Judo 6-14-09

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.