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.

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.

Sprung Judo Floor

Everyone at our judo club has a little more spring to their step, literally. Over two weekends, some of our members built and assembled a sprung floor using used car tires, lumber, and plywood. The basic construction is that a frame was built around the whole area, tires were layed out in the frame, 2x4s were layed on top of the tires, plywood covered all the 2x4s, then the judo mats were arranged as usual on top of the plywood. The whole purpose of the floor is take a little more of the impact out of the falls. Before, the mats just lay on carpet that was sitting on concrete.
So how does it work? Pretty good. Walking across the mats feels no different than it used to, but taking a fall from even the roughest throws doesn't have that bone crunching impact that it used to. I'm feeling much better and less beat up today than I usually would at this point. As one of my slightly older judoka buddies put it, "This new floor is going to add 15 years to my judo career."

Strange Happenings, part 2

I wrote in the previous post about mystery bruises, now on to mystery blood stains. It's not unusual to be participating in a rousing session of newaza and suddenly notice that your or your partner's gi has several fresh blood stains. At this point, newaza is usually halted, the offending wound is found, and then taped up if needs be.

Last night I was wrestling with a bigger guy (which is not a rarity, in my case), and noticed some blood on my left sleeve. I pointed out to my friend that he must have an injury since blood on one person's gi usually means the blood came from the non-stained judoka. He performed a quick diagnostic and couldn't find any injuries. That's when I noticed my right big toe was bleeding. That's right, somehow blood from right big toe made it to the upper portion of my left sleeve.

One of the black belts at the club has a saying that in judo and other martial arts, you find out that you can do a lot of things which you previously wouldn't have thought. Last night I found out that I'm apparently much more flexible than I thought. I just wish I could remember it happening, but such is the frantic nature of newaza.