For our rank group, we went through all yellow belt throws, combos, and counters. Mine were all feeling really good. The ippon seoi nage to osoto gari combo felt a little awkward when done statically, but it works great when uke "floats around" to defend the ippon seoi nage.
For the whole class lesson we did more seoi otoshi, and then a wrong-sided variation. Note: sometimes the wrong sided one works better with only a 90 degree (or so) turn.
Next we did standing randori. I went three rounds.
First round: against a white belt roughly my size. We normally work together well, and are roughly equally skilled.
Second round: Short bulldozer yellow belt that dominated me on the ground last week wanted more. So he made sure to partner up with me this time. We were only supposed to be doing standing randori, but he was insisting on newaza when we went to the ground. I went with it. This time I had him playing defense a lot more than last time. I did tap to being crushed once, but I got an arm bar on him, recovered guard twice, and did a right nice job of playing defense with an open guard this time, if I do say so myself. I've always gravitated to a closed guard if I can get it, but I'm learning I need to adjust my tactics for different types of partners. At one point, I even shoved him away with my feet, far enough to allow me to do a "technical get up", which I never thought I'd use in randori!
Third round: against another heavy weight yellow belt, but a more technical one. He stayed pretty far away from me and kept leaning in. Normally, I'd go for a hip or shoulder throw if my opponent is leaning in, but in this case, I was scared I'd just pull him on top of me. After talking with him later, I realized I was trying to do all my techniques while staying away from him, too. Next time I'm gonna try harder to take his space with my throws. I did get his back once, but this guy is un-choke-able. He just stood up and I went for a ride.
Good fun, hard work!
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