Rainier Cup Recap

Well, it's entertaining. The picture above was my match with Matt. Guest Photographer is Auburn Bob, who took these pictures. Overall it was a good event, although there was a lot of hurry-up and wait.

I got eliminated early on.

Some things to work on are:

1. Slow things down (I was trying so hard to get Ippon aka knockout, that I left myself vulnerable to counterattack)

2. Timing. (self explanatory)

3. When on the ground bridge, shrimp out right away. Time is not on your side, the longer the pin, usually the tighter it becomes.

One good thing is that I didn't get a single penalty. I was playing aggressively, and well, when you play aggressively you take chances, and sometimes you lose. Oh well.

Overall it was good, my opponents were simply better than me that day. No excuses, just take back what I learned, and work on it another day. What's even better, is that I didn't come away injured. (knock on wood) So I can train, and train harder.

Rainier Cup Fight Prep

I'm getting my stuff ready this morning, going to grab breakfast, get my gi back ready to go. I never like tournament prep time, it's the anticipation that's a killer. Butterflies in my stomach, and the fact that this will be my first tournament fighting in the Brown/Black Belt Division.

Anyways, as I get my gear ready I check for my USJF and USJA card, I read this quote on the back of the USJA card.

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CREDO by Theodore Roosevelt

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by sweat and dust and blood; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in worthy causes; who at the best, knows in the end of the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
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Pizza, Happy Hour, et al...

Um, as I'm typing this, I just ate a whole pizza. Yep one of those frozen pizzas that you put in an oven. What else? It was delicious. I assume that the whole serving size is one pizza. Ya. I was hungry.

So, what's been going on. I was bouncing between 203.5 and 209 lbs. this week, depending on the condition of my body, and how much water (or not it has). Considering I'm hovering at 209 lbs. right now and weigh-ins are tomorrow morning, it's a good thing. I'd get to 198 lbs. eventually, but this weekend is not it. Besides 198-220 lbs is a huge weight class, and I believe tomorrow's tournament is Light/Medium/Heavy tournament so weight classes in general is a guide. A lot of people I know bounce between 90kg-100kg weight class.

This week has been a blur... To recap.

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Tuesday afternoon

Muay Thai with Jen. Apparently Jen took Muay Thai for eight years, and has lots of private lessons, at one point she was actually instructing classes for a couple of years. She has been my regular running partner. Right now, I do need to run, although we did talk about other interests, and the subject came up about boxing/muay/thai/martial arts. So she came by, we did combos. I don't have the fancy timers at the gym, so we just turned it to the music channel and "ended" rounds at the end of the song. Fair enough. We worked out for about 45 min-1 hour. It was a good workout with lots of sweat. Oh. Since it was a rainy afternoon (big surprise in Seattle) we ended doing practice in the living room, which, upon discovery is not pleasant for my room-mate who happens to sleep at odd hours of the day. (Her bedroom is underneath the living room).
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Wednesday afternoon.

I got a lunch hour session with Katherine for racquetball. We played 3 good games. Her game is picking up. Nice way to relax for an hour.

Boxing with Amy and the SPD crew. We worked on combos and mitt work. Did 3-3 minute rounds per combination swapping mitts/gloves/partners. Did 3 rotations of 3-3 minute rounds so, total of 9 3 minute rounds? Hmmn. That's a long time. Anyways, I was tired.

Immediately after, I jumped into my truck and headed to Seatown Sombo. I got there just in time for stretches. It was the usual.. warm ups, rolls, and then uchikomis. The technique of the night was a knee bar from the turtle position. It was good, I need to practice it more. Then we just did light positional newaza and some more standing randori. There were about a dozen or so people that night, and just simply a bit crowded, so just have to watch where you throw people. Ground work was fun, although we didn't have the clock running, we must have done about 20-30 minutes uchikomis, 20-30 minutes of ground fighting and 10-15 minutes of standing. I don't remember much, the night went on like a blur.

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Thursday

A quick 2-3 mile hike on Cold Creek Trail. Nothing special.

Thursday Night Practice was this:

Standard Warm-ups (I was tasked to lead this). Uchikomis. Technique of the Night. 30 minutes of newaza randori, 30 minutes standing randori.

Technique of the night was: Sankaku on a turtled opponent. Apparently I have problems getting my foot into the crook of my knee. It was good. My left ear has been jammed again. It was hurting from Tuesday night's sankaku practice. (Sankaku is triangle choke with your legs). I don't think I've got cauliflower ear just yet, it's just tender. Oh well. It's part of training. I think most everyone in the dojo has some form of cauliflower ear. No biggy.

Gary and Leo gave me pointers on the tournament. Basically it came down to this: Commit to your technique. Throw like you mean it. Better to attack and be on the offensive. Whatever happens, win or lose, learn something from it and improve upon it. Oh and work on 1-2 techniques (your main staple) for a year and perfect it for competition. And all it takes to be a winner is hard work and practice. There is no magic bullet...

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Friday:

I bagged a workout with Jen. I was tired, the thought of punching mitts and doing combos was tiring, and the fact that I needed to be rested for Saturday's tournament.

I then did Happy Hour at Grey's with Mike/Robbin & Co. It was a fun happy hour, but had to excuse myself early as I had a racquetball appointment with Katherine. It was a good game of racquetball. Being a bit tired and sore, I ended up playing more strategically and not really moving as much... Being tired ummmm.. improved my game.

Anyways, it's late. I had to write down what I did this weekend before I forget. It's going to be a fun weekend. Tournament tomorrow and the Travis Stevens Clinic on Sunday.

I'm just going to take it easy and have fun.

29 Judoka

29 Judoka. That's how many people were at Budokan during Tuesday Night practice. It was very crowded.

Here's a picture of the dojo taken awhile ago. Now imagine 29 judoka in it. It was exciting and fun, lots of new faces or people stopping by to practice. We had 2 Germans come by.

I wish I had my camera, but I didn't have it with me. So you just have to imagine the dojo filled with 29 people.

It was mostly newaza randori and we only did limited amount of standing randori as it was too crowded. It was a great night to see so many people.

Sunday Open Mat

Sunday night was Open Mat.

It was cool as it was rather unstructured. I ended up doing 30 minutes warm up. 30 minutes uchikomi.

And then an 1 hour of newaza randori. There was no clock, so kinda moved and rotated around. I worked on guard passes and reversals. We did a lot from the knees, and consequently my knees are sore.

I still need to work on my guard. I'd rather not be in guard as of now, but I need to work on the guard more. I'm decent at passing the guard and executed some good guard passes. My posture is pretty good.

It was a rather fun night. And 1 hour of mat work is a great workout.

It was fun as there were some bigger heavier guys out there and its a lot of fun to roll around.

One thing, either I wasn't trying hard enough, or my cardio is improving, or I'm just relaxed. I didn't gas out. There was still plenty of gas in the tank or am I learning efficiency? I have no idea. It seems I'm rather relaxed now and when someone gets me into a position, I try to think tactically and change up or do something. It's weird, it's starting to become more of a cerebral exercise for me as well as a physical one. Sure it's demanding on the body, but I tend to think more.

I no longer keep score in randori as you should but thinking more and getting movements done. I could stall out, but anyone can stall out, you know? Might as well work on your technique. Be that getting into a turtle and escaping, reversing a turtle, guard passes, switching newaza positions, positional control, trying armbar to oseakomi, to arm bar. I think I get more enjoyment out of trying to squeeze out as many different techniques (executed properly of course) in randori.

It was fun and I'm craving more. Hopefully Amy can get some time so I can practice with her grappling group. I finally got a set of wrestling shoes so that I can practice grappling with different people and different areas. Wrestling mats are very common and many places require wrestling shoes, so getting a pair of wrestling shoes just expands training opportunities.

I have some racquetball scheduled today at 11 AM and am planning to get some laundry and stuff done. Didn't launder last night's gi and need to do so.

I have to watch what I eat. I ate some greasy Chinese food and pot stickers yesterday. I gained like 5 lbs. from coming home and only working out 2x in 2 weeks. Anyways, the Rainier Cup is on Saturday and I really feel I haven't trained much in the last 2 weeks. I need to work on my judo game with judo rules, as I've been training lately in jujutsu and sambo rules. So my gripping needs work, throws, fits, etc...

I'll still throw myself into the Rainier Cup and just have fun. Oh and my fatty ass has to fight at -100kg, not enough time to get under -90kg without killing myself in that short amount of time.

Anyways, the dojo I worked out in last night was featured in this video:

The Big Apple!

So.

Today I was at the Big Apple! New York. There's nothing like it in the world. I passed by Madison Square Garden, home of some of the most awesome sporting events ever!

Anyways....

I got to work out today at the New York Sambo Club, which is ran by Steve Koepher and is located in the heart of midtown Manhattan, at 15 W 39th Street, 4th floor.

It's a great gym, next to Bryant Park, and really accessible from Penn Station.

We did standard warm up routines and we practiced two throws. Both of the throws can be followed by submission, one with a submission to the arm, the other throw, is a submission to the heel.

I don't know the exact terminology, and rather than describe it akin to IKEA furniture assembly directions, I'd rather just go vague and generic.

The first one is a forward shoulder roll to a submission. The second one is a leg takedown to a submission. The second one is pretty slick, but it's hard to describe in words.

That's one thing about the martial arts, that it is hard to describe and put into words how something is done, even a picture book doesn't really show you, nor a video. Books/Videos are merely supplementary information to jog your memory after learning it hands on in class.

Steve is a good instructor and broke it down by the numbers. The guys at the club were really cool and had great attitude and demeanor.

After the instructional part of the class, we got into randori (free sparring). As this was a no-gi class, I was to use more body grips and so throws like ogoshi, kata guruma, kouchi, uchi-mata, ouchi, osoto and ippon seio nage can be done no gi. It's just slightly different with the grip. Some throws/chokes such as sode and uki-eri can't be done simply without a gi.

I forgot how much faster it is without a gi, and you can simply sometimes "slip" out of a hold where in a gi you're much constricted. It's just a bit different.

I wasn't able to throw as much and simply went to take downs. One of his students exploited a big hole in my game. My legs. Legs are free game in Sambo. I've been practicing Olympic-style judo for so long that I leave my legs wide open for attack. In Olympic Judo you don't have to defend your legs. There isn't a leg lock, heel hook, calf crush, toe hold and knee bar in Olympic Judo. Now mind you, I say in Olympic Judo.

The amazing thing about Judo, is that the original Judo is really preserved by the Russians, who internalized it and added indigenous folk wrestling styles into what is now Sambo. aka Russian Judo, Combat without Weapons, Jacket Wrestling or "is it some kind of dance?" Of course Sambo has different flavors, combat, freestyle, and sport.

Anyways, history lessons aside, I'm sure you can Google it to find out more...

Ah, the sparring/randori part of the session was fun. We did about 5-6 2 minute rounds. I was getting better transitions from pin to sub and from pin to pin. My arm bars continually improved between the sparring sessions. I tried one heel hook and I still need a LOT of work on it before I can use it on an unwilling partner. (err.. resisting partner) I need to work on defending the legs, creating separation to disengage and stacking better.

Oh, and the class was held in a Cage. First time I practiced inside a Cage. Different feeling, a bit claustrophobic. And I noticed that the Cage can only be opened from the outside when it's pinned shut.

Here's a picture:



Overall a great day at the Big Apple and a big thanks to Steve for a great workout.

For those of you asking, here's a video about what Sambo is all about:

Back home in Jersey, the Scarlet Knights & Rutgers Kodenkan

http://www.geocities.com/rutgerskodenkan/index.html

I traveled back to the Shore Area and got in touch with my roots. Ah the smell of Bagels, Pizza, and my all-time favorite snack. Mallomars. If you haven't had a Mallomar it's made by Nabisco and it's basically a reverse S'more in a box. It's made in Hoboken, and I haven't seen it out on the West Coast. Thank Goodness, because my fat chubby butt is inhaling a box of Mallomars in between typing.

So, now that we got the foodie goodies out of the way.

I was fortunate enough to get in touch with Sensei Barb Gessner, who teaches at the Rutgers Kodenkan. She's a 6th Dan Jujutsu and 5th Dan Judo and she graciously allowed me to practice with her club at Rutgers. We met at the Upper Gym at the Rutgers' "Barn" and at the Wrestling room for the advanced class.

Rutgers Kodenkan teaches Danzan Ryu Jujutsu which to the layman (that's me) looks like judo with some harder aikido-esque moves. There's also more emphasis on self-defense techniques. The goshin-jutsu part of their curriculum looks similar to the goshin-jutsu kata of judo and tomiki-aikido.

The falls are quite different, and as an art, they emphasize practice falls a lot. Sure my ukemi could use some work, and I haven't got my gymnastics/acrobatics part of my judo to a high enough level. One thing that they did work on the forward fall, which I hardly practice in judo. We did it once or twice this year. And although theoretically, you should "fish" out of a throw in competition judo, I'd rather get thrown properly and give my opponent an ippon rather than do a "Matrix-esque" move to land forward. Since I don't do it often enough, I need to practice it more to do it under live conditions, rather than pull one out of my butt during competition and hurt myself. It was really good to learn the forward fall with Rutgers Kodenkan, as I surely don't practice it enough. And if I do fall forward, I tend to go towards a forward roll anyways.

It was great to learn some Danzan Ryu Jujutsu. The jujutsu I'm studying now at Seattle Jujutsu is Yabe Ryu Jujutsu, which is pretty much judo.

The Danzan Ryu Jujutsu throws were the same exact Judo throws with the same names. There were some names a bit different, like they called Morote Seio Nage a bit differently. Then they had self defense combinations which used a counter followed by a judo or aikido technique.

One thing was that the class was more instructional, which is really cool, as some moves are quite nasty when applied in a live situation. A lot of the moves that I was learning last night is specifically banned in judo/bjj/sambo competiton. Mainly small joint manipulation, i.e. finger and wristlocks. Since I mostly study Kodokan Judo, with an emphasis on competition, I mostly do randori and haven't had the full breadth of the Judo curriculum which does include atemi-waza and self-defense techniques (goshin-jutsu kata). Besides, the Judo Curriculum emphasizes randori techniques at the kyu levels. Nage-no Kata and Katame-no Kata, which you need for 1st and 2nd dan respectively. The other historical katas are required for the higher dans, and so hardly really get taught.

I helped teach the kid's class with Steve (a black belt in jujutsu). I was asked to help teach the techniques that I do know. Mainly parts of the gokyu. I helped teach seio-nage, o-goshi, kesa-gatame and yoko-shiho gatame.

The senior class, I got to witness a promotion test, which was really cool.

I was then taught how to fall. Mainly to refine my ukemi, which does need work. I was grateful to be shown some more ukemi, which you more or less learn by getting thrown around. My ukemi is actually rather decent when I do get thrown with force speed and control. However my static ukemi/acrobatics is not that good. And I can't roll on my right as well or do cartwheels on my right.

It was different being a brown belt in class where there's only two black belts. I'm not used to that. At Budokan Dojo, I'm one of two or three brown belts amongst a dozen or more black belts.

It was also my very FIRST time as a bona fide Assistant Instructor. For that I'm very grateful for the opportunity. Sensei Barb let me teach a few things. Oh and we played a game at the end of class, which I learned from Neil Adams at the Neil Adams camp. It was tag, with the "caller" calling out different body parts to tag. It was a lot of fun! and perfect for kids. So I would call out "left shoulder" and you'd try to tag the left shoulder. I'd call out "right shoulder" and we'd try to tag the left.

At the end of the evening we practiced some randori. I randori with Steve and Cahill, the newly promoted guy. It was fun. We did some standing randori and then some newaza. It was fun doing some randori, and it was great to get the blood flowing! I haven't randori since Monday, and so was itching to get some good mat time.

I focused on techniques in Randori, which was cool. Randori was a great back and forth of throws/counterthrows and good to work on their techniques and mine as well. There were a few leg sweeps/grabs that was new to me, which was neat to work on. I also tried a few takedowns that I hardly get to practice like te-guruma and some leg/ankle picks. They haven't seen drop seio and drop kata-guruma, which they picked up rather fast.

A lot of the stuff they were doing were classical kata judo, which is cool, and I was amazed that there wasn't much time spent on grip fighting, and they focused more on the classic sleeve lapel grip. I tend to also do a sleeve lapel grip, although I tend to just maintain contact with my left on the lapel and have my right hand free to grip/throw. I like this more because:

a. It frees you to attack from different angles. With a left hand lapel grip, you can do:
1. Same side attack (i.e. ippon seio, kata-guruma, kouchi/ouchi, o-soto, etc...
2. Opposite side attack (i.e. morote seio, o-soto, uchi-mata, tai-otoshi, etc...)

b. Once I have two hand contact, I throw, as a general rule. In most competitions, it's hard to get two hand contact, so once you do get it, throw!

Grip fighting aside, it was cool not to spend oodles of time on grip fighting, as it is generally considered "negative judo" and grip fighting should be coupled with an attack, attack, attack...

That's the thing, even though the most awarded wins awarded in Olympic Judo is shido, it's more aesthetically pleasing to win by an ippon or submission.

Overall a great time at the Rutgers Kodenkan!