The Road to Nidan

Balancing Judo and my family is a hard deal - especially with the new baby. My wife groans when I go to Judo - now 2 nights a week. And I have been getting there a little later than usual as I plan on getting a handful of things done at home before going to class so that my wife doesn't feel like I am leaving her out in the cold. I showed up about 25 minutes late last night, and quickly warmed up. Everyone was doing Uchikomi and Sensei had me work with a Yellow belt who was working on Koshi-Waza - Namely T surikomi Goshi and Harai Goshi . I was giving him instruction, and indicated that some of the Kuzushi and entry and form of Tsurikomi Goshi would be useful for Tsurkomi, Harai, Uchimata (to a lesser extent) and Hane Goshi . As I walked him through the motions, I noticed that my technique has actually improved. To the point where as I explain the theory to him, I am actually practicing it as well (as opposed giving him the  'do as I say, not as I do' speech before sh...

I went to practice on Wednesday night - it was our last practice of the year and it was followed by our holiday party. Some of the people brought their kids, but I didn't - it was a little too late for me to be able to send Mitch. Unfortunately I wound up being a bit late, but I still got a lot of Uchikomi practice in, and I also got in 3 rounds of Randori. I have been doing a lot of thinking about ways to improve and I decided that I would take extra efforts to do two things in Randori: More consistently look to be challenged - i.e. Stand up first for Randori, play the biggest guys in the room, and don't sit any rounds out. Try new things   The first is something that I think we all need to work on. While I don't mind playing the smaller and less-experienced people in the dojo, I am trying to more actively pursue the bigger guys - because they present the biggest challenge. I managed to play 3 different people - one a Sankyu who is slightly bigger and beat me in our c...

So I walked into practice last night (about 20 minutes late, as I needed to calm the baby down before leaving), and my Sensei's first question is 'so? how did you do? Where's my trophy?'. I will admit I was actually thinking of bringing the trophy with me, I decided against bringing it. I started to talk about everyone else's wins. 'No', said Sensei, 'I want to know about you.' When I told him I finished third he was pleased, but then I told him there were only three people in my division. He jokingly said that I was dragging his name down. But I explained that I knew that I played well but still have some work to do. I jumped into practice, acting as uke for someone's Sankyu test. This kid is actually one of the people who is from Sensei's credit class (all of the 'club' classes are non-credit, but then matriculating students at the college can take his for credit class as well), and when he passed sensei mentioned how Judo took him...

So as you can surmise from the title, I didn't get very far in today's tournament. I had two matches, both against brown belts who I felt were my equals in size and skill. I played really well in my first match. I opened the match by trying O-Uchi My first attempt didn't succeed, but it succeeded in planting a seed in my opponent's head to watch out for the O-Uchi. The next time I came in, he reacted to the O-Uchi, and I caught him with Uchimata. He pulled me a little off balance when I threw him, but I didn't hear a call from the ref, and was perplexed that I didn't get at least a Yuko. I found out after the match that I had a Wa-zari! In fact one of my teammates thought I was robbed of an Ippon, but truth be told, I am glad to hear the technique worked. But then I made my mistake. I came in for a third time and I got countered with Ko soto Gake.   Second Match, I tried my technique again. My opponent must have been paying close attention to my first match, b...

So I show up at practice last night, to discover that there are only 3 others at class. Since I am, by some crazy coincidence, the highest ranking person there, Sensei asked me to lead the warm-ups. Afterward, we did some Uchikomi practice. I am looking to expand my Shiai repertoire and I was getting some good ashi-waza advice from Sensei. After about 20 minutes, our Uchikomi practice turned into Randori. Since one of the three others was coming off of an injury, he bowed out of the Randori, and the rest of us went at it. I did about 35-40 minutes of Randori, including the first 20 minutes straight against the same Judoka- who is relatively my size. In the opening minutes I had a lot of good attacks, but I quickly ran out of gas, and then I got sloppy. He threw me with some light throws at first, but then he got me with a beautiful O-Soto! One or two more losing rounds for me, and took a break. So I sat down and let the other two guys go at it. After about 10-15 minutes of their rand...

I only managed one practice of my own last week - as my wife even protested that one, and even though I went to practice last night, I am not sure I'll be able to swing it on Wednesday. Things have been pretty tough at home since our 3rd was born, and I consider every Judo practice that I get in as a gift. When I came home last night, I was told that I was definitely getting up in middle of the night. Personally I didn't mind it, despite the lack of sleep, it was worth the Judo excursion. On Sunday, I was helping out the kids class. Sensei asked me to give one of the kids his yellow belt test. I was very apprehensive, and had a ton of questions. It's funny, at work, I have no problem taking charge of things and taking ownership. As well as giving people on my staff guidance, but as a Judo instructor, I have very little confidence. I don't know what was my greater fear - failing a kid who was worthy, or passing a kid who was not. Last night, at the adults class, I went...

So I went back to practice last night after taking a couple of weeks off with the baby. For some odd reason, there were only four of us and the two senseis (and one of the four sat on the sidelines, as he was feeling sick after the warmups). Since some of my dojo mates will be taking the Kata test shortly, the two Senseis (both former Kata examiners) reviewed our Kata and gave a lot of helpful hints. I also managed to practice some new moves that I want to incorporate into my competition repetoire and sensei gave me a lot of good pointers. Of course, since I hadn't practiced in a couple of weeks, I was sore as anything all over this morning. I got on the scale last week and realized that it was time to lose weight again, and so I started ramping up in my exercises - this way I am not as sore as I might be right now. Hopefully I will shed a few pounds, but I highly doubt I will drop enough to get down to 198 by the end of the month for the tourney I want to compete in, but it will ...

I went to Oishi's today. I haven't been going in a while, and Sensei Oishi made a comment about my not being here in a long time, but then when I informed him that I was going to Sensei Watanabe's club, he seemed pleasantly surprised. There were a good bunch of people today - entirely brown and black belts, and mostly big guys - people over 200lbs (90+ kgs) that presented good challenges in Randori and ne-waza . I went a couple of Rounds with a Sandan (3rd Degree blackbelt) who I matched up nicely with Sizewise. While I did pretty much all of the falling, I was pleased with some of the attacks of my own that as well as some of the defenses I had against his throws. I think I am finally getting comfortable with an attacking style, now I need to find a competition.

Last night, I was practicing Nage-No-Kata with a fellow brown belt under the watchful eye of one of our Senior black belts who also does a lot of refereeing and at one point was a Kata Examiner.  It's really good to have him reviewing my kata as I learn it, because he provides me with advice from the big picture (i.e. how to transit from one throw to the next) all the way down to the smallest details (your knee needs to be at a 45 degree angle when you finish Sumi Otoshi). At the end of Kata practice, he mentioned that I was progressing nicely. I mentioned that I thought it would take me a year before I could perform Nage-no-Kata.  Then he said something to me: "I think Sensei wants you to do it sooner - you are an Ikkyu , aren't you?". "Actually, " I replied, " I am just a Sankyu ." I realize that I haven't had a change in Rank since returning to Judo almost 3 years ago. Originally, I thought I would go to promotional shiai , but unfortunatel...

Last night I was asked to be the uke for a friend prepping his Nage-No-Kata test. In all forms of practice short of Kata, being an uke is quite easy. You just show up and play dumb, with the ocassional jump or movement to make your Tori look good. But in Kata , being the Uke is a lot of work. Unlike the katas in most Karate styles, which are performed solo, Judo's katas are all performed with a partner. (More than that, depending on the level of Black Belt you are shooting for, you need to show kata proficiency as either tori, uke, or both!). While I might get flamed for saying so, Kata in a sense is like a dance - each partner has a role, and each partner needs to learn it. For Shodan (1st degree BB. AFAIK, in the US) you need to perform Nage-No-Kata as Tori. Interestingly enough, performing it as Uke is required for Nidan (2nd degree), and now that I am familiar with it, I understand why that was done!

So I've finally regained momentum in Judo, and I have been managing to go consistently again. I am also getting into the groove with the new Dojo and my dojomates. I have also found what I had lost - Sen attack initiative. In college, my favorite professor's favorite quote was ' A lazy engineer is a good engineer'. Unfortunately in Judo, that doesn't work. I like many of you, would play very defensively. I would try to make things happen, I would wait for my opponent to initiate an attack and then take advantage of his mistakes. But in Judo, there is no room for laziness. Make no mistakes, Judo is hard, and takes a lifetime to master. Somehow, its taken me this long to do something about it. I am finally getting out of my bad Randori habits. I no longer spend my entire match sitting back and waiting for my Uke, I go to him. This has helped me spot flaws in my techniques and my attacks. I used to do one or two Randori and then sit out, now I will stand for 5 or 6 m...

So I've been under the radar for a while. I started at a new Dojo back in January and I've kept off of the blogging site. This is very different dojo than my last one. For starters, the mats are very different. We're playing on Canvas over wrestling mats instead of over Tatami, which is a little less forgiving and harder to get used to. Also for the first time in my Judo career, I am learning Kata. It's an eye-opening experience. Finally, the sensei is do his best to push me to do my best, and its working. I am really enjoying the experience, if only I could do it at least 2 more times per week.

Some of you may have been wondering where I've been. Unfortunately for me, things at work have gotten quite busy - thereby eating into both my blogging and Judo time. I haven't put on my Gi for about 10 weeks or so. As a result, I have also put back on some weight as well. This has enabled me to convince the Mrs. to allow me to go to Judo at night - starting one night per week. So I have found a dojo near my home, and I start on Monday night. I also hope to get more regular updates, and I have 2-3 unfinished feature articles as well. Thanks for all of your well wishes, and I hope to post more frequently in the near future.