Sunday Okuriere

Traffic. Seattle. Sunday afternoon. Who knew? Seriously, I listened to KOMO 1000 news traffic update 4 times before I got to practice. Now it's only physically 15 miles from the dojo to my house. It took me 40+ minutes to get there! I was going to be a bit late, but I was seriously late. Still had an hour and a quarter of workout done at Seattle Jujutsu, but late nevertheless.

I do need to take it easy, but for some odd reason I'm compelled to take more and more martial arts. If I'm not practicing (such as last Monday/Tues/Wednesday) I'm actually checking out dojos. And I have seen quite a few dojos in Seattle. I've seen the West Seattle Martial Arts School on Wednesday and the Seattle Kung Fu Club on Friday afternoon.

Actually to make a list, here are the Seattle Dojos I have visited:

Budokan Seattle - Judo
Seattle Dojo - Judo
Seattle Jujutsu - Judo/Sambo/Jujutsu/Grappling
Zenyu Dojo - Judo/Defensive Tactics
West Seattle Martial Arts - Okinawan Karate/Basic Self Defense Judo Techniques
Evergreen Tang Soo Do - Tang Soo Do
Lee's Martial Arts - Tae Kwon Do
Aikido of West Seattle - Aikido
Seattle Kung Fu Club - Kung Fu (Don't know which lineage)
Tenzan Aikido - Aikido/BJJ
Marcelo Alonso BJJ - BJJ/Boxing/Kickboxing
Rodrigo Lopez BJJ - BJJ
Ring Sports United - BJJ/Muay Thai/Boxing
Guru Johnson's Gym (Don't know the exact name) - FMA (Now defunct, Johnson went to Hollywood to become a stuntwoman)
Shaolin Kung Fu Group (Practices at Hiawatha) - Kung Fu

I digress. Tonight's technique of the night was oku-ire-jime. I'm not that good with this choke, as it's hard to apply. I'd rather apply hadaka-jime or the rear naked choke. Perhaps, because you don't have to search for the gi. Oku-ire-jime (sliding sleeve choke) is still a hard choke to apply.

Photo Credit: http://www.judoinfo.com/images/okurieri.jpg

Did this from the standard position with person behind you. Then from the hi4/turtle.
Then we did newaza randori with 2 minute rounds. I think I sat in for 8 rounds or so with various people. Then practiced some newaza randori with BJJ guy after class.

One guy that I did roll around with a couple of times was a bit new. He's also a lot smaller, so he's a bit feisty. I think he needs to relax more. I could see it, that he's just not comfortable yet, and hangs on for dear life. There are some techniques in randori that just get to a stalemate, and either attack or open up, so that techniques can be practiced and learned. We just got into a stalemate, which is fine; however it doesn't improve on our technique. I just need to work on my guard passes. When he gets me into the half guard he just clamps down on my half guard leg so hard. I'm just careful that I don't fuck up my knee, which can be easily done if he clamps on hard and twists. I'm very cognizant of that. Then for the choke, he does a good thing and controls my hips with his feet. However he squeezed hard with those legs on my hips. OW! It's all good. I just think that with him weighing about 130 lbs (soaking wet) more like 120 lbs, and myself weighing 205 lbs. that he gets a bit antsy. I just don't really like fighting tiny guys. Usually I'm the smaller and more compact guy in fights. Granted I'm not svelte at 5'7" and 205 lbs. but I'm usually one of the smaller guys in a dojo. I'm also used to fighting the 100Kg+ guys. They're more predictable. He's the smallest guy that I randori with. He just needs to calm down more. He's a good guy and means very well. I'm just not used to fighting with him, and I'm EXTRA careful with him so I don't injure myself. I think he'll do well, once he gets more techniques down so he can do a finishing move in randori rather than fighting to a stalemate. Sometimes, I let him have something after the halfguard. He doesn't try to get back to a full guard. He just stays there in the halfguard and clamps down. Do a sweep? An armlock? Transition to a full guard? But please don't clamp down on my knee and stay there.

I've talked to him a bit and he listens, which is cool. We'll see what happens. As always. Protect yourself at all times. And of course the major tenet of judo: Mutual Benefit and Welfare. Protect you and your partner. I just want to make sure that I can walk the next day and not have major knee injuries.

Anyways, it was an interesting practice today. Oh and I talked to Adalia today, which was so cool. We talked about how gi's get so stinky so quickly. I wash mine every day, if you must know. I have two double-weave gis, and they're starting to show their wear. I have two old gi's that need pant bottoms, which I need to order from hatashita sports. The cool thing is that I'll get two more pant bottoms, and one more blue gi. That should bring my total gis to 2 competition gis (blue and white). 2 Dojo gis (with the new pants that need to be ordered) and 1 new blue gi! So that will be a total of 5. And I can rotate through my two old gi's for training. One is a doubleweave and the other a singleweave. The singlweave is nice for training in the summer. Right now I'm using my competition gis, and they're starting to get ripped. They're perfectly sized and fits me very well and are within regulation. Once I get the new pants and blue gi I can use those for training.

I'm excited for the upcoming Neil Adams Clinic. Hopefully Hatashita Sports can fly over my new gis before then, as I don't want to have stinky gis for the 4 day clinic. I think I can map out laundromats in Whidbey so I can wash my gis everyday. Washing the gi is a MUST.

Anyways, I'm off to bed. I still need to really plan out my training schedule other than judo, so I can seriously lose some poundage. I'm floating at 205 lbs. and I think I'm at a plateau .