exercise regularly

Joe was out this week – hope he’s ok!

Hideki got stuck with us beginners instead and he has a much more fussy and step by step approach to a lot of things. I think it would get old if he was our teacher all the time, but it’s nice to have a change of pace.

Tuesday we worked on side foot sweeps (almost too easy when I outweigh my partner – not sure I did them right) and o uchi gari. I managed to land on my knee just wrong and have a nice bruise (this throw seems to be bad for my right knee – I did this last time we worked on it too, but much much worse) and landed on my partner’s bony knee just wrong as well. OW.

Thursday they worked us in with the little kids doing randori with the grownups – each round either run up and got a grownup partner to work with or do 20 pushups. With the warmup pushups I think I did over 100 pushups yesterday, and my shoulders are PISSED. I have a hard time remembering to breathe during randori. :| Then we worked on some turnovers with Hideki and finished with some ni waza (wrestling sparring) it was cool to immediately use the things I had learned on a brown belt and see that they worked. I’m much better about breathing during ni waza, which is nice for me, but doesn’t help me understand why I’m so bad at it during randori.

getting the hang of soto maki komi and tai o tochi – the foot move is about the same for both, but in one you tuck the guy’s bicep under your arm and keep spinning and in the other, you shove him in the jaw while swinging his other arm around. woo!

after recent enthusiasm, it seems like all my little aches and pains are combining to make things kinda miserable. This is probably highlighted by the fact that there’s been at most 1 other person in the adult beginner class this week (Thursday I had to ask a brown belt to come hang out with me – no lower ranks bothered to come in.) Thus, every little thing I’m doing wrong has sensei’s full attention. urggggg..

oh well. Learned Ko Uchi Gari. Starting to get my brain around some counter moves, but going to take awhile before my body thinks to do them at the right moment.

We seem to have dropped the belt testing notion for a bit – fine with me, since I hate cramming for tests. Given another week or so, my reading the vocab casually before class should be enough.

starting to do randori every class. fun, but difficult.

Learned some arm bar stuff, and managed to be stoic and not make waves about it. ( I am against arm bars on principle: I think I’ve said this before, but: Having exactly 1 technique that you are supposed to do slowly and carefully sounds like a recipe for breaking someone’s elbow.) Did some chokes. Learned sideways foot sweeps and a weird “grab the pants leg, hook the ankle and shove til we all fall down” counter-counter.

Failed my first belt test. (I had been given the wrong study sheet. Doh! Olympics Judo trivia for 200, FAIL. But yeah. It’s still failing. I hate that.)

all the better to not see spots at judo

First time doing randori with the big people. It’s nice to see it’s not so scary, and to really get a feel for what things are important. (Like: If you are not right up on someone when you turn to do the throw, they can totally just turn and be in the better position.)

I think I’m starting to turn the corner where I can actually tell WHAT I’ve done wrong instead of just that I’ve done it wrong – big progress towards being able to fix it. Makes things less frustrating and thus more fun. yay!

uuuuurgh. I’m all sweaty.

5 more minutes was enough to make me feel it. ugh. But finishing is not nearly as hard as starting…

easier than I remember the last time being. Guess judo is keeping me fit!

23: new worst judo class ever. let us never speak of this again.

24: super remedial judo – worked on falling for almost the entire class – got much much better at the throwing myself falls (still not quite right, but does not hurt to try now!) and got in enough being thrown falls to stop worrying about my head. whew.

of course, the gym is closed for annual cleanup/repairs next week.