Judo, 9/7/15

First, an update:  I recently let my instructor know that although he wanted to get me ranked up to green belt, I only wanted rank verification up to orange. After training in this club for a while now, I have a better idea of where I am in relation to my classmates. And as rusty as I am, I feel way more like an orange belt than green.

Regular classes were cancelled for Labor Day, but they did open the dojo for open mat night!  Only about 7 of us showed up. I got to work with an Ikkyu buddy of mine on my orange belt rank material. Mostly counters to the throws:

• deashi harai as a counter to Kouchi gari
• kosoto gake as a counter to ouchi gari
• tsubami gaeshi to counter deashi
• osoto gaeshi to counter osoto makikomi
• sumi gaeshi to counter kibisu gaeshi (this one is really fun!)

We also worked on the two orange belt combos:

• kouchi to kibisu gaeshi
• kouchi to ouchi

I had a frank discussion with a couple of ikkyus and a black belt about my frustration with my standing randori. I told them how I feel as awkward with tachiwaza right now as I did with ground randori when I first started. To my surprise, the brown belts feel much the same way! We got to talk about how they've persevered through the exact same frustrations that I'm dealing with now, and some things to try to be more successful. One of the biggest takeaways for me was that the reason a lot of my throws aren't working, is because I'm not fully committed when I throw. I'm hesitant and overly cautious.We'll see if I can keep that in mind next time.

Finally, I rolled once with the brown belt that was teaching me. I did okay, he never tapped me, and I swept him once. I did get him into a "shoulder guard" I learned on a Roberto Abreau video, but forgot what to do with him when I got him there, haha!

I'm glad I went, and it made me feel a little better about my judo. I'm hoping I can make it through this tournament prep season without losing interest!