19/10/2005 - Judo

Class #2

19/10/05 – Judo, University of Warwick

My fortnight of flu meant I’d missed two sessions of judo, and it seems things have moved on since then rather more than with Kempo. On the plus side, judo wasn’t suffering from the continued fresher-stuffing that kempo strained under, meaning I actually had room to do the warm-up, which makes a comfortable change.

After the warm-up, things became more confusing. In the last two weeks, there has clearly been a number of throws and positions taught, but fortunately that position seemed to be a variation on the scarf hold, which I’d done several years before with the judo black belt I mentioned earlier in this thread. While I recognised the name of the north-south position, I wasn’t too hot at actually doing it, and the instructors went through the holds rather fast. Worse still, my training partner was even more clueless than I was, but we did eventually manage to get something resembling a scarf hold – the fact that the rest of the class had already moved on several steps was a minor issue…

Next up, we were supposed to sit back to back and try to get into scarf hold or north-south, and the other person was supposed to escape. I instinctually started going for guillotines and arm-bars instead, falling back into guard. This was foolish, and I duly got a telling off from one of the instructors, whilst I was in the middle of a ponderous triangle set-up, that we shouldn’t be attempting chokes and locks at this stage. So, won’t be making that schoolboy error again! Hopefully won’t be too long before the class gets into submissions and the like.

After that, we did a quick bit of breakfalling, following by throws. These were then executed up and down the room, initially without completing the throw, then doing the throw on the last go. Not having a judo gi was a definite disadvantage here, as my t-shirt really didn’t enjoy being the fulcrum of a throw. Still, I got the chance to try and work the one throw I’d done before in ZSK, which was the basic hip throw thing, and another one I hadn’t, which seemed similar but with a strange elbow-in-armpit motion. There was also a trip, which I hadn’t done in that form before, but the principle was relatively simple even for a beginner like me.

Next week, I should hopefully be getting my gi, which will make throws a lot more pleasant. I doubt I’ll bother grading, but I’ll wait and see if it makes sense; having become entirely disillusioned with the grading system in ZSK (except for black belt, which seems like the only grade you genuinely do something worthwhile for), I won’t be rushing into any other MA gradings.

Might be training again on the Saturday and Sunday, depending how much wine I get through on the Saturday night – first social of the year, which I’ve been looking forward to for a long time now!