Judo adventures - Summer Session 01

[yuuago]

Attending: Me, M, M2, G, TJ, & C. F supervising/instructing.

Today was the first day of our extra summer sessions. They're kind of officially unofficial - we're doing them one day per week at F's house. He has judo mats set out in his garage! Very cool.

We started off with review of the osoto/sasae combination. I was glad to revisit that, since we only did that technique once in actual class, and I don't want to leave it go and forget it. Still tricky, though.

After that, F introduced us to a throw that... honestly I can't remember what it's called. You move as if going in for an ippon-seoinage, but instead of the usual foot placement, your foot goes on the inner side (your left/their right), and you bring them back and go down with them. ...Gonna have to ask more about it later.

I partnered with C for this. Working with him is kind of awkward, because he's very skilled (blue belt) but so young and much smaller than me. I feel like I'm gonna crush him if I fall on him or pin him too firmly.

Second half of class was randori. First, a few sessions of groundwork. I partnered with C, then F, then M. Challenging but fun. Aaand then we did upright. Since the mat space was small and there were a lot of us, we only had two people doing upright randori at one time. Which was fine - most of us needed to rest by then, because it was incredibly hot, so we were all warm and exhausted. I did do a couple of sessions with M2, but mostly sat out and watched.

Watching G and M fight together was super cool. G might be relatively new to judo, but he's already really good! Lots of energy, lots of strength, and learning really fast. I'm curious about how he'll do in actual competition. :D

I'm really glad we were able to arrange this. It's super awesome that F is letting us use his space. <3 Looking forward to next week!