited English. Following the warm up we were told that she would be focussing on Uchi-mata, which was one of her favourite competition throws, and all the little details surrounding this technique. Uchi-mata just so happens to be one of my favoured techniques due to my long legs but I am fully aware that I do a rather lazy version of this throw and usually end up having to hop a few times to complete it. We started with the entry to the throw which resembled the following video:

We really got to drill this entry for quite a while, which was good as it felt natural when we then progressed on to the full throw. Something which Roman Stawisinski picked up on was that I was to close with my entry. What I needed to do was pull uke on to me and drive up with my right or collar hand. This made uke a lot more off balance and helped with getting uke airborne unlike how I normally do it:

Not the cleanest looking Uchi-mata, although I did get the ippon.

We progressed on to the San-gaku turn over which despite favouring San-gaku-jime off my back I’ve never really practised it from this position. Again I got some excellent instruction from Roman and by the end I was making my Uke tap fairly quickly.

We then managed a few rounds of randori each but as there were 40 of us we were restricted to 3 x 1 minute rounds. For my last fight I paired up with Przemek and I almost threw him with O-uchi-gari but as we were near the wall, finishing the throw would mean dumping him against it so I pulled out of it and let him off. He repaid my kindness by dumping me with a big Uchi-mata right at the end to a chorus of boos from the rest of the club who were watching and disproving of him beating up a lowly green belt.

Before the class finished Aneta called out one of our GB squad members as Uke so that she could show us some nice counters to throws. Despite the best efforts of Uke to throw her she was able to counter really quickly everything that was thrown at her. I found this video which shows her countering with her favoured Uchi-mata in competition, which gives you an idea of just how good she is.

And here is her final match in the 1996 Olympic games which to be fair I think she was unluckily not to have won with a other brilliant Ko-uchi-gari counter at 35 seconds

 

A very enjoyable class tonight and a special thank you to Przemek for translating and helping put together all three of the seminars.

From left to right: Sensei Neil, Stuart, Aneta, Sensei Errol, Roman