Ukemi. That's how I roll.

Every now and then it's good to go back and review the basics. I often hear the phrase that "You have to learn how to walk before you can learn how to run." In Judo, that translates into "You have to learn to fall before you can learn to throw."
The attractive thing about the judo to many people is the impressive throws. A smaller man or woman can easily throw someone bigger with proper positioning, balance, and leverage. However, in order to practice these throws, that means someone has to hit the ground at a high rate of speed and sometimes from great heights (Try getting thrown with kata guruma by an over 6 foot black belt). With enough practice in ukemi (falling techniques) a judoka can easily take a fall backwards, forwards, sideways, and diagonally.
Here's my problem, I've been spending too much time wandering around the classroom looking wise and black belty and critiquing other peoples technique while not taking any falls myself. I decided that wasn't right and I've been participating more in the ukemi practice and taking more falls during technique training. I discovered then that ukemi is a lot like a favorite hobby of mine from my younger days: horseback riding. Participate often and all is natural with no side effects, take a few weeks off and you're going to be walking with a limp for a while. Well, let that be a lesson to me and hopefully to any of you who think there's no benefit gained from practicing ukemi every class.

Note: I can't claim that I came up with the title of this post, but most experienced judoka will think it's hilarious. You can actually get shirts and bumper stickers with that slogan at CafePress as well as other judo related apparel.

Judo and Life Meet

This past weekend I actually used judo in the "real world". Most martial artists hope they never have to use their training outside of the dojo, but you have to defend what you love. Unfortunately, it was at a wedding.

It was my cousin's outdoor wedding and my little girl, Lena, was the flower girl. The wedding itself went very well and Lena was, of course, precious. It certainly wasn't the disaster I, as the father of the flower girl, imagined it might be. The festivities had shifted over to a big tent where the reception was taking place. As I was walking through the snack line, I noticed that at the end of the line was one of those chocolate fountains that you can dip food in.

I love chocolate. My wife is a 5th degree black belt Chocoholic, and that has rubbed off on me during 6 years of marriage (I think I'm a second degree brown belt, now). So naturally, the chocolate fountain and the items around it had my attention. I dipped a couple of cherries, some pineapple, a pretzel stick, and my pièce de résistance, a giant strawberry on a stick twice dipped. I grabbed a cup of punch and headed back to where my family was sitting.

When I passed my younger brother, Caleb, he reached up and took the strawberry off my plate. I'm generally a passive person. If someone takes my seat, I'll find another one. If you cut in line, I probably won't say a thing. However, I love my food. If you try to take food off my plate, there will be words. If chocolate is involved, there will be injuries. Both of my younger brothers know this, but they like to play games like this with me from time to time. Probably because I was the typical mean older brother in my youth (or before I found judo ;-).

I quickly set my cup of punch down on a table and grabbed Caleb's wrist before he could get my chocolate strawberry to his mouth. I still had my plate in my other hand, so I couldn't really do anything but hold on. He tried to stretch his arm down towards the ground, which then made it easy for me to set my plate on the ground and concentrate both of my hands on my dessert. I turned his wrist in, straightened his arm, stood back up, and tucked his arm under mine. As I plucked my chocolate strawberry from his now limp hand, I suddenly realized I had my brother in a textbook standing waki-gatame. I didn't even think about it until I had achieved my objective. After I let Caleb go, he sullenly consoled himself by drinking my punch, but I still had my chocolate covered strawberry. My wife later told me she was proud of me for defending my chocolate.

So there you have it, I used actual judo training in a real life situation. No injuries were sustained by anyone and the situation was resolved with maximum efficiency.

I learned that day that victory is sweet, especially chocolate covered victory.

Getting in Shape

In an earlier post I mentioned wanting to try out Tabata intervals for a short workout on regular days of the week. I successfully completed my first full week. I worked out every morning Monday through Friday doing the 15 minute Tabata workout I outlined before. The first couple of days were rough, but I was already noticing an improvement by day 3. This week I'm starting to intersperse different workouts (concentrating on arms, shoulders, abs, or whatever I feel needs work) on Tues and Thurs, while keeping the full body workout on the Mon, Wed, and Fri.

Ironically, I missed both of my usual judo workouts last week (sick wife on one day, a sick washing machine on the other). So last night was my first night back after a week off, which usually means I'm going to feel very crappy the next day. However, I felt great for almost the whole class (I got a little tired after the 3rd or 4th randori session at the end) and I still got up early this morning and did my workout. I also feel like I'm less tired at work and a little more alert. I'm not contributing all of this to my specific workout so much as the fact that I'm getting up and doing something to get my blood pumping each morning.

Hopefully I can keep this new trend going and not let it peter out like some of my past attempts. It's certainly manageable and even enjoyable. Who knows, I may even be in great shape for tournament season (for once). Maybe I'll even attack my diet next, eliminating fried foods, sugars, and starchy foods............Nah. I'm a southern boy and I need my fried foods ;-)

What is Judo?

When friends, family, or acquaintances find out that I do judo, I find that most people have the following knowledge about it:
- Judo is some sort of martial art.
- ......
There, that's it. I know they think it's a martial art judging from the "judo chop" hands they make and when they ask me to break a board with my fist. So here's a brief little bit of info for the judo deprived.

Judo is:
- a martial art that was developed from the ancient Japanese martial art of jujitsu. Jigoro Kano was the creator of judo, which means "gentle way" as opposed to jujitsu which means "gentle art". The name of the school he founded is the Kodokan.
- a grappling sport that is practiced worldwide and is included in the summer Olympics.
- a valid form of self-defense for men, women, and children.
- a great way to get fit.
- a general philosophy and way to improve yourself.
- practiced by men, women, and children of all ages. It can even be practiced by the blind.
- Fun (to me, anyway)

Judo is not:
- MMA or Ultimate Fighting, though many of the techniques learned are useful for both.
- a martial art focusing on punching, kicking, and/or other forms of striking. Some striking may be taught, but you won't be breaking any boards or concrete blocks.
- a religion.
- mystical, new age, or spiritual. No chi cultivation, secret death touches, or other paranormal abilities are taught.

What will you typically learn in a judo class/club?
- Ukemi, or falling techniques. You learn how to fall to prevent injury when learning throwing techniques. Learning to fall also translates well to the real world.
- Throws. How to use your strength, balance, and movement against your opponent to effectively throw them off their feet and onto the ground.
- Ground techniques which can be broken into three categories.
a.)Pins - how to immobilize an opponent on the ground using your weight and leverage.
b.)Chokes - how to cause unconsciousness with a well applied choke.
c.)Joint locks - how to immobilize or incapacitate an opponent by putting pressure on or dislocating their joint.
- Strikes (punches and kicks) are taught at some clubs, but only when teaching self-defense applications. Strikes aren't allowed in judo tournaments.

Different clubs have their own ways of warming up, drilling techniques, assigning ranks, and teaching transitions and applications. But most judo clubs teach the same types of techniques. Also, some clubs focus on judo as self-defense or a complete martial art, while others tend to focus more on the sport of judo, or how to be a good judo competitor.

So there you have it; a little primer on judo. If you want more information, click the Judo Info link here or to the right side of the page to be overwhelmed with judo information, pictures, and videos.

Newaza champ in the making

I've said before that I have high hopes for my little girl, Lena, getting involved in judo. I hope she'll get involved in judo class someday and love it as much as I have. I think by starting her early and guiding her along the way from home, she'll go far. Yesterday gave me a little glimpse of what she may be capable of.

Lena recently turned 3 years old, and after all the birthday celebrations died down, it was time for her three year doctor visit. I was at work, so my wife took Lena to her appointment. We didn't expect Lena would be getting any shots, so we kept talking up how easy and "fun" this appointment would be. Unfortunately, my wife found out that Lena needed a TB test (which involves a dreaded needle) minutes before the test was actually given. Lena was not happy. It took three nurses (one laying across her legs, one to pin her shoulders, and one to pin her arm and administer the test) plus my wife singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in her ear to get the test done. I can just see the image in my head of four grown women hunched over a little, screaming, kicking 3-year-old girl. Apparently I have a fighter on my hands who is hard to pin, and that's a good thing to a judo dad! Not so good for the medical personnel, though.

Judo, Burpees, and Tabata Intervals

I've been looking for something simple that I can do at home to improve my aerobic/anaerobic fitness. Generally I do pretty good in class randori, but after my first match in a tournament setting I'm usually sucking wind. While looking around for ideas on the judo forum and fitness sites, I repeatedly came across the term Tabata intervals (or sometimes drills or protocol).

Tabata intervals are named for a Japanese researcher, Izumi Tabata, who during a study in the late 90s determined that doing high intensity interval training for a relatively short amount of time was more effective than performing a lower intensity endurance workout over a long period of time. If you Google Tabata intervals, or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) you'll find plenty of information about all the science behind it.

Here's how a basic Tabata workout is done:
- 5 minutes of warmup
- 20 seconds of high intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest.
- Repeat the prior step 7 more times (for a total of 4 minutes of high intensity intervals)
- 5 minutes of cooldown.

That's it! Only 14 minutes. The high intensity workout can be anything. It can be free weights, weight machines, pushups, situps, sprints, punching bag, or you can alternate over several different exercises. The key is whichever exercise you choose, perform the exercise with a lot of intensity for the full 20 seconds of each interval. I've decided to use burpees. Burpees are a type of drill involving push ups, squats, and jumping. We do them our judo class and they are a great workout than incorporate most of the muscles of the body. If you don't know what a burpee is, a quick search on YouTube will clue you in.

After putting Lena to bed last night, I tried out the intervals using burpees. I made it through 3 intervals before I just collapsed in a gasping pile. Man, my anaerobic fitness is in worse shape than I thought. However, once I cooled down, my legs stopped shaking, and my breathing returned to normal, I felt great the rest of the evening! I even felt pretty energetic this morning. Tonight I intend to break my previous record ;-) Once I'm up to doing the full 8 intervals comfortably, I think I will look into also practicing uchi komis with the exercise tubing and Tabata intervals. If that goes well, I'll let you know.

Entertaining Judo Article

I stumbled across a humorous article last month on the topic of Olympic judo that I really enjoyed. It's written by a guy who has no experience with judo, but enjoyed watching it via the NBC Olympic website. It's kind of refreshing to see someone write about judo who isn't already involved in the sport. My favorite part of the article are the two terms I believe this writer has coined, ippwn3d and ippwnage. I think I'll have to incorporate them into my judo vocabulary, now.

Here's a link - Pinned Down by Olympic Judo

Getting old sucks

Man, I'm 29 years old, and I shouldn't be feeling like this. My back has been a little sore for a couple of weeks, but tonight it's killing me. I'm not even old enough to participate in the Masters division of a judo tournament, and I feel like a little old man hunched over a walker.
A few people from my club went to visit Dan Smith's club in Dickson, TN to participate in his judo workout. I actually trained at Dan's club for a little under a year back in '01-'02. I like Dan's style because he tends to focus on how judo is useful in a combat/self-defense situation. He doesn't focus on sport judo or formal judo (such as katas). I do enjoy learning formal techniques and such, but seeing Dan teach how judo can be used in the real world is a treat. The only problem is that Dan is a green beret, he's in better shape than men half his age, and he therefor runs an exhausting workout. I found out tonight that I've been standing around critiquing juniors' techniques too much and not getting enough of a workout myself. Also, did I mention my back freakin' hurts?
My teacher, who went with us tonight and is himself a student of Dans, has suggested in the past a way to help muscle pain heal fast. You alternate hot and cold packs on the injured area at a 1:5 ratio. I've tried that before and it seems to work, so we'll see if it will do the trick on my back. I'm on the third rep of the cold phase right now. Most of my reason for even posting this (besides the fact that it gives me an outlet) is so I can remember that ratio. Now I won't have to keep bugging sensei with the same question every time I pull a muscle.