Judo, 7/29/15

Tonight was all about juji gatame! 

First we drilled the typical one, from bottom guard, then the typical one from the top, from mount.

Next we worked on a few ways to get the arm from the top when bottom guy doesn't extend it for you. First was a "climbing juji", using your knees to get his arms out. Then, doing the same thing, but  doing things like figure-four-ing the arm you're attacking, picking bottom guy up on his side by his arm, sitting on his ribs, and doing a bicep crush when he won't let you get the arm loose.

Finally, we looked at how to slip out of an arm bar if you can pull it off quickly enough (grab your own lapel, shove their bottom leg under your leg and trap it, put their top leg behind your head, then turn into them). Has to be really fast. I tried it in randori later, but my opponent got the bicep crush on me anyway.

I rolled three times:

1. With one of the large yellow belts. Again, he dominated, but I'm determined to learn to deal with him.

2. A brown belt about my size. Sometimes I do okay against him, but tonight he was a little more aggressive. No big deal, I wasn't ashamed of my performance.

3. Against a 3rd dan. I think I surprised him a couple times. Once I escaped his arm bar attempt and turned it into a sweep. I also had him in open guard and nearly turned it into a triangle, but time ran out. He was obviously letting me play, which I appreciated.

Karate Homework, 7/28/15

Stance progression:  10 times each side

Punches: 10 times each side, horse stance

Backfists: 10 times each side, horse stance

Backfists with step: 10 times each side, horse stance

Rising block: 10 times each side, horse stance

Down block: 10 times each side, front stance

Inside block: 10 times each side, front stance

Outside block: 10 times each side, horse stance

Knife hand block: 10 times each side, back stance

Front kicks: 10 times each side, front stance

Side kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Back kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Roundhouse kick (over back of a chair): 10 times each side, holding wall

Heian Shodan: Three times

Heian Nidan (First half): Three times

Yellow belt hand technique demo: three times

Yellow belt kicking demo: three times


Notes:

• I feel like I'm "getting" back stance better today. 
• Both my hips are killing me from side and roundhouse kicks - they're not used to that range of motion. 

Judo, 7/27/15

Last night my rank group worked on all yellow belt material. It was good to run through the whole set of material pretty quickly. Again, I'm feeling pretty good about this set of stuff.

For the class drills we worked a couple of triangle entries (lapel grab and arm control), then the cross body arm lock, and the leg-grabbing sweep version of that. Wrapped up with the flower sweep. My triangles and flower sweep started to feel better this time.

I had a couple rounds of ground randori. My partner was another guy with a wrestling background, so he gave me a lot of trouble. He was light and spry, and it was tough to get him in guard. Once I did, I could dominate, but it only happened once. Also had better luck with survival and escapes due to his lighter weight.

Standing randori was with the same guy. I had a decent kouchi-to-ouchi combo, and a good ogoshi counter. I also pulled of a very pretty deashi, which I normally don't get during randori.

Karate Homework, 7/26/15

Stance progression:  10 times each side

Hip rotation:   10 times each side

Punches: 10 times each side, horse stance

Backfists: 5 times each side, horse stance

Backfists with step: 5 times each side, horse stance

Rising block: 10 times each side, horse stance

Down block: 10 times each side, front stance

Front kicks: 10 times each side, front stance

Side kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Back kicks: 10 times each side, holding wall

Heian Shodan: Twice

Heian Nidan (First half): Once

Yellow belt hand technique demo: three times

Yellow belt kicking demo: three times


My main focus this time was on correcting my back stance; keeping my torso upright instead of leaning back.

Karate, 7/25/15

Today was my second private karate lesson. We warmed up by doing a neat little stance progression that went like this:

• Move into a front stance with either a punch or low block, I can't remember which
• From there, the front leg comes back, then out into horse stance with a side elbow strike
• The same leg moves backward into back stance while doing a knife hand block
• Move same leg into front stance and it cycles for X repetitions
• Repeat on other side
• Things to remember:
• Keep hips at same level throughout all movements
• My back stance needs work

This was a great warmup, and I need to build more endurance to do much of it.

We warmed up more with some front kicks, side kicks, and a 2-person roundhouse kick drill. I need to make all my kicks more fluid. So far I keep breaking all the details down in my mind and it makes for choppy technique. We also did a few back fists and back fists with a kind of lunging step. I need to remember to breathe through all my movements, especially kicks.

Next we looked at the rank material for yellow belt. Seemed pretty straight forward. 

• For hand techniques, you demonstrate 
• three punches while moving forward in front stance 
• three rising blocks while moving backward in front stance 
• three forearm / outside blocks while moving forward in front stance
• three knife hand blocks while moving backward in back stance
• For foot techniques, you demonstrate
• four front kicks while moving forward in front stance
• four side kicks while moving sideways in horse stance
• remember hips must not turn at all during these
• Three step sparring
• We haven't covered this yet
• Kata
• Heian shodan
• I need to clean up my high blocks
• I need to really work on my knife hand blocks and back stances
• I also need to work on my hip direction during high and low blocks

Karate is turning out to be really hard work. Now to get to practicing!

Judo, 7/22/15

Last night we drilled nothing but guard passes. We covered:

• Thigh press guard pass
• Separation / Step back guard pass
• Stacking guard pass
• Stack and flip guard pass
• A few more variations I'm struggling to remember

Afterward we rolled a good bit. I went four rounds:

1. Against a brown belt, roughly my size, I feel like I did well against him, at least positionally (I had some okay escapes, and maintained superior position for a while). I also remembered to play the choke threat / armbar and armbar threat choke game, but didn't get to pull it off (I would have tried for an armbar once, but another pair of folks was right behind us).
2. A really smooth older black belt, that lets me into the game as well. I like rolling with him, but he gives me lots of trouble!
3. A 275 lb short stocky yellow belt bulldozer. Once he gets on top of me it's over. I did almost pull off an armbar / triangle / spider guard defense, but only for a minute. It's ridiculous to even try to go against guys so much bigger than me at this point. Hopeless.
4. A yellow belt closer to my size and skill. We always give each other a good challenge. He got an americana on me once, and I got a tee-pee triangle on him to end the night.

Lots of hard work!

Karate Homework, 7-23-15

Stances:

Stayed in front, back, and horse stance, for 30 seconds each side

Walked the floor in front and back stance, 4 steps each, total.

Strikes:

• Punches: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Backfists: 20 each side, all from horse stance.

Blocks:

• Rising block: 10 each side, all from horse stance.
• Down block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Inside block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Outside block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Knife hand block: 10 each side, all from back stance.

Kicks:

• Front kicks: 10 each side.
• Side kicks: 10 each side.
• Back kicks: 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (Leg lift only): 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (lift and rotate only): 10 each side.

Movement:

• Hip rotation: 20 each side.

Katas:

• Heian Shodan: 2 repetitions.
• Heian Nidan (to the first kiai): 3 repetitions.

Karate Homework, 7-20-15

Figured maybe I overdid it last time, so trimmed it back a little, but for endurance and time's sake.

Stances:

Stayed in front, back, and horse stance, for 30 seconds each side.

Walked the floor in front and back stance, 4 steps each, total.

Strikes:

• Punches: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Backfists: 20 each side, all from horse stance.

Blocks:

• Rising block: 10 each side, all from horse stance.
• Down block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Inside block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Outside block: 10 each side, all from front stance.
• Knife hand block: 10 each side, all from back stance

Kicks:

• Front kicks: 10 each side.
• Focused on keeping hips close to the same height throughout
• Side kicks: 10 each side.
• Back kicks: 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (Leg lift only): 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (lift and rotate only): 10 each side.

Movement:

• Hip rotation: 10 each side.

Katas:

• Heian Shodan: 2 repetitions.
• Focused on my 3 "tweaks"
• Heian Nidan (to the first kiai): 2 repetitions.

Karate Homework, 7/19/15

I figured I'd log my solo practice times as well, since my karate lessons will be sporadic.

Tonight, I measured out where my feet should be for front, back, and horse stances, and put tape on my mats. The goal is muscle memory, so I can naturally find the right stance. 

Stances:

Stayed in front, back, and horse stance, for 30 seconds each side, 3 times (so 90 seconds in each stance, for each side in the case of front and back stances).

Walked the floor in front and back stance, 12 steps each, total.

Strikes:

• Punches: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Focused on keeping elbow close to body throughout the punching motion (for the pulling hand too).
• Backfists: 20 each side, all from horse stance.

Blocks:

• Rising block: 20 each side, all from horse stance.
• Down block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Inside block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Outside block: 20 each side, all from front stance.
• Knife hand block: 20 each side, all from back stance.
• Focused on proper chambering

Kicks:

• Front kicks: 20 each side.
• Focused on proper foot angle, and pulling the foot back quickly after the kick
• Side kicks: 10 each side.
• Back kicks: 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (Leg lift only): 10 each side.
• Roundhouse set up (lift and rotate only): 10 each side.

Movement:

• Hip rotation: 20 each side.

Katas:

• Heian Shodan: 3 repetitions.
• Focused on the 3 tweaks mentioned yesterday.
• Heian Nidan (to the first kiai): 3 repetitions.

I'm also working on the "relax-tighten-relax" concept in each technique. It's tough to stay loose throughout, especially when practicing slowly.

Karate, 7/18/15

For a long time now, I've wanted to train karate as well. I've always felt like it would round out my martial art identity, so to speak, since I've been lacking a striking art. I trained in Tang Soo Do when I was a teenager, but that was more than 25 years ago. I've dabbled in it a few times since then, but never trained seriously.

I've always been drawn to shotokan karate for a few reasons:

The lineage (even though Funakoshi hated the idea of karate being splintered into different styles, and said they are all just "karate").

The popularity - There is more supplemental material out there for shotokan than any other style.That's a big deal if a lot of practice will have to be done solo.

Greater standardization - it's easier to know what's expected from you in shotokan.

Given how much more popular karate is than aikido or judo, you would think I would be able to find some training pretty easily, but I haven't. My schedule won't allow me to train both karate and judo on weeknights, and it's turned out to be pretty difficult to find teachers who are willing to do private lessons on Saturday mornings. Long story short, I finally found someone willing to give it a go, and this morning was my first lesson.

Shotokan guys, for better or worse, are pretty concerned about precision; doing a technique "right" and not "wrong" from the get-go. I can think of pros and cons to that approach, but for now I like it. I feel like, as in aikido, when we practice something "correctly" for thousands of reps, we will subconsciously recognize when we vary from it or something isn't quite right. I really like having a baseline.

We covered a ton of material today, and my plan is to work on it daily at home.

Stances:

• Front stance
• Back stance
• Horse stance

Strikes:

• Reverse and Lunging punches
• Knife hand
• Back fist

Blocks:

• Rising block
• Down block
• Inside block
• Outside block
• Kife hand block

Kicks:

• Front kick
• Side kick
• Back kick
• Roundhouse kick

Movement:

• Walking in front and back stances
• Hip rotation

Kata:

• I ran through heian shodan. He said I would have passed my first belt test based on my performance, but he did make 3 tweaks I need to work on: longer stances in my knife hand blocks at the end, a contract-and-expand chamber for the knife hand blocks, and a fuller front stance on the hammer fist at the beginning.
• He taught me heian nidan up to the first kiai. 

Judo, 7/15/15

For our rank group, we worked on orange belt throws.

Kouchi gari - small inner reap. Mine felt better tonight. I suspect it was a kind of new way I'm thinking about the quick step. Hard to explain in words, but just to remind myself, I'm going for more of a step replacement, than two separate, but faster steps.

Ouchi gari - large inner reap. Still a little awkward with this one. Need more reps.

Deashi harai - advanced foot sweep. I felt much better with this one this time. I got a compliment from the black belt helping us on my timing.

Osoto maki komi - large outer wrapping throw. This was the first time I've done this throw. According to the YouTube videos I watched, it's good for putting some gravy on an osoto gari that isn't quite working. We worked it as it's own thing though, something to use when uke lowers his center of gravity too low to get a normal osoto.

Kibisu gaeshi - heel pick reversal. This is probably the throw I feel best about from this set.

For the class lesson, we did a throw James called "ken-ken uchi mata".  It's a hopping version of uchi mata that apparently is a little easier on uke, and can be done without the full commitment of a normal uchi mata. The trick is to hop toward uke to get him to fall. Every rep was scary, groin-wise, but we all made it out okay.  Here's a video to remind me how it goes:




 Lastly, we did a few rounds of hop randori. I had to go against a much shorter, much....stockier guy. It was okay, but not my best night of standing randori.

Judo, 7/13/15

Tonight the rank group I was in worked on yellow belt throws and counters/reversals.

All five of my throws felt really good tonight. The white belt I was working with did great too. #JitaKyoei  

Ogoshi - counter with an "inside cut to throw". Basically, uke steps around and throws with an ogoshi of his own.

Ippon seoi nage - counter with a hip block (with the sleeve-grip hand), and moving around in front of your partner.

Seoi otoshi - counter with a sprawl and koshi jime (hip choke).

Osoto gari - counter by planting the left leg back, and hopping around backwards to throw with an osoto of your own.

Morote gari - this is the only counter we didn't get to look at tonight. The syllabus says it's a "sprawl and turnover to pin". I'll have to wait to see this one.

For the class lesson, we did the same 4 techniques from goshin jutsu that we did last week (see previous post).

Lastly, I did one round of light standing randori. My partner and I both got some solid techniques. I was having more trouble with my footsweeps than he was, but I did get a couple counters on him. I've also been wondering if something would work, and I got to try it tonight in randori: A number 13 from junana hon kata in aikido (tenkai kote hineri) into a tai otoshi. It was really cool. The standard grip break led into the 13 well, and made a beautiful air fall for the tai otoshi (the kind you see in fancy demos)!

For the first time since I started judo again, I felt like I'm getting close to being ready for my yellow belt rank verification. A couple more techniques to look at, and a lot more reps, and I should be good.

Judo, 7/8/15

Our rank group practiced the following:

Juji gatame - Cross body arm lock. This one needs to become even more ingrained in my muscle memory.

Tsukikomi jime - Thrust choke. This one is still a little senseless to me. It isn't a strong technique, so I'm just looking for the principle in it. I learned I could use my fist to finish it if I'm not getting the gi choke.

Sode garuma jime - Sleeve wheel choke. Nothing to note here. Easy-peasy.

Ude garami - Entangled arm lock. All variations. BJJ calls each thing something different, but I like how Judo terminology doesn't care as much about what direction or shape it takes.

Ude gatame - Arm or shoulder lock. Same deal.

For the main lesson, we practiced Sankaku, or triangle choke. This is another one I need to make second nature. I need to be able to do it without thinking about it as much. I also need to remember to angle my body enough. I do remember to angle out, but forget to do it more when I'm not quite getting it.

At green belt, our curriculum begins requiring self defense techniques. Tonight we covered a couple techniques I recognized from the goshin jutsu kata, and two others. They were defenses from a standing rear naked choke (ushiro jime) and bear hug (over the arms, kakae dori), then from a bear hug under the arms, and a full nelson.

I liked James' description of the techniques, and how he differentiated between the way we practice and the way they might be used in real self defense.

I rolled with two people:

The first time was a yellow belt, that I usually hold my own against. Tonight was no exception. I think he got me with an Americana (I need to start thinking in Judo terms). I got him with a collar choke, and once with dojime (diaphragm choke, body choke, whatever - I squoze the oats out of him while he was in my guard).

The second guy I rolled with is 50 pounds heavier than me and bench presses 335. So he's always a big challenge. After being manhandled again and again, I finally steamrolled him backwards, and made a quick transition into north/south. FINALLY! For the first time with this guy, I wasn't just trying to survive. He actually kicked his legs in desperation a little as I suffocated him with my belly. Time ran out before I could finish it, but I have a new strategy for him now!

Judo, 7/6/15

Last night our group worked mostly on yellow belt groundwork.

Hadake Jime - rear naked choke. I usually prefer the figure-four-ish, hand-behind-the-head version, but last night, the gable grip version was working better for me than it normally does.

Koshi jime - hip choke. Got it good and tight; hardly had to walk around to get the choke.

Escapes from kesa gatame and yoko shiho gatame - Head push, bridge and roll, shrimp, guard recovery.

Guard passes - thigh press, stack, separation/step back pass, and leg hug (my least favorite).

Turnovers - cross face, half nelson from the side, half nelson from the front. Our teacher emphasized that these weren't nuanced, technique-driven moves, but more like "imposing your will".

Sweeps - hip bump and scissor sweep. Emphasis on getting uke up on the knee more. It felt harder to me doing it that way. I've always had decent success doing the sweep with uke in front, rather than on top of me. I'll keep working with it.

Then the entire class worked on a juji gatame sweep from guard, as well as a pendulum sweep.


I rolled twice; the first time was with another white belt with a strong wrestling background. I couldn't do much with him, although I defended pretty well. I'm happy with survival right now! He got me in one arm bar, and I actually got one guard recovery from under his side mount, which is unusual for me.

The next time was with a yellow belt I normally give a lot of trouble, but this time he was determined not to get in my guard. His pressure was good, I was playing a lot of defense the whole time. I did catch him in a good wrist lock, but didn't finish it - I was using it more to control his hand to keep him from attacking with it. Saved my bacon.

I felt like maybe it wasn't my strongest night, rolling, but that's part of it. Ebb, flow, yin, yang, etc. Looking forward to tomorrow night!