Keeping my knee warm and mobile...

I got a soft knee brace at the drug store and headed over to judo practice. It's not unusual to have people putting all kind of braces at practice. Knee, ankle. etc... In fact the normal ritual of taping and bracing goes on at practice. In fact on one side of the dojo there's plenty of tape to go around. Toes, ankles, wrists, etc... It's all normal.

I can't run. Period. My knee still hurts. So I took it easy.

I did the warm ups best I could. I could only do forward and backward throws as rotating was hard on my knees. So I did mainly O-soto-gari for fits as it doesn't hurt the knee as much. The whole rotation thing was tough on the knee so I couldn't do my favorite throw which was seio-nage.

There weren't techniques taught tonight. Tonight was mainly a workout randori night. It was great because I can only really do newaza with one good knee. I was able to get in 5-6 rounds of groundwork. I didn't do any standing randori at all and just watched.

It was good as I was working on doing guard passes tonight, and overcoming the sprawl. I did some good guard passes as well as attacking the sprawl into a pin. I also worked on my transition from pin to pin, which was really cool. Mark showed me some keylock moves from the guard. I have to see him show me again which is really cool. I'm not used to getting attacked from the guard from the top. Meaning going over my shoulder to get a keylock on my arm and doing an ude-garami. I usually post and get a guard pass. However I'm not used to getting attacked from the "top" usually attacks come from the bottom. Meaning getting an armlock, a triangle choke or something similar from the guard, not a keylock from the top while in guard.

Tonight's matwork was fun. And it was great to get the blood flowing. I think it helps my knee to keep it warm and moving, but not push it too hard. It's a fine balance. As my knee was a bit hurt, I was trying to look for leverage and openings more tonight since I don't have the usual power when I do have a good knee.

Standing randori was good to watch, and there were some good throws executed by people all around.