Judo Study Group

Last night my nephew and his friend came over to practice some Judo with me. Let me start by saying I know that I am supremely unqualified to teach Judo to anyone. But, I figured I could show them a few things I've been learning and we could practice them. It turned out to be a lot of fun!


We warmed up with ukemi, then moved on to the foot sweeping exercise Pat always has us start with. I showed them deashi barai, and we drilled that to death. Then we played with transitioning to ukigatame right after the throw, and into munegatame and kesagatame after that. I showed them the ground mobility cycle, and the few escapes I "know" (sit-up, leg entanglement, uphill, and bridge & roll), and we had a lot of fun with that. I was feeling better about my shrimping/bridging by the end of our time last night. We did a BIT of kosotogari and osotogari as a preview of what we can play with next time.

A few things this independent "Judo study group" showed me:

• As I said, I really can't teach, I can only show at this point...but I knew that already.
• I am SO out of shape. These kids are in their early 20's and work out religiously. I'm in my mid-30's and have 25 extra pounds or so I have GOT to deal with. If I want to be able to keep up with...well...anyone, I have some work to do.
• I should not do 2 hours of Judo after a large meal. A friend was in town for the holidays, so we went to VooDoo BBQ and I got stuffed. We started judo at 9pm, and went till 11pm. I was so nauseated afterward I felt like I would pass out.
• My 12 foot by 8 foot mat space is okay for now. It's fine for ground drills and throwing drills, but for any randori, I'm gonna need more.

As I said, we had lots of fun, and I was very glad to get a couple extra hours of practice with deashi and the groundwork. Hopefully it'll help!