Today we had Sensei Chad Morrison of Akari Judo visiting. We had a great session in which we worked on the otoshi-guruma idea in several different ways. We warmed up with two variants of osotogari which illustrate the main ideas of otoshi and guruma. From there we moved into a melange of ukitoshi, taiotoshi, sumiotoshi, hizaguruma, and ashiguruma because these are the throws with which I can best illustrate the ideas. We were getting miraculous otoshi throws, which, on the off chance that they didn't work, they set up a miraculous guruma or a different otoshi. We particularly got a lot of mileage out of otoshi-guruma combinations of hiza, uki, tai, and sumi.
In exchange for the otoshi-guruma info, Chad showed me several interesting groundwork tidbits, including a very, very cool entry into groundwork from uchimata that is essentially similar to the Granby roll made famous by wrestling coach Billy Martin of Granby Street High School in Norfolk, VA. Makes sense that Chad would bring up the Granby roll, as his dojo is only about 90 miles from the epicenter of Granbyland. It was super-cool!
We had an impromptu randori session, in which I mostly held my own but failed to get the advantage before he wore me out and pinned me twice in quick succession. Chad is very good on the ground. The tables turned somewhat when we moved to standing, as I was more comfortable and I got a couple of falls out of him. All in all great fun. I tried to talk him into moving to Magnolia and he tried to talk me into moving to Richmond, but alas - no success on either side.
Thanks, Chad, for coming to play and thanks to his lovely new bride for letting us play for a few hours.
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