Sensei has been having us do a few minutes of ju no kata from time to time, as a way to warm us down at the end of class, and as part of our general judo education.
Ju no kata reminds me of tai chi in the way it teaches balance via a series of slow, deliberate exercises. It reminds of both fight choreography and ballroom dancing in the way it requires timing and communication between partners. The balance, timing, and communication are all good things for me to work on.
As Yonah Wolf observed, YouTube can be a great resource for studying kata. For the ju no kata, I found a very clear series of five instructional videos (from the Kodokan, I think) with detailed explanations in English. I put them on my iPhone so I can study them any time, and hopefully not flounder so much when we practice the kata in class. I also found a demo by Kano himself.
In the first technique in the ju no kata, uke aims his hand like a knife at a spot between tori's eyebrows. Sensei told us the word for that spot is "uto," which struck me as a great little word. I Googled for it when I got home and learned that the anatomical term for it is "glabella."
[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):
From Jeff: public transportation to the East Coast this weekend.
The "Transit Planner" at Trips123 is very handy for this kind of thing. When you do a search there, they show you not only public transportation, but walking maps to and from the stations at each end of your trip.
These directions are from [Trips123], but are also exactly as I remember them. I made a few notes on their directions. Note also that all these services in effect run continuously so the times don't need to be exact.
If one were leaving from midtown, one would take the 33rd Street Path to Hoboken to get the Newark Path.
Departing: 10:42 AM on Saturday, October 06, 2007
From: BATTERY PARK CITY
Total Trip Time: 0:35
To: NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Go To: World Trade Center, Vesey St & Church St
Board: Path WTC To Newark Line/Newark
Arrive at: Newark Station (Path) at 11:04 am
Board: NJ Transit Rail Line/Grove Street Station (this is the Newark subway)
Arrive at: Warren Street Light Rail Station at 11:17 am (this is the third stop on the subway)
Our dojo's official web site is oishi-judo.com, with a hyphen. A while back I noticed that nobody owned oishijudo.com, without the hyphen. I registered that domain name and got it to redirect to oishi-judo.com, with the hyphen. This way if someone tries to find us by guessing the URL, or if they've been told the URL but don't remember it has a hyphen, they'll still end up at the right place with a minimum of trial and error.
I did this with three other domain names that I saw were available. Here's the complete list:
oishijudo.com
shirooishi.com
shiro-oishi.com
oishijudoclubnyc.com
If you go to any of these, you'll automatically be redirected to oishi-judo.com.
That last one was because I noticed the Oishi t-shirt says "OishiJudoClubNYC" on the back, and I thought someone might see the shirt and think that was the name of the web site.
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.
Nachas, is a Yiddish word which loosely translated means 'parental pride'. What relevance does this have to Judo? Well, yesterday my oldest took his first Judo lesson, and I have enough Nachas to fill a size 8 Judo Gi!
Yonah's blog, "The Road to Shodan," is always interesting and thoughtfully written. He discusses the actual practice of judo a lot more than I do. He sometimes plays at Oishi, so maybe I'll run into him someday if I ever take a day class.
Congratulations, Yonah! Or should I say mazel tov?
Last night at the end of class Sensei reminded us not to yak too much during class. His remarks reminded me of a book I once read about the world of pool hustling. The book was Playing Off the Rail: A Pool Hustler's Journey, by David Mccumber. The blurb on Amazon says:
The author is a reporter who hooks up with a pool player and agrees to put up the money to travel the country while gambling his finances on the hustler's skills.
I was reminded of one particular moment, when the pool hustler teaches Mccumber a way of playing called "mum pool." I don't have the book any more, so I might not be remembering it exactly right, but the basic idea is not to speak during the game. There's no commentary, no trash-talking, no "pass me the chalk," not a word. I think the idea is to improve focus and concentration — to remove internal chatter by resisting the temptation of external chatter.
This idea might translate well to judo. Some days I come to class feeling chatty, and I get into extraneous conversations, not only when I'm on the sidelines, but while I'm practicing. There is a strong social element at our club, so in a way that's natural. But I do feel it's something I should be more conscious of. Besides being a matter of etiquette it's potentially a matter of safety if I'm not paying attention to what I should be paying attention to.
From time to time it might be worth making a conscious decision not to speak during uchikomi or randori. I'd be like Chef Brockett, the baker on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, who insisted on absolute quiet when he was working. I think it was partly so he could concentrate and partly out of reverence for his craft.
[Photo credit: