Monday Night Practice... another nice sunny, hot day....

It was another amazingly gorgeous day in Seattle. Sunny skies, nice 75 degree weather, no humidity. You can't beat Seattle in the summer. So headed to practice at Seattle Jujutsu.

Just normal practice, with the expanded mats, did the normal warmup routine, then uchikomi, some light randori, and then worked on two techniques.

First technique was juji-gatame, or the armlock, with this variation making it much tighter, with the arm at 45 degrees, and the knees immobilizing the shoulder joint and elbow. Here's a clip from Human Weapon on a normal juji-gatame.

Sometimes, I really feel like Bill Duff, when practicing a lot of these moves. Can't wait till next season starts. It's one of the best shows, but I digress.

So, yeah this variation of the juji you step over, across, and control the arm at a 45 degree, making it super tight. Aaron also demonstrated that if you lift the person on his side, that he has less power than if he is on his back. So, lift, hold, step over and then lock. It was good practicing the technical aspects of it all.

We then transitioned to light newaza with one person standing, and the other in a turtle, a very common position. One of the things that my training partner, Brad, showed me is how to get an omoeplata from a turtle. I've seen it before, but not necessarily popular in judo competitions. I did see it at the Junior World Team Trials in Spokane, where one of the competitors tapped out to an omoeplata. I hardly practice it, because technically, it's an immobilization of both the elbow and shoulder joint. And in theory, you're only allowed to lock the elbow joint. That, again is in theory, but I saw it in the Judo Junior World Team Trials....

Anyways, I digress, I still need to work on my turning the person over in a turtle techniques, mainly getting my hooks in, doing the roll into the different variations of the rollovers. I have to control the head, and I have to gain more flexibility, and well lose a little more padding in the middle and be more limber. A lot of newaza needs core strength, and I have to work on that. As it's mini-crunches, tucking of the legs, rolls, etc... I think having a better base, will help me in these things. I used to be much better in shape, but that's another story for another time. You can only look forward...I did have some good bridging and shrimping techniques, and that was good.

We then moved onto the leg lock techniques of the night, and we worked on the knee bar. We practiced the knee bar however from the cross body hold also known as yoko-shiho gatame. From yoko-shiho gatame, move your inner leg so that your foot is underneath your opponents hip, then lock the leg between your legs and pull back. The key being that you have to be close to your opponent and that your control his hip. Anyways, it's been awhile since I did leglocks, so take this with a grain of salt, and I'll need to practice this a couple more hundred times to get it right.

So there's a dozen of us, all drenched in sweat, the musty odor of sweat, and the heat, well, after awhile you just don't smell or feel it. I ended up drinking 2 liters of gatorade and needed more.
It was a good workout.