boring things I want to remember

judo class 121

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:14:14 -0700

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

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:53:06 -0700

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

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:15:06 -0700

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.

judo class 115

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:33:44 -0700

tuesday - pilates

thursday - yoga

friday - elliptical

tuesday - seo tochi, using morote style. then morote. turns out that I don’t get my elbow high enough into the armpit? I thought I was, but hey, learn something new all the time.

judo class 114

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:42:00 -0700

monday, tuesday - pilates

saturday - elliptical

tuesday - heeza garuma. by itself, to osoto, to seo. a little psa psi. a little randori.

would have missed thursday for a networking thing, but instead was sick all day thurs and friday.

judo classes 112 and 113

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:01:07 -0700

monday, thursday - pilates (10 minute sessions)

friday, sunday - yoga (25 minute sessions)

thursday - my first lesson in teaching falling. a smidge of randori and naiwaza

saturday - 3 kids, 3 blackbelts, me. some randori, some naiwaza, some wacky exercises.

judo classes 110 and 111

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:03:59 -0700

elliptical: wednesday

pilates: mon-thursday

new yoga dvd: standing friday, twists today ( I like it, but 25 minutes is too long for workdays)

tuesday: I uh… passed my green belt test. Worked on morote seo nagi - my left wrist still hurts…

thursday: had to lead the exercises :( learned uki goshi!! It is awesome! did some intra class randori (tournament style!) and naiwaza. good stuff. If I had been able to keep up as much as I wanted to, it would have been the BEST CLASS EVER (minus the leading the exercises)

judo class 109 and first real snow day(s)

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:49:44 -0700

mon-wed : morning yoga

monday: 20 minutes of elliptical

tuesday: two hands on the same side and YANK, baby v. of harai, too easy to confuse with o soto. a little randori, a little extra work on ko uchi.

wednesday/thursday: moved a lot of snow.

3rd judo tournament

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:27:30 -0600

thursday - elliptical, first time in a hotel fitness center though.

denver classic, women’s novice middleweight. 4 in my weight class. I’m the heavy by about 10 lbs, rest are clumped together.

1. nice teenage green belt. Don’t remember a lot of it, I know I was slow and awkward, but she didn’t do anything astonishing either. After awhile she got a good throw and won.

2. unsociable teenage green belt. I got some kind of awkward throws, think they were mostly bad counters, sorta had her pinned a few times (2 yukos!) then the worst counter had the angle all wrong, and she landed on my face and got the point. Then I had my little failure to breathe incident.

3. same tiny blind girl as last time! much better fight this time. I tried a bunch of stuff but she was very effective at using that low center of gravity. I kept getting awkward tani o tochi’s until one was good enough.

I could tell I had no wind - but this was totally to be expected since I hadn’t been to practice. I only felt really slow the first match. I felt like my fights went better - I was definitely trying to do things (though someone pointed out that I was mostly trying to do the same thing over and over. whoops. beats standing there!) and some of them were sorta working. I was much happier about accepting a 3rd place medal for this one.

sick week

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:12:39 -0600

friday,saturday - elliptical. ugh

not the flu. maybe partly the remains of landing on my head so badly. I even took a sick day from work, and maybe should have taken at least one more. It’s taken since last Saturday for me to sleep a single digit stretch of hours.

it started with achiness and headaches and need for sleep. Moved to sore throat. Then to big time runny nose. Then just run down and wobbly. And now it’s done.. in time for me to travel and miss judo. Awesome!

judo classes 107 and 108 - tournament 2

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:48:14 -0600

monday, friday - elliptical

wednesday - 30 min wii fit

tuesday - deashi barai, randori - osoto to o uchi worked nicely

thursday - seo nagi, ogoshi as a counter, easy exercise: 110 pushups, 100 situps. naiwaza

saturday - denver buddhist temple novice tournament. 4 women signed up. We range in weight from 100 to 215 lbs. We also get a brown belt to fight, but she drops out before the rankings.

1. tiny blind girl - she moves in for a slow forward throw, I move in for a slow tani o tochi, I win

2. the featherweight - couldn’t get her to hold still long enough to get anything. she dropped me on the corner of my head, then stacked up my legs and got a great throw

3. the heavyweight - couple of things looked promising, but didn’t go off. did a counter so badly that she got the yuko. she got another nice yuko later, and won on points - 3 minute round.

4. the brownbelt - threw enough to move us to the mat, then when I thought I was not in a holddown and was clearly wrong, I tried to wait out not being able to breathe. I had to give up before they either called the holddown or whatever was going on.

Somehow, this = 3rd place. 3rd out of 4 is an improvement over 2nd out of 2.

Things that went better: I actually tried to attack. I remembered most of where to walk and when to bow.

I definitely did not have my game day mojo. Except maaaaybe in that first round. I really do take blind people more seriously, because I know they are taking the game more seriously. Things I can actively work on: breathing, trusting my throws, having a sane grip when I’m out there. I don’t tighten my forearms in randori the crazy way I do in tournaments.

No barfing. Had a bagel for breakfast and it sat ok. If I could eat a little more, that would be good.

judo classes 105 and 106

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:26:22 -0600

Monday - elliptical

odd bits of wii fit

tuesday - ko uchi gari, seo nagi, randori. alex is not scary and I even managed to counter him once. osoto as a fake starts looking plausible

thursday - tani o tochi, heeza garuma, randori. osoto as a fake still works. esp starting on left side.

judo class 104

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:21:56 -0600

and we borrowed a wii, complete with wii fit. curious whether the balance stuff is actually helpful.

judo classes 102 and 103

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:21:16 -0600

sunday, wednesday: elliptical

monday - 20 minutes with the kettlebell. I should be more careful with turkish getups for awhile

tuesday: tae o tochi. psa psi - osoto - seo combo

thursday: 3 person drills for seo. tae o tochi. tani o tochi. load someone up on your back and run down the mat idoicy - reiterating my hatred for moroto seo nagi, and jacking up some kid’s ankle. randori with the grownups - doing much better against the teenage girls (I actually threw Sh. once. and stopped a few of hers.)

judo classes 100 & 101

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:00:36 -0600

I need to get back on the pilates & elliptical bandwagon :(

tuesday: soto maki komi - didn’t injure anyone this time. osoto w/ a twist - if you can’t get the right side, or just want to fake it, w/out moving your hands, move to the other side and sweep THAT leg. Worked surprisingly well.

thursday: tomo e nagi. gah. After about 8 falls I finally realized that I need to LET GO so I can slap. Then everyone tried to give me helpful pointers which weren’t instead of letting me concentrate on that. I hate landing on my kidneys. Tani o tochi - always fun. I think Joe was taking pity on me for my terrible falls. Naiwaza - the little guys are fierce! some good tae o uchikomi practice.

judo classes 98 and 99

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:06:00 -0600

tuesday: footsweeps. broke my left baby toe EXACTLY the way I broke my right one last year. (as uki for footsweeps, I seem to be incapable of holding my damn toe out of the way.)

thursday: the hop on one foot balance game. seo nagi, with lapel pull, which I finally believe in. A new sacrifice throw - the one where you’re supposed to have your foot inside their knee, and really we all just kicked each other in the crotch a lot. (Sumi Gaeshi maybe?) Some good neiwaza - considering I have a broken toe - and a little randori.

first judo tournament

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:36:37 -0600

mon-thurs: pilates

mon,tues,thurs: elliptical

wed: DDR

Saturday - First Judo Tournament!

Lessons learned:

Don’t ever sign up for a mixed martial arts tournament again. Judo is a small ghetto there, and you don’t want to fight the BJJ people who don’t know the rules
Don’t worry about your weight class. There won’t be enough people in your division to use the posted weight classes
Learn to trust your throws. I never committed to anything because I didn’t believe I could throw, and I knew it would open me up.

I won the first round of my best two out of three. Caught her off balance and took her down. Lost the second to her throw. The third went the full time, with both of us getting penalities for not throwing enough. She got a throw to go off well enough to get a half point, and so won when the time ran out. I was soooo tired for most of the last round that I couldn’t get my legs to move enough to try to throw, I just concentrated on staying up. The judge hated me so much. There’s a photo of me having her down during round 3, but I don’t remember it too well, so I’m not sure what the deal was. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get a half point or anything for it.

Weirdly, I had an AWESOME time. I felt sick before, during and after. I had to fight the one person I didn’t want to fight. Somehow, it was still fun. So I’m really looking forward to the next one!

judo classes 96 and 97

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:50:18 -0600

monday elliptical

mon-thurs: pilates

tuesday: seo nagi drills, during which I did something weird and uncomfortable to my left lower back. It hurt enough that I went home early. :( Iced it that night and again the next morning. Still acted up a little Friday when I walked all over campus.

medical: I had an infected cyst on my back! perfectly placed to make bras difficult. Started hurting monday. tuesday night it clearly needed professional attention. wednesday afternoon it became a small angry hole instead. thursday I felt fine about skipping judo.

saturday: the head instructor replied to my email about the gym not really being closed saturday and un-cancelled practice - but we were still the only two to come to practice. So I got a 1 hour private lesson! awesome. great tips on tae o and o uchi.

judo classes 94 & 95

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:27:19 -0600

mon/wed - pilates in the morning

monday - elliptical

tuesday - Uchi Mata, working with new people on O Soto, O Goshi, and the basic holddowns. tiny bit of naiwaza with the main novice class

thursday- working with new people. brief O Soto refresher, fun with the O Goshi 3-person drill, O Goshi as a throw. One quick round of randori

Friday - tournament form went in the mail. I’m really going to compete. eep.

judo class 93

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:15:54 -0600

mon/tues - pilates

thursday - 20 minutes of DDR

saturday - indoor rock climbing. ok, but not much fun. I’m too scared of heights

tuesday, judo - o soto/psa psi combo. as usual, I’m prone to trying to skip steps like putting my foot down facing the right direction. some good randori time.