Thank y'all

I want to take this opportunity to thank, from the bottom of my heart, Sensei Jeff Miller and Sensei Dave Shorey of Acadian Judo for offering such a wonderful training experience this weekend. I also want to especially thank my honorable opponent, whose name I missed, but who gave me a great match and a good lesson today.

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Today I participated in a USJA judo referee clinic and mock shiai at Acadian Judo. By the end of the ref training it was apparent to me that there was no way I was going to get in the ring as a referee, so I jumped into the competitor pool. There were only two people in my weight division and they were beginners, so Dave, who was arranging the pairings coaxed one of the referees into giving me a match. It was my first match with real-shiai, non-gentleman's rules in about 12 or 13 years.

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My opponent was younger and larger than me, though I outranked him considerably. He was quite solid too. The first half of the match I was blind - I don't have a clue what was happening, but somehow I ended up with a koka (minor score) over the other guy - God only knows what I did to get that. Then I started calming down and prodding him and probing with deashibarai. I didn't get a score, but he got a shido (minor penalty) for noncombativity. Then at literally the last second I threw a sumigaeshi (sacrifice throw) as a counter to his infernal leg picks that he kept throwing on me (we'd previously spent half the time grounded after a leg pick with him lying prone and me trying to turn him over but the ref got bored and stood us up). Anyway, I got an ippon (full point) off of the sumigaeshi and won the match.

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The lesson I learned... The guy appeared to be afraid of me going into the match. Not like quivering or un-manly or shameful fear or anything, but he seemed to be taking into consideration the difference in rank, as if expecting me to bust him or something - and it put him on the defensive. Can't really fault him, out of the blue he was thrown into the ring with a black belt that he didn't know. The lesson I (re)learned - it is really hard and really exhausting to attack a defensive man your size or larger for several minutes. Besides the excellent lesson, I got a cracked or strained rib (I think he speared me in the ribs with his head and the ref missed it but I'm not sure) - but that's what I get - you've got to pay to play.

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I had a great time and I hope to be able to play at another of these events March 15th in Denham Springs at Wall to Wall Martial Arts. Between now and then I hope to work on a few of Rhadi's strategic tips on his Judo Success Secrets DVD and perhaps I can control my next match better.

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Again, thank y'all

February kohaku shiai

Today was our monthly club tourney. Everyone did well but we mixed things up a little by changing the lineup. We added the rule that the winner from last month moves up 1-2 places to the heavier end of the lineup, handicaping him more and disrupting some of the advantage the guy in the middle of the line has. We also added a time limit to crawling man, so you only have to immobilize the crawling man long enough to recite a sentence (Today's winning sentence was, "Honesty means always telling the truth.") This time limit prevents players from being ground to exhaustion but it also keeps them from resting on the bottom - they have to stay active and stay in motion or they lose faster.

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Congratulations to month's shiai champions:

• 1st place: Gavin Jarrell (8 wins)
• 2nd place: (tie) Whit Parker and Emma Jarrell (4 wins)
• 3rd place: Knox Parker (3 wins)

January Kohaku Shiai

Kohaku shiai this morning with the kids. We threw Quin into the mix for the first time and everyone had fun and did great. Knox and Emma were more aggressive today. Whit and Gavin were more strategic.

• 1st place - Mason Alford (7 wins)
• 2nd place - Emma Jarrell (6 wins)
• 3rd place (tie) - Gavin Jarrell, Whit Parker, Knox Parker (4 wins each)

December 2007 kohaku shiai

Today's club shiai was a blast. The parents got fired up and had nearly as much fun cheering as the kids had grappling. The champions for the month are:

• 1st place - Mason Alford (8 wins)
• 2nd place - Gavin Jarrell (5 wins)
• 3rd place (tie) - Whit Parker, Knox Parker (3 wins)

Our goals for the month after last month's shiai were to work on the crawling man game, making each person a little better at holding and each person a little better at shucking off the holder and escaping. Everybody did much better. The crawling man game was the most exciting event and they were definitely thinking on their feet (on their knees?) because they would roll over the holder to keep going and they would dig in with their feet and drag the holder and they would roll around resistance, even crawling backward in order to make progress. Overall some great grappling. Amazon wrestling was a blast too. last month or month before they were only using the knee grab tactic but this month they were securing side/rear bearhugs and attempting sweeps too.

Our goals for next month will be to add another skill or two (i.e. crawfishing) to the crawling man game and work more on Amazon wrestling and standing randori skills (i.e. osotogari).

November kohaku shiai

Today we had ur five-event shiai for the month. We had some of the same games as last time and a couple of new events. The five events included crab war, two-belt tugs, crawling man, Amazon wrestling, and newaza randori for 3-second pins. This month's club champions were:

• 1st place - Mason Alford (10 wins)
• 2nd place - Knox Parker (6 wins)
• 3rd place - Gavin Jarrell (3 wins)

I was especially pleased that 2-3 of the kids got the hang of tapping out of trouble. For the past couple of months we've had occasional bickering, whinking, and hurt feelings because someone would smear their partner and the partner was frustrated because he couldn't figure out how to get out. Today they were trying and fighting hard but they were also intelligently using tapping-out to avoid that frustrated feeling. Progress. They are also learning good ukemi, as evidenced by Mason launching Whit into a great back fall with a single leg pick - and not getting Whit's brains spread all over the mat. Progress.

The kids have the most fun and get the most competition time doing crawling man and Amazon wrestling, So I figure to work on skills related to these two games for the next month. At each class I want to especially work on the following with everyone, but especially Whit and Emma:

• Japanese pass into side or rear bearhug
• osotogari into kesagatame
• crossface turnover into munegatame

October 2007 Kohaku Shiai

Today we held our first intraclub kohaku shiai for the kids' judo class and it was a blast! We ran five events, including toe-stomp randori, Danish wrestling, duck wrestling, crawling man, and newaza randori with 3-second pins. The winner-stays-up arrangement was a snap to organize and worked like a charm.

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The three October Champions were (drumroll please)...

• 1st place - Mason Alford (14 wins)
• 2nd place - Gavin Jarrell (8 wins)
• 3rd place - Knox Parker (4 wins)

I am so proud of all the players! Everyone had fun, stretched themselves a little bit, and figured out some stuff to work on before the next kohaku shiai in November.

Kohaku shiai

A while back I wrote about differing opinions on weight classes in judo competition. Some folks say they are necessary to promote fair competition and prevent injury. Others blame weight division for the apparent technical decline of Kodokan judo from a high point in the 1950’s (before weight classes).

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Well, recently I came across some references to a kind of competition used traditionally in judo schools that pretty much negated the need for weight classes while retaining the variability in the competitor pool that made for great judo in the 1950’s. From the 2006 AAU Rules:

STAND-UP CHALLENGE Contestants lined up from lightest to heaviest. Winner of each match stays on mat against next challenger in moving from lightest to heaviest.

And a more complete description from judoinfo.com:

Traditionally Judo competitions were organized using the "winner stays up" or Kohaku shiai method. In this method contestants were lined up by size, or sometimes rank and experience were also considered, and the smallest two competitors in a division would fight. Then the winner would stay on the mat to fight the next biggest competitor. The winner of each match would again stay up until losing. The largest person, if he won, would be permitted to fight back down the line a limited number of matches. The person with the most wins at the end would be declared the winner.

Perhaps the best discussion of this sort of old-style tournament and the plusses and minuses of modern tournament systems is Ichikawa and Draeger.

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I, for one, wish I’d come up through the ranks in a club that did monthly red-white interclub tourneys with this “winner-stays-up” lineup method (as opposed to 3-4 'real' tournaments per year against folks from other clubs). I can’t wait to get this going with my judo kids class.