Club Competition

So our club had their semi-annual competition tonight. It is a small tournament, primarily members of our club and club alumni. We had a very nice crowd - about 30 or so competitors from age 6 and up, and about another 20-25 spectators.

I got caught in traffic on the way there and I missed my sons first match. Thankfully I caught his second match. He has a lot of good scoring chances and lost by a Yuko. My wife complained that she th0ught he wasn't even trying, but I pointed out to her that he has come so far since last year, where he didn't even look at his opponent. Several people pointed out to me that his seoinage has come a long way, and with a little more practice, I think he will win some matches. He also complained that one of the other kids - who doesn't regularly practice at our dojo (his Dad does, and he comes ocassionally) was choking him - against the rules in the 6-year old yellow belt division. I pointed out to him that referee sometimes make mistakes - they're only people after all. Sometimes they make a mistake in your favor, and sometimes against you - it all evens out in the end.

Of course, I can now say that as a referee. I reffereed about 6 matches, and was the judge for a dozen more. The other referees - two of which have significant refereeing experience, said that my refereeing was okay. I did make some mistakes, and also some good calls.

One good call (IMHO), one contestant was in the safety area on the side of the mat with very little clearance to the wall. His opponent was about to initiate a throw and heading further out of bounds. Fearing for their safety, I called Matte. The attacker failed to stop, changed directions, and threw the other guy in middle of the mat with morote gari - he was going to celebrate, until I pointed out that they had ignored my Matte call.

Finally, I got to compete. There were only 3 competitors in my division - me, Rob and Mark. We always square off in Randori - so not to many surprises. I almost had a choke in on Rob, but then I managed to throw him with O-Soto-Gari. As soon as the throw ended, I was convinced it wasn't an Ippon, so I proceeded to try to get the holddown. The Ref called Wa-zari, and I was fighting to keep Rob down, but then I heard him say ippon - the other two refs had disagreed with his call. Both rob and I didn't think it was ippon-worthy, but I was happy to win.

Then I fought mark, who seemed to have more gas than I did at the time. After a few attacks and counter attacks, I managed to throw him with a nice Tai-Otoshi for Ippon.

Not bad - My first Refereeing gig, my first first place in a long time, and, most importantly, my son had fun.

Fwd: Maybe I should post something here after all....

Wow, I was looking at my blog and realized that I haven't posted
anything since May! that's a real long time. Let me start by saying
this - I haven't quit Judo. I still go to class and help teach the
kids class on Sundays. Truthfully, I've only been going an average of
once a week for the past six months or so, primarily because I've
started a new job, and my schedule often finds me working too late to
get to class. I've also gained a lot of weight as well, and if that
wasn't complicated enough, we were all trying to get used to the new
baby - who is shortly turning 14 months.

Because of my lack of practice, I haven't felt up to competing either.
Some of you might think that I should just go compete, but I view it
this way - I only compete when I feel that I am prepared to win, and
in my current shape, I am not prepared to win.

All that aside, I have been enjoying Judo in different ways. I really
enjoy helping out in the kids class, especially being able to teach
Judo to my son. My second son usually comes for the ride, and will
participate in warm-ups and the occasional round of Sumo-Style circle
fighting. Unfortunately, at 4 and a half, he is not quite ready for
Judo yet.

I have also expressed interest in refereeing, so my Sensei has allowed
me to referee the kids practice matches, and I will hopefully ref a
few rounds in our upcoming club competition next week. I enjoyed the
reffing session, and people thought most of my calls were good (except
for a Koka that I missed and sensei picked up on), but it was hard
reffing my own son's match - he was expecting my coaching and
guidance, which I just couldn't give him being the referee.

That's it for now, but I hope to post a lot more frequently in the future.

The Catch-all Post for April

So I haven't posted anything in six weeks, and yet I still hope I have some loyal readers left. April has proven to be a busy month for me - I am about to switch jobs, and I took a two-week vacation as well. April was also a great month in Judo for me, as my Son passed his Yellow belt test.

He also executed a picture perfect ippon seoinage in a 'Mock Shiai'. My wife, who seldom comes to practice, was very impressed. Although he'll be playing some baseball over the next few weeks, he will be coming back to Judo soon, and is excited about working towards his orange belt.

The other day, we were at a family get-together, and one of his cousins was bullying him a bit, hitting him a couple of times. Mitch stepped in and was about to throw the kid with O-Uchi Gari just as my wife, the kids' mom, and I intervened. At first, I scolded him. But when I realized he was defending himself, I apologized, and told him that if that happens again, throw the kid, pin him and call for help.

Earlier this week, my middle one expressed some interest in Judo too. Maybe I will have a lot more to write about in the coming months.

Is Judo Getting Stronger and more visible?

I know it's been a while since my last post - as usual, my life gets busy and I don't have time for blogging or Judo.

I also haven't been busy reviewing the Judo web, so I hopped back on today and discovered a few interesting things:

• Rhadi Ferguson, Ronda Rousey, and Jason Morris were interviewed by the Wall Street Journal Online - while it's not as popular as the print version, nonetheless, its great that one of the top 5 most circulated newspapers in the us picked up a story on Judo.
  
• Of course, even though LeBron and Gisele grace its cover, if you look inside April's edition of Vouge, Ronda Rousey is one of the athletes featured in their shape issue (which I've yet to see).
  
• And then finally, Dr. AnnMaria DeMars indicated that a lot of the pictures she was sent for Growing Judo showed Judo events attended by hundreds of people.
  
  

With all that, every time I go to my own dojo, I always see a new face or two. It leads me to believe that Judo is growing - even if I am not playing.

Judo and Stress

We all have stress in our daily lives - whether it comes from pressures at work, or at home; From our Spouses/Significant Others, from our parents, and from our kids. Stress can take a toll on your body and on your mind. Thankfully for me, Judo has been a great source of stress relief.

I was feeling a bit stressed out over the last few days, and then I went to Judo last night and it made it so much better - my stress was pretty much gone. Yes, I might wind up taking out some of my frustrations on various ukes, but at the same time, I know that they are doing the same with me - so it all balances out.

As for updates, I had a good practice last night. I was getting killed in Ne-Waza and I think I need to improve my skills there, but I had a good couple of rounds in Randori, and re-discovered that I can Actually throw people with O-Soto Gari!

Gleaning knowledge from Kata

So I have been learning Nage-No-Kata for over a year now, and up until recently, I would just walk through the techniques, one-by-one, but never really execute them. Basically it was a moving uchikomi. Recently, at the cajoling of my Sensei, I started to throw as well as be thrown when practicing the NNK. As I am now taking Kata to the next level, I have started to notice several things, that were not so clear before. First and foremost, my techniques are improving. It's as if the movements in the NNK are working on building muscle memory for better form. Secondly, other techniques are starting to click and trickle into my 'combat' repetoire.

But most important of all, I am gaining an appreciation for the role of Uke in the NNK. I am learning the dynamics of the throws better, as well as getting a lot of ukemi practice along the way. Personally, I don't think that I am alone in saying that Uke is a harder role. But in being the Uke, I better understand what my actions need to be when I am tori.

I hope this doesn't sound like rambling, and that it makes some kind of sense.

Feeling bad about hurting someone else

So there was a pretty small crew in the Dojo last night - only 6 of us - and that is including our two senseis. I had a very long run through of Nage-No-Kata, and as uke, I am also taking throws as opposed to just going through the motions.

We then did Uchikomi followed by Ne-waza practice. I was trying to work on my turnovers and particularly turning uke from Prone into Kata-ha-jime. Somehow I was a little over zealous, and I managed to tweak my Uke's neck. Normally this isn't a big deal, but he was really stiff. I felt really bad - as his night was done, and I was concerned that he really hurt himself.

I know that Judo is a contact sport, and people do get hurt, but it hurts me that I hurt someone, especially when being careless.

I hope he's okay.

How Football and Basketball improve my Judo (and maybe yours too).

So I am ecstatic - my unlikely champions - the NY Giants, beat all odds and shocked the world when they became World Champions last night and made the 'perfect' patriots, just one bit less perfect. (By the way, while the Patriots have won 3 championships in the last 7 years, they have also lost 2 as well). Of course, I always hoped my Giants would win, even while acknowledging that the Patriots would be a difficult team to beat.

In every discussion and interview and news blurb regarding the Superbowl, one important factor stood out in my mind. Whenever any of the Giants were asked about the Patriots being 18 and 0, they simply brushed it off as those games don't count anywhere as nearly as much as the one we are going to play. They knew they were the underdog, they new that the Pats were favorites and had a perfect season on the line - but they didn't let it get to them!

This, in my opinion was why they won, why their defense persevered and shut down Brady and Moss, and why their offense found ways to shine when it counted the most - because they were not intimidated by who they were playing.

Last week, before the Superbowl, and while this discussion was going on, (and in the wake of a very sloppy Judo session), I reminded myself of a time where I tried out for the Camp Basketball team.

Let's preface this by saying that I have been 5'10-11" or so since then - since I was a junior in High school. In high school, we had a small team, and 5'10 and change was enough to make me a second-string forward and occasional center. But on the camp team, I was more or less a dwarf. The average guy on the team was about 6'1". But I knew they were having an open tryout and figured I had nothing to lose.

The tryout was pretty much a 5-on-5 full-court game. The Captain/Manager of the team was the head lifeguard and also my boss. He would basically take people from the tryouts list and have them play in the game alongside existing team members. I was kind of nervous at first, and then I realized that I needed to calm down and step up my play to match my opponent. And that's what I did.

I probably played my best basketball ever that night, and then, the unexpected happened - I was playing one of the best players on the team - a 6' 3" forward, he started to drive the lane against me and I knew that he was going to try to go in for a lay up. I stayed with him the whole time, realized when he was going up, and timed my jump perfectly. My hand found nothing but ball, and slammed it hard to the side of the court. Everyone stopped. no one could believe that I, who was never known for being picked first on the court, could "stuff" a guy with four inches on me and much better skills. It energized me. I played with even more intensity, and even though I ultimately didn't make the team, I was so glad that I had had the opportunity and rose to the challenge. The reason I didn't make the team was not because I didn't try hard enough, or because I didn't get a fair shot - but quite the contrary, I didn't make it because even when I gave 110% and had a fair shot, my skills weren't good enough.

But I definitely learned some valuable lessons from that experience and from listening to the Giants this past week:

1. Look to be challenged by playing those that are stronger and more experienced than you - you WILL rise up to the occasion and sometimes even surprise yourself.
2. No matter who your opponent is - don't be intimidated by them because they've won ___. If they are only human they too will lose even in a perfect season, or at least get a shot blocked by someone 4-inches shorter.

What I am saying right now isn't anything new. It's something that you might have heard in a similar vane from Rhadi Ferguson, or AnnMaria DeMars, or a whole bunch of other Judo Senseis and coaches out there. Each one of us has our own stories of where we played our most difficult opponents and still managed to eke out a win, against all odds, or even if we didn't win - where we rose up to the challenge and played better than we had imagined.

Here's the rub - the more we look to be challenged, the more of these moments that we will have, and the more of those moments we have, we might ultimately become the elite Judokas that others need to not be intimidated by.