Monday's Upper Body Workout and Judo watching...

So... yesterday was a good workout day. It started in the morning meeting Jen and Ericka at 24 hour fitness for some quick cardio (I was a bit late.) and ab work out. The ab work out was good, still gotta focus on it more. Perhaps do more medicine ball workouts with abs. We did oblique rotation with weights on a swiss ball, crunches and the like. I think a bit more to burnouts would be good, for that good and sore feeling, but I think that Jen and Ericka was just taking it easy on me that day.
Afterwards, they split, and I did some upper body workout. It consisted of:

5 sets - 12, 10, 8, 6, 12 reps.

Dumbbell bench press - 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 lbs.
Lat Pull Downs - 65, 80, 95, 110, 125 lbs.
Dumbbell shoulder press - 20, 25, 30, 30, 30 lbs.

Overall, I felt good. I still need to work my shoulders, my shoulders were wicked tired at the end of the set. Also my shoulder felt funny at the end of the shoulder press. Perhaps watch my technique and go with lighter weights to finish at 30 lbs. After stretching it out, it felt fine.

I was going to do biceps and triceps, however that would've been a bit much, because... I had dragon boating that afternoon. Last thing I needed were fatigued bi/tri for one hour of paddling. Besides, the dumbbell workout worked them out indirectly. Perhaps if it was a non-paddling day I'd be good to go.

Onto... Dragon Boating

That afternoon was a great day for dragon boating. It was beautiful, warm and Lake Washington was just nice. The boat had 10 people, so the usual complement of 22 people weren't there. We practiced anyways, and it was a good practice. It felt great to be paddling with just 8 paddlers plus the caller and the tiller.

I was working on my form. I like paddling as it's a near constant resistance workout that involves your abs, obliques and upper body.So as you can see from the picture, it's a lot of good rotation, working the obliques and some good upper body workouts. I think this is good. It's a lot like the shrimping drill right before mat-work, and this will be good resistance training at that.

Did paddle boating for about an hour, with 30 minutes left side and 30 minutes right side. It was a good workout and I could feel my obliques burn. Today my body has a good soreness to it. It was a great workout. I had to work on my snap and my timing. It's really hard to keep pace and keep excellent form. The hard part is the exit out of the water and snapping the paddle forward for maximum reach. I kinda get lackadaisical and of course when you're tired, you're technique just isn't that good. I was getting into a good rhythm and getting to breathe. I think I did decent in paddling last night as I didn't have to stop at all. Then again, the pace was just constant, so there were no burnouts nor race starts, which really tires me out quick. I also think that since my arms were already tired, that I actually used my whole body, rather than just the upper body for paddling. So overall a good day...

And then... onto Judo.

After paddling, I was a bit chilly and decided to get some Pho to warm myself up. Afterwards it was running around 8:30 pm, which coincidentally happen to be the time that Seattle Dojo was holding practice. Since I was already in the International District, it was only a simple matter of driving 3/4 of a mile there. I was still a bit wet from paddling and I didn't have my judogi on, so I simply decided to stop by there and watch.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2004473068_judo150.html

So Seattle Dojo according to the article is the oldest continuous judo club stateside. I've practiced there once before about a year ago and saw a few familiar faces. It's been awhile though and there's a lot of fresh faces. Yeah article, pretty much sums it up, better than I can.

So, after the article publish, Seatlte Dojo has become popular. I witnessed a lot of new students, with 5 new students joining Seattle Dojo that day. It was cool to see the joy and awe of fresh new students. I hardly see that anymore. There were a group of 3 guys that enrolled that day that knew each other. The "recruits" all had the issued unbleached gi, still fresh with from-the-wrapper-crease-marks. There were a total of about a dozen recruits, which is quite amazing! I hardly ever see more than one or two people start in a club a month, if that.

It was a good refresher on dojo etiquette, proper bowing, etc... And some instruction on tying the belt. They did some ukemi drills, and one ukemi drill that we don't usually do. The front breakfall. We hardly ever do front breakfalls. We do spend quite a bit of time on ukemi, rolls, cartwheels, and the like.

Since there were a lot of new people, this class was more of an instructional class on the basics, and a lot of things were going on quite a bit. Two black belts were practicing the nage-no-kata, and it was actually interesting to actually see it in practice in the dojo rather than on a few demos that I have seen. Now that I'm a brown belt, I should eventually learn nage-no-kata. Eventually being a key word, since earning a black belt really isn't a priority of mine, and besides that, it'll be another half decade or so before I'm qualified to do so. I actually need to ummm, win some tournaments perhaps? I really don't think I'd deserve a black belt until I can get onto the national ranking roster. I think most black belts I roll around with are on the roster at one time or another. And Tracy from my club didn't get her black belt until six months before the Olympic trials. And she won the trials in her division, so. Yeah, that's my gage. And seriously in comparison, I am nowhere in that level. Really being a brown belt, sounds cool, however I know far less than what I'm supposed to know. Sure I can tell what the 40 classic throws from the Canon of Judo looks like, however, executing them is a whole other story. I still am not that proficient in mat-work as well, and was really thinking of taking some submission wrestling classes, or bjj classes to supplement that hole in my game. I digress...

Seattle Dojo class format was.

1. Intro
2. Warm-ups.
3. Ukemi from laying, to sitting, to standing.
4. Squats while saying the japanese numbers 1-10.
5. Rolling Ukemi
6. Matwork warmups, shrimping and the like up and down the mat.
7. Matwork technique. (Basic holds: kesa, yoko-shiho, kata, etc...)
8. Holding the pin with resistance.
9. Ne-waza randori
10. Standing uchikomi
11. Standing technique. Ippon Seio, Morote Seio
12. Standing Randori for colored belts/ Ukemi instruction for white belts.
13. Closing
14. Ukemi when leaving the mat.

In the meantime after the warmups, a couple of people were practicing nage-no-kata on the side.

It was cool to watch another club, and to think about judo that day. I got judo practice tonight. Looking forward to it. Anyways, I should go do a short run or something.

Anyways that's about it.