BJJ - John covered some work from the mounted position. It was pretty basic stuff. I pitched in and tweaked a few things for people, when i saw a correctable error. I was feelling a little beat from the long weekend of work and wanted to save my energy for the Judo class, so i held off the training.
Judo - this was to be primarily a randori/ne waza class. we did 15 minutes or so on Uchi Mata, then proceeded to randori. we had a 200lbish green belt who normally trains with our old friend Senseii Edwin Takemori in the Maryland area at the Naval Academy club. He was good to have in the club. He plays rough but not dangerous. You can tell he is used to being the biggest guy as he uses a lot of strength and tackling stuff, but he had a very good attitude and was very receptive to my suggestions. woudl be a pleasure to have him in againGood group I did 4 or 5 sets myself which was good work for me. Few notes from my randori. Best thing was I hit a left sided Uchi mata that was very clean with good lift and rotation. It was against Yoni, who is just 15 and weighs just 135 lbs, so my excitement is tempered. But, he is a very solid Tachi Waza player and in all honesty there was much more skill involved than I expected to bring to a technique I still have never practiced. I did a great deal of switching from left to right depending on what my opponent was doing. this is totally contrary to my old philosophy of "one grip - one technique - no exceptions" I would like to consider this an evolution of my skills but it's actually an indictment of my ability to perform my one technique. so i am reduced to out thinking and skillfully defeating my opponent. This sounds like a good thing but I consider it a failure of my primary technique. In the long run it will make me a better player and instructor as i become more competitively experienced with more techniques, but it still pisses me off. The left side switching actually helped me quite a bit with greg who was really all over me in the beginning of the set. When i switched to left, it changed the dynamic a bit and improved my defense substantially. I hit a good counter once. He was going to smash me good with an Ouchi Gari toward the end of the set, but i used the wall to defend it, which has become a very bad club habit that I need to break. The right Yoko tomoe Nage from the left sided grip has been very effective and is something that I will concentrate on improving. I also want to focus some more attention to the left Uchi mata. It seems a good idea to practice something that I intend to use.
We did a guard pass for Ne Waza. It was the one where I pin the uke's heels to his butt in the butterfly guard, control one side and then go vertical in a headstand and come down in the side control position. They were a bit hesitant to go with the reckless abandon this technique takes at first, but warmed up to it and did well. Eric did the trap and roll arm lock on Josh and later covered how to do it on purpose at the end of class. I might try working on this and making it a primary rather than secondary attack for the club particularly in BJJ.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday 10/24/2010
Seven of us in Judo. I have been highly encouraged by the participation hard work and improvement of the lower ranks and disappointed by the lack of all of those things in the black belts. We have some injuries in the black belt ranks obviously, but, the participation level of them as a group has been disappointing at best. The seven of us got in and worked hard. We did some solid Uchi mata work. There was some clear improvement but, it also showed how far most of them have to go with this technique.
We had six of us in randori so we did 5 - 3 minutes sets. Good training with everyone. I worked more on some of my left sided program which i have been neglecting. it might be helpful to actually practice it rather than just breaking it out for randori. I did hit a respectable left sided Uchi mata as well as several other techniques. The yoko tomoe nage from the left sided grip feels very natural. I still haven't been able to correct the footwork problems I am having with the harai Goshi on the right side.
For Ne Waza I did the bull pass but, I practiced it in the BJJ approach going to Knee in the belly rather than straight to chest to chest. This gave everyone a bit of trouble a first, but it got better. There were a lot of details to correct, but it was much betetr for all six of them by the time we were done. We did two sets of ne waza and called it a night. I hope that the guys on the way up take advantage of the chances to do BJJ as there are some potentially good BJJ players in the group and it would complement their Judo very well.
We had six of us in randori so we did 5 - 3 minutes sets. Good training with everyone. I worked more on some of my left sided program which i have been neglecting. it might be helpful to actually practice it rather than just breaking it out for randori. I did hit a respectable left sided Uchi mata as well as several other techniques. The yoko tomoe nage from the left sided grip feels very natural. I still haven't been able to correct the footwork problems I am having with the harai Goshi on the right side.
For Ne Waza I did the bull pass but, I practiced it in the BJJ approach going to Knee in the belly rather than straight to chest to chest. This gave everyone a bit of trouble a first, but it got better. There were a lot of details to correct, but it was much betetr for all six of them by the time we were done. We did two sets of ne waza and called it a night. I hope that the guys on the way up take advantage of the chances to do BJJ as there are some potentially good BJJ players in the group and it would complement their Judo very well.
Friday 10/22/2010
Open mat at the Weston - The usual suspects were in, me, Steve, Chris, Blue John and Jack. We did 7 minutes sets for a total of 28 minutes of training. The Steve set was good I managed to sweep, pass, mount and catch once. He subbed me with a toe hold which was very well done. We had a fun scramble off of another low body attack from him. He and Sharon are opening a BJJ program on the mainline. I would like to get there ad train with them sometimes as I learn from both of them.
Chris set was good. He avoided the initial sweep and forced me to bail to a turtle. I got back to half guard and swept and pressured him. I worked to a mount but was unable to catch him before time expired.
The set with Blue John was also pretty standard. I swept him and he kept trying to scramble to back to his knees. I kept him down a few times and then finally told him to just pick his spot up or down. he said he doesn't mind being on the bottom just not underneath me. I understand the sentiment, but I think he is making a mistake not taking advantage of the chance to work on getting better from the position. Jack did some good things during his training. He is still way out of his league in the room, but he keeps fighting and it will make him better.
Chris set was good. He avoided the initial sweep and forced me to bail to a turtle. I got back to half guard and swept and pressured him. I worked to a mount but was unable to catch him before time expired.
The set with Blue John was also pretty standard. I swept him and he kept trying to scramble to back to his knees. I kept him down a few times and then finally told him to just pick his spot up or down. he said he doesn't mind being on the bottom just not underneath me. I understand the sentiment, but I think he is making a mistake not taking advantage of the chance to work on getting better from the position. Jack did some good things during his training. He is still way out of his league in the room, but he keeps fighting and it will make him better.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Thursday - 10/21/2010
Ope mat was light and I just watched Lex and Sarah throwing. For class, we had 10 people or so with mostly lower ranks when i began several of the black belts rolled in late. I worked on O Goshi and made them do it left sided as well as right sided. I had three groups with a brown belt with a lower rank.It was a good opportunity for the brown belts to work and assist in the instructing of the lower ranks. The new white belt has been doing very well. His Ukemi is excellent and he works hard. Most of them struggled with the left sided O Goshi. I then taught it from a Left vs Right posture as a way to step across and attack someone who is fighting off sided and takes a high grip, which is always a problem. The right side wnet well but the left side was a little bit of a struggle. All in all I thought it was useful for everyone and they did a solid job picking up what we were doing. it did reveal a bit of a weakness with left sided hip throws.
We did three sets of randori. I had a good set with Lex. I hit a pretty decent O Uchi Gari, He hit a pretty good Ko Uchi Gari. His gripping was better and made it more difficult for me to work to a dominant grip. he had one particularly good seoi Nage attack that had me up but I rode it and he couldn't finish it. One day He will get me over for it, but not today.
I was really happy with everyone's performance. Everyone coming up played hard but not crazy and had some good success. Even Austin after the half dozen or so classes he has had jumped in and did fine.
For Ne Waza I did the double under pass. Mostly well done and I could see some of them using it if they commit to the position. Had to correct a few angles, but the biggest problem was many of them were letting their weight go too far across the body.
we did a few sets of Ne Waza. I took Allessandro and have to say he did quite well. I am looking forward to seeing him doing BJJ at the new place. He is very fast, and aggressive on the ground. he has som glaring technical holes but his fundamentals are sound and he will be a handful for any white or blue belt and will give some purples fits once he learns a few more positions he hasn't seen before.
We did three sets of randori. I had a good set with Lex. I hit a pretty decent O Uchi Gari, He hit a pretty good Ko Uchi Gari. His gripping was better and made it more difficult for me to work to a dominant grip. he had one particularly good seoi Nage attack that had me up but I rode it and he couldn't finish it. One day He will get me over for it, but not today.
I was really happy with everyone's performance. Everyone coming up played hard but not crazy and had some good success. Even Austin after the half dozen or so classes he has had jumped in and did fine.
For Ne Waza I did the double under pass. Mostly well done and I could see some of them using it if they commit to the position. Had to correct a few angles, but the biggest problem was many of them were letting their weight go too far across the body.
we did a few sets of Ne Waza. I took Allessandro and have to say he did quite well. I am looking forward to seeing him doing BJJ at the new place. He is very fast, and aggressive on the ground. he has som glaring technical holes but his fundamentals are sound and he will be a handful for any white or blue belt and will give some purples fits once he learns a few more positions he hasn't seen before.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Thursday 10/21/2010 notes from recent classes and the announcement of moving my club.
Things have been incredibly busy the last month. Blogging has been one of several things that have taken a back seat to more pressing issues. At the beginning of the month, I signed a lease on a space in south Philadelphia. I will move the Judo club there and begin to teach BJJ as well as have a kettlebell program and presumably others as we have time to develop and place them.
First just a few notes on the techniques of the last few weeks. For BJJ I made last week deep half guard week. This was triggered by some poor defense to the position during training by a purple belt. The classes seemed to have profited from both the position and basic sweep as well as learning proper body position for defending the position. I always liked this position but used it sparingly as i am not by first inclination a half guard player. I aggressively put myself in the position several times recently and had good success, sweeping from there. Better than I normally do from a more traditional half guard to be honest.
The next week we worked on several sweeps from closed guard when the Uke uses a standing split. Nothing earth shaking but very good fundamental sweeps everyone needs to know.
For Judo I covered a Left vs. right yoko tomoe nage (as well as the right versus left version). I do this as my right versus a left sided player pretty well as that is the side I mainly practiced it and did most of my repetitions. However, I think it would be a more useful technique for me as a left versus a right sided uke technique. It fits well with the left sided attacks I have been using. We also went into Oma Plata from the failure which also went well. I like it as a throw or as a offensive guard pull .
We did a down the line stepping pattern for Harai Goshi. This didn't go as smoothly as I thought, but did reveal a couple of people who were doing too much of an Ashi Guruma rather than a Harai Goshi.
We did an Uchi mata class and several Ashi Waza classes as well.
The big news obviously is that I will be moving the club from Maxercise, our home for the last 10 years or so to a new location in south Philadelphia. There are a lot of reasons for the move. But, the ones that matter the most are that I think its in the best interest of the Judo Club as well as my (and my family's) best interest. I have been ready to have my own place for a long time. I have been teaching Judo classes for over ten years. I have been taking BJJ for nearly 12 years and have taught some BJJ classes as early as 2003. I couldn't do this without the support of my entire club, both their commitment to make the journey to south Philadelphia and to come to the classes. I have wanted the opportunity to build my own club and make the decisions that I believe make the most sense for a long time. I have studied the excellent instructors that I have been fortunate enough to have teach me. I have studied and discussed ad nauseum, not just the elements of a technique to be taught but the intricacies of the art of teaching, why some instructors are better than others, what parts of an instructors abilities do I want to emulate and what parts do I not. I have had countless hours of discussion not just of what was taught but, how it was taught, why some people got it better than others, what I woudl have done differently and why, the technique selection and all of the ways the individual class was structured. also how it fell into the overall program(s) was structures. I am also looking forward to testing my ideas of the best model for a Martial Arts studio. I hope and believe that this will be a good move for me personally and for the club and it's members in general.
The next few weeks will be more about physically building the home for the new club. I will focus most of my efforts in that area. I will also be blogging about some of the details and my impressions of the experience. time permitting.
First just a few notes on the techniques of the last few weeks. For BJJ I made last week deep half guard week. This was triggered by some poor defense to the position during training by a purple belt. The classes seemed to have profited from both the position and basic sweep as well as learning proper body position for defending the position. I always liked this position but used it sparingly as i am not by first inclination a half guard player. I aggressively put myself in the position several times recently and had good success, sweeping from there. Better than I normally do from a more traditional half guard to be honest.
The next week we worked on several sweeps from closed guard when the Uke uses a standing split. Nothing earth shaking but very good fundamental sweeps everyone needs to know.
For Judo I covered a Left vs. right yoko tomoe nage (as well as the right versus left version). I do this as my right versus a left sided player pretty well as that is the side I mainly practiced it and did most of my repetitions. However, I think it would be a more useful technique for me as a left versus a right sided uke technique. It fits well with the left sided attacks I have been using. We also went into Oma Plata from the failure which also went well. I like it as a throw or as a offensive guard pull .
We did a down the line stepping pattern for Harai Goshi. This didn't go as smoothly as I thought, but did reveal a couple of people who were doing too much of an Ashi Guruma rather than a Harai Goshi.
We did an Uchi mata class and several Ashi Waza classes as well.
The big news obviously is that I will be moving the club from Maxercise, our home for the last 10 years or so to a new location in south Philadelphia. There are a lot of reasons for the move. But, the ones that matter the most are that I think its in the best interest of the Judo Club as well as my (and my family's) best interest. I have been ready to have my own place for a long time. I have been teaching Judo classes for over ten years. I have been taking BJJ for nearly 12 years and have taught some BJJ classes as early as 2003. I couldn't do this without the support of my entire club, both their commitment to make the journey to south Philadelphia and to come to the classes. I have wanted the opportunity to build my own club and make the decisions that I believe make the most sense for a long time. I have studied the excellent instructors that I have been fortunate enough to have teach me. I have studied and discussed ad nauseum, not just the elements of a technique to be taught but the intricacies of the art of teaching, why some instructors are better than others, what parts of an instructors abilities do I want to emulate and what parts do I not. I have had countless hours of discussion not just of what was taught but, how it was taught, why some people got it better than others, what I woudl have done differently and why, the technique selection and all of the ways the individual class was structured. also how it fell into the overall program(s) was structures. I am also looking forward to testing my ideas of the best model for a Martial Arts studio. I hope and believe that this will be a good move for me personally and for the club and it's members in general.
The next few weeks will be more about physically building the home for the new club. I will focus most of my efforts in that area. I will also be blogging about some of the details and my impressions of the experience. time permitting.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Thursday 10/7/2010 time to admit defeat and punt some entries
there has been so much going on I have fallen behind on this. It's fourth and long so i will punt and briefly hit a few points of note from the past two weeks or so and then lick up going forward, but, October is going to be swamped for reason I will detail later. I may miss a spot here or there.
I made most if not all of my normal classes but these are a few high lights for my personal recollection
9/30 - Good set with Mike B. I swept but he was able to sweep back when he switched from a right sided butterfly sweep to a left sided version suddenly. I bailed from the pass and he managed to get to my back. I was in toruble but avoided the sub but allowed the points before getting him back to the bottom. I nearly passed back but he recovered guard and time expired. Good training set.
10/1 rolled open mat at the Weston - Hit one technique I want to remember. I went oma Plata on Steve B and swept. i was facing toward his hips with his arm still tightly entangled in the Oma Plata. I was above the elbow near the shoulder with the triangled legs. I attacked the arm to straighten. I considered attacking the wrist also. He brought his legs up to use them to defend. He recently caught a twisting foot lock/toe hold on me and I now remembered to go for it against him. he squirmed his foot away, but this set up the arm to be vulnerable and when he defended again with his feet, I caught the toe hold.
10/2 was the Philadelphia Jiu Jitsu cup running in conjunction with liberty Bell Judo hosted Judo event, the Philadelphia Judo Cup. It went pretty well. We got through everyone pretty quickly. Would have been faster if we had been less committed to getting everyone as many matches as possible. The slow down cam when we had to wait for a competitor fighting another division to be available. Good learning experience. Decent attendance, mostly from the immediate region. < 100 BJJ competitors, some kids, no women, some no-gi. 6-7 purple belts and 2 Brown belts. If I had been training more lately or if I had brought my kit, I may have competed as they were a fair size for me.
10/4 John taught a duck under then clinch from the back. I have my doubts about ducking the high grip by anyone who is good at using it, but I do like a back trip he showed. He was doing essentially a tani otoshi and slinging the uke down. If Uke resisted forward he did a kosoto gake movement to the from of the ankle and took the uke down with it. Obviously no score in Judo but has self defense and BJJ applications.
I made most if not all of my normal classes but these are a few high lights for my personal recollection
9/30 - Good set with Mike B. I swept but he was able to sweep back when he switched from a right sided butterfly sweep to a left sided version suddenly. I bailed from the pass and he managed to get to my back. I was in toruble but avoided the sub but allowed the points before getting him back to the bottom. I nearly passed back but he recovered guard and time expired. Good training set.
10/1 rolled open mat at the Weston - Hit one technique I want to remember. I went oma Plata on Steve B and swept. i was facing toward his hips with his arm still tightly entangled in the Oma Plata. I was above the elbow near the shoulder with the triangled legs. I attacked the arm to straighten. I considered attacking the wrist also. He brought his legs up to use them to defend. He recently caught a twisting foot lock/toe hold on me and I now remembered to go for it against him. he squirmed his foot away, but this set up the arm to be vulnerable and when he defended again with his feet, I caught the toe hold.
10/2 was the Philadelphia Jiu Jitsu cup running in conjunction with liberty Bell Judo hosted Judo event, the Philadelphia Judo Cup. It went pretty well. We got through everyone pretty quickly. Would have been faster if we had been less committed to getting everyone as many matches as possible. The slow down cam when we had to wait for a competitor fighting another division to be available. Good learning experience. Decent attendance, mostly from the immediate region. < 100 BJJ competitors, some kids, no women, some no-gi. 6-7 purple belts and 2 Brown belts. If I had been training more lately or if I had brought my kit, I may have competed as they were a fair size for me.
10/4 John taught a duck under then clinch from the back. I have my doubts about ducking the high grip by anyone who is good at using it, but I do like a back trip he showed. He was doing essentially a tani otoshi and slinging the uke down. If Uke resisted forward he did a kosoto gake movement to the from of the ankle and took the uke down with it. Obviously no score in Judo but has self defense and BJJ applications.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Combined posts Sunday 9/19/2010, 9/20/2010 and 9/23/2010
Things have been crazy, so I am having to make up some missed posts. Trying to remember anything that stands out, but, mostly want to keep track of classes I attended.
Joe Condello and his daughter were in class. Joe got a good work put with the guys who were here. We had enough girls for kristen to get some good training also. Lori was excited to work with someone with whom she trained a long time ago. I though she (Lori) did very well. Her hard training is showing and paying off. She is starting to narrow her throws that she is practicing and she is coming for the extra training with Lex and Sarah which will help a lot.
On Thursday we did randori and ne waza night. i was actually a little disappointed we didn't have more people taking advantage of this. We just did randori for an hour and ne waza for 45 minutes or so. Lots of good sets and training. .I had some very good sets. Lex has footage of the whole stand up session. If I can I will link the raw footage as well as the eventual high light reel. Rich Callahan was in and trained all night. Twice in a couple of months after years without seeing him. He fit in pretty well with everyone and brought a different game to the table so that was good. He likes to talk a little trash so that raised the stakes sometimes, but all in all, things went very well.
Joe Condello and his daughter were in class. Joe got a good work put with the guys who were here. We had enough girls for kristen to get some good training also. Lori was excited to work with someone with whom she trained a long time ago. I though she (Lori) did very well. Her hard training is showing and paying off. She is starting to narrow her throws that she is practicing and she is coming for the extra training with Lex and Sarah which will help a lot.
On Thursday we did randori and ne waza night. i was actually a little disappointed we didn't have more people taking advantage of this. We just did randori for an hour and ne waza for 45 minutes or so. Lots of good sets and training. .I had some very good sets. Lex has footage of the whole stand up session. If I can I will link the raw footage as well as the eventual high light reel. Rich Callahan was in and trained all night. Twice in a couple of months after years without seeing him. He fit in pretty well with everyone and brought a different game to the table so that was good. He likes to talk a little trash so that raised the stakes sometimes, but all in all, things went very well.
Saturday 9/18/2010
Xande seminar. Well attended including some non Maxercise guys and affiliates. Lots of blue belts and some white belts so he called an audible and kept it more basic. He focused on fundamentals of passing butterfly and open guard positions. I have my notes in my technique manual. I have seen the techniques before but the value was in his discussion of hip position and weight distribution during the pass. I got a lot out of his ideas on maintaining base and staying heavy during the pass, particularly like how he talked about the pass being done mostly with his hips/weight and balance, with the hands and grips being very secondary. He talked for about two minutes on passing the open half guard position that confounds me so much in response to my question and gave some excellent albeit brief advice.
Funny note about him going off on guys who turtle and don't try to advance their position from their. He said to just do Judo and drag them over as a turnover. I don't think it's quite that easy, but, funny that he phrased it as just do judo to them for attacking a non responsive turtle.
Funny note about him going off on guys who turtle and don't try to advance their position from their. He said to just do Judo and drag them over as a turnover. I don't think it's quite that easy, but, funny that he phrased it as just do judo to them for attacking a non responsive turtle.
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