Aikido, Judo, You Know

Kazoku, 9/12/11

2011-09-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

Just me and Michael again. We started with tegatana (He'd done his ukemi practice before I arrived), and this time went through the entire thing.

I intended to work on Releases 1-4, and briefly introduce 5, but we ended up looking at 6 and 7 as well. Some very cool body-drop stuff kept turning up in Release 7 that I don't recall noticing before. In retrospect, it's been there all along, but for whatever reason, it revealed itself more tonight.

We uchikomi'd the heck out of Junana #1, then did several reps completing the throw. By the time we got to Junana #2, we only had time left for a handful of uchikomi reps. For some reason, my #2 was lackluster tonight. Them's the breaks sometimes!

Kazoku, 8/30/11

2011-08-31T16:03:00.000-05:00

Just one student again last night: Michael.

We were pressed for time so we skipped ukemi. We reviewed what we've learned so far in the walking kata, and added the first two turns.

We did an extended review of releases 1 & 2, then introduced 3 & 4. Pat showed me a tweak that I think helped Michael keep that unbendable arm in release 1. His #2's felt pretty good and natural. We focused on synchronizing footfalls and letting uke determine where and how you step after the initial evasion. We also talked about having a relaxed arm (as tori), but not one that's completely turned off.....one that yields and fits and blends with uke, but also redirects his energy. Being directed, and directing. Welcome to the wonderful, frustrating, amazing, dichotomy that is aikido, haha! He picked up releases 3 & 4 just fine.

Next we had an extended review of Junana #1 (shomen ate), then I introduced Junana #2 (aigamae ate). We talked about how the evasion/off-balance for #2 shows up a lot from here on out. Michael's "#2 off-balance" was quite nice and effective. He seemed to get it very well, and almost threw me a couple of times with the off-balance alone. We worked on the "kata version" as well as Pat's "hiding around the corner" version. I did a quick intro to junana #3 (gyakugamae ate) just to demonstrate its relationship to #2. Something he can keep in mind as he practices is to wait for uke's reactionary step(s) to do the throw. I still have trouble "waiting on uke" as well, particularly on #15 - it's an easy thing in a lot of these techniques to jump ahead of and rush.

With the little bit of time left, our Cool Ninja Technique of the Day was Junana #10 (waki gatame) as the ura waza (countering technique) to Junana #1, and we cooled down with a little light randori.

Another great class!

Kazoku, 8/25/11

2011-08-26T22:53:00.000-05:00

Last night was the second class for our little group. Littler, even - only one student this time: Michael.
We started with ukemi (back falls), and Michael said he felt better about them this week than last week. He was eager to learn forward rolls, which I attempted to teach, and he picked it up much faster than I did when I was starting out.

We reviewed the first 3 parts of tegatana (walking kata) and added the next 4 (the pushes). Focus was on staying on the balls of the feet and moving our arms effeciently (not trying to pick an arm up when our body was dropping).

Next we reviewed Release 1, and ended up spending most of the class on it. I felt like we got a lot of good work in on this release. Really productive reps. It was a challenge for him to do the release without bending his arm too much to get into position, but there was a ton of stuff he was getting very right (synchronizing footwork, footwork timing, off balance, etc). And we all have things to work on in the releases, so he can join the club, haha! Some of the reps went a little haywire, but he was good at doing something (as opposed to freezing up), and usually it was enough - it got him off the line and made me unbalanced enough to have to take another step.

We discussed how some schools adhere more closely to the kata forms in order to internalize the principles, and others are less bound by the kata and primarily observe the principles (we're more in the latter category). We talked about not getting so focused on the kata that we forget what we're doing is getting out of the way and getting hands up; we try not to get the kata before the horse (sorry, I couldn't resist, and if said in a certain way, is a lot funnier than reading it).

For the last part of the class, we worked on release 2 as an option when release 1 won't go.

In the spirit of Pat, we ended with a couple "cool ninja techniques of the day". My ninja-ness being modest at best, I showed him a neat kote hineri from someone putting a hand on your shoulder, as well as something I can't remember the name of (uke grabs lapel or pushes, you feed that energy back to him in the form of a push or a strike or an eye rake - just giving him something to think about while you take possession of the hand he gave you to control his wrist and destroy his posture).

I was more aware of my time management - which is to say I noted how much time I spent on different things. I felt more prepared and more orgnaized, but there's still lots of room for improvement.

Kazoku!

2011-08-25T15:09:00.002-05:00

For the past few months, I’ve been working on getting an aikido class together that I could teach locally (My teacher is 75 miles away). Well, it didn’t pan out exactly like I originally thought it might, but last Thursday, I did teach my first aikido class. It’s a milestone I’m pretty excited about. I’ll be keeping track of training logs here for that class too. We’re calling our group “Kazoku Dojo” – “kazoku” means “family” in Japanese.

Students for the night were Michael, Melissa, and Kim. 2 of the 3 were being exposed to aikido for the very first time, so we began with simple back falls, concentrating on sitting-more-than-falling, and tucking our chins to make sure our heads didn’t hit the mat. Then a brief introduction to forward rolls from a kneeling position.

After a short explanation of what kata is (solo and paired), we went over the first 3 sections of our walking kata. We focused on “dropping” into the step rather than “shifting our weight east in order to travel west”. We also focused on bringing the “following foot” along without dawdling.

We then practiced using those same steps to evade an incoming zombie-arm attack. Just to demonstrate the idea of getting-out-of-the-way. We moved from that into the “aiki brush-off” concept that Pat teaches, which led nicely into Junana #1 (Shomen ate).

We ended the class with Release #1, and a little bit of Release #2, with a focus on synchronizing with uke's steps and finding the right timing to seperate and create distance.

Somewhere in all of that we talked about the how and why of “same-hand-same-foot”.

I’m thrilled about the prospect of teaching, and acutely aware of my insufficiency to do so. But it’s all part of learning, right? I do need to learn to organize the class time better….we have class again tonight, so we’ll see how I manage!

Aikido, 8/13/11

2011-08-21T19:56:00.001-05:00

We started with walking, then moved on to Releases, with a focus on 1-4. We worked on creating an off-balance by continuing uke's line, and not providing him a stable base with which to regain his balance. One of the big takeaways for me was to let uke determine where my second step in the release is placed. We also worked on using releases 2 and 5 as options for a failed or stuck release 1.

Next we did some "cow-catcher" drills that evolved into junana #1, and we spent the rest of the class on junana 1 & 2. We played with getting a junana 2 from each release as well.

We ended the class with some fun randori and a little groundwork.

Aikido, 7/9/11

2011-08-12T15:49:00.000-05:00

I'm still pretty behind, but I'll catch up soon!

We started with Walking, then moved to releases, which I found were still jacked up for me. Pat added “sticking to uke” to the other 2 new ideas we’ve recently been trying to keep in mind (structural weakness and the footwork in release 6 & 8). Altogether mind blowing, but so much fun! We explored the “release” feeling vs the “sticky” feeling for a while.

Then we did all of Junana as a big chain, and began mixing and matching different techniques from here and there in the kata. After that we looked at floating throws, and focused on #17. It was pretty cool: we discovered that it didn’t make too much difference how you float the guy, as long as you float him. Could be the typical kata, or another "whatever-presents-itself" variation.

We ended the class with some fun (as always) randori, and a review of the second part of Ichi kata.

Aikido, 7/2/11

2011-08-03T16:09:00.000-05:00

We started with walking, and I had a ton of mental hiccups. We talked about the cyclic feeling of regression & progress, and about how everything in aikido can be practiced in the walking kata.

We worked on releases, but mine were pretty jacked up for 2 reasons (I think):
1) I was thinking about the "Structural" component (as opposed to just the timing component) Pat introduced the previous week.
2) I was thinking about the footwork for 6 & 8 that Pat "fixed" the previous week. It seemed like this round of releases was worse than before he "fixed" them!
I think I was just thinking about too much. We discussed Thomas Edison's "Failures" as a way to encourage me, haha.

Next we worked on "light touch" wrist releases with an emphasis on connection and sensitivity, and moved into randori with a focus on finding the right times to yield and the right positions to smack.

We worked on junana #17 which is a really weird animal to me. We played with a couple different ways to float uke, including an "aiki-strikey" version.

We looked at ichi kata, and I'm getting a little more familiar with that. We discussed different emphases in teh advanced kata: Big, fast, light, hard, etc.

We also looked at a technique from judo's goshinjitsu and a similar technique from san kata.

We ended with a tricky version of junana #2. It was like a "micro iriminage" and is useful when uke resists being smashed with #2.

Aikido, 6/25/11

2011-07-12T11:04:00.000-05:00

We started with ukemi and walking, then moved on to Releases 1-8. Ever since I’ve been training with Pat, he’s emphasized getting off the line and synching up with uke (evasion and timing). Now he’s introducing another concept to think about: This "mechanical/structural" dynamic. I probably won’t do justice to an explanation, but it involves stepping onto the line of uke’s weakness. Pretty cool, and it has a dramatic effect on kuzushi.

Next we played with the first section (I think) of Ichi Kata, then moved on to Junana #14. While practicing 14, Pat tweaked my footwork in such a way that (at the time I thought) he completely fixed my Release 6 & 8! A quick foot switch seemed to have my R6 & R8 working like magic.

We looked at our “Junana chains” (consisting of Junana 1-5) with an emphasis on finding opportunities for atemi between the techniques. Made some good “aikey-strikey”. Then we did the same thing, but looked for floating throws instead of strikes.

At some point it really struck me how differently various aikido techniques can be applied. It’s like there’s a way to do things with “Oomph” (more muscle, less dependable, but possible), and there’s a way to do them more effortlessly…..more efficiently….more “aiki-like”. And I’m starting to get a peek behind the curtain at how people much farther along than me are doing what appears to be magic. I can’t wait till I’ve been doing this 20 more years.

We ended the class with some fun randori.

Aikido, 6/18/11

2011-06-27T22:18:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know - I'm behind on my training logs again. I'll catch up soon!

We loosened up by walking through a few karate stances before doing tegatana, then moved on to releases. We played with release 7 as a brush-off, and it was surprising how effective it was at creating space. Next we added a "glancing" elbow strike to uke's ribs as we passed under his arm, then played with a "hip chock" to keep uke off of us. It was a great exercise in "aiki-strikey". We played with these "gravy" techniques as alternatives to pushing uke in the face or chest on the way through, which tends to stick your feet and kill your mobility (or at least be less efficient).

Next we played with releases and randori "through a stick" about 2 feet long. Uke and Tori both held one end of the stick rather than each other's wrists. The stick was like a magnifying glass that helped demonstrate principles that are harder to see otherwise. The contact was more "slippery", and it really makes you move your feet correctly. Maybe it was just the stick, but my footwork during randori felt like it was getting better.

We moved on to an introduction to junana 14-17, my next rank material. We played with 14 with an "unhooking him from the ground" feel, 15 with a garuma motion which made it feel WAY lighter and more "aiki-like". We looked at 16 on either footfall, and 17 was just a big puzzle (we explored how it works as an otoshi).

This was one of those mornings I REALLY didn't feel like making the 1.25 hour drive to train, but I'm so glad I did. Seems that's always that's always the way - the classes I don't feel like going to end up being the best ones.

Two

2011-06-11T13:56:00.003-05:00

Since I didn't get around to posting my training log last week, I'll do last week and this week in one post:

6/4/11

We started with tegatana, then did releases 1-8. They're feeling better and better to me.

Next we worked on getting Junana 1-17, all from release 1. Then we did it again, all from release 2. These were really interesting variations, but my feet kept getting stuck due to the unfamiliar footwork.

We worked mostly on Junana 11, 12, and 13, focusing on 13 (with and without the turn).

Next we did a "4 Rule" hand-centering randori exercise that led nicely into free randori to finish the class (if I remember the rules correctly, they were 1) arm can move freely up and down at the shoulder, but not side-to-side. 2) to move to the side, keep center pointed at your "do-ing" hand. 3) if you couldn't, switch hands and keep center pointed at the new "do-ing" hand. 4) If you have a hand free, stick it in your opponent's face).

6/11/11

Short class today, aiki-speaking. We started with tegatana and moved to releases, as always. Next was my nikyu (2nd brown belt) demo. I was pretty comfortable with Junana 1-5 (well, 4 was sloppy), but I rushed number 7, as well as number 12. Otherwise I was mostly happy with it.

After the demo, we played with chaining Junana 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 for a while. We played with a REALLY slick "gravy" technique - slipping a number 3 between 6 and 7. One of my favorite evil tricks! Then we discussed and explored concepts of ma-ai.

At the end we brushed up on karate kihon, as well as tennokata, taikyoku, and a little bit of heian shodan. I plan on beginning to practice karate again on my own time.

Congratulations!

2011-06-02T14:07:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post to congratulate Andy (a buddy and fellow student of Pat's) on his first aikido class (as recounted here).

I know you'll do a great job!

Aikido, 5-28-11

2011-05-28T21:09:00.000-05:00

After a warmup, we did some ukemi, with emphasis on how to teach beginners to fall.

Walking - focus on not lifting my arms while taking a step, per Pat's recent post.

Releases - We did releases 1-8 and they all felt better today than they have in a very long time. Not perfect, but much better. After my recent frustrations with 2, 4, 6, & 8 in particular, it was refreshing to feel more successful. We talked about the evasion step on 6 & 8 not having to be huge, and it helps the footwork when the step is more reasonable. Again we talked about how to approach the first couple of releases with beginners.

We talked about teaching beginners a lot today, because there's a decent chance I'll be starting a club in my area soon (more on that later, we're waiting on a couple of approvals to fall into place, but I have about a dozen people interested). With that in mind, we brushed up on the aiki brush-off (see what I did there?) and Pat's patented "Cow-Catcher" exercise. The brush-off is to create separation, but sometimes it doesn't work so well; the cow catcher is there to salvage that and still create a little distance while staying safe.

Junana 1 (Shomenate) - transitioned from the brush-off to shomenate, again focusing on breaking it down for beginners.

Junana 11 & 12 (Kotehineri and kotegaeshi) - We played mostly with J12 resulting from a not-quite-right J11. Used the cycle of going back and forth from 11 to 12 and back again. I need to remember to move my body correctly in order to maintain good hand position (as opposed to putting my hands in bad/weak positions just to get the grips).

Urawaza - we worked on urawaza for J6 and J11, which just involved stepping on the other side of the line and countering with J6 or 11 as well.

Randori - I'm getting more comfortable doing randori all the time. Not necessarily better, but more comfortable. I'm getting to the point where I feel like I'm learning from it, and not just learning to do it. There was a neat "wrong-handed" hineri that kept showing up today.

Week Off

2011-05-22T19:20:00.001-05:00

No Aikido this week, since Pat's been doing his Koryu Dai Ichi clinic up in OKC at Nick's place. Worked out nicely, since my wife had a beach trip with some girls from church and I was at home with our three-year-old, AND I ended up with a bad sore throat for most of the weekend. It was a nice, long, exhausting weekend and I'm looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow.

Looking forward to resuming next weekend. My wife says several of the ladies that were on the beach trip were pretty interested in learning aikido after hearing her talk about it (and she pretends she's not interested, haha), so we'll see what might develop.

Aikido, 5-16-11

2011-05-14T14:50:00.000-05:00

During Tegatana this morning, we focused on which part of our arms were the points of contact in the pushing motions. That made the floating throws, especially maiotoshi, apparent in the kata.

Next we worked on Releases. I swear sometimes it's like I'm going backwards. I think as I learn more about the techniques and principles, they keep blowing my mind. Shorting it out and resetting it. Of course 6 and 8 were perplexing as always. Now 2 and 4 are also getting to me, haha. We worked on staying in synch (footwork), maintaining connection, and a couple releases from yon kata. Maintaining the connection seems contrary to what my brain wants. It's tough to override the "Oh crap, he's got you, get out of his grip!" instinct. We talked about how it seems like the art is constantly being broken down and rebuilt / rethought as you progress, and that was certainly the case today.

We worked on Junana #11, kotehineri. My footwork is better on my strong side, so I don't have to compensate with my arm as much as I do on the weak side. I need to remember to let uke react; not to try to force the technique or underestimate his evilness or capabilities.

We took a look at the Aikikai version of kotegaeshi, and Pat showed me a version that's sort of a Tomiki/Aikikai hybrid that was pretty neat. We played with it in the context of not being able to get around uke's arm in release 1, and getting this kotagaeshi in the other direction.

Aikido, 5-7-11

2011-05-09T15:27:00.000-05:00

We opened with tegatana, focusing on relaxation and posture.

We played with releases 1-8 for a while, and while certain parts of 6 and 8 still felt better to me, other aspects (that I used to have less trouble with) seemed to give me problems. Sometimes it feels like when one thing gets fixed, it pushes 2 or 3 other things out of line. Ah well, there's time enough to "master" this stuff, right?

We played with our "continuous Junana" cycle, for Junana 1-5. That's really good practice. It just feels way more awkward when done on the weak side.

We looked at a few tai chi exercises to demonstrate deflection, angles, evasion, etc, and that's always neat. This led into a little bit of light randori, and I was amazed at how different randori can feel when you're looking at / thinking of different principles. We stayed in motion, and focused on yielding... "out-wussing" the other guy. You can't always be stronger than your opponent, but you can be weaker - and neat things can happen when you do that. This art continuously blows my mind.

We worked on Junana 11 quite a bit, from the perspective of it being a modified number 6. I need to focus on taking the slack out of uke's arm and pushing through him.

As I'm hitting stride as a sankyu, I'm really struck by how different the art feels now. Pat described the feeling in terms of learning letters, then words, then sentences (and learning to write in cursive somewhere in there). In any case, it definitely feels different. Sankyu feels as different from previous ranks as white belt through green belt felt different from knowing nothing about aikido at all. I'm very excited about where my aiki will go from here.

Aikido, 4-23-11 (Abbreviated)

2011-05-07T14:21:00.000-05:00

Forgot to post a training log for April 23rd, and my memory is foggy. The one thing I do remember is feeling like certain parts of my Release 6 & 8 felt better than they have ......ever! It's mostly in the correct footwork at the correct time. That made a huge difference.

Thursday Thoughts, 4/14/11

2011-04-14T07:09:00.000-05:00

I follow Rener and Ryron Gracie on Twitter (@GracieBrothers), and they tweeted some really interesting statements this morning:

Imagine if the student was not fearful of disappointing the instructor.

Imagine if the student had the freedom to study the art to the extent that they would allow all inferior positions to happen.

The path to black belt can be cut in half.

Aikido, April 9 2011

2011-04-09T19:53:00.000-05:00

Today we did "concrete aikido", out in the driveway. All the unusual aspects of that (wearing shoes, Sloping ground, acorns/debris, gnats and sweat in my eyes, etc) tend to shake things up, which I think is good once in a while, since chances are pretty low I'll be attacked on a mat while I'm barefoot.

Our walking kata was odd - it's tough to "fall into a step" uphill. We also did the kata with a knife in one hand, and that changes it up even more.

Releases were wonky too; for some reason, release 2 gave me fits this morning, and it usually doesn't. We talked about not only getting off the line, but getting out of the "box".

We played with Junana 1-10 with a knife-wielding uke. It was really interesting, and we explored ways to keep the knife at arms length by not engaging shoulder muscles. We talked about how Junana 1 and 2 were pretty much the only things that consistently had a chance for knife defense.

Aikido Buddies Gathering, April 2011

2011-04-03T14:39:00.001-05:00

I was happy to be able to make the Saturday session for this Spring's Aikido Buddies Gathering this weekend. Pat led us in an exploration of 2-hand grabs in Koryu Dai Ichi and we had a really good time playing with it. There was some very cool stuff in there.

Some of the guys from Starkville came down; it was great getting to train with Dr. Usher, Chops, Ross, and Tony. It was nice seeing Andy again too, and training with Jason, Kel, and good to meet Kevin, a striker who's a little new to Aikido.

One of the highlights to me was getting to play almost-full-speed randori with Andy for a while... Pat and I normally practive very slowly, and Pat has probably 20+ years experience on me, so it was nice to see the effect of our normal training expressed in a more chaotic situation with someone closer to my level.

Bottom line: wow, the day was really fun. We ended with Kel's shodan demo and promotion. Big congratulations to him!

Universal

2011-03-22T15:05:00.001-05:00

Pat's Naihanchi stuff this past Saturday was so interesting, it may have renewed my interest in karate. I think I'm going to try to start practicing Ten No Kata again, just to get my feet wet again. It's simple, it's easy, it's......universal?

Evasive Walking

2011-03-22T13:09:00.000-05:00

I just thought of something I forgot to include in my last training log:

Saturday, during our walking kata, the wrong-footed portions felt more awkward to me than they usually do. So we spent more time on them, and talked about hip switches, ranges of motion, foot placement, etc. But the big "sticking point" for me was the "helicopter" motion (the first wrong-footed turn).

It turns out I've been leaving out the evasion aspect of that step and just doing a mechanical set of motions. When Pat emphasized the initial motion as an evasion, it made way more sense to me, and felt much better than it has in the past.

Back to Blogging

2011-03-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

Well, after a while away and a false start or two, I'm gonna try blogging again with regard to my martial art studies. These really are the times that try men's souls; I have a job that keeps me busier than ever, a car that keeps giving me trouble, aches, pains, and general ailments. In a word, life.

Speaking of my martial studies, for the reasons listed above and more, I haven't been as consistent as I should have been. Part of that has been circumstances, part of it just some laziness I suppose. Maybe I need a good dose of a freezing waterfall in my undies or something.

My last post was about how I was all committed to training at the Shotokan Karate place, but I've since given that up, haha. I think they liked to "play Japanese" too much for me there. Yes, the training was tough, but I wasn't inclined to keep going there if they insisted on playing "warrior-monk".

I have continued training Aikido with Pat, albeit way too sporadically. Hopefully that will improve soon. I'm a sankyu (third brown) now, so if I can get my rear in gear, I might be looking at shodan sometime in 2012. Not that it matters...

So this past weekend, Pat and I worked on releases quite a bit. Big takeaways:
--- In Release 1, I need to stay centered behind my hand and push, not try to push uke sideways with my arm (using my shoulder muscle - duh!). Pat tweaked this for me and it made good sense. Hopefully it will stick!
--- Dare I hope Pat was able to fix my Release 6?!? Six (and eight) have been problematic for me since day one. Pat tweaked my footwork and the timing of my turn (and pointed out the need for some urgency when my back is to uke) that felt like it did the trick! Also pointed out a bit of the hip-switch in the walking kata that appears in Six. I felt better about that release maybe than I ever have.

From releases, we went into randori. I feel like I'm getting a little better at yielding. At least I think it kept me out of a particular bind I normally get myself into.

Lastly, we played with karate's Naihanchi kata, which fits surprisingly well with Aikido. I'm always amazed at the inter-relatedness of that martial arts. Truly genius.

Karate, 8/30/10 (and Beyond)

2010-09-02T08:37:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months I’ve been reevaluating my judo training. I’ve been training aikido and judo concurrently, and two things became apparent to me:

1) I enjoy aikido waaaay more than I enjoy judo
2) I think I’m much slower on the uptake in judo than aikido.

So I needed to decide if I wanted to work harder at something I don’t enjoy as much? Or do I spend more time doing what I enjoy more? Or replace judo with another art while continuing my aikido training? I’ve always been very interested in karate – even more so after getting an idea of Pat’s take on it. I’ve decided to continue weekly aikido lessons, and half the time, double the lesson length. The other half of the time (roughly) Pat and I will train karate. So basically I’ll do two karate sessions with Pat per month, give or take. In addition, I signed up for a 3 month membership at a local Shotokan club. I made that decision for a few reasons:

1) It’s local; I can go one or two nights per week by literally driving 10 minutes from where I work. Maybe less. So I can get some mid-week training/exercise. Pat’s dojo is an hour and 15 minutes from my home; even farther from work. It’s not feasible to go to a midweek class there.

2) I figure I can train in the Shotokan school, but my karate will be mainly informed by Pat, who I know has closer ideals in martial arts to my own. So while my body will be training Shotokan, my mind will train Pat-Ryu karate, haha. Not that the two are all that different. But application of kata etc, doesn’t seem to be taught there, at least until after shodan.

3) It’s a way to get some really good mid-week exercise doing something more interesting than running on the treadmill.

This past Monday was my first class at the Shotokan school. I’ll be keeping training logs for my time there as well. I’ll start by saying that the class was a lot more physically demanding than it looked when I observed a couple of times. Sure, I saw people sweating and breathing heavily, but for some reason, I didn’t figure it could be all that bad.

Class began with a light warmup, followed by some simple punching and blocking combos from horse stance and front stance. This is a whole new set of movements that I’m almost entirely unfamiliar with. Keeping up was a challenge, but I guess that will improve. I think the biggest obstacle for me is my legs. It takes mere minutes in a stance for my quadriceps to begin burning like crazy. I guess I’m especially weak there. No kidding, I simply couldn’t stay in the stances as long as I was supposed to. I had to either relax and stand up out of the stance or risk falling down. I’m certain strength will develop over time, and I really hope it does soon.

The next part of class, I and two other brand new students were taken to the side by three black belts to learn the very basics. This was encouraging; I’m glad they didn’t just throw us in the deep end and leave us to figure it out. On the other hand, while I’m grateful for the black belt that worked with me personally, he could have been a bit more understanding of my newness. Ah well … if they’re expecting an “old head on young shoulders” it will be an opportunity for them to learn patience. The guy also kept insisting I stay in that deep stance the entire time. I told him “I’ll get there, but I can’t maintain it the whole time just yet”. He said “You have to stay down in it – it will make you stronger.” Yeah, I get that. But I’m a grown man, and I (mostly) know my limits. And if I could refer him to the FAQ on the club’s website…

Do I need to be in good shape to start karate? No. The beginning classes focus on the basics and correct form. With effort, your fitness will improve as your expertise improves.

I’m not trying to whine. I understand it takes hard work, which I’m willing to commit to. It’s just going to take a little while to get in shape.

I’m trying to get my impressions down rather than go into detail about the techniques; they were just the very basics, which I’ll continue to work on.

Another observation: this club is pretty “traditional” in their training (in the misinformed Western sense of the word….sorry to be cynical). Anyway, I’m studying karate strictly for self defense value. I do enjoy the rich history and some of the culture, but don’t feel the need to “play Japanese” in order to accomplish my goals. I’ll just say this: Saying “OSS” (however it’s spelled) all the time has nothing to do with self defense. I’m sure there will be lots of ideological differences between me and the teachers in the club. But if the karate is good, and it appears to be, I can eat the melon and spit out the seeds. And it's good exercise if nothing else.

Aikido (and a bit of Karate), 8/28/2010

2010-08-30T16:51:00.002-05:00

We started with tegatana. A little faster than usual again. I was thinking about the difference between “falling into a step” and “driving” a step with the “back” leg. It’s a tough thing to make my body to do that. I also noticed something about the “helicopter” step, the second turn; I’ve always done it trying to lift my arm during a body drop (while taking a step). I noticed Pat doing it differently, and I’ll be working on that for a while.

We went through releases, focusing on 2 and 6. We also looked at 4’s relationship to 8 and a lot of other things: release 1 into release 2, into a kotegaeshi or a release 6. Then a release 3 into release 4, into a release 8.

Next we played some randori with releases 1 and 3 as a loose “baseline”, and saw lots of other things show up.

Somehow this blended well into a bear hug escape/defense/counter, and defense against a double wrist grab from the rear. We took this into a sort of pseudo-karate class, ending with a couple kihon.

Aikido, 8-14-10

2010-08-21T09:19:00.001-05:00

We did our walking kata twice. I tried moving from the center like I re-read recently in Nick’s Aikido book. Pat reminded me of the “keel” idea to help accomplish that. Without trying to sound too spooky new-age here, it’s crazy how different visualizations can make a difference in your movement. The second time through, we tried to imagine our “off” hand being the “doing” hand. That makes a big difference. We noted how that made the “hip switch” part of the kata feel like honasu #2 and #4 at the same time.

Next we worked on releases, focusing on #3 and being in inferior positions. This led to an introduction to “Ichi kata”, a more rarely practiced kata among our Tomiki brethren. Within the techniques in ichi kata, we explored a few concepts, like tori moving his body rather than trying to force uke to move his. This was mind blowing for me, and reeked of the essence of aiki. It was one of those huge revelations that I must have been told 50 times, but I’m just now seeing it. We also looked at the “90 degree principle”, and Pat reminded me that 90 degrees from any direction exists on multiple planes. In other words, if uke resists along the Y axis, he’s weak along the X axis…BUT he’s also weak along the Z axis! Wow.

We ended the lesson with a few minutes of Hubud drilling, and a discussion of the hammer fist (wrist release) bunkai from karate’s heian shodan kata, and bunkai from the punches in sanchin. The latter led to some verrrrrrrrry cool wrist locks and striking opportunities. The withdrawal of the punch uses the “off” hand to either scrape off a grab or lock up uke’s wrist from a wrist grab. I love this stuff.

Judo, 8-7-10

2010-08-18T21:16:00.001-05:00

We started out with ukigoshi. I felt only the tiniest bit better about it than I used to. This throw always gives me fits.

Seoinage was next. This is also a tough one for me. So many things to remember! I need to get lower and closer to uke.

We looked at a trick to defeat someone’s stiff arm: slap the stiff arm for the seoinage, and if it doesn’t go, circle back the other way for a sode.

This led into a discussion about bunkai for the first couple of steps of heian shodan (karate kata), of all things! I won’t even try to explain how, but the two were pretty similar. We ended up playing with that bunkai for almost the rest of our time, and man it’s cool. For the last part of the lesson, we looked at the first few movements in sanchin kata and associated bunkai.

I’ll post more on this later, but karate is becoming more and more interesting to me these days, for a few reasons.

Aikido, 8-7-10

2010-08-16T09:11:00.001-05:00

I’m behind on my training logs for this weekend because I temporarily misplaced my notes. Imagine the wealth of knowledge that would have been lost to history had these documents not been recovered.

That morning was one of those times I really felt like staying in bed. I’m so glad I went to train though, because it was a really fun lesson.

We started with a faster-than-normal tegatana. I noted it was tougher to keep my balance when going faster. Pat’s remedy: Be sure to get my feet and center under me as soon as possible. Like when you balance a broom on your hand. You don’t try to swing the top of the broom to a balanced position, you move the bottom under it.

Next we worked on releases, and we did those more quickly than usual as well. We looked at being wrong-footed (in synch, but out of “phase”) with uke, and how the problem could be solved by simply turning around. This is tough to explain without demonstrating it, but let me try: If you’re following (flowing/fitting with) uke and you’re stepping with your left foot while he’s stepping with his right foot, you could A) do a shuffle step to get in matching step with him (but that adds more chaos to the relationship) or you could B) change your relationship to him by turning to face him. You don’t miss a beat and it’s a very natural, aiki-like fix to the problem.

We moved on to reviewing Ju Nana 6 – 10. My oshi taoshi (#6) is feeling better than it ever has, I think (not that I’m an expert – it’s all relative), and I’m starting to see it show up a little more when I’m goofing off with friends and not looking for it.

We looked at how ude gaeshi (#7) can be sort of like kote gaeshi, depending on if you’re rotating around uke’s wrist or his elbow. I’ve been tending more toward the wrist lately, but will remind myself that #7 is an elbow thing and correct it.

Hiki taoshi (#8) didn’t feel as good as #6, but it did feel better than it has in the past. Of the rank material I'm working on now (#6 - 10), this is the one I feel least comfortable with (aside from just remembering enteries, etc). I think I just need more reps with this one.

Ude hineri (#9) was easy enough; we looked at it as sort of a get-out-of-the-way #8.

We looked at a couple of variations of waki gatame (#10). A “classic” evasion version vs. a “crash into the guy” version. We explored #10’s relationship to #8; In #8, both of tori’s hands are in “pushing” positions. In #10, one hand is in a pushing posture and the other is in a pulling position, so you extend uke along the arm (like thrusting a spear) rather than across it (like in #8). Really interesting. We also looked at the importance of continuous motion during #10 to keep uke from regaining a stable base or scooping your legs. Sort of a “walking gatame”, har-har!

Thursday Thoughts, 7/22/10

2010-07-22T08:21:00.004-05:00

"Flexibility without strength is instability"

I heard some yoga teacher on television say this and it stuck. I'm naturally very flexible, but pretty out of shape. I need to correct that. I've been interested in doing some yoga anyway.

Mysteries

2010-07-18T21:55:00.000-05:00

Life is full of things that are simple, yet profound. I found one such dichotomy in the BLT I made for supper tonight. It increased my faith, it was that good. Nothing special; toasted bread, mayo, and the aforementioned B, L, and T. Oh, I did cook the tomatoes a little in the bacon grease, but only a little.

Nom nom nom.

Aikido Playday, 7-17-10

2010-07-17T18:49:00.000-05:00

Today we had an all day aikido playday at the dojo. Lots of people were invited to share their magic with the rest of us. The only instructer that showed up besides Pat was a super nice guy named Tony, who's had experience in not only aikido, but wing chun, tai chi, and kali. I'll go ahead and admit right up front that we covered a wide variety of things today, so there's no way I can touch on everything; I'll just hit a couple of high points.

We started out with releases into ukemi to warm up. We pretty quickly moved into a (CMA flavored) variation of Pat's "cow catcher" as an entry to a one-handed shihonage. This was fun to play with, partly because we were working it as a defense against a traditional punch (as opposed to aikido's zombie arm attack), and with more speed. It was neat (encouraging) to see and feel the thing work against a more realistic attack.

After we came back from lunch, we explored some kali stuff for fun. I noticed an odd similarity between the "Heaven 6" kali drill we learned and our movements for shomenate. We also looked at some stick disarms.

One other thing I noticed; one of the attendees was one of Pat's other judo students, who's had no experience with aikido. So during our first exercise, ukemi out of releases, I needed to show him release 1. While I'd love to pass on the art someday as a teacher, that brief experience (before Pat thankfully stepped in and did his thing) showed me how far I have to go; I was not explaining the thing successfully. At this point, I can barely do the stuff, much less teach someone else to do it. Maybe one day.

It was a fun time, and a really great day. Thanks for putting this together, Pat.

Thursday Thoughts, 7/15/10

2010-07-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

"Your name, for better or worse, is associated with your dojo and not just for the technical teaching that goes on there. You do not get to choose who will make that association and how it will be done."

~Dave Lowry

The Karate Way; Discovering the Spirit of Practice

Aikido, 7/10/10

2010-07-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

So I finally made the return trip to Pat's. The dojo was being painted, so we trained out in the driveway. We started out with tegatana no kata, and it's a whole different thing when you're doing it on sloped concrete, with shoes on. We did one rep, then turned 90 degrees and did it again. Changing the slope affected the kata as well. I told Pat a few months ago that I hated tegatana; now I feel like that was more of a temporary spat. I'm not gonna say I'm in love with it, but I don't feel like I hate it any more.

We moved on to Releases, 1-8. I am very rusty, as I suspected. We focused on #2. We looked at how when you emphasize the "up" motion in that release (and #4 for that matter), it makes it much harder for uke to turn back around toward you.

Pat transitioned from Release 2 into Ju Nana #15, Maeotoshi. If you look at the brief "up moment" in maeotoshi as being at the top of a hill with uke, I kept trying to push him down off the hill. If I do that, uke has a chance to react or respond to what I'm doing, and compensate for it. However, if I just hang out with uke until he makes the move to get down, I can respond to that and take advantage of it to "send him on his way." This idea of letting him do what he wants to do rather than trying to force him into what I want him to do seems like the very essence of aiki to me. Incidentally, I found that tactile sensitivity was required to do this best. When I tried to guess when he was going to "come down" it didn't work so well - but when I felt when he was coming down through my connection to him, I got better results.

"Your eyes can deceive you... don't trust them"

~ Obi-Wan Kenobi

Next Pat previewed Ju Nana 16 and 17 for me, then backed up and we took a quick look at 11 through 14.

We ended our lesson with a discussion of karate, and had a brief look at Sanchin kata.

Back Again

2010-07-11T14:40:00.001-05:00

Where do I start? My training has been very topsy-turvy the past few months. I'll try to summarize what's been happening.

Since I've been training at Pat's, I've been getting up at 5:30am most Saturdays, and driving almost an hour and a half to his dojo (one-way). That drive began to get really old. So four or five months ago, I made the difficult decision to stop training there, at least temporarily, but possibly for good. I was still training BJJ at the local Gracie Barra school at the time, and thought I would a) get out of BJJ what I loved about judo, and b) be able to just discontinue my aikido training.

I was wrong on both counts. Training at the GB school wasn't like training at Pat's. I've since stopped training there for two main reasons: First, on the nights I trained, I didn't see my lettle girl at all. I left for work before she was awake, and got home after she was asleep. That's okay for some people, but I didn't like it. I spend enough time away from my family during the day, for my taste. Secondly, I was tired of rolling with people who didn't wash their gis. It seemed like a third of the people I rolled with there smelled like sour milk.....or worse. I didn't want to learn the art that badly.

As far as thinking I'd be able to cope with not training aikido any more, that was just silly thinking. Aikido is what I consider my "main" discipline (even though I'm still pretty new), and by far my favorite.

I addition, I felt Pat's philosophy of martial arts in general lined up with my own, and that's not something that's easy to find, especially not around here.

So after much consideration, I decided it was indeed worth it to continue making the drive to Pat's every week. Maybe all I needed was a break to get a second wind. But once the decision was made to resume, for several weeks, things kept coming up that prevented me from returning. Talk about discouraging.

But the encouraging thing is I'm back. I made it back to the dojo yesterday for the first time in four or five months, and it was great. I'll return to posting regular training logs and other stuff on this new blog.

There are lots of exciting things coming up in terms of my training, our dojo, and our organization, that I'll touch on when the times are right. For now, stay tuned.

It's really good to be back.

~todd

BJJ, 2/23/10

2010-02-24T12:47:00.002-06:00

I’ve never choked someone completely unconscious…until last night...

Last night I decided to go to our school’s “BJJ Fundamentals” class instead of the regular class. I really enjoyed it. The format was laid-back, and the Professor went over some very basic concepts. We worked on the basic collar choke, and looked at key details for making it work. These included the deepness of the grip, turning your thumbs toward the guy’s head, turning your knuckles toward you, how to grab his shoulder over the top if he’s blocking your second hand (hard to explain by typing), and “answering the phone” or ducking under to defend against the choke. We also worked on 2 butterfly guard passes, one as a response to bottom guy trying to choke you. I need to remember that if I’m in someone’s butterfly guard, I want to get them on their back, and not let them sit up (but careful not to push in a way that exposes my arms to attacks).

The fundamentals class doesn’t include rolling, just instruction, and drilling the basics. While we were drilling the standard choke, we did so from standing, just to work on the details. On one rep, I apparently accidentally got the choke correct right off the bat, because my partner evidently didn’t have time to tap. I was about to ask him “Do I not have the choke? Am I missing something?” when he crumbled to the floor, unconscious. He was an older guy, so I was worried about what might have happened – not a good feeling! Thankfully he was fine, if a bit confused. He got up looking like he didn’t know where he was. I kept apologizing to him, because this was his first class, and assured him I had no idea I had put it on him like that. He was gracious, and a good sport. I can laugh about it now, but I felt horrible about it last night.

I'm becoming more dangerous by the day, haha.

Judo, 2/6/10

2010-02-23T20:20:00.001-06:00

Still behind on some posts, but catching up…

In our Judo lesson, we worked on our 3 entries to hip throws (mostly uchikomi). That’s what we ended up working on for most of the lesson. We did play with Osotogari a little, with the same three entries, then we looked at a combo for a little while: failed hip throw, to ouchi, to kouchi.

Lastly, we worked on something from goshin jutsu that’s sort of like a shomenate/osotogari hybrid that felt completely, incredibly bad@$$. Taking a fall from a normal osoto is bad enough, but at least you have tori’s gi to hold on to. Not so with this technique. It’s would be a bad fall to take full force, at least at my skill level of ukemi.

Aikido, 2/6/10

2010-02-21T19:01:00.001-06:00

Okay, I'm really behind on posting lately, but I'll catch up this week. I have an additional aikido, and 2 judo posts to write. So here are my notes on our aikido lesson from February 6::::

We started with Tegatana. Pat said he was thinking about the need to get the following foot back under your center quickly. He gave some examples of how this shows up in karate as well. It’s funny how throughout the rest of the morning, this idea came up again and again, both in our Aikido lesson and Judo.

We went through releases 1-8, camping out on #4, which I seemed to be okay at that day. I was only thinking about timing it with uke’s footfall, and it seemed to make a big difference. We camped on 4 and 8 for quite a while. Numbers 6 and 8 usually give me trouble, so we looked at what was causing my feeling of “discontinuity” during those techniques. I think my steps have been going something like “Left, right, right” on those, instead of “left, right, left, right”. Once we dealt with that I started getting better results. It sort of went back to Pat’s “Happy Feet” idea.

Then we played with variations of #4, leading into Chain #4. We finished up class with some light randori.

You know how when you eat an incredibly rich dish, it’s really good, but so good you can barely eat it? That’s sort of how both our Aikido and Judo lessons were that morning – so chock full of savory richness I don’t think I retained most of it. Hopefully it will stick in my subconscious though. ;o)

BJJ, 1/26/10

2010-01-27T10:43:00.001-06:00

Last night I debated on whether or not to go to class. Right before class I got a splitting headache, but since I missed last week, I forced myself to go. In retrospect, it may have been better to skip – I don’t think I’m 100% bounced back from some sinus/cold crud I’ve been fighting nearly all of January. Consequently the intense physicality of the BJJ class seemed to wear me out more quickly and more thoroughly last night than usual. But, I persevered almost until the end. I sat out the last 2 rounds of rolling because my headache was getting worse, and I just didn’t have any more energy.

One of the blue belts was working with a couple other noobs before class on sweeps, and I joined them. He had us drilling the Elevator sweep, and the Scissor sweep. They do the Scissor sweep a little differently here than what I’m used to. We started class with a more-vigorous-than-usual warmup, and our normal armbar drills from guard and mount. Then we worked on a Single-leg / Fireman’s carry takedown. I was doing it wrong, in that the guy kept ending up behind me. When the instructor did it, he was ending up almost in kesagatame with the guy. I may have started to improve a little with later reps. It’s going to take more drilling to develop the feel for that thing. Next we worked on how to transition from that setup into a double-leg takedown, in the event your opponent resists the single-leg.

We moved on to groundwork next. We worked on a basic Butterfly sweep, then a drill for passing the Butterfly guard. Butterfly guard is brand new territory for me, so it was pretty awkward.

I rolled with a couple of blue belts at the end of class, and feel like I fared better than I have been, although obviously, they’re not going 100% on me. They’re still trying to teach me, which I appreciate. In particular, I feel I did a better job of not being flat on my back, (although sometimes there was nothing I could do about it). Also, Pat showed me something last week that helped me a bit when trying to shrimp to guard; I mentioned in another blog post about moving the top half of my body to get better angles and get my knee in. I saw some success with that last night that I’m sure will improve with practice. There were also some things I feel I did worse this time: namely remembering to relax and breathe, and to not trying to muscle my opponent so much (which gets me exhausted more quickly).

Aikido, 1/23/10

2010-01-24T09:27:00.001-06:00

Yesterday we did nothing but aikido, to balance last week's all-judo class. We did a quick review of Junana 1-10, then Pat previewed 11-17 for me (Actually, it was all of Nijusan, but I'm still a little unclear as to where the extra techniques are, so I still tend to think in terms of "junana").

I've seen 11-17 before, but never played with them much. I look forward to getting into those. After running through all 17, we went back and practiced 6-10 in more detail, since those are the ones I'll need to demo for 3rd brown belt.

I'm always amazed by how robust the system is. Pat and I talked about how you have all these techniques that live in different places, but there are many roads to get to each of them. Some roads are cruddy, muddy dirt roads (less likely), others are nice paved highways (more likely/common).

That discussion led into a brief practice of Chain 1, then lots of randori. Little by little, chains and randori are making more sense to me. Pat talked about how in chains, we explore the common things that happen - the probable. But in randori, we can explore anything that might happen - the possible. He talked about how I shouldn't worry about forcing myself stop making mistakes, but to let them happen so my mind can learn the consequences and teach itself.

Judo, 1/16/10

2010-01-23T20:34:00.001-06:00

For this class we didn't both an aikido and judo lesson - we did all judo. We went through everything we've covered in the syllabus thus far, and wow: it's a lot of stuff (with way more to come)!

I won't burden you with the exhaustive list though. I seem to have lost the notes I took right after class, so I'll just touch on what sticks out in my mind.

For one thing, ukigoshi is still my least favorite throw - because it's the one I'm worst at. Pat commented that my brown belt throws are better than my green belt throws, which really shouldn't be, haha.

As far as ground work, I felt better about that stuff, and after reviewing everything, Pat helped me out with a tip for making my knee/elbow escape from the bottom easier. I gotta remember to move the top half of my body too! I've been neglecting that the whole time.

This class brought me to 50% of my class requirements for 3rd brown. Do I feel like I'm 50% ready to demo my current rank requirements? For some things, yes, for others no. I just use that as a rough guide anyway - Pat will have to be the judge of how ready I am at what time. In any case, it was a great class, as usual.

More BJJ

2010-01-13T11:14:00.001-06:00

Last night there were a ton of people in class. One of the teacher’s affiliate schools lost their facility recently, so that class joined ours. After our warmup, we drilled a handful of ways to break our opponent’s grip when he’s defending against an armbar.

At first we looked at where on his arm to put pressure when pulling. We also talked about timing; that is, waiting until he tries to re-establish his grip, when the situation calls for it (if you have time). We practiced pulling his far arm toward the arm we’re after, and that was pretty neat. We worked on a wristlock to “encourage” him to let go. We also worked on a variation of pushing his far bicep with your foot. It’s hard to explain, but you push with the top of your foot, not the sole – and it can set up a triangle or an armbar if he happens to escape. Verrrrrry cool, but I really need more practice drilling this. Lastly, we worked on something Pat’s shown me before – rolling or falling “north” with their arm to turn their resistance from a “bicep thing” to a weird “rotator cuff thing”. Really effective.

For the live rolling portion of the class, I rolled with a blue belt, who made me feel like I was sitting still, a 4-stripe white belt that was lively and challenging, a new white belt who had youth and speed on his side (but I fared okay), and a new white belt who, it turns out, has lots of no-gi experience. I was dominated in 3 of the 4 rounds. But all I’m concentrating on right now is defense. I’m just focusing on breathing, relaxing, and not getting submitted.

First BJJ Class

2010-01-09T15:10:00.001-06:00

Earlier this week, I was too sick to start at the BJJ school I just joined. I'm pretty much over my sickness, but I didn't want to go to Mokuren (Pat's) dojo and risk having a relapse due to the cold weather (it's almost the same temperature in Pat's dojo as it is outside, and it was freezing this morning).

I was pretty disappointed about missing, judo and aikido (again) with Pat, so I decided to go do BJJ. My buddy told me they were running the heater in there at the class I missed, so I figured I could stay out of the cold, and still get a little practice.

We started with a short warmup, that nearly finished me, haha. I'm still pretty out of shape. Following the warmup we did armbar drills from the mount and from guard. After that, Rafael taught 3 variations of the D'Arce choke, which we drilled repeatedly with partners. This was a brand new one for me, and pretty awkward. I worked with Jason, the owner of the gym and a blue belt under Rafael.

After drilling was over, it was time for live rolling. All of the guys knew I was new, so they didn't go 100% against me. Most of them didn't anyway. Rafael worked with me first to show some fundamentals. Next I rolled with my namesake, who's only been doing BJJ for a couple of months, but he's extremely athletic, and he doesn't get tired. He busted my lip (I think with his elbow), but I'm sure it was unintentional. That's a difference I'm seeing between judo and BJJ - in my judo lessons (and, from what I've read, in many other judo schools), we aren't always going at 100%. In fact sometimes, we roll as low as 25%, as an alternative way to learn. I find slowing things down helps. But these BJJ guys go all out. It's a "learn by doing" mentality, I think. Incidentally, the same teaching philosophy kept me from ever taking swimming lessons as a kid - I heard they just throw you in the deep end and let you figure it out. That's pretty much how these guys roll. Having said that, most of them did take it a little easier on me, knowing I was new.

For the third and fourth rounds, I rolled with a guy named Robbie, a 4-stripe white belt. I really like Robbie - he's been doing BJJ for about a year, but he practices all the time. He strikes me as a guy who's come a long way, and wants to help other new players along too. Humble, friendly, and helpful. Before rolling, Robbie urged me to worry about nothing besides keeping my elbows in, and my knees if I could, and to focus on breathing and relaxing. Robbie was surprisingly smooth for only having done this a year.

Lastly, I rolled with another white belt. He tried to teach me stuff as well, but he was also a little rough. Right off the bat, he slapped an armbar on me, and it was just about too fast for me to tap before it hurt. One thing I'm not willing to do in order to learn BJJ is risk injury. I think people should have a little more control, and a little more respect than to even get close to hurting their partner, but I suppose some players are more...."enthusiastic" (immature?) than others. Maybe I'm just kind of a wuss...maybe I just don't get what's going on...but I just hope when I advance, I'm more like Robbie to the noobs, and don't feel the need to show off my "powers".

When I got home, my wife looked at my busted lips, strawberry on my forehead, and various bruises and said "Did you get in a fight?". I just smiled and said it was fun.

I can definitely see how rolling with different people of different skill levels is going to help my ground game. All in all, it was a great time. Did I like it as much as my aikido and judo lessons? Not really, but I do look forward to the next class.

Judo, 1/2/10

2010-01-02T17:21:00.001-06:00

We began with our footsweep control drill. We practiced controlling uke's foot on the verge of him losing control (and "spasming" in sort of a panic). This is tough to explain.

Next we played with okuri ashi harai from more of a deahi setup. We spent some time talking about the differences between deashi and okuri ashi. Okuri ashi is still like a big tangled mess in my mind...well, the throw itself isn't, but the principles we're looking for in it are still kind of new to me. You ever have a friend driving a car, and you're trying to get into it, but he keeps moving it just enough to keep you from it? That's how this stuff is for me lately (but Pat's not doing it to mess with me, haha). Down/up timing. Ugh. Feet moving together / moving apart timing. Ugh. Deashi form with okuri ashi timing. Ugh. Timing, timing, timing! It may take me a while to internalize this stuff, but it's vital that I do. Reminds me of a CS Lewis quote: "As long as you're counting the steps, you're not dancing - you're learning to dance". Here's a nice video by Nick Lowry and co. It's pretty much exactly what we worked on:

At the end of class, Pat introduced me to Judo's Goshin Jutsu. I love that stuff! I think he's going to try to work in more of it each week now. Today we worked on the first technique shown in the video below. Then Pat previewed what we'll look at next week (the 2nd technique in the video):

Aikido, 1/2/10

2010-01-02T11:49:00.001-06:00

We started with a couple reps of tegatana no kata. Pat talked about how everything can be broken down into 3 parts: beginning, middle, and end, and how you can use this method to troubleshoot things that aren't working for you.

Next we did releases. Pat said mine were pretty good today. It's rare that they feel good to me, so it's nice when it happens. Number 6 and 8 work so much better when evasion is my initial response. Hey, I guess maybe sometimes I try to just "do a number 6", for example, and get screwed up. When I remember what's going on in the first part (see paragraph above), it helps with the rest of it!

Pat talked about how ma-ai is sort of an elastic thing. Our kata practice from ma-ai develops our sense of that distance, but attackers don't usually start from a static position exactly at ma-ai like when we practice. I need to be moving/evading by the time uke crosses ma-ai. People attack through ma-ai, not from ma-ai. Pat showed a couple of tricks attackers can use to "cheat" inside ma-ai a bit. One is moving off to an angle, and cheating in a little bit. At first it still looks to tori like uke is at ma-ai, but he's closer; think about the tori/uke relationship during shomenate. Lowering your posture can also help cheat ma-ai a good bit. Neat.

To play with this "dynamic ma-ai", we did releases again, but this time, tori continued his momentum, continuing to move around through each successive release. Kind of how we played with it a couple of weeks ago.

Next we used the Aiki Brush-Off to look at dynamic ma-ai. We worked on brushing off to just outside of ma-ai, which only took a couple of steps. By the time you brush-off to a couple of steps away, you know whether you can safely run away, or if you need to "do something" to the attacker. I was also reminded not to try to run away backwards. /blush

Oh, and this month, Pat's got us doing everything left-handed. Makes it interesting....

Happy and Humbled

2010-01-01T19:54:00.001-06:00

I got a great feeling this week, and thought I'd post about it.

I've written about my buddy Josh, who I work with and train BJJ with. We've been friends since we were kids, and our families remain friends to this day. Josh has always been into martial arts. In fact, he was mostly responsible for me even giving grappling a second thought (I never really intended to train in judo until the last year or two). Way back in the day, Josh trained judo at the dojo at which I would eventually come to begin training in aikido. His only exposure to aikido was what he saw on the mats while warming up for judo classes.

For as long as I can remember, Josh has had a familiar mantra: "BJJ is superior to all other martial arts. Period." For the past couple of years as I've practiced aikido, Josh has always sort of made fun of it, "attacking" me with his "zombie arm" out in front of him, walking like Frankenstein. I never really try to convince people otherwise - I can understand what aikido looks like from the outside. I can see how it's so often misunderstood.

A couple of months ago, I got a job with the company Josh works for. In fact, my cubicle is right next to his. During occasional down times, we'll goof around and pretend to fight; everything from "Jim Carey stiff-arm knife attacks" to old-school karate kata and one-steps we remember from childhood. Just goofing off. Inevitably, Josh attacks me "aikido-style", and I usually do something from 1-9 of junana hon kata (such as I can). We just mess around and have fun.

This past couple of weeks, being so near the holidays, have been really slow at work. Wednesday afternoon, we ended up playing around again. I kept doing shomenate, and to my great surprise, Josh asked me to show him what I was doing. I explained that ideally, my reaction to an attacker getting a "certain distance" from me, would be to step off the line and get my hands up. Then I could do whatever the attacker "wanted" me to (once I'm proficient, that is) - get away, knock him down, lock him up, etc.

So while I gave a "lesson" on shomenate (and tried to give a little lesson on aiki in general), I quoted Pat: "In this situation, you might be able to do something to me, but you're going to have to do it while you're flying backwards."

Josh, being practically-minded, wanted to test the validity of what we were doing. So once we did a few reps, he started trying to figure out what he, as an attacker, could do to counter or nullify what I was doing to him. It turns out the harder he tried to press the attack, the worse his condition became, and he could tell that if we were doing this at a "realistic" speed, he would be knocked down easily (even though he's much stronger than I am, and very athletic).

I was happy he showed some interest in aikido. I always like the chance to talk about it. We left it at that. After we left work, I got a text from him: "Man, you've got me interested in aikido now". I texted back: "It really is extremely neat/interesting. And way more practical than it looks on the surface." Josh: "Yeah, I just realized how practical. Changed my whole view just now." Me: "Now you're just teasing me." Josh: "No. I'm being serious. I saw some things when we were practicing."

We had lunch together the next day. I asked him to elaborate on what he saw in our aikido practice. Josh is the kind of guy that was pretty... "adventurous" when he was younger. By that I mean he was in a ton of fights. Bar room brawls, road rage fights, etc (he's much more mature now, and less of a hot-head). He explained how just from shomenate, he could remember so many situations where he could have defended himself more successfully if he'd known aikido. He also said he could see how his wife would be able to use it to defend herself, even though she's just a slip of a girl. I told him the story of how my petite wife was able to drop another one of my friends with aikido when we were both training together (he asked her for a "lesson", haha). He said he could see how aikido might be the most practical art for real self defense.

It really does seem like his attitude toward aikido has turned around 180 degrees. It's pretty thrilling to me - and humbling that my aikido...which is no more than a couple years old, could make such a drastic difference in someone's opinion about the art. It's encouraging.

Study Group, 12/30/09

2009-12-30T22:33:00.001-06:00

Josh and I drilled a little more tonight. We had to cut it short (1 hour) due to me hurting my elbow (wow, and it hurt like the dickens!), but I'll note what we did get to work on.

We started out by warming up with several reps of the armbar drill I mentioned in my last post, only this time, I did it very slowly, focusing on 1) breathing (I always tend to hold my breath during this drill, and indeed during lots of randori too - I have to break that habit), 2) control (of my body, with my legs), and 3) smoothness. I only did 20 or 30 tonight.

Next, we took a look at Saulo's first sweep on his "Guard" DVD (from the first Jiujitsu Revolution series). It's a response to top guy trying to break your guard with his knee in your butt. I couldn't do it well at first, but after a few reps, and trial-and-error to see what I was missing, I got it (well enough to add the drill to my routine, anyway).

During the course of our drilling, we sometimes drift into very light randori, just to break it up. It was at this point I hurt my elbow. It wasn't due to a submission, or crank...we weren't being stupid or playing too rough...it just happened. Wrong angle bearing weight, at the wrong time got me hurting badly enough to call an early end to our activities for the evening.

We decided to try some things that didn't involve my elbow (as long as no pressure was on it, it was fine). So, I got Josh in my guard, and let him try to figure out how to break it. This turned out to be very informative for both of us; Josh has always had trouble breaking my guard when I've decided to keep it closed. Lots of trouble. I was beginning to think I had some sort of magic guard, at least against him, and other small-ish guys. However, we discovered that Josh (and most other guys I roll with) tend to try to break it in one direction - to my right. Turns out I'm strong that way. Tonight it occurred to Josh to try it the other way (toward my left). My legs popped open like a (insert your own colorful metaphor here)!! So we discovered a tendency to be aware of, and I've discovered a weakness in my guard that needs to be overcome or compensated for. We decided to drill passes in both directions from now on.

We called it quits after that so I could get some ice on my elbow. I really hope it's better soon - we're scheduled to begin BJJ at the Gracie Barra school on Tuesday!

Study Group, 12/26/09

2009-12-27T16:14:00.001-06:00

This time Josh and I worked on a few different things. First, we drilled a butterfly sweep from Saulo Ribeiro's DVDs. We also worked on a Little bit of the "position-choke-armbar" drill, as well as the typical armbar drill shown here:

Of course we rolled a little too, but nothing too strenuous. I actually made Josh tap for the first time tonight, with choke neither of us have ever seen before. We got a good laugh out of that.

A New Beginning

2009-12-19T19:07:00.001-06:00

A while back, I mentioned that my grappling growth is sort of "stunted" because of my lack of different training partners. That's Pat's diagnosis anyway, and I don't disagree. But I'm going to do something about that.

Last week Josh and I visited the local Gracie Barra BJJ school, which happens to be right around the corner from where we work. Seriously, it's a long football throw away from our office. We enjoyed our visit, and we plan to start training there after New Year. Some of our other friends may start training there as well, which will be cool.

A few observations:

Camaraderie. The group there was small-ish (9 people), and seemed to genuinely enjoy hanging out with each other. Most of them went out of their way to be very welcoming to us as visitors, and took an interest in us.
Not too many fighters. This place is not "thugged up". Only about 3 of the members are fighters as well, and they seemed pretty cool too (nothing against fighters, just not my thing).
Great facility. The facility is also where the LSU Tiger Cheerleaders and dancers train. Top-notch facility. Incidentally, the owners (husband and wife) are former LSU cheerleaders, and the guy was the cheerleading head coach for a time (he's currently a BJJ blue belt).
Classes are led by Rafael Ellwanger twice a week. He's a black belt (over first degree, not sure how much over) under Carlos Gracie Jr.

I think my BJJ will help my judo, and my judo will help my BJJ. Who knows? I may even get involved with competition a year or so down the road. I went ahead and bought my Gracie Barra gi... it's pretty cool, although all the patches will take some getting used to, haha. I'll post training logs from my BJJ classes here as well. I'll only be training once per week, but I'm very excited about it!

Judo, 12/12/09

2009-12-19T18:56:00.001-06:00

At the beginning of this class, I asked Pat to help me with a question I had regarding BJ Penn's armbar drill from his closed guard book. I was a little confused about how BJ was accomplishing what he was in that drill. We worked on the drill for a while, but I think it's going to take a lot more practice for me to be able to do it smoothly.

We talked about something else that's been on my mind: breaking top-guy's posture when he's in your guard. I showed Pat a posture-breaking technique Josh and I were drilling, but somehow Pat was able to stop mine (maybe it was the 2 decades or so of experience he has on me, haha). He showed me how to destroy top-guy's posture with shrimping, and I was pretty happy with those results.

Pat used that to transition into a lesson on the cross collar choke. We used the posture break as the set up for the choke. He threw in a bit of Roy Dean's "throat cutting" choke method as well.

Aikido, 12/12/09

2009-12-19T18:42:00.001-06:00

We started with walking, and I noticed I was having more balance issues than normal. Not sure what was going on there.

We moved on to releases, and this was interesting. After a few reps of honasu 1-8, we tried them in a non-static way; tori and uke both began by randomly making a few steps....sort of wandering around near each other. When uke decided to attack, tori had to react and do the release from a (sometimes) less than ideal position/posture. This made the releases a little like randori, and I found it very informative. It provided some good food for thought in regard to real-life self defense.

We reviewed Junana 1-5, then moved on to several reps of 6-10. I'm still far more "at home" with 1-5. Six through ten still feel brand new to me so far. We also toyed with 6-10 from non-static positions like we did with releases.

Lastly, we looked at a little bit of suwariwaza from sankata, focusing on the idea of "continuous throwing".

A Little More Drilling

2009-12-13T18:17:00.001-06:00

Josh came over again last weekend for more BJJ drilling. We both bought BJ Penn's new book about the closed guard, and since we worked on some posture issues last week, we decided to drill some of BJ's techniques for breaking top guy's posture when he's in your closed guard. We were pretty amazed at some of the results we were getting.

We also tried out Penn's armbar drill and triangle drill. These were a little tougher for me, because I have no experience with this type of motion yet. His armbar drill was especially confusing to me. I'm not (yet) sure what BJ's doing with which legs in order to move like he does. I'll get it though.

A Little Drilling, A Little Rolling

2009-12-03T22:22:00.001-06:00

My buddy Josh came over on Tuesday night to do some BJJ drilling with me. We drilled a few very basic transitions for a while, then a sweep to two. As it frequently does, our drilling crept ever so slowly into light randori.

Josh is far more capable than me on the ground, and he was able to help me learn a thing or two about my posture while grappling.

By way of taking a breather after increasingly strenuous rolling, we watched a little of one of my Saulo Ribeiro DVDs. Then we drilled a particular guard passing technique from the DVD.

We rolled a couple more times to end the practice. This was the first time I've trained with Josh in about a year (the last time, I had only been learning judo for a month or two). I could definitely see improvement from a year ago. In fact, I was able to last longer without being submitted, and for a while I was keeping him in my guard really well (he couldn't pass). I was surprised, delighted, and encouraged by the improvement I saw. Not that I'm anything great now, but I certainly couldn't have performed like that a year ago. It's nice to be able to see a little progress once in a while. Josh still dominated greatly (when we were competing and not cooperating), but the gap between our abilities will continue to close. ;o)

Judo, 11/28/09

2009-12-02T21:08:00.001-06:00

I just realized I forgot to post my judo training log from the weekend! We started out by practicing a couple of combos: deashi to osotogari and deashi to kouchigari. Amazing stuff, once again. Pat also showed me a variant of koshiguruma that's pretty wicked.

On the ground, we drilled guard passing over and over and over. I need as many reps as I can get! We worked on going whichever way bottom guy wasn't resisting. That is, if he tries to stop me from stacking him and going under one leg, I can use the knee-over pass on the opposite side (and vice versa).

Good class - Pat puts the "fun" in "fundamentals". :o)

Falling Hard

2009-11-29T22:39:00.001-06:00

I bought the book "Falling Hard" today, by Mark Law. He is a journalist that took up judo when he was nearly 50 years old, and wrote this book about his experiences.

I read the first two chapters today, and thought I'd post two quotes from the book here:

"A white belt at the dojo is like a toddler at a tea party, and demands a similar etiquette: people must take turns to play with him;it is incumbent upon everyone to encourage him, praise his simplest achievements, and not laugh when he falls over."

"If someone banged a tennis ball past me, it was hardly the end of the world. It was just a game. When someone threw me on the floor of the dojo, it didn't seem like a game at all. I was much affected. The former reflected badly on my ability at tennis. The latter reflected badly on me. And if ever I threw someone, it seemed somehow to be a worthwhile achievement, unlike scoring a goal, or a point with a ball."

I like the book so far. I think it'll be a fun read.

Aikido, 11/28/09

2009-11-29T07:40:00.001-06:00

Well, since not writing training logs hasn't worked out so well, I thought I'd get back to it.

We started with Tegatana, and considered how there are no "dead movements". None of the steps are there just to get you back to the starting place in preparation for the next step. Every motion is a "move". Thinking about it this way made it seem like a longer kata! Twice as long! With twice as much to focus on.

We went through Releases 1 - 8 next. I mentioned how in 6, it's difficult for me to immediately follow uke's movement. I feel like I have to take a loooong awkward step to change direction and flow with him. With a little experimentation, I found that my #6 is awkward because my #2 has been wrong all this time. I discovered that the whole time I've been doing #2, I've been thinking of the whole technique as a "thing" (I think this will be hard to explain). Like this: "Ah! He's grabbing my wrist like that, so in response, I need to blah, blah, blah, blah, and end up like this (picture the ending of release 2)." But the approach I should have been taking is "Ah! He's grabbing my wrist; I need to step off the line (evade), and point my center at him, then flow with whatever he's doing."

Pat talked about making my reflexive reaction simpler - step off the line and face the guy - rather than trying to make the entire #2 motion my reflexive response. After this epiphany, my #6 was going much better. It felt more like I was at an intersection, and could choose to go right or left (#2 or #6, based on what uke does), rather than having to make a U-turn... in a large truck... on a narrow lane... with deep ditches on each side.

Next, we worked on Oshitaoshi and Udegaeshi (junana 6 and 7, respectively). The way Pat teaches oshitaoshi is different from the classical version, and different from how I've ever seen it. I find it interesting to play with variations to explore what makes a technique what it is. I imagine it helps me understand more about the "core" or "essence" of whatever technique we're working on. We looked at udegaeshi coming from uke escaping/resisting the oshitaoshi, as well as coming from an evasion in the wrong direction by tori. In the latter case, you can do the thing immediately if uke's arm is relaxed. If it's stiff, you can use the arm as a rudder to move him in a circle until the technique happens more naturally (no way I can describe that here).

Soaking It All In

2009-11-25T22:14:00.001-06:00

Well once again, I've neglected posting training logs for a couple of weeks. I've been to class, but still have been either unmotivated or too mentally exhausted to write.

If I'm honest (and why shouldn't I be - it's just us, right?), I'll admit that part of the reason I've been neglecting my training logs is that I've been experiencing some frustration in both judo and aikido. Lately, I just haven't felt like I'm progressing. Sometimes I feel like I'm regressing. So I thought maybe I was thinking about it too much....over analyzing it. So I stopped taking such detailed notes after lessons. I don't think that's helped though.

In aikido, I've felt like my releases have been stinking more and more. In judo, well, I feel like all of that stinks, but especially my newaza. This past Saturday, I felt like I couldn't accomplish anything with our groundwork. I'd get armbarred pretty quickly, or I'd end up on the bottom, being crushed into submission. It gets frustrating. Maybe one day I'll improve.

I'm not trying to whine too badly about it - just expressing my feelings for the blog's sake. I hope one day I can look back at this and see that it was just a part of the process.

Pat's been encouraging and helpful as always. He does recommend I roll with a greater variety of people if I want to improve my grappling more quickly. I'll be checking out the Gracie-Barra BJJ school again in a week or two.

Until then, I'm just sort of marinating in this feeling, trying to put things in perspective, and remember why I love aiki and judo so much. I'm just trying to soak in all the coolness in both arts that I've been exposed to lately.

I've been very jazzed about Pat's interpretation of deashi barai as foundational to other judo throws...I think it makes a little sense to me. In aikido, we've been looking at the honasu releases, as well as the yon kata ones, which I've never been exposed to before. Aikido amazes me.

Catching up!

2009-10-26T11:28:00.001-05:00

What a busy couple of months I've had! Earlier this year, due to annual audits, I had to miss about 5 or 6 weeks of training. I was thinking "Well, if I have to do that once a year, I can live with that". But recently, due to a variety of reasons, I've missed about as many classes. Sickness, vacation schedules, family outings....they've interfered heavily with my training during September and October.

To make matters worse, I've been looking for a new job, then I found one, and since then I've been busy preparing for the transition. So I haven't even had the "oomph" to blog.

This post, then, will catch me up on the few times I did go to class recently. I apologize that they won't be as detailed or well thought-out as they usually are (haha), but at least this will get me posting again.

Aikido 9/26/09
We started with tegatana, as always, this time thinking about pushing with the arms, but not the hands.
As we moved to releases, I found I was even more rusty than I thought I would be. I kept forgetting to evade!
In our review of Junana 1-5, however, I was not quite as rusty as I thought I would be, although #4 was not so smooth.

We moved on to an introduction of Junana 6-10. Really fun stuff. This is really almost the first time I'm playing with this stuff, as I only had glimpses of anything beyond #5 at the dojo I attended previously.

As we went over #6 (oshitaoshi), I was introduced to the concept of "getting off the line, at the end of the line". Another new concept for this one was moving my body so my arms fall into place naturally, instead of forcing uke's arm into position.

Junana #7 (udegaeshi) was one I had played with before, but the way Pat taught it blew my mind. It's the same technique, but completely different, if that makes sense. The old way I knew used a lot of leverage, where Pat showed how it used the same principles we've been playing with in the other techniques (kuzushi, motion, blending/following, etc). Pat noted that it's sort of like a standing, walking Americana.

Number 8 (hikitaoshi) was taught as a variation of #6.

Number 9 (udehineri) can be looked at as a standing, walking Kimura.

Junana #10 (wakigatame) can be done from the inside or outside (a shomenate entry or an aigamaeate entry) of uke's arm.

To wrap up, we explored using the "90 degree principle" to overcome uke's strength. That stuff rocks my socks, man. I can't wait until doing that is more intuitive to me!

Judo 9/26/09
I'm afraid the only notes I have for this lesson are that Pat introduced me to 2 throws: okuriashi and tsurikomigoshi. Honestly, the brain-strain of shaking out the cobwebs in my mind left me unenlightened on these throws....for now.

Aikido 10/17/09
Again, we began with tegatana. We moved to releases, and I had trouble with 6 and 8. Pat started talking about how a Release #2 isn't always the full version of the technique we see in kata. It's the relationship of tori and uke's centers and their movement that define it.

Pat then scrambled my brain by talking about the relationship between release 2 and Junana #5: Release 2 is sort of like a looser, more difficult ushiroate. I'm still reeling from that. Things like that make me love aikido even more. It's a genius system.

Next we played with Release #1, turning it into a throw, allowing uke to do a rolling breakfall. Pat talked about how practicing this way develops sensitivity for both tori and uke; uke learns when to "give" enough to stay safe, and when he needs to just roll out.

We spent the rest of the lesson working on Junana 6, 8, and 10, and exploring the relationships among them. We talked about how the Aikikai guys look at Junana 6 as their #1 (ikkyo). We also looked at how Junana 8 is a different flavor of #6, but on more of a "shomenate timing", on uke's body rise.

Judo 10/17/09
We worked on okuriashi and tsurikomigoshi again. That day I was feeling better about tsurikomigoshi than any of my other hip throws. We looked at how getting uke up off of his heels onto his toes, is actually picking him up, even if he doesn't go higher. Pat pointed out that I needed to be using the motion of my whole body to pull uke, not just my arms.

Lastly, Pat pontificated on his recent thoughts regarding deashibarai and its relationship to all the other throws in judo. Amazing stuff.

Aikido 10/24/09
After a round of tegatana, we moved to releases. Pat introduced me to some exercises from Yon Kata. I may not have understood clearly, so Pat, feel free to correct me. As I appreciate it, there are 7 variations....other versions of the releases done as an exercise leading into (or is it part of?) Yon Kata. Once again, aikido has my head spinning.

Lastly, we practiced Junana 6, 8, and 10 again, but this time we worked backwards (10, 8, 6).

Judo 10/24/09
Again, we worked on okuriashi. I think I started getting it a little better after Pat explained how "shearing across" the "train tracks" (parallel lines of uke and tori) helped the throw. Much too difficult for me to explain here (at least for now). We played with a failed deashi turning into an opportunity for osotogari as well.

For the remainder of the class, we did some light newaza randori. I did make Pat tap only once (as usual, with an Ezekiel - my highest percentage finisher at the moment). However, that was my only victory. The other 8 or 9 times we rolled, I was decidedly on the...."learning" end! :o)

We talked about how "switching sides" when you get in a bind on the bottom can solve a lot of problems.

That day (Oct 24), was one of those days I felt severely learning-disabled. Maybe it was a combination of being out of practice and being preoccupied with the new job I'm starting in a couple of weeks, but I felt like I was getting worse at both aikido and judo rather than better. I suppose that's part of the cycle....part of my cycle anyway. It is frustrating at times, but I'm hooked on this stuff. I'll give it at least 15 more years or so.

Judo/BJJ Study Group, 9/21/09

2009-09-27T15:46:00.001-05:00

Last week we had a smaller group at our church judo study group. Three people, including myself. We reviewed all the material from the previous week, and spent a good bit of time doing that. Everyone did every technique with everyone else.

For the new material, we covered some fundamental ground movements: "bridging" and "shrimping".

We then went over munegatame, or side control, and 2 escapes from it: bridge-and-roll and shrimp-to-guard. I asked the guys to work on this not because I'm great at it, but because I suck at it!

We spent the last 15 minutes or so rolling.

Study Group, 9/14/09

2009-09-20T08:57:00.001-05:00

I haven't really talked about it on the blog here, because I didn't know how it was going to work out, but for a while now, I've been talking with folks at my church about us doing a judo/BJJ study group using the church's facilities.

There was lots of discussion, since we didn't want to expose the church to any liability in case someone got injured, but at long last, it's been approved. This is a pretty cool development, because the church has a large room with an already padded floor in the children's' building (not as soft as real mats, but it'll do for grappling). The room is huge, and it's a lot different than trying to roll on my little 8x12 mat space while trying not to bump into furniture.

We had our first church study group on Monday, September 14 2009. I was very clear to all of them that I'm no qualified teacher, and we were just going to play with some of the stuff I've been shown and have a good time.

5 people were there, including me. It was me and one of my nephews (who's been practicing with me at my home study group), a guy with some previous judo experience, a guy with Gracie Combatives experience (through his training in the Army National Guard), and a guy with no grappling experience, but previous karate experience.

After light stretching and warm up, we went over the following:

Trap and Roll escape from mount, standard version, headlock variation, and punch block variation (from the Gracie Combatives DVDs)
Americana armlock, standard version and headlock variation (also from the Gracie Combatives DVDs)
Scissor sweep and hip bump sweep (from Roy Dean's Blue Belt Requirements DVDs)
Rolling (at around 50% intensity) for the last 10-15 minutes.

The entire session was an hour and a half. I think the guys had a good time, and they seemed to be having some success with most of the material. We're planning on making this a regular Monday night event, so I'll post a training log after each one.

Great Video!

2009-09-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

I was going to post this as a late (or early) Friday Night Video, but as I was logging in to my blog, I saw that Pat beat me to it!

Check out this awesome self defense video here.

Catching Up - Judo AND Aikido, 8/22/09

2009-08-30T20:30:00.001-05:00

Man, I have been falling behind in my training logs and other blog posts lately! In order to catch up, I'm combining the judo and aikido logs from last week.

First we did my demo for green belt (yonkyu) in aikido. It was pretty straightforward. Junana #4 (gyakugamaeate) has been a real adventure, since Pat showed me his vicious version of it. I love this take on it, although it makes it a little odd trying to do the classic version of it now. I don't think I did horribly on anything, and Pat was satisfied.

Next we did my judo yonkyu demo, and it was a little different. I think my aiki is still superior to my judo, and I am in obvious need of more time and practice before much of the judo stuff at this level feels comfortble to me. I'm not sure how it's possible, but my ukigoshi was worse on test day than it was the first time I tried it. That throw has always given me fits. All of my newaza escapes need further work as well.

So in short, I am now a green belt in both judo and aikido. I'm extremely excited to start learning the brown belt stuff in both arts, and to continue to develop the stuff we've already worked on.

The bad news is I had to take off this past weekend (8/29) and I can't make it to lessons next weekend either (9/5). The following week I'll be back, but the one after that, Pat will be out of town! I'm looking forward to getting back to a regular schedule.

Judo, 8/15/09

2009-08-22T16:16:00.001-05:00

I'm a full week behind posting this training log, so we'll see if time has washed away most of the details I wanted to remember!

We started with our "oozing" ukemi exercise. In preparation for working on hip throws, we did a more elevated version of the exercise. This practice, plus Pat's instruction really increased my comfort level with falling from hip throws.

We worked on seoinage and ogoshi, mostly. We'd do the throw, then transition to ukigatame, then into kesagatame, at which point uke would pick an escape to do. This not only gave us lots of practice with seoi, ogoshi and escapes, but it was a really good way to practice moving from tachi- to newaza. It was helpful to practice in different domains during each repetition.

What a difference I saw in my ukemi! I used to have a terrible time being thrown with ogoshi or seoinage, but I feel I really had a breakthrough during this practice. The difference was night and day. The falls were fun, and didn't hurt a bit! I was really excited and encouraged to see such significant growth in just one lesson.

Next we worked on ouchigari and kouchigari, and again, we transitioned into groundwork with each throw, in this case, passing the guard. I had gotten pretty rusty with ouchi, so this was a good review.

We ended the class by working on some "Zdenek Matl style" really "soft judo". It was a good cool-down, but still very intellectually stimulating! It was really amazing stuff, sort of aiki-fied judo.

This was one of the best lessons I've had in recent memory.

Aikido, 8/15/09

2009-08-19T14:47:00.001-05:00

We started with tegatana, with an emphasis on trying to describe how the mats felt under our feet.

Next we worked on Releases 1-8. Sometimes it seems like the more I learn, the more I suck at this stuff! This was one of those days. We camped out on 1, 3, 5, and 8, working on being "invisible" to uke. Release 8 really had my number and I kept getting screwed up with it.

Junana was next, and we went through 1-5. We talked about what the non-atemi hand's role in these techniques is, and that was an entirely new concept to me! I always think of that hand as the "off" hand, or just the "stay off me" hand. Pat talked about how that arm also needs to stay unbendable, and the push is done with that hand too, not just the atemi hand. We spent a Little time talking about a failed Ushiro-ate, and turning it into a separation / brush-off.

I wish I would have typed this up sooner, because now my notes on the "Cool Ninja Technique of the Day" make almost no sense to me. That'll teach me. I know it was from Sankata, but maybe Pat can chime in here with a name and/or description.

Judo, 8/8/09

2009-08-09T18:51:00.001-05:00

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?

Aikido, 8/8/09

2009-08-09T07:15:00.001-05:00

We started with tegatana, as always, trying to keep the "hypotenuse" of our steps consistent. It became quickly apparent that I make unnaturally large steps on a several of the pieces of this kata. I'll work on that.

We went through Releases 1 - 8 ,and Pat corrected a few things I've been doing on #1, #3, #5, and #7. On #1, I need to remember to step to the "end-of-the-line" on the second step. This will help me to relax and not push on uke. On #3, I need to step toward uke, not directly to the side. I also need to square my shoulders (point my center) to the direction I'm moving. Doing this will allow me to do either a #3 or a #7, depending on what the situation calls for. I also need to sort of "blend" my first and second steps to avoid excessive shuffling. On #5 and #7, I have to remember to relax at the end of the thing...not try to do something to uke, but relax and not resist what's going on with my hand. It's an issue of flowing and following uke better...being more "aiki".

Next we worked on Junana 1 - 5, and we played with it in "kata mode". The longer distances were really screwing with my head. We talked about zanshin, and remaining aware after the "end" of the technique. We went over where tori should be after the throw, and how uke should move on the ground. We camped out mostly on #4 and #5.

We worked on Chain 3, but I didn't feel like it was getting better like 1 and 2 have been - probably because we've played with 1 and 2 more. There's more foot shuffling to get in synch and "phase" with uke's footfalls in this one, so that was tripping me up a bit.

The "Cool Ninja Technique of the Day" was kaitennage from sankata. Neat because you could throw uke on his far footfall, or screw him straight down into the ground with a guruma motion.

Thursday Thoughts, 8/6/09

2009-08-06T07:31:00.001-05:00

"No matter how one may use techniques mastered in secret, if his mind becomes attached to techniques he cannot win. It is one of the greatest importance in training that the mind does not become fixed, either on the enemy's movements or one's own movements, either on striking or blocking."

~Yagyu Munenori

What-I'm-Reading-Wednesday

2009-08-05T08:59:00.001-05:00

This week I finished volumes 3 and 4 (Kumite) of the Best Karate series by Masatoshi Nakayama.

Am I glad I read them? Yes.

Will I read them again? Absolutely, but not until I get a good bit farther down the path of karate-do.

Reflections? At this stage, I've only just been re-introduced to karate, so much of the technical discussion in the books were beyond me. Each section however, began with a discussion of a particular principle, as well as an introduction to a different karateka (presumably members of JKA). Sort of a "Who's Who" in the Japanese karate world at that time. I found those interesting, and fun to read. It also made these books quick reads for me, as I skimmed most of the technical examples.

Recommended? Yes.

Synchronicity

2009-08-05T08:50:00.000-05:00

Here's another blogger's post regarding the same type of thing I wrote about on the post directly below this one. Check it out here!

Other Forms of Self Defense

2009-08-04T12:30:00.001-05:00

I'm practicing martial arts mainly so I'll have the skills I need in the event I ever need to defend myself or my family. Statistically, I'm not very likely to need to use those skills in self-defense. So why do I work on this stuff if I have a low probability of needing it? My primary answer is "Just in case", as it is better to have the skills and not need them, than to need them and not have them.

But martial arts are, for me, only one piece of a more holistic self/family-defense strategy. I was driving around the other day thinking about other things my wife and I are doing that might fall into this more broadly-defined "defense" category:

We wear our seat belts, and make sure our daughter's car seat is secured properly. When the traffic light changes to green, we don't cross the intersection without making sure someone from the cross street isn't going to run the light for whatever reason.
We're not OCD about it, but we do try to keep our hands clean, by washing them often. CDC says hand-washing is the #1 way to prevent sickness. I go so far as to try to open public doors by touching parts of them that are probably less-used (push the bar closer to the hinge, push the glass with my elbow, etc). Okay, that may be a little out there, I admit.
We're trying to get fit (my wife is fit already, but ugh, not me) and improve our diet. I read a GREAT post related to this from "Man of the West" today. Please take a minute to read it by clicking HERE. Kind of a "self-defense against socialist health care" article!
I'm going to take a basic first aid / CPR / AED course soon.
We put money and supplies aside when we can.
We stay out of "bad" areas of town and stay aware of our surroundings when we're in public.
We keep the exterior of our house well-lit at night, and the doors locked.

You get the idea...are these ground-breaking, innovative tips that will revolutionize your life? Nope. I'm sure most people do this stuff already. I'm just trying to develop a broader view of what it means to take care of myself and my family, and include more likely scenarios in my defensive outlook.

An Additional Thought RE: Intuition VS. Instinct

2009-08-04T10:53:00.001-05:00

I posted yesterday about the difference between instinct and intuition. I read a post on Dave Camarillo's blog today that speaks to this issue as well...here's an excerpt:

How can I be so good at driving to be able to do it without thinking? The reason is simple: Because I have done it for 17 years!
You do something long enough, you get good! Period! If you dabble, a little here, a little there, you stagnate.
Armlocks are a natural part of my life. They are like driving; they are like breathing. They come as easy for me as any mundane task in life. I don’t have to think, I do. I don’t have to plan, I do.

Cruise over there and check it out!

Snoozing

2009-08-04T10:32:00.001-05:00

While this has nothing to do with martial arts, I thought others might find interesting. I've always wondered why, when I hit the "snooze" button on my alarm clock, there's an interval of 9 minutes before it sounds again. Today I finally looked it up. Here's what I found, if you're interested:

By setting the snooze time to 9 minutes, modern digital alarm clocks only need to watch the last digit of the time. So, if you hit snooze at 6:45, the alarm goes off again when the last digit hits 4 - at 7:54. They couldn't make the snooze period 10 minutes, or the alarm would go off right away - or the clock would take more circuitry.

That question's been bothering me for a while. Now I can rest easy ;o)

Instinct vs. Intuition

2009-08-03T11:52:00.001-05:00

Lots of things pop up for me as a beginner in aikido and judo that seem counter-intuitive. Like (in aiki) not pushing with muscles in your arm, but with your whole body attached to your arm. I've been used to trying to push things with my arms my whole life. And (in judo) not trying to sweep uke's foot too far, but just far enough to get the kuzushi, for example. It always seems like if a little sweep knocks him down, a bigger sweep would do it more decisively (that's not always the case).

Getting something into our intuition takes time though, and it's certainly different than instinct. Instinctual actions are those that are hardwired into us...things that come along with being human. Putting my hands up in front of my eye-line when there's a threat to my face is instinct, and thankfully, a beneficial one. I don't have to try to figure out where my eye-line is, then tell my arms to lift my hands up to protect my face. We can use these beneficial instinctual actions to aid us in self defense (like Pat's "cow-catcher" analogy). On the other hand, the tendency to put a hand out to catch oneself when falling backward is also instinct (seems to me anyway, Moro reflex notwithstanding), but a potentially harmful one (likely to hurt, if not break or sprain, the wrist). We work to retrain the instincts that interfere with good self defense...or to replace them with more beneficial intuitive actions, if you will. So now it's intuitive to keep my chin tucked and slap my arms to the side when falling.

Intuitive actions are things we learn...things we train until they seem instinctive. If I notice a hazard on the road while driving, it's an intuitive process for me to remove my foot from the accelerator, move it to the brake pedal, and push with the appropriate amount of pressure to stop or slow the car before reaching the hazard. The process might also include a glance in all my mirrors to look for safe routes to take in case I can't stop in time. It's still a thought process, but it's been moved to sub-conscious thought so I don't have to a) pull up the mental checklist suited to the situation, and b) consciously tell my limbs and eyes to do what they need to do.

I'm really looking forward to getting this aikido and judo stuff to the point it becomes intuitive.

Study Group, 8/2/09

2009-08-02T20:54:00.001-05:00

Our study group tonight was pretty lackluster, for a couple reasons. When Cody and Chase arrived, my wife was shopping, so I had my hands full with my daughter. The boys got bored and started to roll, intending to take it easy. By the time my wife got home they were both exhausted and really didn't feel like doing anything else.

We persevered, and worked on a couple of lessons from the Gracie Combatives DVDs: Taking the Back and the Rear Naked Choke.

The "taking the back" lesson turned out to be a little trickier than it looked. After a few turns each it started feeling better though. The "Remount" section of that lesson was a little tricky at first too.

Once we got that down alright, the "rear naked choke" lesson was a breeze. We didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but I guess some practice is better than none.

Aikido, 8/1/09

2009-08-01T14:29:00.001-05:00

We started the class with tegatana, with an emphasis on the hip switch. Pat talked about how it's not so much a pivot on the balls of the feet, but actual steps. He showed me a couple of exercises I could do to practice the feel of it. I was also reminded (again) that I need to square up my shoulders and feet (and center) during the pushes to the side.

Next we did releases 1 - 8. The emphasis was on where the hip switch motion showed up in the releases, which really threw me for a loop. Even the releases I was getting comfortable with fall apart when I'm concentrating on a new aspect of them. More practice will help. We also looked at moving to the "end of the line" during each release, and how the "end of the line" for #2 and #4 is UP, not "out". Lastly, we played with release 3 becoming release 8, if uke resists in a certain way. Really neat.

Pat showed me a little "release randori" next. I think it was a very basic intro to aikido randori, and I think it clicked a little better. It's encouraging that 2 of the things that give my mind the most trouble in aikido (chains and randori) are starting to make more sense....feel less awkward.

We moved on to Junana / Nijusan 1 - 5, camping out for a bit on gedanate. I have trouble doing the kata version of gedanate lately, since Pat showed me the more vicious version....but I'm okay with that for now.

For the last part of class, Pat taught me the sankata gyakugamaeate. I loved this technique! It worked best getting the kuzushi off the far footfall (extending uke along the line perpendicular to his feet), but you can also work some pretty good mojo on the near footfall. On the near footfall, you can pin your arm to uke's arm and rotate around it, and it demolishes him pretty good. It's hard to explain, sorry. Even if you can't get gyaku from this version, it gives you a little time to figure out what's going on and what to do next.

One of the neat things about this technique was that even if uke doesn't get a solid grip on tori, the thing still works. Uke usually still falls down and goes "boom" if your timing's right. We even saw the occasional "aiki brush-off" (TM) pop up once in a while. Lastly, Pat demonstrated how you could even add a reverse punch to your attacker's solar plexus if you felt it was needed. With your "gyaku hand" in his face or on his eyes, he'll never see it coming! Alternatively, your gyaku could be a high-block type karate strike to the jaw if the situation warranted.

Sankata gyaku is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very cool.

Keep your gyaku hand strong!
pimp

Judo, 8/1/09

2009-08-01T13:52:00.001-05:00

We started class with newaza randori. I was able to make Pat tap twice the first two rounds we rolled (once with an Ezekiel, once with a collar choke I saw Mike Swain do on a video yesterday). I reckon that was before he was good and awake, because he paid me back with interest after that! I don't think I came close for the other 10-15 times we rolled.

I'm still having trouble with takedowns from kneeling, and I'm still having trouble doing anything while I'm on bottom being crushed. I need to get used to being on the bottom so I can survive better there....think more clearly, and move more effectively. Something exciting is in the works that may provide me more opportunity to practice that, but more on that as it develops.

For tachi-waza, we worked on a variant of seoinage. Pat calls it "Gregor-nage" after a guy from Germany they used to train with. It's a seoinage entry set up by uke's reaction to tori knocking uke's grip off his sleeve.

Friday Night Videos

2009-07-31T10:56:00.001-05:00

Okay, I'm not sure how funny these will be unless you live in southern Louisiana, or have otherwise had experience with cajun culture. This stuff is hilarious to me, because my wife's family.....shall we say "closely resembles" this guy in accent and expression (my wife is NOT anything like this though). I'm so glad my friend Byron turned me on to these vids.

And another one::::

Aikido, 7/25/09

2009-07-27T08:43:00.001-05:00

For Aikido class we started with tegatana. I was trying to focus on "falling" into the steps, and found it made me feel really heavy. This bears some further experimentation. Pat said he felt heavy too, so it may have been the tides or something, haha.

We practiced releases a little next. Pat emphasized moving away from uke on the second step, and we looked at how to do that without jerking the guy around.

Next we worked on the beginning of Chain 2. Once again, the chain was feeling a little better to me than it has in the past. I'm encouraged by the small growth I feel regarding chains.

We ended the class by looking at wakigatame from a shomenate entry.

Judo, 7/25/09

2009-07-25T18:21:00.001-05:00

Today we worked on a combination/cycle of throws that goes deashi barai, kouchigari, ogoshi, and ouchigari, each one coming from the previous one failing.

We also drilled a few escapes from mount, kesa, mune, and north-south. Spin-out give me maybe the most trouble. I also really need to work on shrimp escapes instead of constantly playing with the ones I'm most comfortable with. Oh, we went over some concepts for my uphill escapes which also suck at this point.

Aikido, 7/18/09

2009-07-19T18:59:00.001-05:00

For tegatana no kata yesterday morning, the emphasis was on falling into the step instead of shifting weight and lunging. I've heard I-don't-know-how-many-times that I'm supposed to just turn off one leg and fall that direction, instead of first shifting my weight left to move to the right. One of the reasons is to take out extra motion. The trouble I've had is that it's pretty ingrained in me to compensate with one leg when the weight comes off the other one. I get the concept, but couldn't make myself do it. Pat directed my attention to my center when doing the lunging step, and sure enough, it moved one way before moving the other way. By thinking about my center, and not letting it move in that opposite direction before taking the step, I was finally able to get the feel for the "falling" step. I think I had been thinking of the means (falling step) as the end (eliminating wasteful motion), and it just wasn't working for me.

We played with releases 1 - 4. We talked about being in synch (timing tori's footfalls with uke's) and being in phase (tori's footfall is on the same side as tori's...their footfalls "match"). In releases 1 & 2, tori tends to end up both in synch (assuming good timing) and in phase. In releases 3 & 4, tori tends to end up in synch, but out of phase. A pretty neat thing happened: Coming off a release #1, my feet ended up in synch, but out of phase with Pat's. It was a really awkward feeling, but I didn't know why at first. Pat explained that through a ton of reps of release 1, my brain knows how it's supposed to feel. So when something went wrong with it, it was as if my subconscious said "Whoa, something's not right - I'd better not attack right now...let me flow with him and see what happens." It was encouraging...like my brain was making a withdrawal on stuff we've been depositing in my subconscious all along. I knew something was wrong before I noticed we were out of phase. Pat talked about the concept of "Not knowing what you know". That's deep.

We moved on to Chain 1, and I probably felt better about this chain than I ever have. We talked about the concept of the chain being divided into certain sections, but also the existence of "wormholes" where you could skip from one place in the chain to a later section without passing through the sections in between. Pretty neat stuff.

We ended this lesson with a technique called gokyu gyakugamaeate (or kokyunage). It was a slick shomen ate / brush off to uke's face without shomen ate's normal off-balance.

Judo 7/18/09

2009-07-18T18:40:00.001-05:00

Judo was tough this morning! My wife and I went to eat last night at Texas de Brazil, a fantastic all-you-can-eat Brazilian Steakhouse. It was our first time there, so of course I had to try a little of everything. I was stuffed (still am, 24 hours later). Anyway, it made judo an "iffy" proposition. I commented after the lesson that I felt "green". Pat asked whether I meant I felt like a green belt, or green as in "not ripe" (noob). I meant I felt like I was green the way I would feel if I went bungee jumping after eating way too much sushi.

Anyway, we started with the footsweep drill, and tweaked my foot position a little more.

We worked on seoinage for a while. I need to remember that in addition to getting my hips low, I need to take out the space between our bodies...really clamp him to me. If my hips are good and low, but he's not clamped to me, they slide up during the throw. We talked about using that inside arm to take up some of that slack as you pull him around.

For groundwork, we played with the ground mobility cycle, inserting escapes and armbars as appropriate in a very light, "turn-based" randori. We talked about not fighting too hard to hang on to a screwed up position I've gotten myself into. I need to let myself lose and experience the consequence of my mistake so I can learn from it (at least in randori).

We ended the lesson with standing randori, which we usually don't do very much of. I still feel more lost during standing randori than ground randori. Pat tweaked lots of things on lots of throws during this time, and my mere four hours of sleep last night is keeping me from remembering all the points we talked about at the moment.

I glad I nutted it up and went to class this morning, but I'm glad to be on the couch this evening!

Thursday Thoughts, 7/16/09

2009-07-16T09:19:00.001-05:00

I found myself with some free time over the weekend, and I was flipping through television channels. I came across a show called "Spectacles" on the Sundance channel. Basically, Elvis Costello interviews folks, and they talk about music, life, etc. Seemed like a cool show.

His guest for that night was Bill Clinton, but they were going to be talking about music, so I didn't change the channel. In case you're unaware, Clinton is a pretty good saxophone player. I'll leave any cheap shots regarding "hot air" and the like unsaid. Maybe I'm feeling generous - I didn't care for President Clinton while he was in office, but I think he was mostly harmless compared to what we have now. But I digress...

They were talking about why Clinton didn't pursue a career playing music instead of politics. His answer was something like "I looked at myself in the mirror one day, and realized that even being a great sax player, I would never be the greatest...I would never be on the level of John Coltrane or Stan Getz...and if I couldn't be among the very best, I didn't want to pursue it."

That made me think about my martial arts practice, and my expectations for how I'll progress. I don't expect I'll be the next Mike Swain, Karl Geis, or [pick any] Gracie. I don't think I'm naturally gifted "raw talent" at this stuff. I don't think I have the potential to become a household name in judo or aikido, but I still consider it a worthwhile pursuit. So I've been thinking about what I do expect from myself as I continue my training - what I want to get out of it (or give back to it, in some cases). I bet most martial artists go through a similar process at some point, and I'm sure if you asked 15 people, you'd get 13 different answers, so the answers may vary for each individual. My personal list may change with time or experience, but here's what I've come up with for myself, in no particular order:

I want to be better able to defend myself and my family from physical attack should the need arise.
I want to accomplish something...stick with something. As I glance back down the trail of my experience I see so many projects and goals that lay abandoned...begun with great enthusiasm, but never accomplished. I don't have a particular dan rank in mind, and I'm not under the impression that my training will ever be complete - I think I'll just know one day "Hey - I stuck with this!"
I'd like to have influence. Not necessarily over a multitude of people, but at some point in the far future, I'd like to be able to begin teaching martial arts, and I hope that I can provide positive influence to those I teach. Not in a "guru-ish", have-all-the-answers, run-their-life kind of way though. I'd like to be a part of helping people enrich or improve their lives. I think in its proper place, martial arts can contribute to that.
Speaking of which - I always want to keep martial arts in their proper place in my life. There can be a tendency, I think, to elevate the things we enjoy....to place more affection on them than they are due, even above things that matter much more. I'm not talking about feeling guilty for taking enjoyment in hobbies. But when martial arts occupy more of my thoughts than God or my family, for instance, something's probably out of whack.
Speaking of which (again), I try not to divide the "sacred" and "secular" in my life. To me, it's all sacred. By that, I mean, whether I eat or drink, or work, or play, or grapple, or throw - I want everything to be full of and pointing to Jesus Christ (I Cor 10:31). I want to practice martial arts (and everything else...indeed the way I live) in such a way that Christ's work in my life and my love for Him is evident. This is my highest pursuit. Does that mean I want to preach to my opponents while I'm grappling, or wear obnoxious bumper stickers on my gi? Nah. I just want to let my light shine, so people see something in me that causes them to honor God (Matthew 5:16).
I want to move toward a more healthy lifestyle. Drop weight, gain endurance, build muscle, and improve my diet. Maybe martial arts can help motivate me to do that.
I want to represent traditional martial arts in such a way that promotes a respect for them (culturally, practically, and artistically).
Unfortunately, some in Christian circles have ideas about the martial arts that are way off base (some automatically associate martial arts with demons, humanism, new age philosophy, etc). In the same way some people equate all Christians to a few isolated examples of nuts, some Christians equate all martial artists to a few examples of weirdos (you can read one example of this here). I'd like to be one of the many Christian martial artists whose very lives and training refute these ignorant ideas.

So it's not important to me that I become known as the best aikido/judo player around. My indicators of success or failure will come mostly from how closely I'm moving toward the things on my list.
Anyone care to share a list of their own?

Judo, 7/13/09

2009-07-13T23:03:00.001-05:00

Monday night was rank-requirement-mania! We covered everything that will be on the upcoming green belt demo.

First we covered kouchigari. Of the four throws required for green, I think I'm most comfortable with this one.

Ouchigari was next. We looked at 2 different entries. A "normal" one (to my thinking) and a "stepping-around-the-corner" version. We explored it a little in terms of it being an otoshi motion or a guruma motion, depending on the timing. When I was being thrown with ouchi, there was a feeling of my step continuing and evolving seamlessly into the throw. We played with how to throw with that feeling as tori. We also talked about it not being a hand technique. I threw a couple of good feeling reps with virtually no hand involvement. It was a neat feeling. During our ouchi work, we also talked about the center of balance of the "two-person structure" made up of tori and uke, and looked at how "Arbitrary steps" can affect that center and cause off-balance.

Next we worked on ogoshi. I really need to work on getting my hips lower and feet closer together, as I've said before. I just feel so darned unstable when I try to! We talked about trying to get a combination of correct form (low hips, close feet, etc), timing, and getting uke to step the right way. Enough to occupy my judo education for years to come, I'm sure.

The last throw we worked on was seoinage. This time we did it as sort of the same throw as ogoshi, but using your bicep as the fulcrum rather than your hip.

We worked on lots of groundwork stuff too. We reviewed hadakajime (Rear Naked Choke) and talked about a few variations in hand placement and the scooping motion Stephan Kesting talks about in his instruction about it. We reviewed the meat grinder entry to the choke as well.

We looked at the "envelope" exercise focusing on kesagatame and munegatame, and the wakigatame and udegarami combo sequence. We played a little with the kimura (from guard) and how setting up a kimura also sets up a hip-bump sweep if he resists the kimura too much. That's a fun combo.

Lastly, we went through several reps of the hold-down cycle. I think I'm finally beginning to internalize the order of things for this cycle. I feel like I'm improving here. Pat mentioned that I'm a lot heavier then I was 3 months ago. He didn't mean I seem to have gained weight, but that my ability to apply pressure on bottom-guy is improving. He said I'm not holding myself off of him as much as I used to. That probably comes not only from practice, but getting more comfortable with grappling in general.

It was a really great lesson. I had lots of fun, felt a bit of improvement in some areas, and got to work sequentially through the material. What more could I ask for?

Aikido, 7/11/09

2009-07-11T15:42:00.001-05:00

We did aikido outside today...that provided a new set of challenges for me. Sloping concrete is different from flat mats! Wearing shoes made things different too.

We started with tegatana. I almost completely lost my balance once, just adjusting to the different conditions. It wasn't even on a tricky step! It was a good reminder that "real life" (i.e. a real self defense scenario) will not happen or feel like what we practice in the dojo. We tried it again, this time while holding a knife. This served to demonstrate a couple of things: 1) either hand might be the "doing" or "active" hand in the kata, and 2) we shouldn't be lazy or unaware during the kata - the knife made me pay attention so I didn't cut myself (conceptually, anyway - it was a rubber knife).

Releases 1-8 were next. I think I'm improving on these. I feel like I am, anyway. This week I was looking at Nick Lowry's Aikido book again in regard to releases. Quoth he: "...power comes from the movement of center, not the action of the arm or upper body". Pat's been saying that all along, and I've read Nick's book several times over the past couple of years, and it was like that part just clicked to me. I even had it highlighted in the book, but it just wasn't sticking before!

Next we worked on Chain 1. Chains are still a little confounding to me (not the concept - the execution). We started with an emphasis on a "touch-follow, touch-follow..." idea...sort of testing uke during each footfall to see what might be there (an opportunity for a technique). The "touch-follow" is a very short thing....near instantaneous...like testing a stove to see if it's hot (you don't put your hand there and leave it, you touch it, then stop touching it quickly). Pat talked about how during chains, both tori and uke are learning how to flow and deal with unexpected or weird situations.

Jodo, 7/11/09

2009-07-11T11:59:00.001-05:00

Today the mats were being cleaned at the dojo, so we had class outside. Since we couldn't do judo very well on concrete, we did a jodo class and an aikido class (which was essentially 2 aikido lessons, but more on that in a minute).

This was only my second jodo lesson. We went through kihon for a while (solo and paired) and then a couple of the beginning kata. Unfortunately I can't remember the names of the techniques or kata - as infrequently as we practice jodo, I'm going to need to sit down and document this stuff carefully in order to retain it (not to mention practicing kihon more on my own). Again I was wishing I could find more time to devote to jodo study, but aikido and judo are much bigger priorities for me at the moment.

We talked about the formality of the kata and its roots in "not screwing around with weapons".

We also played with forgetting about the stick in our hands and concentrating on the motions of our hands, feet, etc. From that point on, the relationship between jodo and aikido was way more evident to me, particularly in the "twisting stick thrust" strike (can't remember the name) and some of the hand motions in the turns in tegatana.

Friday Night Videos, 7/10/09

2009-07-10T05:35:00.001-05:00

This is truly one of the oddest things I've seen...

Picking One Thing

2009-07-07T12:45:00.001-05:00

I read a quote from my teacher today (who was paraphrasing one of his teachers) regarding aikido training:

"...you pick one thing to put into place and the rest of it goes to pot, but if you succeed in putting that one piece into place then you have succeeded at that repetition of the kata. Then you pick another aspect and your first thing goes to pieces but eventually working at it like this more than one aspect begins falling into place at a time."

I tend to go in cycles of being (somewhat) comfortable, then overwhelmed in my training. Lately, I've been going through the "overwhelmed" stage again. Not in a frustrating way...more of a sense of awe/wonder at what a deceptively complex art aikido is (that is, how freaking cool it all is!).

Anyway, it can be tough to remember and do more than a handful of things during a technique (example: don't bend your arm, don't force it, move your feet, point your center at your hand, relax, etc). I'm going to use this in my solo practice, whether with the walking kata, or practicing with my imaginary uke. I'll consider it a successful rep if I get that one thing right that I chose to focus on.

Judo, 7/4/09

2009-07-06T21:27:00.001-05:00

We worked on an osotogari/hiza guruma combo. If you try for one of those, and uke resists it, he makes it very easy to throw him with the other one. Pat said it seemed like I was feeling more comfortable with both of those throws. I think that's true - especially for osoto, but I only noticed a big difference in that one shortly before he mentioned it! I think I had been doing my osotogaris more like a trip than a sweep. It is indeed feeling much better to me now. That's exciting to me. We ended up playing with osoto a lot more and exploring this epiphany.

Next we worked on seoinage. We played with it as a hip throw variation rather than a hand throw. We also looked at a drop knee seoiotoshi, both as a standalone throw and as a transition into groundwork. This was only the 2nd time we've looked at seoinage. A few weeks back when we first looked at it, I suspected seoi might become one of my favorite throws. I felt like I was getting it, and it seemed easy to do. But this time it was confusing me way more for some reason. Two things I was having a ton of trouble with, and need to get into my head: 1) keep my feet closer together, and 2) get my hips lower!

Aikido, 7/4/09

2009-07-04T13:20:00.001-05:00

After warming up, we went through Tegatana. Pat talked about staying centered, particularly during the turns. We talked about paying attention to how much slack is in our hips, and adjusting our center so that we move before all the slack is taken out. Pat also mentioned that I should watch out for my knee not pointing the same direction as my foot, especially when bearing weight on it.

Next we went through Releases 1-8. I really feel like I'm getting more comfortable with all 8 releases. I'm obviously no expert, but I feel like I'm progressing a little. I think a big part of helping them "click" to me is Pat's instruction a few weeks ago to worry less about what the release is "supposed" to look like and concentrate on pointing my center toward my hand. That helped a lot. This week he added that I should do the releases in such a way that I feel no tension in the muscles surrounding my shoulder. When I was able to do that, it felt like my releases were way more successful. We talked about release 2's "rising" component too.

We also played with a new (to me) concept regarding releases 6 and 8. Let's see if I can describe this: As tori/uke are moving/turning, their center (that is, the center of the "structure" created by the combination of tori and uke) is travelling. It's not staying at a fixed point. If I follow that moving center like I should, the release works great. If I try to make it happen without following that center (as I often do), it doesn't work well at all. As I was driving home considering that, I imagined it like a tiny, weak tornado. If I stay in the middle of the twister, I can turn easily (making the technique much more effortless). But if I let the tornado's center get too far from me, and I end up in the "wall" of the thing, it interferes with turning naturally. Might be a sophomoric analogy, but it may help me remember to follow that center.

Finally, we worked on Junana/Nijusan 1-5. Of those 5, I think #4 (gedan ate) is the one that's most awkward for me. Pat tweaked my off-balance for 2-5, and that felt a little better. I need to stop trying so hard for the downward motion in the kuzushi - if it happens, it happens. I also need to remember to move behind uke's arm on 2-5. We went over #6, and it's almost brand new to me. We covered it a little during my time at the previous dojo, but not enough for me to get accustomed to it. Hopefully I won't have as many bad habits with that one for that reason.

Rough and/or Tumble

2009-07-03T21:42:00.001-05:00

Tonight my judo/BJJ plans fell through with my nephews, so we had a friend over for some 3rd-of-July burger grilling. I had my mats out in the living room so we decided to horse around. My buddy has never had any martial arts training - he just works out a couple times a day religiously. His "style" (if you'd call it that) is brawler/wrestler. A real Tank Abbott, but really lean and in shape.

Los is strong as an ox, and can really crush you with his mere 168 pounds. Feels more like 230 when he's crushing you. Early on, I had a successful Leg Hook Takedown (that I've been watching on the Gracie Combatives DVDs), right into mount and pretty quickly got an Americana on him. For the next 4 or 5 rounds, Los would end up giving up his back. I'd rear mount and go for RNC after RNC, but I think the muscles in his neck kept getting between me and his arteries. I did pretty well maintaining rear mount though, and I was able to conserve my energy while he spent all of his trying to get out.

As the night went on, I got less and less successful, and had to tap more and more. Los figured out that keeping control of my arms pretty much neutralizes me. I've noticed this trend with Cody and Trey as well - they're much stronger than me, so they can clamp down on my arms and keep me from moving or getting any leverage. I was thinking "Why is it I have so many freakishly strong friends?", then it dawned on me: I may just be freakishly weak.

In any case, I need (at some point), to learn how to deal with much stronger opponents, because so far, even if they're "unskilled", I'm not able to prevail.

What did I observe tonight?
1) I actually saw my opponent gas out while I calmly conserved my energy. That was pretty neat.
2) I eventually need to learn to deal with opponents who use unorthodox methods and strategies.
3) I need to develop a little more strength of my own (and a LOT more technique)
4) Practical proficiency in this stuff is going to take time.

Dare I Hope?

2009-06-30T15:57:00.001-05:00

I didn't make it to any judo or aikido lessons this past weekend...and despite my best efforts, I was not able to do a Judo/BJJ "study group" with either of my nephews. My wife went out of town, so my 14-month-old daughter and I chilled out all weekend.

Before my wife left for her trip, I asked her to let me try a triangle choke on her (I had just watched the Gracie Combatives lesson for it). I always bother her like that , haha! "Let me try this armbar..." or "Try this choke on me..." Sometimes she indulges me, sometimes not. She was packing her luggage and didn't have time, but she said "I'd like to learn that one when I get back". That was different! Normally, she will participate to help me out, or simply to humor me, but never expresses a desire to learn. Back when we trained in aikido together (at my previous dojo), she was really into it - she loved it! It was like pulling teeth to get her to try it out at first, but the more she did it, the more she liked it. Since we stopped (due to her high risk pregnancy), and especially after our daughter was born, she's had better things to do with her time, so her interest in aikido waned.

I think she's interested in learning a few things in the event she needs to defend herself, and the triangle choke has obvious applications for a woman defending herself from a rape attempt.

So do I DARE hope that this may be the beginning of a renewed interest in martial arts? I don't want to get my hopes up, but it's difficult not to. I'll definitely be nurturing her interest though.

More Fitness

2009-06-25T21:15:00.001-05:00

Tonight I made the decision to buy an exercise ball on the way home. I also decided to try the 30 minute workout on the included DVD. I made it through 20 minutes of it actually got my heart rate up more than I expected it would. It seemed like the balance involved really will help my core strength.

Oh, and I didn't stop at 20 minutes due to fatigue, or lack of will, or anything like that. My 13-month-old daughter brought me a book she wanted me to read with her. I decided to go with the far more worthwhile option.

Every decision matters.

Fitness

2009-06-25T07:45:00.001-05:00

I've had several false starts this year with my fitness goals. I'm hoping my current motivation doesn't wane so easily.

I've set an arbitrary target date of August 3rd for myself. I don't have a measurable result I'm looking for by then. Rather, my idea is to see just how much I can accomplish in that short amount of time. Basically, I'm committing to making great decisions with regard to my diet and exercise every day for the next 5-and-a-half weeks or so. I'm just going to take it one day at a time and live by the mantra:

"Every decision counts".

So last night, I didn't eat the skin of the chicken I BBQ'd the night before (the skin is my favorite part!). I stayed clear of the "Ooey Gooey" dessert bars my wife made, and opted for a banana instead. I drank only water. I put in my Hip Hop Abs DVD, intending to do the 30-minute workout, but decided I've had enough of that one for a while. I put on my gi pants, and made up my own routine:

2 rounds of the ground mobility cycle (on a heavy bag grappling dummy)
a set of crunches
a set of push ups
another set of crunches
a set of bench pressing the grappling bag
repeat from the top

I started out at a moderate pace, focusing on correct form (particularly with my holds and transitions during the ground mobility cycle). I increased speed and intensity with each round of the routine. Pressing the heavy bag was pretty cool, because it's oddly shaped and balanced, with no places to grip, which added to the difficulty of lifting it. It weighs around 50 pounds. After 35 to 40 minutes of this cycle, I was dripping sweat. Way more so than I usually am after 30 minutes of Hip Hop Abs. I like this routine better anyway - it provides a chance to drill judo holds.
We'll see how this goes!

good

Rant, Part 2

2009-06-24T07:21:00.001-05:00

Another thing that struck me as ridiculous in The Gift of Fear was the following quote from page 307:

"I recently met a middle-aged couple from Florida who had just obtained licenses to carry concealed handguns. the man explained why: "Because if some guy walks into a restaurant and opens fire, like happened at Luby's in Texas, I want to be in a position to save lives."
Of course there are plenty of things he could carry on his belt that would be far more likely to save lives in a restaurant. An injection of adrenaline would treat anaphylactic shock (the potentially lethal allergic reaction to certain foods). Or he could carry a small sharp tube to give emergency tracheotomies to people who are choking to death. When I asked him if he carried one of those, he said "I could never stick something into a person's throat!" but he could send a piece of lead into a person's flesh like a rocket.
Statistically speaking, the the man and his wife are far more likely to shoot each other than to shoot some criminal..."

Where do I begin? Since the Luby's massacre was brought up, I'd like to say something about that: Here's a snip from the wiki article:

"During the shooting, [the shooter] approached Suzanna Gratia Hupp and her parents. Hupp had actually brought a handgun to the Luby's Cafeteria that day, but had left it in her vehicle due to the laws in force at the time, forbidding citizens from carrying firearms. According to her later testimony in favor of Missouri's HB-1720 bill and in general, after she realized that her firearm was not in her purse, but "a hundred feet away in [her] car", her father charged at [the shooter] in an attempt to subdue him, only to be gunned down; a short time later, her mother was also shot and killed. Hupp later expressed regret for abiding by the law in question by leaving her firearm in her car, rather than keeping it on her person."

My observation is that a shot of adrenaline or a sharp tube would not have stopped Ms. Hupp's parents from being murdered before her eyes. If she would have had her handgun (assuming she had been trained in its use), not only her parents, but around 20 other people might still be alive today. But that logic should be obvious to any thinking person - I won't dwell too long on it.

Mr. de Becker seems astonished that the gun owner would be willing to "send a piece of lead into a person's flesh like a rocket", but is uncomfortable at the thought of performing a field tracheotomy. There could be many reasons this would be the case, but among them COULD be that the man was not trained in that procedure and feared screwing it up and causing a bigger problem. Conversely, he may have been well trained in defensive tactics and handgun use. Maybe the hands-on, bloody aspect of the procedure would be more traumatic than firing at a murderer from a distance. But I'm speculating wildly - we have no way of knowing. We're not given more information. Certainly one could argue that a greater number of lives could be saved by the handgun than the sharp tube. Here's an idea that would surely satisfy Mr. de Becker: Just carry all 3 items. The handgun, the adrenaline, and the sharp tube. But why stop there? Maybe the guy should keep a portable AED machine in his car.

As icing on the cake, the author throws out this line: "Statistically speaking, the the man and his wife are far more likely to shoot each other than to shoot some criminal..." Excuse me, "far more likely"? I'm sorry, did I read that right? I wish he would have cited the alleged "statistics" and given the source. We all know how studies can be skewed. Maybe they're "far more likely" because they're around each other far more than they're around criminals. I would lay odds that's the case. Maybe the study dealt only with brand new gun owners before they'd received any training. But if we're talking about responsible gun owners who carry to protect themselves and their families, and get proper training, I have a very hard time believing they'd be more likely to shoot each other than a criminal, all else being equal. It's absurd. Talk about "unwarranted fear" (which the author claims is a curse)!!!

I'm glad that's off my chest. You may have noticed I harped on training a good bit. As a relatively new "gun guy", I take the responsibility of proper training very seriously. I look at it as a way of protecting my family not only from the bad guys out there, but from tragic accidents as well.

Judo/BJJ Study Group 6/21/09

2009-06-22T08:23:00.001-05:00

Last night, Chase and Cody came over to train a bit. We were able to go through Lessons 1-3 of the Gracie Combatives DVDs, and I was pleasantly surprised, given how long it took Chase and me to just go through lesson 1 last time. This was Cody's first experience with these particular DVDs. They both got their own copies of the set, so we can watch the lessons during the week, and spend more time actually doing the stuff when we get together.

Lesson 1 (trap-and-roll escapes/open guard pass) - I felt like the punch block variant of the trap-and-roll went much better this time, for both Chase and me. Cody picked it up extremely quickly.

Lesson 2 (Americana) - This lesson went quickly; there are only two "slices": standard version and neck-hug variation. The neck-hug version was a little weird for us, but there's more coordination involved. I don't think it'll take that long to work out the weirdness.

Lesson 3 (positional control) - speaking of coordination, this lesson took way more than it looked like it was going to when I first watched it. The low and high "swims" went great, but the transitions from one side to the other (in response to bad guy trying to roll you) requires you to do an opposite-side hook, same-side open knee, and opposite side neck-hug, while keeping your knees light on the mat and your hips pressed into him. It was just several things to think about all at once. We probably need to go more slowly until we get the sequence down.

We didn't have time for any rolling this time, but we did do the reflex development drills at the end of each lesson. We practiced having the bad guy feed random "indicators" to good guy, and letting good guy respond with the appropriate technique. I think that part went really well and was very helpful. I think we did a good job being "partners" rather than opponents last night. Bad guys tested the techniques for good guys and helped them remember the particulars of the techniques. There was really a feeling of "mutual benefit" to our practice.

This week, we're all going to watch lessons 4 - 6. Next time we get together we plan to:

Review lessons 1 - 3
Practice the "Fight Simulation Drill" for lessons 1 - 3
Go through lessons 4 - 6 ("Taking the Back", "Rear Naked Choke", and "Leg Hook Takedown"). These next three lessons look really fun!

Judo 6/20/09

2009-06-22T07:54:00.001-05:00

We transitioned from our aiki lesson into judo by looking at 4 entries into osotogari (2 on "my side" and 2 on "his side"), and the otoshi and guruma motions in each of them.

We went through a few repetitions of the ground mobility cycle as a review/warmup, then reviewed the hold-down cycle. I was badly in need of a review of that, and definitely need to practice that more at home.

We reviewed escapes next. We played with the bridge-and-roll escape from munegatame and the "step over" escape from katagatame. For the bridge-and-roll, I need to remember to take out the space/slack (hold top guy closely to me). I also need to remember to get my bottom shoulder out from under him while shrimping.

For the step over escape from katagatame, I need to remember to bridge onto him and push his head into the mat. I need to use the "stepping over" motion to get my bottom arm out from under him.

Good, good lesson. I felt the review did me some good.

Aikido, 6/20/09

2009-06-20T22:41:00.001-05:00

As usual, we started with tegatana this morning. We talked about how the arms are not necessarily pushing - sometimes it's like you just fling them along the path they need to go and your body positions itself accordingly.

Next we did releases 1-8, focusing on 6 and 8. We looked at how 6 and 8 come nicely out of 2 or 4, *IF* I follow uke's force rather than fight against it. We played with Chain #2, and Pat demonstrated how release 6 and 8 are kind of "brackets" around all sorts of neat variations of shihonage.

Lasty, we had a good discussion about one of Pat's recent posts regarding otoshi and guruma, and how they tend to show up in Ju Nana and Owaza. I think I understand what he was saying better after his explanation today.

Rant, Part 1

2009-06-18T08:08:00.001-05:00

This post is part 2 of my "micro-review" of Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, but part 1 of the aforementioned "rant". In yesterday's post I promised to address the author's anti-gun views in more detail. This post might be more appropriate for my little gun blog, but I'm putting it here to continue the post from yesterday.

On page 306, we read an account of a home invasion. In it, the criminal locates the home owner's handgun and holds he and his family at gunpoint before finally releasing them. Mr. de Becker writes (emphasis mine):

"The intruder not only left, but he left the CD player. He did the family another favor too: he took the gun, which now won't be available to some more dangerous invader in the future (Bill is not replacing it)."

I see a few problems with this statement. Without knowing any details other than those given by the author, I think Bill (the home owner) should have had the gun in a location more accessible to him and less accessible to the criminal. Secondly, how was the theft of Bill's gun doing him a favor? Any time someone breaks into my home and attempts to take my property (or potentially worse), I don't consider it a favor. Additionally, if that gun is subsequently used in a crime and traced back to Bill, I don't think he'll be sending the burglar a "Thank You" card. How is it better to have that gun owned by a criminal (someone who would invade a home and attempt to steal property) than by a law-abiding citizen? And where is the guarantee that this gun will not be sold or given to "some more dangerous invader"? Or that the initial invader may not become more dangerous or emboldened upon acquiring a firearm?

More examples to come!

What-I'm-Reading-Wednesday 6-17-09

2009-06-17T06:17:00.001-05:00

Ok, I finally finished reading Gavin de Becker's book, The Gift of Fear. I started it about 6 months ago!

Am I glad I read it? Definitely.

Will I read it again? Probably the first one-third of it.

Reflections? I would break the book down in this way:

Beginning: very helpful - great premise. Middle: very interesting. End: Meh.

The idea that we are already experts in human behaviour, as well as the part our intuition plays in helping us avoid/survive danger was fascinating. I think that's the part of the book that may (as the cover claims) "save your life." The middle of the book covered things like stalking, celebrities, and assassinations. Not so much use to me. Some, just not a ton. This was the part of the book I got bogged down with - and why it took me so long to finish it. The end of the book (last chapter and epilogue) is sort of a recap, which is fine, and it discusses differences between "real fear", anxiety, worry, doubt, etc. I found that somewhat interesting, but not necessarily helpful. I'm not trying to be a hater, I did enjoy the book, and others' mileage may vary greatly. One other thing: I did not care for Mr. de Becker's anti-gun views in a few places in the book. I'll expound on 2 specific examples from pages 306 and 307 in tomorrow's "Thursday Thoughts".
rant

Recommended? Yes.

Judo 6-14-09

2009-06-15T10:46:00.001-05:00

Pat allowed me to do a make-up Judo lesson last night since I had to miss Saturday. I am way more a morning person than an evening person anyway, and hauling my butt out to the dojo after a lazy Sunday afternoon wasn't easy!

We started by learning a new exercise to get us ready for the many falls we would take from hip throws during the lesson. Pat called it "oozing" - one guy gets on hands and knees while the other wraps an arm around him and falls over him in a slow, controlled manner.

We moved on to a new (to me) entry into hip throws. "The middle one" is what we were calling it. It happens not on uke's forward or backward step, but tori causes him to step "around the corner" for this entry. It was kind of like the version of kosotogari we worked on recently.

From this off balance, we worked on ukigoshi, ogoshi, and koshi guruma, or the "not enough butt", "crack of the butt", and "too much butt" hip throws, as Pat called them. Since I was first exposed to them, hip throws have been tough for me. They always cause me to feel like I have a learning disability! It's times like last night I'm very thankful I have a patient teacher. Ukigoshi gives me the most fits, I think, but after several different explanations and analogies, I started to get it a little better. Things for me to remember: 1) clamp uke to me before bending over. 2) ukigoshi makes uke spin on my hip like a propeller, ogoshi rolls him around my hip, across my kidney, and koshi guruma rolls him along the line of my belt. 3) for the floating part of ukigoshi, I need to just try to get his feet up and place them behind me. 4) I need to learn to recognize when the "T" (or "L") is made with our feet - that's the time for whichever hip throw to happen.

Next we did a much-needed review of yellow and green belt escapes. 4 escapes from kesa: Leg entanglement, sit up, uphill, and bridge-n-roll. 4 escapes from mune: Bridge-n-roll, Shrimping (elbow-to-knee), leg entanglement, and spin-out. 2 escapes from katagatame: Uphill (millstone variant), and legs-over. 3 escapes from kamishiho: Bridge-n-roll, spin-out, and double bridge-n-roll.

We took a look at the Trap-and-Roll variants presented in lesson 1 of the Gracie Combatives DVDs, and the principle behind all those variants. My nephew and I were having trouble with the "punch block" variation, so Pat went over some tips for that one that I think will help us. I observed how in these DVDs, the Gracies seem to be developing kata, even though they're not calling them that, particularly with their "Fight Simulation Drills". We talked about how even though those specific attacks may not show up in real life, they demonstrate the underlying principles. Just like kata! Pat wrote a neat post on this concept earlier this year. Read it here.

I was BEAT after the lesson last night, and I'm still feeling it today.

Thursday Thoughts 6-11-09

2009-06-11T14:45:00.001-05:00

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts yesterday: Practical Defense by Alex Haddox. The topic of the episode I was listening to was "Terrorism Survival", and he gave some tips that may increase your odds in the unlikely event you're ever present during a terrorist attack (or any "active shooter" situation). Mr. Haddox stressed that odds are, you and I will not find ourselves in that situation. The statement that follows is probably not original to him, but when I heard it, it summed up why I began training in the martial arts in the first place:

"It's better to have knowledge and not need it, than to need the knowledge and not have it."

My shorthand answer to people who regularly question my motivation for self-defense training has become "Just in case." I could go into statistics, or examples of when I've needed (or very easily could have needed) self-defense skills, and I will if they're interested. But for me, it all boils down to Mr. Haddox's statement above.

US Customs is After My Pocketknife!

2009-06-10T22:18:00.001-05:00

I just got word that the US Customs department has DENIED an extension on their absurd 30-day Request for Comment on their ridiculous redefinition of a switchblade. To make a long story short, this new definition would make 80% of pocketknives illegal.

For the whole story, please visit http://www.kniferights.org/ (just click the button on the top-right side of this blog). There, you can find more details AND suggestions on what YOU can do to join the fight for your Second Amendment rights ("arms" does not only mean guns)! But please hurry - the deadline for them to receive comments is June 21st! And they're only accepting snail mail! An obvious and despicable ploy to slip this one past us!

Please write to US Customs and your senators and representatives today. Kniferights.org has suggestions for letters. Visit this site to quickly find your congressmen. Emails are recommended to congressmen, as they'll receive them more sooner, and the clock is ticking!