JudoNotes

Joaquin Gonzalez writes:

Dear fellow Judoka:

A Judo demonstration is being planned for Sunday December 9, 2007 at the YMCA in Staten Island (651 Broadway). The event is intended to reach out to the community and create awareness and interest in the sport. The Staten Island Advance will be contacted for coverage and subsequent articles.

I would like to ask you to participate and support this effort for it may favorably influence future young (or not so young) Judokas.

The suggested agenda includes:

2:30 PM to 3:30 PM

Kids class with oversight from seniors. Emphasis on games designed for strengthening, coordination/grip/reflexes, etc. with strong interaction with parents, if required.

3:45 PM to 5:45 PM

Adults (warm ups, regular practice, demo throw for throw, open randori, —open for suggestions)

6:30 PM until …

Refreshments and Nourishment.

Please mark your calendars and in anticipation of your participation, ….. I thank you.

I plan to be there.

Here are a few more matches from the promotionals on Saturday.

• Bob
• Paul 4
• Jason
• Jean-Ezra 1
• Jean-Ezra 2
• Jean-Ezra 3
• Nina 1
• Nina 3
• Germain 3

Here's an Oishi highlights reel for the tournament yesterday. Be sure to also check out Tom Mierzwa's matches en route to batsugun.

(A happy Tom responds to the referee directing him back to his side of the mat.)

Congratulations to Tom Mierzwa, who made batsugun at the Hudson Promotionals yesterday. Below are links to his matches. I like his moment of exuberance at the end of the last one, which made the referee smile.

• Tom 1
• Tom 2
• Tom 3

John (last name?) also made batsugun to shodan, and Kevin Kornemann earned batsugun from sankyu to nikyu.

I'll post more video later.

[UPDATE: Assorted corrections, thanks to Jeff.]

Last night Sensei promoted Paul Virtue and Germain Difo to ikkyu, and Christian Hoffmann to yellow belt. Congratulations to all, and good luck to Paul, Germain, and the others who will be competing in today's promotionals.

[UPDATE: Jeff pointed out that the official results for the whole tournament have been posted.]

(click the photo for a larger version)

It happens at every tournament. I try to get as many of our matches on video as I can, but I always miss a few for some silly reason. At yesterday's East Coast Championships I had a perfect vantage point at the top of the bleachers, where I could see all three mats and easily zoom in to any mat where an Oishi player was fighting. But my attention wandered and I managed to miss a few matches anyway. I'll try to do better at the promotionals next week.

Here are the medals we won:

• Jeff Summa – second (Masters B, -175)
• Bob Henry – first (Masters A, +220)
• Nina – first (Senior females, -154)
• Paul Virtue – first (Senior brown belts, -220)
• Karim Wahib – third (Senior brown belts, -198)
• Germain Difo – third (Senior brown belts, -178)

Others who played were:

• John Harris
• Jean-Ezra Yeung
• Michael P
• Alex Hon
• Ron Lehman
• Zuri Russell
• Jason Mitchell
• Frank Gomez
• Matt Gelfond

Thanks to Jeff for filling in some of the data. Any errors or omissions are purely my fault.

Here's a one-minute highlights reel:

Here are the matches I managed to record (some only partially):

• Alex 1 – Alex 2
• Bob
• Frank
• Germain 1 – Germain 2
• Jason 1 – Jason 2 – Jason 3 – Jason 4
• Jeff
• John 1 – John 2 and Michael
• Karim 1 – Karim 2 – Karim 3 – Karim 4 – Karim 5 – Karim 6
• Matt
• Nina 1 – Nina 2 – Nina 3
• Paul 1 – Paul 2 – Paul 3
• Ron 1 – Ron 2 – Ron 3 – Ron 4
• Zuri 1 – Zuri 2 – Zuri 3

John Harris pointed me to the web site of Yun Gen Yang, the photographer who took John and Alison's wedding photos.

Yun posted engagement photos on his blog back in July. Click below to see them:

Note that John was wearing his Oishi t-shirt. And he's versatile — he demonstrated both left and right ippon-seoinage.

Yun created a beautiful slideshow of the wedding pictures. To see them, click below, and then click again where it says "Wedding Slideshow":

Summer is coming to an end, folks.

I saw that Sensei posted some upcoming dates on the window of the dojo office, so I thought I'd post them here as well, with links to some of the events. You'll have to ask Sensei for details on the others, because I got tired of Googling for them. It baffles me that it's so hard to find an official web page for some of these events.

Update: Tech Judo now has info on their site. Thanks to Jeff for the heads-up.

Update: Hudson Judo has put up an application form for the 10/13 promotionals.

Update: Jeff sent me a corrected date for the kata clinic. Hudson Judo has put up the application form for the clinic, which is 10/28, and for the exam on 11/17.

Sensei still has plenty of Oishi Judo patches. They are 3 inches in diameter and look great on the chest or shoulder of your judogi jacket. You can click the image on the right to see a closeup.

Five bucks each — a small price for looking sharp.

I've had three patches for weeks, and recently bought a fourth for my gym bag, but haven't gotten around to sewing any of them on. I should probably get my dry cleaner to do it instead of procrastinating on a job I'll probably botch anyway.

If you do try to sew a patch yourself, you might want to prewash it. I read somewhere this makes it easier to thread and also reduces shrinkage problems. I think I'll prewash mine even if I outsource the sewing.

Little known fact: last October, Nina brought a lemon tart for us to enjoy after the East Coast tournament. She made a decoration for it out of white and dark chocolate, based on the same Oishi logo that is on the patch: