The Flog!

Each week, while working toward my shodan grading in Judo, Dave and I have been going to a local park just to walk through the kata. The walk is strange and awkward to me, but a necessary evil. I walk up to him, he grasps my sleeve and lapel and proceeds to push me to the point where I throw him. This is performed first from the right side and then the left.

Since the walk is so stilted and both partners have equal numbers of steps, etc., someone looking on should realize that this is a routine of some kind, even if the person knows nothing of the kata in martial arts.

It had rained right before we went to the park last week, so we began the walk-through on the asphalt near the hoops. I noticed a police car on the street at the other side of the park and mentioned it to Dave. The car then drove around the park (it’s really a large school yard with a dirt track and playground) and then back again. All the while, we continued to walk through the kata, just short of doing the throws.

After another drive-by, the officer parked his cruiser in the school parking lot and casually sauntered over, with a, “Hi, folks. Everything OK?” We stopped our kata practice and began to walk toward him, saying that everything was fine. He then mentioned the shoving and pushing that he’d seen and that he’d been concerned. When I laughed and replied that we were doing a judo kata, he immediately looked abashed and said,”Oh, oh! Carry on!” He explained his concern again, but beat a hasty retreat, not without hanging about in his car for another ten minutes or so.

We wondered if he had had to call in that he was investigating the pushing and shoving and then again to explain what the result of the investigation was. A bit embarrassing.

If he had known anything about the judo kata, he would have known that I was doing the throwing of the big guy, not the other way around.

Dave still can’t get over the fact that a police officer came to question us when we were doing relatively innocent movements. When he and his cousin, Chris, got involved in judo twenty years ago, they did all manner of crazy stuff: built home-made weapons and body armour, went to a park by Chris’s house and bashed each other about the head and shoulders to test their skills and the armour, shot arrows at each other to see if they could either catch them (Dave) or deflect them (Chris), filmed a home-made medieval martial arts movie in the park with friends, chasing and “killing” the bad guy. In ALL the antics of those two, no one ever called the police and they were never stopped by anyone, or quizzed for that matter.

A walk-through of the judo kata in a public park in full view of the neighbouring houses is quite innocent in comparison. It made our day.

Click here to go to Studying Judo for Shodan Grading – Pt 1

ayjay

June 16, 2009

This past Sunday was the last full training session that Dave and Mike will have before the nidan grading next Sunday.  Mike’s injury is better, but not perfect. Both guys seem to be thinking too much about their techniques, kata, and so on. 

Now that we’ve gone through all the requirements multiple times, such that some techniques are becoming muscle memory, we concentrated on small changes to make throws or breakfalls better. 

After walking through the kata once and then doing the full kata, incorporating the throws, we discussed what seemed to be problem areas. We set up our improvised crash mats again to work on the those throws and resulting breakfalls - ura nage, uchi mata, harai goshi, sumi gaeshi, and kata guruma. Ura nage is the throw in which Mike was injured, so we wanted to ensure that there were no lingering problems. Dave also felt that he should be landing differently as he threw Mike, but we practiced many times and ended up doing the throw exactly the way we’d started. With uchi mata and harai goshi, Dave could do one side well. The other side had a crooked leg in both techniques, causing the uchi mata to look like hane goshi, while the harai goshi just didn’t work well. In both cases, hip placement was at issue and with minor changes moving in, the problems were corrected. With sumi gaeshi, Dave felt that he was falling to his side when this is a back sacrifice throw, so he threw himself a few times falling straight back and then threw Mike to ensure that he would retain that position with the uke.  With kata guruma (as with tsurikomi goshi, and ippon seoi nage) we worked on Mike’s maintaining a super-straight body which would make the throw and breakfall look better.

We videotaped one run-through of the kata and then watched the tape to determine if there were anything we had missed.  It looks better each time we tape. There are still minor problems, but since we don’t have our own dojo and cannot work on this every day, it’s going well.

After walking through the kata again, we went through ground techniques to give Mike a break. Basic judo throws and the shinmeisho no waza were next. There are three more partial sessions for the nidan grading training and then the weekend. JudoOntario is offering a technical seminar for grading participants on Saturday afternoon, which I think the guys will attend. The actual grading is on Sunday in a club about an hour from here. The last time Dave attended the gradings there (as uke for Chris’s shodan grading) there were four mat areas set up in order to do four gradings at once, two judges per grading. I’d love to be there to tape the grading for posterity, but there are no visitors.

Click here to go to Studying for/Working on Nidan Grading – Part 1

Click here to go to Studying for/Working on Nidan Grading – Part 3

ayjay

January 13, 2009

Dave is testing for his nidan in two weeks. By the time we checked the information on JudoOntario’s website, we had only six weeks to prepare, or wait another six months or more for the next grading. Mike is to be Dave’s uke, so Mike had to be proficient in all the curriculum as well.  Lots of work to do and not much time.

We’ve been getting together at the Hamilton School of Martial Arts every Saturday afternoon, and Sunday, when possible. Luckily both guys have had Christmas week off, so we’ve been able to go in almost every day.  I say “luckily” only in the sense that we’ve had the opportunity to practice everything, but Mike has been thrown hundreds of times for the grading, right after having been thrown thousands of times for this website.  I think he needs a break.

For those of you who do not know what’s involved in a judo grading, imagine having to know and perfect all the throws, ground holds, joint locks and chokes, as well as having to learn the kata. For first degree, the kata comprises nine throws, thrown right and left side. For second degree (the grading Dave is doing), the kata is fifteen throws, both sides. Second degree also incudes nineteen additional throws, known as shinmeisho no waza.

The person being tested must have a partner, so his partner must know everything as well. In order for the throws to look good, the partner, uke, has to do good breakfalls. When being tested on ground techniques, uke must know what position to be in, in order for the technique to be applied. In a number of cases, uke initiates the technique. During the kata, uke attacks tori or pushes tori, depending on the throw. In most of the shimmeisho no waza, uke attacks tori and tori retaliates.

As you can see, uke’s role is crucial to the grading. We thought six weeks was perhaps too short a time, but Dave wanted to go for it, and Mike was willing. Since Mike had been involved in almost all the videos for this website, we all felt that we had already spent three months toward studying for the grading.

The grading is now two weeks away, literally. Both guys are exhausted, so today is a day off. They will only be able to get together another half dozen times before the grading, but the major obstacle is surmounted and now we’re on fine points and little errors.

Our most serious problem was, and is, an injury that Mike sustained about a week and a half ago. While being thrown with ura nage, Mike’s arm got trapped under Dave’s back and his body kept sliding. He ended up with a pinched nerve in his shoulder and an understandable fear of this throw. For several sessions, we walked through the throw, or did the kata, and did not throw the ura nage.  We had brainstorms: what are we doing wrong with the throw in order for Mike’s arm to be trapped? How do we practice the throw if Mike can’t be thrown? What if Mike’s not better by the day of the grading?

Eventually, two days ago, we came up with making a crash mat (there isn’t one in the club) using very old velcroed mats, piling them up and tying them together with belts (all those sailor knots came in handy). In addition, after some research, we decided that the way we’d been doing the throw over the years was slightly off, more to the back than the side, causing Dave to trap Mike’s arm. So Dave practiced his revised throwing technique and Mike practiced the breakfalls on the new crash mat. By half-way through the second day, we had no need of the crash mat and the guys were doing the throw full force on the normal floor. Mike’s arm is no longer trapped, now that we’re doing the throw from the side, and his injury is not impacted. We’re all relieved.

For the last few sessions, I’ve been videotaping the kata. We’ve all been critiquing it, and for the next couple of practice sessions, Dave and Mike will work on their individual and combined areas of concern. Next weekend we will have two long sessions comprising all the techniques which could be called upon for the nidan grading. There’s still lots to do, but our major problem has been solved.

Click here to go to Studying for/Working on Nidan Grading – Part 2

Click here to go to Studying for/Working on Nidan Grading – Part 3

ayjay

January 4, 2009

Afterword: We found out when Dave was tested (see Part Three [or Drei for the Germans out there] of this series), that the shinmeisho no waza was NOT required for nidan. We’ll certainly be ready for it next time around! ayjay, Feb., 2009