Tuesday Night Judo Practice

So today was a nice day out for Seattle. 80's bluest skies you ever seen. Anyways, I wasn't going to let this sunshiny day slip by without doing some outdoor activity. And so I went for a quick 30 minute run. Did the Fairmont hill run, which basically consists of a 1/2 mile long hill that has about a 300 foot elevation gain. So basically a quick 2 mile run with a 1/2 mile straight aways with a stretch at the end of the 1/2 mile straight away. Did a nice easy pace. Picked up the pace at the end of the Fairmont hill run. Basic 30 minute run. It was good to get the blood flowing and at the last 100 yards, I sprinted. It felt good.

So showered. Got my gi bag ready and headed to practice. I was a bit late, so changed quickly just in time to do the line up.

Anyways, practice consisted of a warm up of judo soccer. Yeah, it's a fun different warm up that you play soccer, tackle, pin, dog pile your opponents. It's the way soccer was meant to be played, with full contact and take downs.

That was a good warm up and got the blood flowing, then did ukemi drills, then uchikomi. I still have some more techniques to work on such as my osoto gari. I wasn't pointing my toe, and really need to make contact. My combos were so-so, but needs work.

The technique shown tonight was 3 different rolls into a juji gatame from a guy who is turtled.

It's hard to describe. I'll describe it loosely and it's better if seen. As I'll butcher the technique in words.

First one was your standard roll.
Second one was the one where you go high, create space underneath and roll, catch the arm and into a juji.
Third one was the "Rock and Roll Armbar" grab the arm for the armbar, lock it in, twist, grab a leg, then roll into position.

Things I learned:

1. When controlling the arm, hold it close and grab your own lapel so it's tight.
2. Knees together.
3. Keep it tight.

As the sensei explains, it's the little things that make it work. I still need a lot of work on armbars, I'm coming along though. We mainly focused on matwork tonight. And then went to 3 rounds of newaza randori and 3 rounds of tachi-waza. A lot of technique shown tonight. So not the usual grind that is the 8 o'clock practice. Overall it was a good workout.

I still need to work on my standing techniques. My grip is getting better, and I need to throw more. I need more grounding on my foot-sweeps. They're more like taps and not any real attempts at throwing. I do am getting better with my kata-guruma. I like that technique, however, set up is something I'm working on.

Anyways, that's it for now. Thursday is around the corner.