[Frodo]

Congrats! Try to do to some judo classes - even the beginner ones - between now and then. I always find it helpful drilling the basics. There's always some subtle detail that I notice!

[KenTheWalrus]

Thanks for the support, Frodo.

Tonight was our class banquet. Jenny and I got there pretty early. We went to a small Chinese place that I’ve never been to before today. It’s about five blocks from my house. The food was pretty good but it doesn’t have air conditioning and the heat index was over 100 degrees. It turned into a drip fest pretty quick. Sensei, Pete, Mike and his nephew, George, Todd, Matt, Jay, Bonnie, Tyler, Sophia, and her friend all showed up. It was a lot of fun. It’s interesting to see the people who you train with away from the dojo. While we were there, a drunk guy was stumbling around across the street. Another guy was helping him when a cop showed up. The cop left after a few minutes which I found out later was because of a robbery downtown. The ordeal continued throughout the two hours we were there. The guy is still there as far as I know. Anyhow, it was a good experience sharing a meal with everyone.

I talked to Pete about the MSU judo club . He gave me a couple names of players he thought I would benefit from playing against. Pete also gave me some insight into the competition scene and told me that at the heavyweight category speed can win against brute force. The names he gave me were of a couple black belts around 115-135 lbs. Playing against them will help me with my movement.

Jay, Todd, and Matt are all going to be in the intermediate class. I figured they would, they’re all set to go at the end of the month. The beginning class will be moving to the same day as the intermediate class. I’ll be able to go to both so it should be a big help. The downside is that it’s going to be on Thursdays and the only day I can make it to MSU is Friday. At least I get the rest of the week to heal. -ken

[KenTheWalrus]

8-24-06

My first class back in judo was today. I’ve had about three weeks off and I’ve been chomping at the bit to get back on the mats. I never did make it to the MSU club during the break. I bought an x-box 360 and fell in that trap.

Off Time
I have been working on a few things on my own. One big thing is to reduce the rigidity of my transitions from the various steps. I started getting trapped in the mindset of the perfect placement and it affected my execution. I would go in, miss a marker by a bit, and come back out. I think that’s one of the reasons why I can’t get inside well on Jay. He has a knack for getting me out of position before I can get it. Another thing I was working on was combinations. I realized during the break that I attack, don’t execute, reset, attack, etc. Now I’m looking for combinations and transitions from one throw to the next. I came up with a couple that I want to try. One is an osoto gari to a tai otoshi. Another is an osoto gari to a harai goshi.

Class Switch and the First Day
I had originally signed up for the intermediate class which is all goshin jutsu. There weren’t enough people signed up so they cancelled the class. So now I’m in the beginner’s class again. I planned on coming to the beginner’s class anyway, so it’s no biggie. It actually helps out in a tournament sense as I can keep working the move I already know.

The regulars were there, Mike/brown belt, Todd/blue, Jay/green, Matt/green, Mike/white. Matt separated his shoulder at MSU club on Wednesday while doing some hand stand drills so he was just there to watch and stuff. Sean a green belt, Sara/white, and a couple other guys with white belts that I don’t know were there also. Everyone else that was there, 16 others I believe, don’t have their gis yet. One guy I went to school with and is really, hmm how should I say this, frat-like maybe? He once asked me while I was video taping some people in the park if I wanted him to take his shirt off for a better shot and then kept asking me if he was sexy. It was really weird. There were a couple cool guys that I helped with ukemi. One’s name was Travis. We actually partnered up later in class and he seems excited to be there.

There were a couple “special” guys there. One guy did the happy clap every time sensei made a joke. It was funny at first and then started getting annoying. He pulled me aside at one point to tell me he was going to have to call in to his job because a restaurant host needs both arms. I smiled and nodded then went back to doing judo. The other guy didn’t listen at all during the steps of ukemi. We were supposed to be going from the squat and he started doing it from standing. All I heard was “whoa there killer” from Matt and I looked up and saw this guy jumping up from the mat and flopping back to the ground like a fish. It was funny until he landed wrong and you could tell from his face it hurt.

Work
We worked on ukemi, Hadaka jime, and ude garame.
During warm ups I did my best forward shrimp to date and then completely botched it going back. Going back is the hardest in my opinion.
We did some “Robert” drills. I talked with Sensei after class and he’s going to get me in touch with Robert to do some private lessons. He’s teaching a few classes in other disciplines at American Martial Arts and Fitness .

Play
I didn’t get a chance to randori. Mike left early, Matt was hurt, Jay and Sean were working on ground stuff, and Todd and Sara were playing together. I’m a little bummed, but it’s not like I won’t get another chance. Jay did show me the triangle with the hand for ukemi. Basically, it’s a way to use your forearm to roll with ukemi instead of dropping to the shoulder. It’s cool and I think it might help me stand straight from forward rolling ukemi.

GLO (Great Lakes Open)
The GLO is October 15th and I’m looking forward to competing. I’ve been working out a little bit, but that slowed down a week and a half ago when I pulled a hamstring while practicing harai goshi. My fitness goal is to be able to distance run for 20 minutes at a pretty fast pace. I know this might sound low, but I’m a fat, out-of-shape dude. I don’t want to strengthen anything other than my legs and my grip. I’ve been using gripping gel but I think I’m going to switch to the sand bucket. A buddy at work is an avid rock climber and offered to take me sometime. I think that would be a fun way to test my grip (and legs/upper body for that matter).

I want to pick a handful of throws to focus on in tournament play. Tai otoshi, osoto gari, and harai goshi are my favorite three. I could use about three or four more that work well with the three I already named for combinations if anyone out there has suggestions. I’m also working on de ashi harai and okuri ashi harai, but that’s more to avoid them than to apply them. As for groundwork, I’m planning on falling back to wrestling for this. Pete told me awhile ago that I’m actually small for my weight class so I’m going to look to reverse and squirm if I end up on the bottom. Some suggestions here would be cool too. I’d like to know what some of you guys do against bigger opponents once you hit the ground.

I don’t think I’m going to train Shimewaza in tournament play. It’s too hard to set up and takes too long to pull off from what I’ve seen in competition videos. Do any of you guys use them specifically for tournaments?

That’s about it. I was serious when I said I wanted to try and make my log as cool looking as Frodo’s, so any layout suggestions are also welcome. Later. -ken

[Frodo]

Just do whatever floats your boat. There are some tips:

• I think in outlines and bullet points, so that's how I write my log. I find the BBS markup incredibly easy to use.
• I link to examples of each technique so I don't forget it, or if I do I can look it up easier.
• I generally write my log as if nobody else is reading it; however, I keep it public since it the comments/feedback are very valuable to me. That's mainly why I keep it on this forum too.
• I find long paragraphs hard to ready, so I tend to keep my descriptions short and broken up.
• I force myself too describe any technique that I remember this helps me think about it in more detail. I remember it better too.

Good work so far with your log.

[KenTheWalrus]

8.31.06

2nd Week, Second Class
Class is moving along. We are on the basic ukemi stuff and we haven’t started nagewaza yet, not that that’s a bad thing. I really need to work on exhaling during ukemi before I hit as an automatic response. I know it’s just a matter of time like it was for boxing.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks helping the new people. It’s a strange feeling being on the other side. In a way it’s cool because I get to watch and analyze other people’s form, but it also kind of sucks not getting on the mat. After we went over ukemi we reviewed Hadaka jime and ude garame. I partnered up with the biggest new guy. I’m guessing he is 300+ lbs. I figure I’ll partner up with the largest guys so that I could get a better feeling for competition against bigger heavyweights.

We went over ude gatame and kesa gatame. Even though the guy I partnered with outweighed me by about 50lbs (I’m guessing), it wasn’t bad at all when I was uke in kesa gatame. The biggest help was that he didn’t seem to know how to distribute his weight. Even when Pete came over and helped him he still left at least one direction vulnerable. I’m not criticizing the guy, it would be a dick move to do that for the guy’s second class, but it gives me some hope if I end up on the ground with a larger opponent. At one point he left his far arm go lax, I slipped my arm closest to him under his body, and slide out from underneath him, even though he had most of his weight on my body. My body isn’t that long so I don’t have to slide that far to get free. I actually ended up with his far arm in ude gatame.

After Class
I didn’t get a chance to randori. Pete was giving demonstrations on different katamewaza. He showed us some 360 transitions ending in arm locks. He did one where he had Jay in the air and had his arm locked in his gi while chocking Jay with his forearm. I also asked sensei some tournament rule questions. It’s nice to have a referee as a sensei. He gave me the lowdown on the forward movement penalty. It isn’t if you fall forward, it’s if you intentionally throw yourself towards your own head to get the extra power. Sensei also gave me Robert’s number so I can try to hook up with him for a couple private lessons.

GLO
I’m staying focused, trying to find a way to apply everything in class to a competition setting. I’ve also been working on my own in my limited free time. I’ve been using a 100lb. Everlast Nevatear bag as a dummy. I didn’t think osoto gari or tai otoshi would work against the bag since the weight sinks, but they work perfectly. Harai goshi is hard against the bag, but osoto gari and Tai otoshi are fine. I’ve also been working on my foot sweep motions. I can get my foot completely sideways now and have some decent power. The next stage is to work on my aim. I’ve also been drilling some ground transitions. I’ve been using a dip to ankle pick motion to get a good shoulder grip to a downed opponent, scramble to the opposite side control, knee on belly or straight transition to mount, to tate shiho gatame. I haven’t timed it yet, but I can hit all my targets. Of course, I’ve been working on ukemi. I think it’s going pretty well. I can hit it without feeling anything on most surfaces. I haven’t tried concrete, and I don’t ever really plan to. Sand sucks. I’ve also been trying the diamond palm ukemi Jay showed me. It does help with reducing the few inch drop straight to the shoulder by providing a ridged arm for support. Now if I could only ride the momentum back to my feet... -ken

[KenTheWalrus]

9.07.06

3rd week, second class

I partnered up with a guy I met outside of class, Ben. He and I have a public speaking class together. We got to talking last week and he has a wrestling background too so I was pretty excited to have another wrestler to do judo with. The most fun was when we were doing kesa gatame. I figured he was going to use his strength (coming from wrestling) to try and roll me. I was right and it helped me get a better “oatmeal” feel of weight distribution. I think I made a breakthrough on this because I was able to hold him down, even though he’s pretty strong, with minimal effort. I still need to work on full body usage. A couple or times when he squirmed I tensed up and I think if he had known a sweep at that moment he could have caught me with it. I almost had him over when he applied kesa to me without using my arms over his. When we went for it a second time I got him over by slipping my arm underneath his, turning my elbow out to make some space and then fill the space by rolling him over. I showed Ben how to do it and the next time I had him in kesa he rolled me over. It was a lot of fun.

We went over deashi harai. I’ve been working on my upper body kuzushi and it has made a lot of progress in my eyes. I think that my sweeping motion is getting to be a weak point because it hasn’t developed as well as my upper body technique. It seems to work in a seesaw manner where I’ll work on one aspect to try and even it out and then the other will suffer. I do believe that I need to start training both equally and everything will even out on its own. We tried it with tori closing his eyes. I was way off the first time and went heel to heel on the sweep. The next time I compensated for over stepping but I raised my foot too high. The third time was closer, but not good enough for me. I know I was distracted by all the noise when I closed my eyes. We have over twenty people in the room and it tends to get a little raucous at times. It threw off my senses having the noise with my eyes closed and I didn’t take the opportunity to gain my bearings or get into the correct mental state to fully use my potential. I really want to work on that. I think I might be hurrying in practice when I normally wouldn’t because of the tournament focus I’ve been trying to keep. I know my overall focus is lacking because I’m always trying to mentally focus on how something in class might turn out in a tournament setting instead of focusing on the situation at hand. That’s a problem.

We covered okuri eri jime. I made a slight adjustment to my neck hand by making it more of a fist and slipping it right under the ear. It worked really well and I was getting taps quicker than my previous techniques. I also adjusted the down hand by pulling in a down ward hook. I’m not sure if that change is making a real difference.

I made some headway on Hadaka jime. My use of the side thumb instead of the side hand is making a big difference. I think the problem I’ve been having with Hadaka jime is because I’ve been trying to use Todd’s techniques when I’m not ready for them yet. The twist up during application is getting in the way of the technique. I’m going to stop doing that until I get a better feel for the vanilla flavored Hadaka jime.

GLO

I talked to sensei and he said he’d sign off on me so I can compete. He’s the head referee for the tournament so he’ll sign my card there. Jay is going to compete as well. He’s been to a few tourneys but he hasn’t been on the mats yet. I went over some strategies with Mike. He gave me some insights on how to play with much larger opponents. He liked my idea of the Tai Otoshi, Osoto Gari, Harai Goshi trifecta. He mentioned that I should work on uchi mata and hane goshi. Uchi will help me with my sneaky out-of-the-gate deashi harai if it doesn’t land. He also showed me how to over rotate to bring down a big guy. Hane will help if someone tries to side step my harai goshi. Strength isn’t going to work, I need to feint/counter/combo.

Sensei wants me to really focus on ukemi. I already promised myself that if it came down to a bad win or a good loss I’d take the loss. I don’t think that taking the risk of injuring myself is worth it in my first tournament. With that said, I’m still going to work my ass off to make it all the way. -ken

[KenTheWalrus]

I’m resurrecting my judo log to (hopefully) keep a detailed record of my progress.

I am now a brown belt after being promoted directly to brown from white at the end of April. I was surprised because I passed over guys who have been blue belts for years. I figured at most I would skip green and go to blue. My sensei told me when he was tying my belt that I had to keep competing in ranked tournaments. There is only one other person who trained at my school who jumped from white to brown and that was after multiple years of training (he’s now a black belt). I had only been training judo for about ten months. I feel proud that I accomplished this in such a short amount of time. I think my promotion was based off of my success in school matches where I went for about six months and a hundred or so matches without losing one.

I feel like I’m the big target in class now. I see guys working on stuff for a couple of weeks with everybody else and then they’ll play me once they feel they have the move down. I kind of like that. I took my first loss in a school match a month ago and now the weight is off of my shoulders. I take falls now in order to try and replicate a tourney feel. I’ll take the waza-ari or yuko to get to the ground and then finish there.

I’ve been working on a ton of stuff for a week or two at a time. Here’s a list of some of the most recent.

Breathing
Ankle control
Scissor Sweep
Lockdown Sweeps
Passing with knee in butt
Side Chokes
Good posture in opponent’s guard
Behind the shoulder grip
Low grip creeping to high grip
Breaking grip
Ko Uchi Gari from every direction
Drop Seoi Nage
Ippon Seoi Nage to Reversed Ko Uchi Gari
Standing Arm Bar
Standing Arm Bar to Osoto Gari
Countering with Sacrifices
Off balancing an opponent’s throw by adding my weight to their weight
Arm Drag Sweeps
Attacks on Turtle

I had a semi-private lesson last night and was told to basically do what I’ve been doing. I just need to be a little more organized about it, hence the resurrection of my training log.

For next week I want to work on breathing and escaping back mount. I’m not really looking to work much on standing next week. I feel I need more work on ground stuff right now. -ken

[KenTheWalrus]

7.8.07

I worked on No-Gi with Jay. We worked on sweeps and a few subs, mostly arm triangles. He put the loco-plata on me. That thing is brutal. Once he brought the second leg up to the first his hips kicked in and the choke was twice as worse than before. I need to work on my flexibility more so I can try and land that.

I showed Jay some wrestling stuff. We did a couple different singles, ankle picks, and tying up the legs. I showed him a couple chin holds too.

We played with the lockdown a bit. I really like that move. Ever since I started using it back in the fall my guard game has been so much better. Maybe one day this week I’ll work on transitioning from full to lockdown for fifty or so.

We practiced in Jay’s garage. There was only carpet, but it was cool. It reminded me of the “old shed” back in the day. For old times sake I showed Jay the STF from turtle. He got a kick out of it. Those days were fun when everyone was serious about trying to make it. Some of those matches were wars. I wonder what all of those guys are up to now, kids and jobs most likely.

I warmed up on the bag. Nothing special, just a few combinations and then some clinch fighting. I need to fix my stand so I can get my own bag back up. My form is real shitty. If I can’t get the No-Gi club up and running at the school then I think I’m going to go to Crown to get some boxing in.

Jay and I might go check out the back room classes at Atlas tonight. It sounds like it might be fun. If not then I’ll probably try to get over to MSU for judo. I need to talk to sensei about the No-Gi club.

Next time Jay and I work out I want to work on counters for high percentage sweeps. We went over counters for counters, but I don’t think we actually went over counters. I probably won’t remember what that means the next time I read this. -ken

[KenTheWalrus]

I had my ass handed to me today. This two-a-day stuff is getting me wrecked physically. My muscle endurance is shot and my recovery time is taking way too long. I mistakenly thought that I would be able to work through it all. Maybe I still can, but for now I'm probably going to keep cleaning the mats with my face at judo.

I worked on switching from full to half and then back again. I sucked at it. My legs were shot within the first half hour from the workout I had this morning. My main problems were:

lack of leg strength
lack of hip speed
I couldn't get Jay's weight high enough to sweep with the arm drag
I blanked out after I realized I was in trouble from the leg exhaustion

Basically, I choked when the pain started affecting my mind.

Goshin jutsu really sucks when you have torn ligaments in your elbow. Everything else is fine, even arm bars, but the goshin jutsu arm bars wreck me. When it comes time to choose the katas for testing I'm going with ju no kata and katame no kata. Forget goshin jutsu for now.

Maybe I'm overreacting on the guard play. As tore up as I felt I still managed to get some reversals. I’m pissed that I had to power for them, but I still had enough to land a couple.

I was gonna do a pick up in practice to get out of a potential arm bar and triangle when I decided to clue Jay into how close he was to the triangle. I let him slip it on which was a stupid mistake on my part for as winded as I was. I didn’t even realize how badly I was being choked until he let it go and the blood started to rush back into my head. It gave me a wicked head ache.

My throws were off too. I couldn’t get the right glue on uki goshi or the right angle on o goshi. It’s hard when my partner is so light that I can support all of their weight through the whole throw. I need to throw some of the beefy guys around to get my feel back.

I think I’m going to pass on the morning work out and take an epsom bath instead. -ken

[KenTheWalrus]

7.12.07

I decided to take yesterday off from working out and practicing. Instead I took an Epsom bath and just relaxed. I tried not to think about judo at all for a day. It seemed to have worked since today I went at a pretty decent rate and didn’t feel exhausted or weak at all.

Class was cut short today so sensei could make it down to the junior nationals. We worked on katame-no-kata and a few throws. Jay and I stayed later and worked on ground stuff.

I’m getting better at the speed of my drop seoi nage, but I still don’t have the timing near where I want it. I’m still working on the seoi otoshi as the follow up for the failed seoi nage. I can feel the timing, but I can’t get there at that split second which leads uke to post their weight on the seoi-side foot. I tried coming in a little earlier and a little later and neither got me to the point I wanted. It feels like I’m pulling too much for kuzushi. The best seoi nage I had today was without kuzushi and straight down, following the non-seoi side lead foot (uke’s left) posting all the weight and the following foot slightly off the mat. I need about a thousand or so uchikomi with the right timing to have my seoi nage good enough for tournament play.

I worked on some half guard stuff and a little with defending back mount. I find that going to the lockdown with my inside leg at the four position is the most comfortable, but it makes it easier for uke to push off the inside knee for a pass. I practiced switching from lockdown to outside leg in half and inside leg going for a butterfly or a scissor. I tried using it on both Cameron who is in my weight class and is 6’ 8” and Jason who is 180 and about 5’ 9”. The scissor is definitely easier on taller, bigger guys. The butterfly works easier on the littler guys. I need to work on my leg flexibility to bring my knee up as close to my body as possible to work the scissor/butterfly into the hip.

My back defense is still pretty bad. Jason has been working on trapping one arm in back mount ever since he saw Penn do it against Pulver. He landed it yesterday against a black belt at MSU, but I guess he froze and couldn’t find the finish. I suggested a nami juji jime from the back and let him try it. That shit was golden. He caught it on one side as a blood and across the windpipe for both pain and air. I’m going to start trying that from back mount.

I need to relax more when I’m back mounted. I get a little spazzy and can’t find the opening. I also take all of my weight off of tori when he is rolled on his back. I have a couple low percentage flipping ideas to try out. I’m going to try and curl with my legs under and also a nip up or shrimp over the shoulder. I doubt it will work, but it may lead to a sloppy opening.

At one point I had Jay in side mount with him chasing the leg for half guard. I went over with my hips up, which would break osaekomi, but the reaction from Jay was that it was working as a potential crush/sub with the possibility to make a choke out of it. I might experiment with it, but for now I have other things to think about.

The junior nationals are this weekend. I’m going down Saturday to meet a couple of sensei’s friends who have schools in Hawaii. Once we move there these will probably be the guys I’m going to be training judo with. I’m looking forward to meeting them and watching the kids toss each other around. -ken