Kumi-kata - Witley Judo Club

I’ve just returned from two weeks sunning myself in the Dordogne, France and have literally done no exercise whatsoever, I figured my body could do with the break. Before I went on Holiday I managed to get a good session in at Witley Judo club and I attended another excellent class there on Monday night.

This was to be a “simple class” as Pete, the head instructor put it, and by that he meant that we would only be learning a couple of techniques., one a simple turnover against the turtle and the other a version of kata-guruma where you do not touch the legs in anyway (so competition legal) Apart from that the rest of the class was Newaza and tachiwaza randori.

It was nice to catch up with Tim from Guildford Police Judo Club who is now sporting a blue belt. It transpires that Tim has been training BJJ at Andy Roberts place three times a week for the last couple of months and it showed when I picked Tim for my first round of Newaza randori. He was very active off his back, throwing up plenty of Juji attempts however I managed to defend well against them. The round ended after I had swept him to mount and was just about to apply an Ude-garami. Still his newaza has improved a lot and if he carries on the BJJ training he will no doubt be subbing me next time.

Following my roll with Tim I was able to pull off a number of submissions including a couple of San-gaku-jime’s, however it still took me quite a while to finish them and in doing so I really gassed my legs out, something to consider if I attempt this in shiai.

I’ve written before how I’ve had trouble in randori when I face guys who have superior gripping strategies. This is usually apparent when I visit places like Yoshin Ryu where they have a number of larger and/or higher ranked guys. For me there are three components to randori. Tachiwaza, Newaza and Kumi kata (gipping) but maybe I am getting too hung up on it.

Last night Pete showed me a couple of things I was doing wrong when I sparred with him. Now Pete is considerably shorter than me but it still able to dominate me with his grips, should he so wish. He told me that I was over reaching with my second hand when trying to get my sleeve grip, which when facing a shorter person is like Christmas as they are able to use my momentum to throw me. What he said I need to do is to pull them towards me and then grip rather than to go looking for it. Quite simple but it makes perfect sense. Another thing he pointed out is that I was a little too square against the shorter guys which gives them the space to step in to when they inevitably try there seoi nage’s against me. What I need to do is to have one leg slightly forward which then reduces the space they can step in to. One last thing he pointed out to me was that I need to fully commit to my throws rather than pull out if I don’t immediately throw the other person, which I have been told before but I am really making a conscious effort to do this now.

Dorking Judo Club is open again this Thursday so I’ll be back at my home club but I’m going to keep training at Witley on Monday nights and, when possible, Yoshin Ryu. I’m hoping this will be enough to see me improve significantly so that I can start to collect some points towards my dan grading although it might be a bit soon for this extra training to pay off with my first dan grading event coming up on the 13^th of September at High Wycombe. I am, however, determined not to come away from it empty handed and will be disappointed if I haven’t made some inroads in to the 100 points needed.

Kosei Inoue - The King of Uchi-mata

Seeing as Uchi-mata is my tokui waza, there's no one better to watch than Kosei Inoue.

Enjoy

Sode guruma jime

Oli & Jadon joined me last night for another Newaza only session at Yoshin Ryu. This was the second week running that Oli had attended this class which, until last week, he hadn't been on the mats’, other than to assist teaching the kids class at Dorking, for almost 1 year. It was perhaps for this reason that I refused to tap when he caught me with a nice collar strangle last week. I was pretty close to going out but for some reason (ego perhaps) I decided I was not going to tap to him, due to his inactivity and how that would look for me tapping to someone who, by his own admission, was a little rusty. Luckily for me I was able to eventually escape his strangle and the rest of the roll was a good back and forth exchange although neither of us were able to get a submission or pin.

Last night Oli was the first person I sparred with and again we had a good back and forth tussle. Both of us actively going for subs and defending and reversing our positions. No subs were forthcoming again but it was a very enjoyable roll.

I had a nice roll with Jadon where I was able to pass his guard in to Yoko-shiho-gatame but in a moment of madness I looked away from him and he was able to trap my head with his leg and turn it in to a San-gaku-jime where he eventually got the tap. The rest of our roll was pretty close and I was actually able to return the favour when he passed my guard and got a Yoko-shiho-gatame on me as I used the same escape on him but matte was called before I could try for the submission.

An orange belt was next, who also trains BJJ at RGA in London and is a blue belt. He pulled guard and tried to play spider guard but I was able to shake off his grips, pass his guard and sink in Sode-guruma-jime for the tap. We started again and he continued with a very open guard, clearly trying to play spider guard. I grabbed his legs and spun him over where I attacked the turtle with a Juji turnover and finished him with a Juji-gatame.

Sensei  Dave was next and he played guard to start with. I attempted to use the techniques he had taught the class earlier on him (Sode-guruma-jime) but this obviously wasn’t going to work on him. It was when he decided he wasn't going to play on his back anymore that I started to get in trouble and he caught me with a couple of subs towards the end and a pin.

Something that I took from watching the Judo at the recent Commonwealth games was said by Neil Adams regarding attacking the neck and then the arm and vice versa. I noticed last night that when I attacked someone’s neck they invariably presented an armbar opportunity. The same thing happened when I looked for their arm, they left their neck unguarded. This may seem quite basic and I've probably been told this before but it really worked for me. I’m gonna have a play with this and see if my submission ratio improves. It certainly did last night.

Ups and downs

With the hot weather continuing in to its second week I decided to buy a cheap single weave lightweight gi. I was lucky enough to spot an Adidas 500gm single weave on eBay in my size which had been worn once, washed and had shrunk too much for its owner (we've all been there right?) I bought this for a measly £25 including postage, a bargain!

I wore the gi to training on Thursday night and I must say it felt weird wearing a single weave gi after only wearing doubles for so long. To be honest I’m not sure if I liked it enough to wear it again. What bothered me most was the ease in which my opponent was able to grip it although it could be said that wearing it could actually help improve my Judo because if I’m effective wearing it then imagine what I’ll be like when I wear a double and people are unable to grip it so easily.

Following last week’s classes at Yoshin Ryu in which I left feeling quite positive and was able to throw and submit people, this week was the opposite. I submitted no one in newaza randori and don’t remember a single successful throw in tachiwaza randori. Of course I need to take in to account that I sparred with different people than I did the previous week so I shouldn't beat myself up over it but it can be a little frustrating sometime when you feel like you are taking one step forward and then two steps back. However despite not throwing any resisting opponents we did do plenty of throw for throw practice which I find really beneficial.

Shuurai Lite Gi

I'm selling my Shuurai Lite Gi jacket on eBay at the moment, the add can be found here.
It's a size 185 and i'm throwing in some Black Eagle Heavyweight Trousers size 200, although these have shrunk enough so that they are closer to a 185 in length. My reason for sale is that this gi has never really been long enough in the arms for me and i'm trying to make a bit of space in my wardrobe for a new, soon to be announced, gi purchase.
If you want to make me a "buy it now offer" outside of eBay then let me know.
Happy bidding

 That's not me btw ^

Randori and more Randori @ Yoshin Ryu

I started writing this post a week ago but I’ve only just managed to finish it. This means I have forgotten a lot of what actually happened so the below is a condensed version of events.

I managed to train on consecutive nights last week at Yoshin Ryu. First I did the Newaza randori night on the Wednesday and then I also managed the randori night on the Thursday evening. It felt nice being able to train hard on consecutive days as I’ve had so many injuries this year that I really haven’t put in enough sessions to improve. I must admit though that getting out of bed on Friday morning was a struggle as I felt like I had been in a train wreck.

Sensei Dave took the Wednesday night Newaza class and despite it being rather hot (by UK standards) he still had us warm up properly doing pyramids. This entails running up and down the mat doing first one sit, one squat thrust and one press up then you run up and down the mat again but this time you do two of each and so on until you get to ten of each. Anyway my double weave gi was at this point saturated in sweat and ready for the next part of the class which focused on a couple of options when you are unable to finish a juji-gatame from the top position, so basically the below position.

I guess you could use this if your opponent had a very strong grip that you were unable to break. Anyway from the position above you slide your right leg in-between uke’s arms so that it is over their right arm but under their left. At this point you remove your left leg from over their head and lay it on the floor behind them. Uke’s normal response to this is to seize the moment to escape and sit up thus giving you the opportunity to slide your left leg behind their head. You then simply link your right with your left leg and get the san-gaku-jime.

We got to drill this technique a number of times, enough so that I think it will stick with me, which is a good thing.

I sparred with a number of guys at the end wearing various coloured belts so that I was able to practice my submissions one minute and my escapes the next. My roll with Sensei Dave was particularly good as he manages to operate at a level just above the person he is sparring with.

Thursday nights randori night was equally as hot as Wednesday’s, added to that I had the ache and bruises from the previous night’s class but I managed to have a very productive lesson nonetheless and took away a few things.

1)      I did randori with a newly promoted 1^st dan and wasn’t far off the pace. I was able to successfully throw him with uchi-mata and tani-otoshi.

2)      Sasae-tsuri komi ashi is one of my favoured techniques and usually I use a normal right handed grip and throw using my left leg to block ukes right foot. An opportunity arose, admittedly against a yellow belt, to throw using the same right handed grip but this time using my right leg to bloke ukes left foot. The result was an airborne uke and a technique I will be trying to improve on. The below video shows both entries in to this throw as well as a nice set up using O-uchi-gari.

3)      As I’m not good enough to throw people using unconventional grips I need to improve on my grip fighting and work on some strategies. This becomes apparent when I spar with higher grades (Brown and Black Belts)

Judo - Mortal Combat Style

This made me laugh.