JudoNotes

Congratulations to Oishi Judo's newest black belts.

Here are Nina and Tom's successful kata tests.

Oishi Judo will be closed on Thursday, November 15, 2007.

Paul Virtue and Milton Chacon were in the same division at the Tech Judo tournament today. Milton took first and Paul took third.

John Faulkner, a white belt from the day class, was there as well. I believe he had two matches and won both.

Here are the matches I got on video.

Paul and Milton:

Paul's second match — note the quick grab-and-go osotogari:

Paul's third match:

Unfortunately I didn't get either of John's matches. And I accidentally recorded over Milton's second match, which he won very quickly with a drop seoinage for ippon. Sorry, Milton! Trust me, it was a nice throw.

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.

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.

Many thanks to Tom Kagan for pointing out this short black-and-white film about the Canadian Olympian Doug Rogers. I found it fascinating and inspiring. The randori scene in the Budokan is incredible.

Judoka

Josef Reeve's 1965 National Film Board of Canada documentary about Canadian judoka Doug Rogers, silver medalist in Judo (+100kg) at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

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.