JudoNotes

It was great to see Germain as a shodan.

[UPDATE: Note that only the afternoon Seniors class will be held on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.]

Oishi Judo will be closed Christmas and New Year's Days.

Only the afternoon Seniors class will be held on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

Saw this video in another great post by Lance Wicks, this time on Judo4Parents.

Although I don't have kids, I look forward to catching up on the Judo4Parents blog. It will be educational for me and will provide good food for thought about judo in general. I hold out hope that my 11-year-old nephew, who's been doing Shaolin kung fu for a few years and loves it, will someday give judo a try. His one-year-old sister could be a good grip-fighter some day, judging by the way she grabs the sleeve of my shirt.

I just saw this on Lance Wicks's blog, JudoCoach.com:

This video I found on the OKCDT website and I think is from Australia. Please note the laughter, the clear message of what Judo involves. The "ooh"s and "ahh"s. The loud applause. Note also the use of male and female demonstrators and of people of different sizes.

I've embedded the video below — it is great! The instructor's voice is a little hard to hear, but the audience reaction is unmistakable. I saw Lance's post on Planet Judo, a great judo blog aggregator (hello, Planet Judo readers!).

Sensei and his brother gave a demo at my high school many years ago. I don't remember much except the crowd going "Ooh!" at one point when Hachiro-san suddenly whipped out a fake knife and charged Sensei, who threw him. Straight out of the nage-no-kata, but Sensei dressed it up with a little drama for the crowd.

It's almost three years since my return to judo. On the one hand, progress has been very slow. On the other hand, the overall trend has been consistently positive, and that is good news.

The thing I'm happiest about now is that my body is starting to remember morote-seoinage. Never mind that it's nowhere close to working in randori. It feels great just to do it again, to drop into that squat while holding on with both hands.

Here's a small sample of things I have to work on.

• General fitness and health:
  • Cross-train (weights, calisthenics, running, stretching, balance exercises)
  • Remember to ice the knee (I only tend to remember about 10% of the time, and it should really be 100%)
  • Watch my diet — I weigh too much for my height and frame
  • Stay hydrated
  • Improve sleep habits
• Judo-specific stuff:
  • Do more uchikomi, including more lifting
  • Do moving uchikomi
  • Practice combinations
  • Practice timing of ashiwaza
  • Pull when I do seoinage (I think uchikomi with a rubber tube should help with this)
  • Stay on my toes
  • Relax my shoulders
  • Study books, web sites, and videos
  • Get to class on time (which means getting out of work earlier, which is related to the sleep habits mentioned above)

The list goes on, but basically it can be summed up as: everything. I think working on my fitness, which is still terrible, would go a long way toward helping with the rest.

Sensei drew these feet on the bottom of a mat for the kids to practice footwork with.

On a vaguely related note, I've added photos of Sensei's artwork to the dojo web site. See the links on the left-hand side.