I know, I know, I take forever to write my blogs. I must apologize, but it’s been rough, I’m trying to finish my Master’s (4 weeks left!), get a job that pays well enough for me to support everything, and, well, the whole ball of wax. Well, suffice it to say that things are getting better.

Yesterday on a judo forum (not the JudoForum) someone posted a video of some wonderful ukemi. So without further ado, here it is:

My thoughts on the subject come down to:

1.      I really need to practice my ukemi so that I can do this.

2.      I really need to get good mats for the club.

3.      I really wish I had enough people to get that guy to come down and teach!

Don’t forget, June 18-19 we’re doing a promotional and clinic at the New Mexico Military Institute. All packets are available on the Events page of Roswell-Judo.org.

Las Cruces

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to Las Cruces and help out at a tournament. I’ve been to a few so this wasn’t that big I thing, I thought. However, it turns out that I was running a scoreboard, brackets, and helping others learn how to keep both match time and osaekomi time! This I had never done before.

Thankfully I paid attention when I went to Denver for their tournament and discovered how simple the quarter, dime, nickel, penny method of bracketing was. I used that and ran through all of the divisions pretty seamlessly. The matches went well with only one disqualification, which was because one individual though it would be good to taunt his competitor.

I also had the opportunity to work with a very diligent student from the NMSU Judo Club. I’ve worked with her and chatted with her a number of times and have been consistently impressed with her willingness and dedication to learn judo no matter who is teaching it.

We worked on Sunday for about an hour and a half on a variety of topics. Thanks to AnnMarie DeMars, Gerald Lafon, Paul Nogaki, and others for teaching me that a clinic should be limited to only a handful or less of topics. We started working with some basic conditioning drills and exercises that she can do solo. After that we talked about Tai Otoshi, a turnover, and an armlock from guard. It was a very fast hour and a half and I believe she came out of the session with a fair amount of information that she can use!

I have to say, all in all, it was a good weekend! Many thanks to Oscar, Toby, Nadia, and Ashley for letting me bend your ears a little bit and help out where I can!

What's Happening Now!

The latest and greatest from the Roswell Judo Club!

It’s been a hectic few months for me. All the classes are going wonderfully. The college class has only lost one student, but that’s because he moved; all 7 remaining are doing wonderfully and progressing right on course. The adult program seems to have fallen by the wayside for people not involved in the college class. The youth program is doing wonderfully!

Since the middle of March to yesterday, we’ve been to two tournaments and on the 16^th we’re headed to Las Cruces for one more. We might go to New Mexico State Games, but we’ll have to see about that. On the 19^th of March Eddy and I went to the Denver Spring Tournament in Denver where Eddy had his first tournament experience. It was a good experience with Eddy placing second in his division in some very hard fought matches. He also fought in the advanced division fighting five more incredibly tough matches.

Yesterday, 2 April 2011, we took four kids down to the LC Grappling tournament in Carlsbad, NM. It was a long day starting at 7am to drive down there. The tournament started about 10:15am and lasted until almost 1 pm. Everybody had at least two matches, many having more. We came home with 3 medals, one gold medal (Go Gabriel!) and two silver medals (Yea Joel and Xavier!). Loren IV fought hard in his matches but was a little undersized losing to throws both times, though his hold-downs were good when he got the chance.

  

The April 16^th tournament is with Guzman’s down at Mayfield High School in Las Cruces. I don’t know who exactly is going yet, but I expect to take at least two or three.

What’s in Store?

We’re gearing up for summer! Expect more information on the summer programs we’re going to offer in the next few weeks! I expect that we’ll start a new class of beginners starting in June, so current students recruit your friends! If you want to try judo, summer is just the time to get started! We expect to offer a judo activity during the Yucca Recreation Center’s summer program which will be taught by Alana. Parents, that’s a great way to keep your kids busy during the summer, enroll them in the Yucca Recreation Center’s summer program where they’ll get to try a lot of activities and not be at home vegging out on the couch in front of the TV/Wii/Xbox/PS3!

We’re trying to get Tony, Daniel, and Cody back again this summer for another wonderful clinic! Last year was wonderful and it would be great to have them back for our senior students to have some fun learning from different instructors!

Also, if anybody’s headed to Roswell and you think you’d like to give a clinic on something, feel free to drop a line to our instructor!

Growing and Future Growth

For the first time in three years, more than 10 students are on the mats consistently in my youth class. Actually, there are about 12. This development is absolutely wonderful to me because it means a lot of the fun aspects can happen. It also makes teaching very difficult with only one instructor on the mat, and no assistants!

We worked on a number of things on Tuesday night, including the first throw of the semester, O Goshi! We didn’t get a lot of time on O Goshi, but everyone got a chance to do the throw. Everybody did great, even though it was very awkward. We even go to play “Rats and Rabbits” from the 101 Judo Games DVD. Everybody loved that!

Comparing Tuesday night’s class to the educational philosophy of the Gracie Bullyproofing program, it wasn’t as smooth a process as it could have been. (You will probably hear a lot about the Gracie Bullyproofing program over the course of the year.) So, my question is this: How can O Goshi be developed through a game structure? For example, in the Bullyproofing set of games, one is called Spiderkid and starts with teaching the effective use of hands in maintaining “positional control” from the mount (Tate Shiho Gatame for you exclusively judo people). What sort of fun/game ways can O Goshi be broken down and, literally, played with?

Here’s how I break down the major elements of O Goshi for kids:

1. Foot movement and turn-in
2. Hand movement and placing
3. Hip movement
4. Throw

The parts that give me the most grief are the setups. Getting kids to fit in correctly, to me, is far harder that getting them to throw. They want to throw and try very hard to throw even when it’s very wrong! Are there any games to teach and help kids practice this? 101 Judo Games is has some wonderful games for throwing, but none to actually teach them!

If you have anything, please shoot me a description, some links, or, best of all, a video! I’d love to write a follow-up on the suggestions and how they worked for me and my club!

Why I’m not Episcopal and What US Judo Can Learn from It

The other morning my much anticipated order for Gracie Bullyproofing finally came to my door. You’re probably wondering why I mentioned the Episcopal Church and Gracie Bullyproofing without tying them together.

When I was young my father was heavily involved in the Episcopal Church and we all went to church regularly. Eventually this declined and, being a kid, I never wondered why. Several years ago, my father and I talked about that. His reason for our withdrawal was, among other reasons, because there was nothing for the youth! If the youth have nothing to engage or challenge them, they will fall by the wayside and the group’s growth will falter.

Now what does that have to do with judo or the Gracies?

When was the last time, coaches, that you lost a promising student to soccer, football, wrestling, or (dare I say it? DARE DARE) karate or tae kwon do? They came to your class looking for something like Karate Kid or UFC and they tried it for a week or two, maybe a month, and then disappeared. If you got the chance to ask them why they left, they said they didn’t have any fun.

Guess what coaches, if you’re teaching kids you better have FUN as your overarching goal. I know it’s judo o and it’s a “traditional” martial art which requires discipline and such, BUT that doesn’t mean you have to be stodgy!

That’s where DVD’s like the Gracie Bullyproofing and 101 Judo Games come in. They emphasize making learning fun! 101 Judo games is a great DVD that has a lot of games and training methodologies designed to help coaches and judo students have fun in judo classes. Unfortunately it is judo not complete. We judo instructors need more, especially in the United States.

Now, the Gracie Bullyproofing DVD set may be anathema to traditional judo schools and teachers because it’s (GASP) Brazilian JiuJitsu and has joint locks. BUT! And that’s a very big but, they tell parents how to teach, correct, and emphasize the fun when training. No matter your perspective on armlocks for kids (they eschew chokes for safety reasons); this program provides valuable insights applicable to any martial arts instructor who teaches children.

How can all this change judo in the United States? I believe too many judo teachers put tradition and ritualism in front of fun. Don’t get me wrong, the rituals and tradition have their (very important) place, but why can’t we teacher these rituals and traditions with fun in mind? To put it simply why can’t USJA, USJF, USA Judo, USMAA, Yawara JA, or the host of other judo organizations in the US develop a full curriculum and training program where the goal of students learning judo is achieved using 100% fun training?

Here’s my advice, go watch the Gracie Bullyproofing series. Your kids and/or students will love it, especially if you incorporate it into your judo teaching!

Kayla Harrison, PR, and Judo in the United States.

I checked my e-mail yesterday and received a press release about Kayla Harrison. If you don’t know who Kayla Harrison is, well, let me tell you she is the current World Champion and only the fourth World Champion from the United States (AnnMaria DeMars, Mike Swain, and Jimmy Pedro are the other three). I’ve never met her, but I’ve watched her (search for her on YouTube!) and I can’t wait for her to rock on through this year and next in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics.

That being said, apparently she secured a public relations manager to put out information about her. Some judo people might think this is a bad thing. Personally, I think it’s a great idea and more of our USA Judo athletes should! Look at someone like Michael Phelps a guy who won like 8 gold medals and got hordes of endorsements. Do you think he has someone to help build his image? Especially after the whole bong thing…

I really hope that the PR works out for her and for judo in the United States. I hope that any little bit that I can do helps her to get what she needs to get to the Olympics. I also hope that the PR helps judo grow in the United States, especially to reduce the confusion between judo, karate, tae kwon do, and all the other martial arts. (You notice I didn’t mention Brazilian or Gracie JiuJitsu – I think they have a good enough marketing scheme going for them!)

2011 Gracie Combatives Program

We’re going to do it!

Do you know who the Gracies are?

Did you know they have one of the best self-paced street defense training programs available for at-home study?

They do.

If you’re like me, though, self-paced and at-home mean I buy it and play with it for a while and never do anything with it. As a matter of fact, and you can check out my other blog post for a review and an idea of when I got them, I did do just that! So what I’ve decided to do is simple: We're going to use the DVD’s to learn the entire 36 techniques in the Gracie Combatives DVD series.

All 36 lessons. We’ll cover them three times each between January 4th and July. The best part about it? All you have to do is show up and be ready to work.

What’s the catch? Why is it free to you? Simple: I don’t have the money, the time, or the rank it takes to become a certifed instructor now. I also want to know if enough people really want to learn what they’re teaching before I plunk down the cash to take their course. We're just a judo club that's working on our ne waza and using this program to help us get better!
I hope you’ll come by and check it out. We can always use more partners and friends! They’re going to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:15-8:30pm and Fridays from 6:00-8:30pm.