judo

Ne waza last night was awesome.

I managed to “puppet” a heavier black belt around in my butterfly guard, almost sweeping him a couple times.  Ultimately he pinned me but I think I overheard him telling another black belt that “there’s no messing around” in randori with me, so I’m, like, totally gushing.

I also got to fight against one of the old hat blackbelts.  He’s 50 years old and lighter than me but he massacres me.  The last time I fought him I was a white belt—this time I was actually cognizant of what was going on, but I didn’t do much better.  I have so much respect for the “old” guys:  you can’t help but feel a lifetime of experience behind every move they make.  A couple interesting things he did:

• While trapping me in full mount, he “frogged” his legs up and held my hips with the balls of his feet.  It seemed unorthodox but effective.
• While he had me in his guard, he grapevined only one of my legs and swept me over that leg.  I had to run this through my mind a couple times before I realized what he did.

Standup was pretty good too.  I got a couple fireman throws in, one of which was on a black belt.  In the face of much practice, my breakfalls are also improving. 

And since I’m tooting my own horn, I’ll mention I got 10 sets of 10 with 45 lbs plates on bench on Monday.  GET TO THE CHOPPA!

Datapoint

Weighing-in consistently at about 76.5 kilos with my runners on.  Pushing towards 45lbs plates on each side for Germans (10 sets of 10), but I’m not quite there yet.  A couple weeks ago I felt confident about being able to achieve 20 chin-ups in a row (16 is easy) but my energy levels are suffering due to a cold.  I’ve been neglecting cardio—occasional stair-running and judo is all I’ve managed to get in.  I special ordered a new pair of runners for my funny feet so maybe those’ll kick me back into high gear.  Left ankle is at about 85% and not a concern: e.g., saiza is easy when I’m warmed up.

Starting to get 3D veins in my right biceps (left biceps is already quite prominent), calves, thighs but I’m sure the holidays will help with that.  Bruises on my hips and shins from falling and having my legs hacked at in judo never seem to heal.  I look like the victim of an unending butt-kickin’.  I privately enjoy being one of the people at the gym that actually looks like he applies his fitness.

Groundwork: been developing my butterfly guard since I purchased Marcelo Garcia’s book on the X-Guard.  Typically doesn’t work well against larger opponents who instead flatten me, but comparable/lighter opponents are becoming easier to control, sweep, puppet around.  I’ve been making poor attendance to jiu jitsu and reasonable attendance to judo, mostly due to the cold weather.  Might cancel jiu jitsu til the Spring.

Standing:  while I had aspirations of developing my forward throws earlier on, I think I’ve more generally geared myself towards developing “kuzushi” (i.e., off-balancing uke).  Pulling up, pulling in.  Made a bit of progress last week, as I felt like I was controlling a (quite exhausted) black belt’s weight.  Of course I didn’t throw him, and he ragdolled me when he felt like it.  These movements involve muscles that aren’t necessarily as developed as I’d like, so even if I don’t manage to perform a throw, I think the repetition is good for me.

Agalloch is blowing my mind.

Options from the Sleeve

Sumi gaeshi is a throw I often attempt and fail, ending up flat on my back.  But sometimes it works beautifully.  Typically I grab uke’s left sleeve with my left hand (especially after ‘baiting’ with my right hand extended) and attempt the throw with that weak connection.  But it’s important to put more effort into breaking him down, reaching far across his back, and to straddle his shoulder with my armpit.

If you do that, you’ve probably got sumi gaeshi.  But maybe not.  So you can fake an uchi mata (successfully executed, this’d drive his face into the mat—not bad in a street situation, suboptimal in competition).  He’ll correct his balance, which makes turning and completing the sumi gaeshi that much easier.

With very few exceptions, it seems good to have an opponent broken down.  Besides the obvious application of sacrifice throws, another “throw” I played with on Saturday is a somersault choke.  I slipped my right hand deep into uke’s right lapel (cross grip), broke him down, then leapt across his back in a somersault motion: this tightened the choke and generated enough momentum to knock him over, but I need to practice it against more resistant opponents.

Another option from a left-handed cross sleeve grip is to pull that sleeve under your right arm, across your body, and to clamp down on it with your right arm.  Get your right leg behind their left foot and connect yourself to uke.  He’s pretty much hosed.  (todo: name this throw.)

You can also pull the sleeve across—as with sumi gaeshi—and do a very aggressive o uchi gari, pulling your opponent down onto the same side as the arm whose sleeve you’ve got.

Finally, a couple words on lapel chokes from the back.  Once you’ve got your over-under, you can use your under to straighten uke’s lapel and choke up on (heh) your over-the-shoulder grip.  From here you can pull down on the opposite lapel with your under grip and straighten the wrist on your over grip hand.  But once you’re deep with your over, you can also trade that under grip for a half-nelson, which removes his arm from play while enabling you to push your fist into the back of his neck to tighten the choke.  If you’re really flexible (if I’d've been warmer I can see this working) you can use your leg to apply the half-nelson.  Maybe it’s unnecessarily fancy, but the result is incredibly strong and truly hopeless for uke, assuming your collar grip can keep up with the torque you’re creating.

Judo Tournament

The jist:  I got second place, winning four of six matches.  My two ippons came from sasai, a really simple and basic throw—but having some other throws in my arsenal would’ve definitely helped.  The other two matches I won on the ground, by hold-down and submission respectively.  Quoth the organizers: “Wow, no serious injuries this year!”  All I suffered was a bit of matburn and a bruised shin.

Crushing Turnover, Revisited

A while ago I wrote a judo post that included a turtle-turnover:

A technique to roll a crouching uke into juji-gatame. You stand over uke, facing the same direction he does. Then, you link the crook of your left arm into the crook of his right arm, and rest your left hand on your right knee. Next, you’ve got your left knee planted to the right of his neck, and you’re lying next to him on your left shoulder (facing his feet). His arm is trapped and you’re at liberty to use your whole body to submit him or roll him into juji-gatame. This one needs practice.

One detail this description is missing is exactly how you’d go about “rolling him into juji-gatame.”  It can be ridiculously hard without the right technique:  The description above leaves your right arm unoccupied, but you can use it to grab uke’s ankle/cuff.  Use this grip to ‘cartwheel’ uke on top of you. This redistributes his weight on top of you in a manner that’s hard to resist, and it’s then that you can use the strength of your whole body.

In another judo post I had kept notes on my newaza:  (1) I need to be more active when I’ve got someone’s back, and (2) Had some success with a side-control pin-to-rollover where I reach over and grab the guy’s pantleg. I’ve been addressing (1) with a variation on jigoku jime that I’ve heard called a “hell choke” and “bow and arrow choke” in different circles and it’s been working well.  I need to get that hand in faster though.  And  (2) netted me a small victory last night when I was able to roll a guy that normally massacres me into a crappy kesa gatame—but I rolled him nonetheless.

Gator Roll

Last week we talked about kata guruma some more and introduced a cool new combination.  Say you go in for the fireman and they sprawl their legs back.  If you did the entry right, you’ve still got their arm: so you can just gator roll to ippon them.  Very cool.

Judo notes

Some random judo notes from Thursday:

• Newaza – had some success sitting my chest on turtled opponents and running around them to take their back, rolling them over; but I need to be more active when I’ve got someone’s back.  Scissor-sweeps are higher percentage for me when I shoot the guard in fast and throw the sweep, rather than letting someone settle happily into my guard.  Had some success with a side-control pin-to-rollover where I reach over and grab the guy’s pantleg.  Something I need to refine.
• Kata guruma – something that had not been in my repertoire til now.  Needs practice.  Was told it’s good to use when broken down into opponent’s shoulder.  Defend against by sprawling the vulnerable leg backward—lets you move around with your chest on your opponent’s back, take back, etc.
• Foot sweep – this particular brand is well-applied when in opposite stances with opponent so that all four feet are aligned in a V.  The idea is to hook uke’s near foot with your own, twist/budge it to loosen its contact with the mat (like you were putting out a cigarette), extend uke’s foot laterally to bring his weight away from his supporting foot, then follow through with the sweep.  These are nuances I was totally unaware of, and great for if you fight in unorthodox stance.

Unrest

In yesterday’s post I anticipated I’d sleep like a baby, which would’ve been nice since I got up at 05:30 for the gym. That didn’t happen, though.  Even though I was in bed at ~22:30, I was feeling crappy in general and a conversation started up outside my window ~00:00.  Gymming (cable flies, low rows, medicine ball sit-ups, squats, super sevens) suffered accordingly, but I’m happy to report the ankle isn’t bothering me anymore.

Jiu-jitsu was a win.  We covered kesa gatame escapes and transitions, which are familiar to me from judo, but it’s always nice to see a familiar subject under a different light.  These were (1) stuffing your captor before rolling the other way, (2) hipscaping and hooking your captor’s neck with your leg, and (3) stuffing your non-reacting captor flat into the ground.  The only one that’s worked reliably for me in judo are (1) and (2)… (3) just requires too much brute force in practice.  I had to tap once from ankle pain (I was transitioning into butterfly guard and it got stuck, heh) but otherwise it actually felt good to test its range of motion.

After JJ I had a few minutes to kill before my bus came so I went to Tim Horton’s to have a turkey sandwich without the dressing.  I was proud of myself for skipping the ranch but then I ordered a medium iced cappuccino but goddam it was good.

Brute

Last night I played some nethack and finally killed Medusa—first time for me.  I have yet to embark on the Rogue quest (scared of the polymorph traps) but my character has become a serious brute.  One day I’ll write a blog post about nethack.

I slept in this morning, and it felt great.  I tried to have some oatmeal for breakfast with cardamom and cinnamon and sugar in it, but I think I overdid it with the spices and it tasted horrible.  Then I went to the gym, even though yesterday’s workout was horrible (I’ve been sick).  Today’s wasn’t great but I had a little more pep:

• Chin-ups, 10 wide-grip then 10 wide-grip/behind-head.
• Bench, 30, 10, 15, 10, 10 reps with 95lbs.
• Some cycling to break things up (13 mins and 83 calories—pathetic!)
• Squats, 3×10 with 95lbs (testing the ankle).
• Triceps extensions, 5×10 variable weight.
• Concentration curls, 3×10 on each arm, 20 lbs.
• 200 crunches (various).

My ankle is mostly recovered.  I can’t fully extend my foot (e.g., sit in saiza) but I think I’m ready for some judo/jiu-jitsu next week!

Hack’ & ‘Hack

I woke up and scrambled two eggs for breakfast.  I travelled to campus to meet with my friend Lonn, and we played hacky sack for a bit.  By then I was hungry, so we looked for food but all the lineups were too long.  Instead, I bought a granola bar out of a vending machine and we played nethack for *hours*.  I managed to polymorph my dog (via polymorph trap) into a master lich; meanwhile, Lonn found rings of poly-control and polymorph and decided that a master lich was the best thing for him to polymorph into.  I died when an air elemental engulfed and tore my meager 59-hp character to shreds, but Lonn’s is alive and well.  Afterwards, I was so… hungry…

Today my ankle is doing fairly well (hence the hacky sack) but still not completely recovered.  I really want to go back to judo & teh jitz, but not just yet.

Tomorrow I start my Ph.D. studies.  I *still* need to decide on a class to take, but I’m uncertain enough about each of the classes to have to visit each one in turn to make my decision.  I also need to decide on a research topic—my supe is taking several very interesting directions in his research, and experience tells me I’ll benefit by complementing his interests and experience.