learn jujutsu

I was planning on making January a good month for practice, but then I just had to go and injure my shoulder (fortunately, only a minor injury).

Had I not been injured, I’d have worked on ude garami, an arm lock. Now I probably won’t be able to practice for two weeks :P

When I came to the dojo Matt had all the fans running, but there was a burning smell in the hallway, like if you had too much grease or oil in the oven and it was hot enough to start burning it off.

We looked around for something burning but found nothing. I went in to change and while putting my shorts on heard Matt yell something about a fire. He told me of eight inch flames spitting out of the fan while he reached to unplug it.

I came out of the dressing room to see a small fire around the motor of the fan and Matt nowhere in sight (he’d gone to find a fire extinguisher. While Matt was collecting the fire extinguisher I picked the fan up and carried it outside.

The only loss was the fan, I pulled the electric cord out of it so nobody would plug it back in and wonder where that burning smell was coming from.

We worked some guard passes and sweeps, and played around a bit with triange choke and arm locks.

Also, Wednesday we worked chokes a bunch. My voice was a bit hoarse for a good half hour.

Last Wednesday there were only four of us, so we started a wrist-lock kata. After that I did about 20 minutes of randori in two minute rounds with Cru and got in one perfect counter throw. He got in one perfect throw against me as well.

Brad switched Cru out for me, but Brad was too heavy and too fresh for me, so he ended up throwing me around a bunch. After that, Brad and I went to Harry’s Famous Pizza

Drills for pulling, drills for form, drills for lifting.

When pulling for a throw, the pulling hand should make a smooth, level movement along with hip and body rotation. Also worked some ne-waza where I got in a good juji gatame.

We learned a new variation on setting up a hip throw, this one involving a two-sleeve grip. After breaking your opponents grip, the leading side’s hand is brought low across the belly while the following hand gets extended. The footwork is identical to the hip throw.

Instead of finishing the throw, we rolled it dropping to the leading leg’s knee. Without the use of your hands to break your fall its a hard throw to take.

After drilling that we switched to some randori and got in one good hip throw. I also worked some with Ilena again but was only able to get a successful takedowns with a back-valley drop, probably because of my greater mass.

Started with hip throws which I’m getting down pretty well. My hips were in tight so the throw felt very natural.

Then we worked some leg sweeps. The “easy” practice was hard, I couldn’t figure out the timing, but then I switched off and started working with Ilena (she’s tiny, but oozes competence) who threw me around a bunch then showed me how to put the steps together. The first one I did right was shockingly perfect, she seemed to spin right around her hip.

I need to work on more upper-body manipulation to get my opponent off-balance before initiating the sweep. The foot timing is natural, but not always will I have them off balance enough to get a clean takedown.

I need to bring my hips in tighter.

To paraphrase:

“Don’t throw until you can tell if they’re hanging high or low.”

Last night we played mat rugby and worked positional stuff. I scraped a bunch of skin off my knees and feet. I am sore all over and can barely move. I have a strange square bruise on my ribs.

Mostly we did positional work. Having given platelets on Sunday I ended up running out of wind at the end.

On Wednesday I returned to Ju-jutsu practice for the first time in months. Had a good time getting thrown around and was good and sore the next day.

The right half of my body got over yesterday at practice.

• Chipped all four front teeth when I caught a knee on my chin
• Kicked in the right eyebrow
• Right leg pulled partially out of socket at the hip
• Skin abrasions, especially above the right eyebrow
• The right side of my larynx is bruised, it feels like a sore throat
• My right shoulder is sore around the arm socket from general mangling