JudoNotes

Congratulations to all Oishi players who competed in the 43rd East Coast Judo Championship on September 19. In addition to those listed below, Patrick Younan and Mike P also competed, and Arthur Zolotarevsky was on the sidelines shooting video.

Men Brown Belt

-161 2nd Place JEAN-EZRA YEUNG

-220 3rd Place DANIEL W

Men Black Belt

+220 3rd Place JOHNNY FAULKNER

MASTER (A)

-200 2nd Place MILTON CHACON

Here's Milton coming out of the turtle position to get osae-komi:

Unfortunately, I missed a big throw for ippon that Milton did. I was watching the wrong mat and didn't realize he was playing until I saw the throw out of the corner of my eye, just too late to catch it on video. Hate when that happens.

Here's a match well-played by Jean-Ezra:

I posted this on Facebook a while back but neglected to post it here. This was taken on Hisato's last day at the dojo before moving back to Japan. Nice smooth technique. (Hisato — a belated Happy Birthday! I hope you're doing well!)

The reason there's no sound is that I was shooting at 210 frames per second, and my camera doesn't capture audio in that mode. Although it's cool to be able to shoot that fast, in the future I'd probably prefer to shoot at normal speed and slow it down in software. Not only would I get sound, but the video would be less grainy.

Jaime says he got this from Sensei Williams.

Oishi Judo had a good turnout for the Hudson Promotionals on Saturday. Arthur, Zaid, Karim, Mike P, and Jon Faulkner competed, as did one fellow from the day class whose name I'll have to get. No batsugans but a few nice throws. I made a playlist on YouTube where you can see all the matches I managed to get on video. Here are the highlights, complete with slo-mo replays:

P.S. The throwers are Zaid, Jon, Jon again, Karim, and Ken.

(I'm catching up on a backlog of news I've been meaning to post…)

Yotam posted video of his four matches at the Liberty Bell on April 5:

Someone whose YouTube name is "Ippondo" posted a whole bunch of matches from the NY Open. Click here to see them. Click here to see the ippons (or at least the ones Ippondo described as "ippon").

Here are the women's matches from the New York Open yesterday. Most notable are matches 2 and 5.

This was the first time women have competed in this event.

The entire Japanese team visited Oishi Judo on Saturday. I'll post about that soon, and I'll be updating the dojo web site.

Yotam took third at the Tech Judo "Super Bowl" tournament yesterday. I wasn't going to be there, but I changed my plans so I was able to attend. I took the bus out there with Yotam and my buds Rich and Seth from Five Points.

When it was all over I helped stack the mats, as I did last time I was there. I must be nuts because I actually enjoy that, though I imagine it gets less fun around the hundredth time. Maybe it just felt good to do something physical (not to mention helpful) after watching other people fight all day. I tend to carry heavy things on my left, so I made a mental note to try carrying the mats on my right side next time, not only for strength but coordination. Someday I may have to study the nage-no-kata, and I'll be glad I sort of practiced kata-guruma on both sides, even if my uke was a big rubber rectangle.

This was the first time I've been out to Tech Judo that I didn't have a ride back. When we got to the bus stop for the return trip, we realized we had over an hour wait for the next bus. As luck would have it, referee Lillian Tom walked by and noticed us standing there. She took us to a bus stop where we caught the 166/165 line, which runs much more frequently. Thanks, Lillian! Not only did this get us back to the city much quicker, the walk to the bus stop was like a mini-workout, though you'd hardly know it to see Yotam bounding up the hills.

On a side note, I've updated my directions to Tech Judo with more bits of information that I always forget, like the gate number and the zone number.

On another side note, I heard Tech Judo will have another tournament in four weeks, on March 1. Looking forward to it.

Here are Yotam's matches. Unfortunately I missed the first few seconds of his third match, when he scored a waza-ari.

Kevin McGrath threw for ippon twice with hiza-guruma. The ref was blocking my view of the first one, but upon reviewing the video I'm pretty sure it was hiza-guruma.

John Harris made batsugun with four ippons: two throws, an osae-komi, and an armbar.

Rich Fabella, who was there to spectate, pointed out something I hadn't noticed: the refs were allowing plenty of time for newaza before calling matte. If this is a new trend, I approve. (By the way, thanks to Rich for the ride home.)

When the tournament was over I got some much-needed exercise myself by helping pick up and stack the mats.

Here are Kevin's two throws for ippon:

Here are John's matches. You can hear Alison rooting for him from the sidelines:

I didn't do a highlights reel for this year's East Coast. Instead, here are some matches, in no particular order.

We're all glad to see Jeff's shoulder has recovered enough for him to return to competition.