JudoNotes

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.]

[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

This video has two Mark Hatton highlights from the 2003 East Coast. First is a throw for ippon against Jack Willoughby (sorry, Jack). Second is a perfect counter against a fellow I don't know.

Credit goes again to the mysterious EBCS Productions, which took the original footage. To make this video, I put two excerpts together and added the slomo at the end.

I was cleaning up my hard drive and came across a copy of a DVD that someone made at the 2003 East Coast Championships. Sensei must have given me the DVD during the move, and I must have ripped it and forgotten about it without ever watching it.

Have a look at Steve Friedman and Mark Hatton going to war in what I assume was the finals:

Other people I recognized were Alex Hon, George, Jack Willoughby, Jeff, Mark Hatton, Owen, Joaquin, Sonam, and Will Heinrich.

The identity of the videographer is a mystery. Sonam thought it might have been a guy named Willy (not Will Heinrich), but I found the guy on MySpace and asked if it was him, and it wasn't. I just noticed at the very end of the video it says "copyright (c) ebcs productions," followed by the address of a post office box in Brooklyn. I'll try writing to that address. I hope whoever took the video doesn't mind my posting an excerpt on YouTube.

Here are all the Oishi players who won medals that weekend. I can only imagine the nachas Mark must have felt when his son won second place.

Thanks to Bob for this link to a site with video of the New York Open. Nice video quality and I liked the commentary by Rusty Kanokogi and Carrie Chandler, but unfortunately I could only get it to work on Windows, and only in Internet Explorer.

For my fellow Mac users, there's always the home videos of the tournament on YouTube.

Here's one of my favorite matches, from November 16, 1996. Just watching the judo I would have thought the girl was Nina, but Nina was older by then, and was playing in that tournament as a green belt. Nina has confirmed that this was her sister Lucca.

I don't mean to spoil the outcome, but note that Michael Spinks lasted three times as long against Mike Tyson, in one of the quickest and most brutal knockouts in heavyweight championship history.

One thing I've loved about these old videos is seeing the pleasure on Sensei's face when he watches the kids from the sidelines. In this match he's refereeing, but he still gets a chuckle at the end when he throws in a "name that throw" pop quiz.

Many thanks to Dan Heinrich for four photos and a few seconds of video from the very first class at the new dojo, the daytime class on June 11.

Update: Thanks to Jean-Ezra Yeung for a fifth photo.

This morning I finished editing a 9-minute video from the dojo-warming party on Wednesday. For those of you who couldn't make it, I hope this gives a sense of what a happy occasion it was. I like to think this will give the world a glimpse at the real, unscripted Sensei, as opposed to the characters he has played in his acting roles.

Update: Sensei wasn't too happy about the amount of exposure I gave to what was of course a private event, so I've removed the video. I hereby apologize to Sensei and anyone else to whom I caused any distress. I was over-eager to share the experience and posted inappropriately. It was a blunder, entirely my fault, and again, I apologize.

I'm still going through old video. I've digitized all the dojo tournaments from the 90's, but it takes quite a bit of time to select and edit excerpts.

For now, here are two highlights reels. I don't know most of the people who were there at the time, so I focused on the few people I recognized.

This one is from April 9, 1994.

This one is from a tape labeled "children's / adults judo tournament, Oishi's 1994." The dates on the other tapes suggest that Sensei held tournaments twice a year, in the spring and in the fall, so I'm assuming this one was in the fall. Nina got her orange belt at this one, by the way.