Judo adventures 3.33

[yuuago]

Attending: Me, Jo, C, Mo. T-sensei instructing.

We also had a new kid, G, and her father, Pa, show up. G isn't new to judo though - she's from the colourbelt class, and is in that weird in-between stage where she's somewhat too big for the colourbelt class but slightly too young for the adult class. It was recommended she try out the adult class to see how it'll go.

T-sensei asked who graded me to half-green. I said it was our previous instructor. When I was upgraded to orange, it was T-sensei's recommendation; but I don' know if our previous instructor consulted him on half-green; it seems like he didn't. T-sensei said that he dislikes using half-belts for adults. With kids and the younger teenagers, it can be helpful because it gives them (and their parents) a visual indicator of progress. This is less necessary with adults though. Anyway, he says that the current plan for the club is to move away from half-belts for adults.

I asked T-sensei if we could spend some extra time on forward rolling breakfalls, and he obliged. There are still some problems with the way I'm doing them, but I'm seeing improvement. He mentioned that it's very important - not jus for the practical reasons, but also because if you go somewhere else and can breakfall very well, it reflects well on you, your instructors, and the club.

We workd on sode-tsurikomi-goshi, morote-seoinage, and ippon-seoinage. I tred to incorporate the concepts we learned for sode last class. It's challenging to bring the sleeve so high, but I find it does help. As for morote, T-sensei recommended keeping the wrist as straight as possible. This is partially for safety, and partially to make a more powerful throw with stronger kuzushi. He had no additional suggestions for my ippon-seoinage performance.

G is a very shy kid; hopefully if she keeps coming to class, she'll relax little. We did some randori, and she was very enthusiastic. Her father has some familiarity with judo, and joined in for a little bit, which was nice.

T-sensei says there will be class on Monday, so I'll be there.