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Last night I tried to optimize my time by doing a hour of Brazilian JiuJitsu followed by two hours of Judo.  I was breaking off rust from my ground game but clearly have a lot of work to do.  When you are relaxed you can "flow" more and you burn less energy but when you are tight and scrambling you burn more.  For this reason BJJ really took its tole on me where as Judo (where I'm looser and more relaxed) was less punishing.  I did fewer reps and more uchicomies but still got a great work out overall.  As my stamina increases I should be able to improve my rep numbers.

From memory here are my reps.

Kouchi gaka to drop seonagi : 3 -  Even though this is one of my favorite combos, I figured out this is want is putting pressure on my right knee so I'm backing off this one for a while until I can correct my technique.
Hiza Garuma to Hari O Goshi:  5
Kouchi to O Uchi to Tai Otochi:  5 ?

Ashi Garuma : 6
O Goshi : 10
Sode Tsurikomi Goshi: 15

Last class

Jim Irvine taught today.
I'm being conservative on the reps but these are the throws we worked on.
Ashi Garuma: 10
Sode Tsurikomi Goshi:  10
Ouchi Gari: 5

We worked on the following combos:
Osoto Gari to Ashi Garuma : 10
Osoto Gari to Ashi Garuma to Ouchi Gari : 10

The brain is a funny thing. One minute everything seems to be working and the next things fall apart.
We also did some bean bag drills, some turn over drills, and a little free sparing groundwork.  I feel very rusty on the ground right now but not completely a fish out of water.
We had a new fellow in class today which is great and he has had some previous judo training.
I know these entries have been boring, but I really want to keep writing this stuff down so that I can track my progress.  My energy was a bit lower today and my right knee is far from good.  Hopefully I will be rejuvinated by next class.  I'll put together something more esoteric for the blog soon.

Hours of training 2.0

Class Update

Hands Hands Hands.  I must work on my hands through throws.  It's funny how I seem to be able to focus on one or two elements of a throw and then when I try to add one it it totally falls apart.  Of course you need all the elements to make it look eloquent.

We had a good class last night.  Terry Spencer taught and Jim Irvine also worked out, so the class was overflowing with experience.   We had a new young person show up and it was great to see some new blood energized by judo.   We did some hold down drills and I also did some juji gatame  reps.  It had been to long since I drilled that so it was good to start to get the flow again.

I worked a lot on combos last night:
Hiza Garuma to Hari O Goshi : 20 reps
Kouchi Gaka to Ippon Seonagi : 10 reps.. (although some of those I ended up throwing the Kouchi)
Kouchi to O Uchi to Tai Otochi : 3 reps..
Kouchi to Tsuri Goshi : 3 reps

Ashi Garuma : 10 reps
Tsuri Goshi : 10 reps
O Uchi Gari : 3 reps
O Soto Gari: 5 reps

We also did quite a few fit ins or Uchikomi (fit in drills) as well.

Why do we compete?

Lately I've been thinking about the importance and role of competition within Judo.  I've heard a lot lately about  going to compete and "hanging it all out there".  Judo competitions are setup to crudely emulate combat but do so in such a way as to test the skill set that is studied in Judo.  Anytime you create a framework or rule structure to simulate combat, as athletes, we adjust our strategies and do non combative and non martial things that exploit the weakness within the rules.  These types of things are what put the "Sport" in Judo.  When we collapse into a turtle position and hold on and wait for the ref to stand us up, this is an action that is effective in sport and not effective in combat.  When we role through a throw such that our opponents backs hit the ground but we role over them such that we neither are left standing, nor ground control, this is a sport strategy and  not martially effective.  If we dive to the ground face first rather than doing a break fall and rolling out of a throw, we are playing the sport of Judo to avoid loss rather than to safely walk away from being thrown.  These are just a couple of examples of how the sport of Judo effects its practice.   Now there is nothing wrong with doing the sport of Judo any more than there is anything wrong with playing football or tennis or hockey.

For myself and many other judoka, the sport aspect is secondary to the martial one.  When you practice judo I think you have to decide at some point if you are training in order to compete and win, or if competition is a tool you use to test your training.   It would be akin to playing hockey to test your ability to skate. I have seen Judo players break arms and collarbones trying to twist out of a throw to avoid a loss rather than break fall safely and accept it.    With the martial aspect in mind we can still compete whole heartily,  but the way we train and execute the techniques we know may handicap us somewhat when participating under the rules of the sport.

I guess a distinction could also be made about the difference between the martial and the art within the martial art.  Kano seems to stress the importance of position,  timing and off balancing, to create an effortless throw.  It is true that putting yourself in a position to break an opponents knee or wrist and execute a throw is a very martial thing, however I think that training exclusively in that heavy marital way may cause us to miss the subtleties of the art portion.  I think that adding heavy martial aspects to your techniques is probably much easier to do after you have mastered the art involved in effective throwing and ground work.

Whether you enjoy training in judo for the sport, or focus on the martial art, I think it is also important to realize that the training is where all the work and learning is done.  Just as most of golf is really learned on the driving range and on the putting greens not in the game,  judo is learned in the dojo through repetition and hard work.  Competing without training just increases your chances of injury and creates a very slow path of progression which can be frustrating and counter productive.  So YES, compete! compete often!  Test yourself.  But above all else TRAIN.  Because if you aren't training, what progress are are you supposedly testing?

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Statistics from last class:
Personal Repetitions:
Ashi Garuma 6
Tsuri Goshi 6
O-Uchi gari 10
Ko Uchi Gaka 5
Uchi-Mata 10

Combos:

Hiza Garuma - Hari O Goshi 10


Hours of training : 1.5 total 5.5

Notes:  We did some Randori tonight and I went back into my habits of heavy grips, blocking, countering, and not moving around enough and not committing to my attacks.  My Uchi-Mata practice was horrible, but I was reasonably happy with how my Tsuri Goshi is coming.  We spent some time figuring out some techniques from Saturdays clinic.  I found the arm grab escapes particularly easy to pick up on.  They were simple essentially identical to ones I practiced when I briefly studied Japanese Jiu-Jitsu in Canada.  The body drops demonstrated a different kind of kasush but would take me many many many repetitions before they become intuitive, so I think I will just focus on the 67 judo throws for now.

MARTIAL ARTS USA CLINIC

MARTIAL ARTS USA CLINIC

Date: April 28, 2012
Location: DICKSON ATHLETIC CLUB
100 Payne Spring Road
Dickson, TN
Host: Dan Smith
(615) 446-3800
Cost: $50 for full day/ $25 for half day

Clinician: Grandmaster Larry Beard

Soke, Grandmaster, Budoki Junari Jiu Jitsu Hanshi, Honorable Grandmaster, Kenwayoshin Jiu Jitsu 9th Dan, Kenwayoshin Jiu Jitsu 8th Dan, Professor, Budoki Junari Yudo 8th Dan, Professor, Midori Yama Budokai Yudo 8th Dan, Professor, Shin Shin Jujitsu 6th Dan, USJA Judo 6th Dan, Traditional Kodokan Judo 4th Dan, Budoki Junari Yusool 4th Dan, Budoki Junari Hapkido 4th Dan Shin Nagare Karate

CLINIC SCHEDULE

9 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. advanced jujitsu must be brown belt or above
lunch from 12:00 pm until 1:30 p.m.
from 1:30p.m. until 4:00 p.m. Yusool open to everyone

YUSOOL


Yu: (Gently / Giving / Yielding)
Sool: (Technique / Skills)

The martial art of Yusool represents a controversial case in modern Korea. Records show that centuries ago, there existed only two fighting styles in Korea: The kick-punch art of Taekyon, & the grappling art of Yusool. Taekyon lives on today, but Yusool in its original form, died out more than 300 years ago.

Professor John E. Chambers, founder of Martial Arts USA, was keeping the art of Yusool alive and active by passing his system, BudoKi-Junari-Jujitsu, on to Grandmaster Beard and Shihan Patricia Hill. Techniques range from least to more difficult, as the student progresses through the ranks. Professor Chambers revised many of the antiquated Yusool techniques, combined those with modern yudo/judo, hapkido and his own system of jujitsu, to establish a practical, effective & exciting array of 120 self-defense techniques. Some of these techniques will be covered in this session.

Stat Update

Last class was another great Judo class.  Terry Spencer was recovering from participating in the USA Judo Nationals last weekend (Good Job Terry!) so Mike Smith lead the charge.  We roughly followed the same out line as last Thursday but worked on a the details of a few of the throws on the list rather than covering them all.
We had a BJJ student join us for this class. He has been out a few times and is really getting the feel for it.  Usually when we have lower belts in class we work on a throws like O Soto Gari and the guys with more experience take a lot of falls.  This works really well in my opinion because the lower belts get to throw more without getting punished the next day for taking so many falls.  We also do more Uchi Komi (fit in without throwing) so they get the mechanics rather than full throws.  As such I think I did more falling than throwing, but I still feel that I got a lot in and got a good workout.

The picture is from a few years back during one of my instructor's (Joe Dan Pickering) black belt test.  I still have not figured out how to work taking a few pics into the scheme of things, but I will.

Throw	Last Class	Total
O Soto Gari	15	20
O Goshi	5	10
Tai Otoshi	5	15
Ashi Garuma	0	15
Hari Tsuri Komi Goshi	0	5
Ko Uchi Gari	15	25
O Uchi Gari	5	10
Ippon Seoi Nage	5	5

Combos	Last Class	Total
Ko Uchi Gaka to Ippon Seionagi	0	10
Hiza Garuma to Hari O Goshi:	5	10
Ko Uchi Gari to Tai Otoshi	3	3
Ko Uchi Gari to O Uchi Gari to O Soto Gari	5	5

Total Hours of training: 4

Post class analysis

Great class last night. Mike Smith took the lead as instructor as Jim was out of town to see his instructor,  Shigeyuki "Ace" Sukigara, receive a Life Time Achievement award.

Mike followed the curriculum pretty closely.  I was having trouble with my foot work due to brain death, but I loosened up as time went on.  Mike is a real student of the art and I really like hearing his analysis.

I don't have exact counts on my throws. I can see that the challenge will be how to gather good metrics without interrupting the flow of class.  I also want to take some video so that I can visually analyse my throws, but again, I don't want to stop class to do it.  I think 10 min after class may be the best time for that.

Conservatively here are my rep counts on full throws (not including Uchi Komi) :
O Soto Gari: 5
O Goshi: 5
Tai Otoshi: 10
Ashi Garuma: 10
Hari Tsuri Komi Goshi: 5
Ko Uchi Gari: 10
O Uchi Gari: 5

Combos:
Ko Uchi Gaka to Ippon Seionagi: 10
Hiza Garuma to Hari O Goshi: 5

Hours of training: 2