Sunday, August 9, 2009

Judo, 8/8/09


We began with the ground mobility cycle, with bottom guy practicing escapes from kamishihogatame when the opportunity presented itself. This slowly developed into an extremely light "positional randori".


I can see a huge value in this low-intensity, "stop-and-assess" randori, particularly for beginners like me. It takes the "panic" out of the equation and allows me to think about what's happening, and what my response could be. However, it's difficult to keep the "governor bolt" on this, and very easy to slowly get more and more competitive and intense. Good fun though!


Next we worked on what Pat called the "Saulo Spins", taken from Saulo Ribeiro's BJJ DVDs. These are all techniques for taking the back of a turtled opponent.


From there, we worked on hadakajime, the rear naked choke. Pat approached it this time by using Stephan Kesting's "rear naked choke checklist" (see the video here). We ended by looking at the kata version of hadakajime.


I'm so grateful for all the excellent instruction you can find on DVD and the internet now. Instructors like Saulo Ribeiro, Stephan Kesting, the Gracies, and Roy Dean have some really high quality products out. It's great to be able to get quality technical instruction from lots of sources, then try it out in the lab/dojo.


Anyone care to recommend other judo or BJJ DVDs they've found useful?

3 comments:

  1. Don't forget in the first eercise you describe... Bottom guy is in a world of suck until he gets off his back onto his side.

    Feldenkrais talks about this idea in this excerpt: http://judoinfo.com/feldenkrais.htm

    where he talks about reducing friction by curling up int oa rolling shape or by bridging (simulating bouyancy)

    perhaps this will help you in your quest to not be crushed on bottom.

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  2. Not being crushed is always a good thing.

    The best DVDs I've personally seen are ones you've already listed: Roy Dean's, Stephan Kesting's and Saulo Ribeiros.

    One that I'm having fun with right now is Robson Moura's Fusion 2 DVD. I'm trying to work out this 93 guard, with limited success so far.

    Mainly, though, I'm enjoying Roy Dean's new DVD.

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