Dorking Judo Club’s 1st Randori only night.

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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

Choke, well Strangles really.

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 1^st March then come on down to Dorking Judo Club

Jigoku-Jime

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.

Crash Mats for Throwing Practice



So after my recent competition experience I dragged myself to see my physio who was shocked to see the state of my shoulders and neck and also my elbow tendinitis (Golfers elbow)which was certainly not improved by the rigours of shiai. The outcome of this was being told to not do any upper body training whatsoever for a few weeks which obviously included Judo.


My neck and shoulders do feel a lot better but nothing seems to be making much difference to my golfers elbow condition.

At the moment the inside of my elbow is sore to touch so the mere thought of intentionally smashing my arm in to the tatami to break my fall fills me with dread.

Anyway I stumbled across this piece on the Judoforum today and thought I’d share it as using crash mats does seem like a very good idea, especially for those of us over a certain age.

Please feel free to comment accordingly.

Crash pad training allows everyone on the mat to do more throws safely. Here are two important points. You can do more throws on a crash pad than throwing only on the mat (tatami). After a while, landing on the mat takes its toll on anyone-even tough guys who say otherwise. By using crash pads, everyone on the mat can perform a lot more throws-and the result is that the level of technical skill improves. An increased volume of throwing practice translates to an increased development of functional skill.


Anyone who says that power is not what judo is about simply doesn't know what the word power means. Power does not mean brute strength or lack of technical skill as critics contend. The ballistic effect generate by a throwing technique is tremendous and demonstrates the skill, movement and strength inherent in a good throwing technique.

As far as safety is concerned, not only are there less injuries during practice when using crash pads, both in the short term and over the long haul of years of training, the body doesn't take as much punishment by landing on 8 inches of foam (in the crash pad) on top of the actual tatami than by landing only on the tatami. Sure, performing good breakfalls when taking a throw is important, but (as will be pointed out again later) the added level of safety in using crash pads definitely reduces injuries in practice.

Functional Skill

Anyone who uses crash pads can (and will) develop harder and more effective throws. The 8 inches of foam certainly helps cushion the fall for your partner when you drill him with that Uchi Mata, O Soto Gari or any other throw and it will provide the same cushion for you when he takes his turn to throw you. This means that you can develop more plyometric (explosive) power when throwing. I don't care what anyone says, the idea of a throw is to finish the fight. Throwing an opponent softly (in a match or real fight) is the antithesis of what the concept of Nage Waza (throwing Techniques) entails. A good analogy is boxing. Boxers use a punching bag to develop their punches in the same way judo, sambo, jujitsu and grappling athletes use a crash pad to develop their throws. Boxers don't train to hit an opponent softly, they train to hit an opponent hard. Crash pad training allows us to develop the full ballistic effect of a throwing technique.

More on Safety

Some people will say that using Ukemi is sufficient and good breakfalls negate the usefulness of crash pads. Okay, learning how to land safely is a necessity-that is a fact. But anyone who has taken a lot of falls on the tatami quickly finds out that, even with perfect breakfalling skills, taking repeated throws from partners in practice takes its toll on even the toughest guys' bodies. After a while, people get gun-shy and avoid throwing practice or simply stop coming to practice and take up something more docile, like spending too much time watching Youtube videos of judo instead of actually showing up to practice. So, my point is that using crash pads adds another level of safety in training to Ukemi (this was mentioned earlier).

Use Crash Pads Wisely

Do not limit your throwing practice to the use of crash pads only. By all means, work on throwing techniques and skills when moving freely about the mat to improve timing, spatial awareness and other important factors in throwing. In the same way boxers do not exclusively use heavy punching bags to develop their punching skills, judo, sambo, jujitsu and other grapplers should not limit themselves to exclusively doing throwing practice on crash pads. Like any training tool, use crash pads in an overall plan of training and development.

Uchikomi

I don't care what anyone says. Doing a lot of Uchikomi (fit-in practice) instead of Nagekomi (throwing practice) is not a good substitute for actually doing throws to develop technical skill. I'm not against Uchikomi-I'm just against replacing throwing practice with a lot of fit-ins. The old adage "do more Uchikomi" only works for a (short) while. That's been the advice given by people when they didn't have an answer to a question about a throw. I've been to clubs where they did lots and lots of Uchikomi and only a few actual throws. Maybe you've been to one of those clubs as well. Again, don't get me wrong. Uchikomi training has its definite place in any fighting sport, but too much Uchikomi training translates directly into athletes who do not finish their throws and (for the most part) have their throwing attacks more easily blocked by an opponent or do not follow through enough at the end of a throwing attack to get the job done. Others can do what they want, but I want my students and athletes to develop more functional skills in throwing, so we'll keep working on our crash pads

South Coast Senior Kyu & Dan Split Grade Event, Worthing.

Worthing is a place I know quite well as my Mum lives there so, seeing as the weigh in times were quite early (8.45-9.45am) I travelled down on the Saturday night and stayed with my Mum.

I was a little concerned about making the U90kg weight division, something I’ve not been able to do before, as I was bang on 90kg when I weighed myself Saturday night. However when I woke up on Sunday morning I had miraculously lost 2kg in my sleep and that was even after eating breakfast.

I got to the venue just after 9am and weighed in at 88kg. I then took my seat on the bench seats with everyone else. At around 10.00am they let everyone on to the mats to warm up. As I was alone I wasn’t able to do any uchi-komi so I just jogged around the mats and generally just loosened myself up which was nice and helped with the butterflies I had had in my stomach all morning.

Warming up



I guess it must have been around 10.30am when the fights actually started, which was great if you were the first to fight as you were nice and warm, However I had to sit on those uncomfortable bench seats with no idea when my fights were likely to start until ……………2.30pm. By this time I was starving hungry as I hadn’t eaten anything, save a couple of bananas, and very stiff. I wrote about this before when I fought at High Wycombe that there needs to be a warm up area that we can access all through the day. The warm up I did at 10am was useless four and a half hours later. It’s like me going to Judo on Tuesday and Graeme saying “ok no warm up today lets go straight in to hard randori instead.” It’s crazy and is just asking for injuries to happen. Also there needs to be better communication between the event organisers and Judoka about when they are likely to start their fights. I appreciate it isn’t an exact science as a fight can last seconds or go in to overtime and last 5 minutes. However they should be able to give the competitors a rough idea when they are likely to fight by providing a timetable telling them in what order each division is fighting in. That way, when the division before yours is called you know it’s time to start some sort of warm up.

On to my actual fights.


My first fight, I found it hard to get a grip. The guy was wearing a Fighting Films BlackLabel which was incredibly stiff. He was able to grip first and attack whereas I was just trying to survive and live off of counters to his attempts. I actually scored a wazari with a Tani-otoshi so was winning the fight. We hit the mat a couple of times and I was able to get a nice Juji turnover but he defended well against me finishing and just when I was going to turn it in to a hold down the ref called matte and stood us back up. Then with seconds left he tried an osoto and I countered again with a tani otoshi. Unfortunately I fell on my back and he fell straight in to kesa gatame where he held me down for the win.

My second fight lasted 10 seconds. He tried an osoti-gari but he was so far away I didn’t feel threatened so was sure I could turn in for my own osoto but he was able to jump through and get the Ippon, which was quite a big throw.

My third and last fight I was thrown with o-uchi-gari and he scored a wazari but when he fell on top of me he had his forearm across my throat and drove it hard across my throat and jaw with all his weight in to it. I wasn’t choking that much but my jaw hurt as it was being crushed so I taped.

It was a good experience and I didn’t feel a million miles away from their level but these guys weren’t taking any prisoners as they were all fighting for points towards their black belts. What was slightly annoying for me was that I wasn’t able to mount any attacks of my own against any of them. In my first fight I couldn’t get a grip and the last two fights I never had time as the fights ended quickly.

I ended up getting a bronze medal because there were only 4 in my weight category. I felt like a bit of a fraud getting it and I certainly won’t be telling anyone I finished 3rd and neither will I be listing it in my medal table on the right of my blog.

What I’ll take from this is that I need to practise more shiai type randori against brown belts my own size. My fitness wasn’t too bad considering I haven’t been able to train much, what with all my injuries. If I can get 100% fit and train hard for a few months I will be fine in that respect.

What is Randori?

According to Wiki Randori (乱取り?) is a term used in Japanese martial arts to describe free-style practice. The term literally means "chaos taking" or "grasping freedom," implying a freedom from the structured practice of kata. Randori may be contrasted with kata, as two potentially complementary types of training

In Judo Randori is described by Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, in a speech at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games: "Randori, meaning "free exercise", is practiced under conditions of actual contest. It includes throwing, choking, holding the opponent down, and bending or twisting his arms or legs. The two combatants may use whatever methods they like provided they do not hurt each other and obey the rules of Judo concerning etiquette, which are essential to its proper working."

So the way I understand it Randori is a place to try things out or to perfect your favourite technique without the fear of losing a contest by being thrown, submitted or pinned. No one wins or loses in randori, you just learn.


Having missed training on Tuesday I decided to pay a visit to Yoshin Ryu. I’ve deliberately been putting this off as I have been suffering from multiple injuries for a while and Thursday night at Yoshin Ryu is not for the faint hearted.

After we were warmed up Sensei Adam had us practise a variety of chokes and turnovers, all the while interspersing this with newaza randori so that the technique was fresh in our minds. This worked well as we were all constantly warm but just had a few minutes break between newaza randori to catch our breath and learn a new technique. In total I sparred with about 5 or 6 guys but what was really unusual was that in all of my rolls there was not one submission or pin. I was particularly pleased with my guard play as mostly I was able to keep my opponent in my guard and on the odd occasion they managed to pass I was able to quickly regain guard. However, as I said earlier I wasn’t able to pull off any submissions which was slightly frustrating although I myself was not subbed either.


When we got to tachiwaza randori I paired up with Steve a.k.a the tomoe nage kid. I felt constantly threatened by Steve as he dominated me with grips. He was easily able to turn in again and again with multiple uchi-mata attempts, which if it wasn’t for my long legs I’m sure would have been successful. I on the other hand never really felt in a position to attack him with much other than a failed Yoko-tomoe-nage, something I’ve been having some success with recently at Dorking. When Sensei Adam called out 30 seconds to go I was finally able to get a dominant grip myself and then went on the attack. A Failed sumi-gaeshi and O-uchi-gari was all I could muster though before matte was called.


Next up for me was Tim, a blue belt from Guildford Police JC. As Tim is considerably smaller than me I was able to take a dominant grip but despite being able to counter some of his attacks with successful throws I never really committed to anything myself for fear of being countered myself. This got me thinking about what I actually want to get out of Randori. Should I be bothered if Tim or anyone else throws me in Randori? Surely it would have been better to try and work on a specific throw and really commit to it and if I get countered it shouldn’t matter. Maybe my ego isn’t completely left at the door of the dojo when I practise Judo. I think, especially now I’m a brown belt, that I shouldn’t be getting “beat” or “thrown” by lower grades, which is a bit egotistical really and could hamper my development. So next time I do randori I’m gonna try things out and not care if I get countered as long as I’m learning that’s all that should matter.

Getting Black Belt Fit

I remember reading about one of the workouts that chuck Liddell used to do when he was still competing in the UFC. It involved him rowing 1000 metres and then immediately wrestling for 5 minutes before taking a 60 second rest and repeating another 5 times.

Unfortunately I’m not able to Wrestle or do randori in the gym at my work and rowing 1000m 5 times would probably give me a heart attack at the moment so I devised the following high intensity workout which I hope will help with my cardio and recovery especially when/if I get a line up at a dan grading event.

500 Metre Row
20 Squats
20 Press Ups

1 minute rest then repeat for 5 sets.

The rowing is done at a moderate pace and takes me around 1 min 45 to row the 500m. The squats and press-ups are purely bodyweight but after doing that rowing my legs were burning up and lungs were breathing fire. I’ll aim to reduce the rest period to 30 seconds over the coming months and maybe add another exercise as well.

Of course this isn’t the only exercise I do it’s just one specific workout but I might start doing this a couple of times a week along with my normal weight training, running and of course Judo.

I’ll report back and let you know if it’s made any difference.