Judo adventures - class 41

[yuuago]

I was feeling much better today, after spending several days resting. So, judo happened.

Attending: Me, J, M, aaand two new people: TJ and J2. We'll see if they stick around. Sensei says that some more new people might be coming (and possibly other people returning) in future classes - that remains to be seen.

Groundwork today. We worked through a choke that I think we've covered before, but not recently. I think Sensei called it the bow and arrow choke; it involves grasping your opponent by the collar and leg while they're in turtle, rolling over and taking them with you, and then - once they're in position - just leaning back in order to put the pressure. Depending on how it goes - how your opponent defends - there's a few different ways to do arm bars or submissions from there, too.

(For arm bar: If they try to stop the choke - slip in to hook their arm, draw it away; push their head down and slide your legs into position aaand then you're able to lean back and proceed. Theoretically, anyway - I've never be able to put any of this into practice in freeform stuff.)

Did some groundwork randori today, too. Three rounds with J, and now I'm totally beat. Whew. He got me in some pretty impressive chokes and whatnot, and it was all I could do to keep up with him.

Also did a round with M. He was pretty tired by then, so we started out light, and then switched to basically practicing technique. ...I also tried to do that choke on him that we learned today, and lollll that did not work. Rolling him over was, uh, too much of a challenge (oof). But at least I tried.

L showed up toward the end of class, just to say hi. The reason he wasn't here today was because he hurt his foot at the competition and wanted to rest it. Just bruising, nothing serious, but best not to tempt fate. :V Apparently he did pretty good this weekend aside from that.

Speaking of the competition, by the sound of it J did really well. Didn't win, but Sensei says he was really incredible to watch. I'm glad it went well - though ahhh I wish I could've seen it myself!

It was a nice class. Looking forward to the next! u3u