JudoNotes

I'm always forgetting how to get from Manhattan to Tech Judo. Here are bus directions for future reference. (Driving directions are on the Tech Judo web site.)

You will be taking the number 127 NJ Transit bus to North Bergen. The bus schedule can be downloaded from NJ Transit. It will be about a twenty minute bus ride followed by a ten minute walk. Plan accordingly around your weigh-in time.

Go to the Port Authority bus terminal. You want to be in the building at 42nd and 8th. Follow the signs within the terminal to Gate 230. It may take you a few minutes to get oriented and find the signs if you haven't made this trip before. There are ticket machines by the gate and at other locations within the terminal. When the ticket machine prompts you for a zone, enter 2 (you can look up the zone number for North Bergen on a sign by the machine, but I thought I'd save you a moment). As of this writing, an adult round trip is $5.10.

From Port Authority the bus will go into New Jersey, weave around a bit, and get onto a main road called Tonnelle Ave. Tech Judo is on 85th St. off Tonnelle. You'll see the street numbers increasing as you proceed along Tonnelle. Get off at 83rd St. (ring for the driver to stop when you're at 81st or so). Don't worry if you miss it, you can also get off at 86th.

Walk to 85th. You'll be walking downhill on 85th for maybe the equivalent of two city blocks. You'll walk past a parking lot on your left and then the facility will be on your right. You'll probably see judoka hanging around out front. There are two entrances. Take the one on the right to sign in and get weighed.

The 127 bus doesn't run very frequently, at least not on weekends, so plan your return trip accordingly. You can catch the returning bus on Tonnelle at about 83rd or 84th, I forget exactly which.

UPDATE: I rewrote some parts and added details like the gate number and zone number for the 127 bus. Also I've learned you can take the 166 or 165 bus (thanks to referee Lillian Tom). Those buses come much more frequently, but the walk from Tech Judo to the bus stop is much longer and all uphill. I'm too lazy to write up the alternate route right now; just be aware that it exists and might come in handy.

UPDATE, 2012-04-25: Below is a map that shows the path the 127 bus takes from Port Authority to where you want to get off. You can click the image to go to Google Maps, where you can use street view, see bus alternatives, etc.

SuperJudo.tv is a really nice judo instruction site that someone recommended on the JudoList mailing list. The site navigation is well designed, and the videos have good resolution (much better than YouTube) and good production quality with no fluff or fat. Sensei Leo White, a two-time Olympian, gives clear, high-quality instruction, and you can see how much he enjoys judo.

I appreciate the focus on us, the viewers. At the end of every video, Sensei White encourages us to submit our questions. There is also a "Community" area where we can upload our own videos.

Thus far the videos have been a little more about newaza than tachiwaza, which means Oishi players should feel right at home. That said, I hope to see more instruction on standing techniques in upcoming episodes.

Sensei Carl Hayes, in Tallahassee, FL, recently posted this to the JudoList mailing list:

Kids love trophies.

I have discovered that it is easy to get donations of old trophies that people have had on their shelves forever. These, however, are seldom Judo trophies. They have figurines on top, specific to various sports such as baseball, golf, bowling. To make a Judo trophy that I can give to a kid in my dojo, I have to replace the figurine on top with a Judo figurine. Then I have to replace the engraved plate that is affixed usually to the base.

I am about to receive, as a gift, an engraving machine, so I can make new engraved plates to attach, but I need a source for Judo figurines to go on top of the trophies. Haven't found a vendor. Anyone have a source? Anyone have extras to give away? Anyone want to sell, or trade?

It's a shame I didn't know about Sensei Hayes last year during the dojo move. We cleared out boxes and boxes of trophies that had accumulated over 30+ years. Well, we'll know better 30 years from now if we have to move again.

If any of you folks have old judo trophies gathering dust, let me know and either I can put you in touch with Sensei Hayes or I can send him the figurines myself. Or if you know a local dojo with a similar need, perhaps you can help them out.

I wonder myself where those figurines come from. Surely someone must still make them — ideally at a reasonable cost?

I was happy to send my own modest collection. It was a small favor to do for a guy who's willing to take the trouble to make kids happy.

My mother found these 30-year-old trophies when my parents moved last month.

In 1978 I apparently took third at the Yonkers YMCA Christmas tournament and second at the 12 Towns YMCA tournament.

I didn't stop there: in 1979 I took third at the Kennedy-King Judo Games, and second at the Eastern Queens YMCA Great Neck.

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of those third place showings were in pools of three. I rarely won matches, although I always tried to play nice, stand-up judo.

I only remember throwing for ippon one time, using a left ippon-seoinage to left osotogari combination. The ref's call was disputed, but he said the other guy had landed on his scapula. I remember him using the word "scapula." That wasn't my only ippon, though; I'm pretty sure I got at least one by osaekomi.

I know I had one good tournament where Sensei Williams's son Chris beat me in the finals with a big, hard-won ippon after I was up a waza-ari. That day was by far the highlight of my illustrious tournament career.

Yonah posted a nice piece about Ronda Rousey, who took silver at the 2007 Kano Cup in Tokyo, despite an injury from an earlier match. Ronda's blog has video of her finals match, as well as matches from other tournaments.

From a link on Ronda's blog I see that her mom, former world champion AnnMaria De Mars, also has an interesting judo blog.

On Sunday I discovered that all books at Kinokuniya are 50% off until the end of the year. Kinokuniya is a really nice Japanese bookstore at 10 West 49th, just west of 5th Ave. They have books in Japanese and English, including a martial arts section with a subsection dedicated to judo.

I stumbled in because I was in the neighborhood and remembered I'd been meaning to check the place out. Lucky me! I picked up three Masterclass books and a kata book.

The store is moving to 1073 6th Ave., between 40th and 41st, after 25 years at the old location. I heard a clerk say this was because of insane rents, and that the new location is already open (presumably without the 50% discount). Based on my experience on Sunday, and the glowing comments here, I look forward to checking the new place out.

A few notes that may interest the computer geeks out there.

Masterclass == O'Reilly

I think the Masterclass books, published by Fighting Films, are roughly the judo equivalent of the O'Reilly computer books. In both cases, any serious practitioner is likely to have some books in the series. I like the Masterclass books better in some ways, mainly because I have a strong preference for books less than a half-inch thick.

Now if only there were an equivalent of the Fighting Films DVDs for computer programmers. The nearest I can think of is the Apple developer videos that are available on iTunes to registered developers. Hm — how great would it be if we could get Fighting Films videos on the iTunes Store?

Early domain name ideas

The domain name I really wanted for this blog was FlyingMeat.com. I thought it was memorable, and "flying meat" describes what we judo players often are. Only after I did a "whois" did I realize why it sounded so catchy: Flying Meat is a prominent "indie" Mac software company. I don't know how I forgot this, considering I subscribe to the developer's blog. My brain must have put my judo facts in a separate compartment from my geek facts.

Another domain name I liked, and wished I'd thought of, was BeingUke.com. I forget how I came across the Being Uke blog; I suspect some other blog I was reading had a link to it and the name jumped out at me.

I admit "JudoNotes" is rather bland, but I figured it's easy to remember and spell, and it does reflect what I mean to do with the blog.

MarsEdit

Speaking of indie Mac developers, I use MarsEdit, by Red Sweater Software, to write all the posts on JudoNotes. MarsEdit changed my blogging life. Instead of the ugly, cumbersome web-based interface I used to use, I now have a great-looking Mac application that makes it easy, quick, and pleasant to start a new blog entry, to browse and touch up past entries, and to maintain drafts of multiple blog entries before posting them.

Sensei has been having us do a few minutes of ju no kata from time to time, as a way to warm us down at the end of class, and as part of our general judo education.

Ju no kata reminds me of tai chi in the way it teaches balance via a series of slow, deliberate exercises. It reminds of both fight choreography and ballroom dancing in the way it requires timing and communication between partners. The balance, timing, and communication are all good things for me to work on.

As Yonah Wolf observed, YouTube can be a great resource for studying kata. For the ju no kata, I found a very clear series of five instructional videos (from the Kodokan, I think) with detailed explanations in English. I put them on my iPhone so I can study them any time, and hopefully not flounder so much when we practice the kata in class. I also found a demo by Kano himself.

In the first technique in the ju no kata, uke aims his hand like a knife at a spot between tori's eyebrows. Sensei told us the word for that spot is "uto," which struck me as a great little word. I Googled for it when I got home and learned that the anatomical term for it is "glabella."

"Uto" is more fun to say, though.

On the very slim chance that any of you are anagram nerds, here's a simple one that I like:

UKEMI = I'M UKE

Here's one that's not quite as, you know, profound:

JUDONOTES = DOJO TUNES

From Jeff: public transportation to the East Coast this weekend.

The "Transit Planner" at Trips123 is very handy for this kind of thing. When you do a search there, they show you not only public transportation, but walking maps to and from the stations at each end of your trip.

These directions are from [Trips123], but are also exactly as I remember them. I made a few notes on their directions. Note also that all these services in effect run continuously so the times don't need to be exact.

If one were leaving from midtown, one would take the 33rd Street Path to Hoboken to get the Newark Path.

Departing: 10:42 AM on Saturday, October 06, 2007
From: BATTERY PARK CITY
Total Trip Time: 0:35
To: NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Go To: World Trade Center, Vesey St & Church St

Board: Path WTC To Newark Line/Newark

Arrive at: Newark Station (Path) at 11:04 am

Board: NJ Transit Rail Line/Grove Street Station (this is the Newark subway)

Arrive at: Warren Street Light Rail Station at 11:17 am (this is the third stop on the subway)