Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The Principle of Ju



I need to relax more.

Seriously, not that I don't get a great workout at practice. Although I'm starting to Plateau. I have to exercise outside the dojo. Right now the randori workouts, although strenuous is quite not long, or intense enough. I still need more rounds. Tonight was a bit cramped. We had over 20 people in the dojo, and randori in that small of a space tends to get tight. You do end up being hyper aware at times, and a lot of people engage in wall judo. Using the walls to your advantage, but seriously, the dojo can really accommodate only 10 people or 5 pairs safely in standing randori. You can push it to 7 (14 people) and that's the max without bumping into each other. You do tend to develop peripheral awareness, so you don't throw or run into people during randori. It also means that I sat out 3 rounds of standing and 1 round of ground work.

Which brings us to randori. I have no idea why I go into a notch below competition mode, and so am not really learning anything. The only thing I'm really getting into is grip fighting and defensive stance, and where does that get me? I still get thrown, but it's not improving my attacks. I have to attack and counter-attack.

That brings me to the second that Phil taught me tonight. Which was move the body. You move the body to set up the throw. It's like boxing, with the footwork. It's like a light bulb going off my head. I have to really move my body to set up an attack. Judo is not a static sport, it's a dynamic one.
I also at this point really need to supplement my judo training with working out at the gym. I do have a gym membership that I hardly use. I got to use it. I probably could take some yoga classes to loosen myself up. Then go swim. And then perhaps do some interval trainings.

When I did use to do interval training, my judo improved. I stopped, figuring I was going 2-4x a week judo/jujutsu and dragon boating. Now that dragon boating is over, I figure I have to really supplement my workout. Dragon boating was a lot of fun and a great workout. It's also very intense interval-like training.

I'm reaching a plateau, and need to change my habits to break through and reach a higher level. I'm starting to slowly creep up the scale again. I'm floating around 207 lbs as opposed to 205lbs and I don't think that's muscle weight. Again my goal is to fight at 90kg, which is 198 lbs. I should go walk around at 200-202 lbs and I can drop enough to fight at 90kg.

Oh and no more late night burgers!

BAAAD.

p.s. Photos courtesy of John aka MajorConfusion from my dojo.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No kidding. I have to stop the cookies and big burritos.

I'm curious -- why do they have you wear those uniforms that look like terry cloth robes?

Ice said...

I agree with you. Tonight I ate a huge sub sandwich and an Ice Cream Sundae... I just have to really really watch what I eat.

Why yes, the uniforms are quite thick and heavy and does resemble robes. The jacket is heavy and reinforced so that it can withstand the gripping and throwing that the sport requires.

Judo is really jacket wrestling, to tell you the truth. It's wrestling but you have a convenient handhold with the gi.

A lot of techniques involve grabbing the jacket for throws, pins and chokes.

Gis get ripped apart once and in awhile, so people who practice for a bit usually upgrade to double weave gis which are twice as thick, hence the terry cloth robe appearance.

It does double as comfortable lounge wear in a pinch. Actually the gi pants make excellent yoga pants as well.

Bob C. said...

Like in boxing where they jab,jab,jab then come in for the big knock down we use are feet- sweep ,sweep,sweep to help set up the big throws. Come on over to Zenyu this Thrusday for fight night we would love to have you over.