Judo adventures - Class 21

[yuuago]

Today was me, J, K-kun, and L. Sensei was back, feeling better after that cold knocked him flat. T-sensei was there as well.

Today was all about armlock submissions. Variations of ude-garami. We covered both Americana (pin down opponent's wrist, thread through with your other hand to grasp your own wrist, then use this hold to lift their elbow) and Camorra (pin opponent's wrist behind, then draw it up their back). Whole bunch of versions of those; from guard, from all fours, etc. There was one version where you roll your opponent over in order to get them into the lock, which was fun.

Also covered a camorra variant that's more of a self-defence move than judo specifically, done from a standing position - opponent grabs from behind, you grab their wrist and then thread your opposite hand through to secure with a grasp to your own wrist, then step to the side and bring their arm up behind.

("And from here, you're in a good position to knee them in the face! :D But maybe save that one for bar fights at Paddy's." - L.)

I was partnered with L for most of class. Kind of challenging; he's a tall sturdy guy with long limbs, much bigger than me, and there were some cases where I had difficulty reaching properly in order to thread my hand through and grasp my own wrist. So, I had to figure out ways to, say, bring my body up further in order to make room to follow through. I think I would have had a much easier time with J, who's closer to my size.

Groundwork randori toward the end. Partnered with L, then with K-kun. Didn't manage to get very far with either of them as far as technique goes (though I did manage to get L into an americana at one point) but to be fair to me, they're both bigger than me and I was pretty tired by that point. ;V

tl;dr Fun class, looking forward to the next one. Not sure what we'll be covering next, but Thursday is usually throwing, so we'll see...