What a Twist!

If you read either my blog or Andy's, you should notice the mostly the same lessons as we tackle the same issues or cool instances that crop up during our training. As he said in his post we briefly went over ko soto gari again to make sure he had it. I wanted to try uki goshi but that the time of class I just could not get the timing right. Andy's a lot taller than me so the problem I ran into was when loading him on my hip, he could just take one of his stork legs and plant it. I knew it was an off-balance problem I was having (more on that at the end of the post).
I decided to show him ko uchi gari instead which turned out better for the both of us. We got into a discussion over techniques and I ended up showing O uchi gari too. I was amazed to find out that even though that throw has notoriously escaped me, while telling Andy about it I was able to break it apart in my head and re-piece it together so that it made more sense to me. Of course that was great because then I could relay that info so that it made sense to him (hopefully).
Moving on, we did tegatana and talked about short steps about should width before moving on to the event of the night which was Nijusan. Andy wanted to switch it up a bit by having uke pull his arm back before moving in and then extend it as he was stepping. It felt more akin to a strike and changed my perspective a little. It also made the off balances more exaggerated. Each time we threw the other in one or two steps. It's funny how a little change in motion can drastically alter the parameters of what can and will happen. I'll let Andy go more into detail about that. Just before a Judo thing I wanted to work on, we practiced avoiding a punch (don't worry Pat, we went slow) from same hand same foot, then from uke having the opposite forward so he could twist into the punch. The same hand same foot thing happened almost just like Nijusan, but the opposite foot and hand punch was astonishing to watch. As each of us did it whoever was Tori could easily (and I mean EASILY) step in and shomenate their partner before the swing was finished.
Lastly, the Judo. I don't watch UFC a lot, but I occasionally see a match starting to happen as I'm scanning channels and I'll watch, along with kickboxing, Mui Thai, whatever. I like watching people move and seeing what works for them. The problem I notice more often than not in the UFC (and let me just state here I don't want a hail of posts arguing over if MMA is effective or not....it IS is most circumstances this is ONLY MY OBSERVATION), is that when someone is on the bottom, guard or not, they just turtle up while the guy on top beats the tar out of them. So I had Andy put on some gloves, get in the mount, then the guard, then with me in the mount and in the guard, and had him punch at me to see if I could get out. Yes in each case is the short answer. You'll most likely get hit once or twice, but with a little practice I know you can cut it down to zero nine times out of ten. Either way, when I had Andy in the guard he didn't get a chance to hit at all due to my shrimping and moving his hips as he tried to punch. He lost balance every time. Try it!

One Last thing....as I was watching tv and walking towards the kitchen to make a sandwich I figured out what was wrong with my uki goshi....or at least something I could do to make it work for me. Instead of trying to throw Andy off my hip or "clip him with it" as Pat used to say, I learned I could load him on it (even just a little) and turn a little more away from him rotating him around my body until it threw him. Not the proper way I'm sure, but it worked for last night. I plan on more study with it.

Last Night's Randori

While my and Andy's attempts to get our roommate Beau involved in classes haven't met with the success we'd hoped, so far we're having a blast. Last night we briefly went over ko soto gari for about 10 minutes then almost an hour of ground randori. Andy's getting much better at his ground work and because of this I noticed after class that during class I was saying things like "That was great, but make a slight adjustment here. Oh and try this" and by the end of class I must've given him 50 things to work on. I need to remember to just pick one or two things and everything else will just naturally happen. When going over ko soto gari I noticed my ko soto gari was looking fairly well last night but when I made a comparison to hize garuma, I couldn't get the throw to work for me :) the lesson there is, when a throw is working for you one night, you stick with it and change it up the next night. I've been in correspondence with Pat hoping to get some pointers now that I more fully understand what he was telling me a few years ago. It's frustrating when you get advice but you can't act on that knowledge until a year or so later when you ACTUALLY understand it. I mean you understand what the sensei is telling you when he/she is saying it, but it's much farther down the road when you say "Eureka !" and have an epiphany of what they were really trying to convey. Anyone else have that happen to them? I want some stories!

Martial Atrophy

Friday night before practice I was talking to Andy about what I call Martial Atrophy. He feels that he's settles into his rank. In my view, I'm usually getting better or worse, moving forward or backwards in progress but always moving. If I'm not practicing I feel like my skills are declining. I was wondering if there should be a system in place so that if a martial artist doesn't perform or practice for x amount of time if his rank should decrease due to lack of participation. Later that night during actual practice we went over Nijusan and though I haven't practiced it in a while, my views I discovered were pretty unfounded. While my off-balance timing was a bit off, once me and Andy started moving I could easily feel where his momentum was taking us. I recalled how difficult it was when I was a green and yellow belt and how much I have progressed since then. There's nothing quite like realizing you can still surprise yourself.

Let the Training Begin...

Me and Andy had our first actual practice session tonight. We've had varying schedules lately (and a little laziness on my part) so things didn't start as soon as expected. He told me if we were going to be doing any Judo, he needed to go over the basics again. I showed him Mune gatame, Kesa gatame, and Kata-gatame. We mostly worked on positioning the body and later on escapes from said holds. Now that we have mats I can go over hip throws and actually fall from them. We also touched on Ki-Hara Aikido randori. I remember when Pat showed it to me (and Pat if you're reading this please correct me if I'm wrong) in order to change the direction of movement someone had to take a step first. Overall it went well, and it felt great to be at it again. I look forward to making at the very least weekly posts on it. Monday my girlfriend will be joining us for some Judo. She has no interest in doing Aikido by I'm sure with Pat's trick of showing the cool ninja move of the night and it actually being Aikido or Judo (whichever you want them to learn) and later telling them "you know those moves are from (Aikido/Judo) AND what you've already been taking" she'll join in. I hope she doesn't read this....

Old Habbits Reveal Themselves

My roommate Beau and I used to be in the Marine Corps together. We've been friends since childhood and now that he's moved to Florida we decided to set up an exercise regime to get back in shape. Today was the first day of that and I'm exhausted. While waiting to use the shower I decided to do some tegatana and made a discovery. All moves and habits become VERY clear and exaggerated when tired. I noticed myself leaning in the opposite direction just before I fell in the direction I was about to go in. Bryce has been telling me I do this but I couldn't see it till now. So if you're ever super-tired, try it :)

New Mats!!

Well my old roommates have moved out and the new ones are in. My new Zebra mats arrived and have been stored in the garage until everyone finished using it for their respective moves. They look great, haven't had a chance to actually test them yet since I plan on thoroughly cleaning up the space being used first. I'll post as soon as I do. Also once me and Andy get a steady schedule going I plan on posting a couple of times a week unlike the once a month or so I've been doing lately :)

Judo Posture

Tonight me and Bryce went over how important good posture is in Judo. We've beaten it to death in Aikido but you see a lot of leaning and bending in Judo, especially competition. While being active and not just waiting for the other guy to try something is important, keeping your posture correct while doing so is just as important. It all started with us going over hip throws and what I need to work on once Bryce is gone and Andy moves in. While exploring the timing of the initial contact of the hips or thighs, we got into a discussion about reversals and how by keeping good posture, a lot of the time they become self evident. As your opponent goes to throw you, you can just keep your back straight and sink a little. As he rises, you rise with him and continue his upward momentum, from there, you can do almost a reverse engineered hip throw, or even ko soto gari. After practice we started discussing exercises Pat used to have him do like knee walking from the mount as the guy on bottom rolls left and right, barrel rolls, and shrimping. In case anyone's wondering what barrel rolls are, it's when a student rolls from one end of the mat to the other, laying down, without letting his arms, hands, legs, or feet touch the mat...good times.