Last night I had the pleasure of going to Pat's grand-reopening of the new dojo space for Mokuren Dojo. The lesson was a pretty deep dive on deashi barai, the advanced foot sweep. MAN it was good to get back to Pat's style of training again! We started out teaching the new folks to fall, then moved to the foot-sweep-to-control drill. I can attest that doing a few years of that drill back in the day helped with my timing and sensitivity in my recent, more sportive training environment. Pat talked a lot about how in a sense, Judo is about control. Whether it's controlling ourselves, or being able to control a crazy guy that might hurt us or themselves. So rather than just trying to bust our partners with a slick deashi, we worked on protecting them as they fell, and maintaining control of them so they had to fall on their butt, facing away from tori.
It's great to be able to practice Judo that jives perfectly with my aikido, both practically and philosophically.
After class, Pat gave me a couple osoto gari pointers for the study group I'm working with. I'm looking forward to trying it out later today, along with the sweet deashi goodness we went over last night.
I think the relaunch was a success. I was glad to see such a good turnout, and hope that bunch sticks with Pat for years to come.
Twas great having you there to practice with us and help with the new-heads. You always write up the best summaries of the classes you go to!
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