boring things I want to remember

judo classes 129 and 130

Monday - elliptical (40 min)

Wed, Thurs - Pilates (10 min each. I know! but it feels huge to do anything first thing in the morning.)

Tuesday - helping with new people. I am learning to teach people to fall. I’m pretty cool with that. And I can teach O Soto pretty well now. I need to concentrate more on the off balance and less on the reaping.

Thursday - seo nagi. 3 person drills, 1:1’s with new people and so on. A few minutes with “favorite throw then follow to mat”, a quick choke reviewer (I’m better at them than I thought) and one tiny round of naiwaza with a female black belt whose not around much.

judo classes 127 and 128

Monday - elliptical

Tuesday - tried to hack it in the main senior class, didn’t quite make it. Two spells of lightheaded and got stuck working with the guy I promised myself I wouldn’t after he bruised up my jaw really good. Had to lead the warmups, then did really crappy uchi comis because I was so annoyed about that and working with owie guy - which resulted in being condescended to by both owie guy and R, who was teaching.  And then the whole evening was saved because D was there and I worked with her instead of doing randori with any of the several guys who I don’t quite trust to keep me safe. She taught me to grab the hand reaching for me, shove it into the person’s belt with both hands, then free one of my hands and throw. It’s not smooth yet, but it’s a great idea.

Thursday - mostly worked with very new people (yay osoto!) then jumped into the senior class to learn a few chokes and do some naiwaza. Choke: from turnover position, get right hand up in neck of gi in front of both arms. Use left hand to shove their left hip flat and hold it in place while you sit in front of them, scooching around to pull the choke tight. It’s surprisingly fast. I was pretty awful at naiwaza, but D’s technique for grip fighting was helpful.

judo class 126

Monday - elliptical

Tuesday - just an off night. worked on o goshi and seo nagi. did some randori, but nothing seemed to be working. not a terrible night, I just had no mojo

judo classes 124 and 125

Monday, Wednesday - elliptical

Tuesday - frustrating class. I led the exercises, which I hate. I worked with the tween daughter of one of the instructors, which meant I got very little time working. (But some good pointers on O uchi - try bringing in the left foot first and the right just for the sweep. Just shove the other person down - easy. think of the off balance like for Ko - if you can do it while you have them moving their weight onto their left foot, it’s all good for you.) Also - try ko to tai o as a combo. esp if you have them stepping back out of ko. Too much talking, not enough throwing!

Thursday - led the exercises. AGAIN. :( lots of work on seo nagi. which I still hate and am terrified of being thrown by. So we lined up so that if someone accidentally threw, uki hits the concrete. gah. good parts: check the watch to keep the pull horizontal instead of down. now that I’m finally getting the sit instead of bend in, I need to bend at the end to make the throw. Worked with J.L for the first time. Hopefully I won’t be so terrified next time. New (to me) black belts make me forget to breathe

judo classes 122 and 123

Monday, Wednesday - elliptical

Wednesday - snow shoveling

Tuesday - ko uchi, o uchi, then the two as a combo. About 3 times I got the “rotate hips to produce o uchi power” thing working, and it was awesome. hopefully I’ll be able to do it again one day. About 5 minutes of randori.

Thursday - I was the only person in the novice class, so I got bumped up to the main adult class. It was punishing but not terrible. Uchi-komi drills where the count was waaay too fast for me, some modified randori to work on specific things and then randori and naiwaza. I successfully got sensei M in a hold down, and I think the one throw I got on A surprised him.

the quietest week of the year

In which I watch a lot of Doctor Who whilst ellipticaling

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (45min!) - elliptical

Friday - ~30 min with my new pilates dvd

Saturday - the other workout on the new dvd (ballet theme = waaaaay too much balancing)

snowy week

elliptical - sunday, tuesday

snow shoveling - wednesday, thursday, saturday

yeah. I’m going to die when judo starts up.

judo class 121

pilates.. monday

tuesday - worked on o uchi and tai o. some randori. I have a wicked bruise on my lower shin from catching an uchi mata and I got kneed in the head. awesome

thursday was the judo club xmas party. the rest of the week I was just sleeping and making xmas cookies.

judo classes 118 and 119 and 120

sunday, monday, tuesday - snow shoveling

monday, tuesday - pilates

tuesday - small class. naiwaza, randori. naiwaza didn’t go so well - my face still hurts.

thursday - the teenagers got added to our class. falling practice, osoto gari with emphasis on the hip swing. some insane thing about squeezing people’s necks with your ankles. Got elbowed in the eye twice during a not well thought out drill about getting out of holds. A little bit of choke and armbar work with Barry. One tiny round of randori - where my neck got crunched (ok next day thank god.)

saturday - I’m going to count this toward my class count even though it was just me and a brown belt (what’s up with that!?) worked on tai o, uki goshi, and harai. I think harai might make it into my short list - will help me with getting the hands right for tai o, and might surprise someone who’s expecting tai o. Also learned one simple turnover to try next time: reach over their right arm, grab lapel, sit on back, fall off back (toward their left side) while leaving your left leg completely over them, finish by pulling into a choke.

judo classes 116 and 117, tournament 4

sunday - pilates x2

mon-thurs - pilates (first “full” week in ~ a month)

wednesday - snow shoveling, but not much snow

tuesday - bunch of “drill your favorite throw” some randori

thursday - seo and tani, some randori

saturday - for some reason they decided to have itty bitty weight classes, and have a brown belt who was about to test for black fight in more than one of them. Both me and another girl had weight classes of: ourself + brown belt girl.

Fine - she was nice, I hadn’t fought her before, and now I’m way less scared of fighting outside the novice division one day.

Two out of three,

first fight - she threw, I jacked it up, and then I turned her over - onto me. Real boner move, but can be fixed by more naiwaza practice

second fight - she turned sideways, I threw with tani (but not awesomely) she hurt her knee, but ended it pretty quickly by landing on me elbow first in the diaphragm.

I didn’t land on my head, I did try new things (uki goshi and tai o toshi) which didn’t work, but also didn’t leave me open to being countered, so I’m not too afraid to keep trying them.

Wish I had had more fights, but since I expected the tournament to be really small, I’m not too disappointed.