September 26, Sensei Steve

I'm back!

Rest is nice, but I'm glad i'm back. I have modified my workouts lately, so if anyone notices a difference please let me know.
Instead of maxing out on my lifts I have been doing 4 sets of 25 to improve my endurance and speed.
So each class I'm giving myself a challenge. Todays challenge, "No power."

1.Warm up ( Tai sabaki + Hitch step entry )

So at home I have been standing in shikodachi in order to get my hips to open up. I think it might actually be working!
•From hanmi roll weight ( via hip ) to front leg
•Push reverse hiip back to turn torso and slide
•Pivot hip into postion ( and slide foot back )

*Note : Sensei Steve taught me to look at the persons neck, as opposed to hand or arm. I find when I do this I wind up right behind uke.

2. Osoto Gari from Iremi
Super cool technique
•Iremi entry ( much like hitch step )
•Strike with elbow, keep elbow on uke's shoulder, cradle uke's lower back with oppposite hand
•Position yourself behind uke's rear for sweep

3. Boom Boom Sweep ( Kosotogari from Parry )
•Parry punch and roll shoulder taking uke off balance
•sweep

4. Kuchiki-daioshi (from round house punch)
•From roundhouse, close the window entry
•As uke is taken off balance hook leg to throw

5. Morote-Gari (from tsuki to the head)
•Drop to get out of the way punch, allow your body to naturally stay at an angle
•Place leg between uke's legs and hook behind legs
•Push your body against uke, do not lift up on the knees

This technique appears very simple, yet it has a lot of pitfalls. For one, if you fail to place your leg between uke's you get hit in the groin. Also if the uke is a grappler and you "hang out" down there, you're in trouble. Also if you are bent over and try to lift uke, you could strain your back very easily.


6. Morote-Gari / Sukui-nage from failed Ippon
•Go for Ippon and fail
•Spin away from arm you clipped to grab opposing leg(s)
•Push for morote, step behind for suki•nage

*Note : Aiki way for suki•nage is to use the arm to push uke back, you can also lift knees to throw them back for judo way.

When we started doing this, I didn't think Sempai Zhenya was going to throw me in Ippon, wow was I wrong! Bam! I hit that mat hard, but it was funny. It's moments like this when I realize this stuff is no joke, it really does work, especially the ukemi part! As we were working I tried to prevent her from ippon by putting my hand on her back. Jack ( come back Jack! ) had showed me this a few months ago as something they do in judo to prevent ippon. It worked well and gave a sincerity to causing the ippon to fail, which made light work of Sempai's counters.
From falling from Morote•gari I am appreciative of the neck-ups we do in warm•up, I have been doing them at home and feel like when I tuck my head, nothing can unravel me.

7. Ne-Waza to the extreme!
So we did a choke that is very very difficult for me to explain b/c I had difficulties in doing due to my lack of flexibility, so I am going to add a series of stretching excercises that Youval showed me to my repetoire.


8. Post-Class
After class Youval showed me some stretching techniques and some very basic ways to prevent certain situations in grappling. One thing that was pretty cool was an triangle gaurd that was created by putting your hands together and pushing uke away from you, ( very simialr to unbendable arm in aikido ) this allows you to set up a bridge to flip them over. It was amazing how simple it was.