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Showing posts from 2009

Club Competition

We had our Annual club competition, and all told it was a weird experience for me. Last time around, I had just started refereeing. Fortunately I had Sensei Jesse Wang with his years of experience as a guide. In addition, Larry and Wilson - who both had significantly more experience than me were there as well. All 3 gave me advice and tips as I was going through the matches. Unfortunately, Sensei Jesse passed away earlier this year, and Larry wasn't able to make it. Thankfully I still had Wilson and Mark joined us as well, but I was refereeing a lot more matches this year. It was just strange on so many levels without Jesse. The beauty of Refereeing was that I was able to see all of the matches. It was nice to see all of our students - both young, old and in between get a chance to compete - even if it was against the same crowd. My son Mitch took second place in his division. He led most of the way through his first match - with a Wa-zari and a couple of Yukos, but then was caug

Trophies, we don't need no Stinking Trophies

When I try to explain Judo tournaments to people, I say that they're a lot like Disneyland - you wait in line for two hours for 2 minutes of excitement, but those two minutes give you enough excitement to make you want to wait inline all over again. I competed today, and I had exactly that experience. I fought two quick matches, won them both, and took first place This morning when I woke up, I was a little worried. The bathroom scale read 220.3 - 0.3 lbs over where I wanted to be. I skipped breakfast, and dressed in layers - I also cranked the heat up in the car on the way over. I even parked farther away from the venue and jogged from my car to the registration desk. Whether driving in the heat paid off, or whether my bathroom scale was a few lbs over, I wound up being safe - I weighed in at 217.7. I must say that for the most part at tournaments, I tried spending as little time at the tournament as possible. i.e. Show up for my matches, and then leave when I was done. This t

Rule changes in action at the Junior Worlds

Last Janurary, the IJF made some rather large changes to the rules of Judo. As of last New Year's day, they abolished the score of Koka and it's corresponding first Shido became a warning - which only has value in a referees decision if the score is tied. They also banned grabbing the pant leg directly from 'Hajime' - you could grab the legs, but only after attempting to take a standard grip. The IJF - seemingly no fan of throws where the leg is grabbed - also decided to experiment with banning leg grabbing altogether - using the Junior World Championships as a testing grounds. The new rule would give you a warning for the first infraction and disqualification for the second one. When this rule change first came out, I ranted a bit about it, especially because of the ambiguity of the language. For example, while it was very clear that you couldn't initiate an attack with a leg grab, it wasn't clear if you were able to use a leg grab as part of a counter - For

Fushida Gear Bag - First Impressions

I finally capitulated and bought a new gear bag - the old one, was literally falling apart after 5 years of use. The folks at Fushida had a limited 25% off sale advertisted on Twitter that I took advantage of. (as I write this, the bag is still at an introductory 15% on their site ) I was torn between the "Medium" and "Large" sizes, and I opted for the "Medium" - truthfully, they should really be called "Large" and "Extra-Large". I was able to easily put both of my two Gis (A Blue and a White Toraki Silver, size 4.5) with enough room for my sons gi - which doesn't include all of the side pockets. All told, it seems like a solid, sturdy bag. I'll follow up with more info once I use it a bit more.

The last couple of weeks

The last couple of weeks have been interesting. I have been really consistent in attending practice. Our Wednesday night practices have been getting good crowds, and I am getting a lot of good work in. Especially in Randori and Ne-Waza Randori. Our Monday nights have been a little weaker, only handful of students show up, but I have been doing my best to make the most of it. I've been getting a lot of Nage-No-Kata practice in, and learning a lot by teaching some of the beginners that show up. Because all of the Jewish Holidays are on Sunday this year, my son has missed a lot of time at the kids' class. Thankfully he is back now, but because of logistics, I myself have been missing my time on the mat with him. I enjoy watching him learn and helping out him and his friends. Of course, this is all anticlimactic, except for one of the most important and sad events in my Judo career - Sensei Jesse Wang - one of the senior black belts in our club, passed away last Wednesday. Je

Maybe I'll start blogging again...

So I thought that I might start blogging again. Fear not, dear readers (however many are left), I have not abandoned Judo, but just given up on blogging for a while. But recently, I thought I would come back to it, if not for anything else, than to keep my head in the game. When I was practicing more consistently, and blogging more consistently, it helped my Judo - it made me think about Judo, what I was learning, and how I've progressed. Maybe I am long overdue to start writing? Who knows?