Training log

Kids' judo

• ukemi
• Gracie games: crazylegs, crazylegs-to-bulldozer, crazylegs-to-bulldozer-to-crazyhorse
• taiotoshi

Aikido

• ukemi
• tegatana w/ emphasis on balls of feet and tsugiashi
• aiki brushoff
• hanasu #1-2 w/ emphasis on synch and brushoff on a footfall

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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How to become a judo empty jacket

Perhaps it's human nature to discount things from the past as being inferior to modern marvels. I've heard this story (perhaps it even rises to the level of a judo legend) that someone once said Jigoro Kano was "a great judo teacher but not really a very good competitor," and that an eyewitness corrected them, saying, "Trying to fight with Kano was like trying to fight with an empty jacket!"

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What does that mean, "fighting an empty jacket?" Maybe its hard to imagine unless you've been fortunate enough to lay your hands on the right judo masters. There are people that are so good at judo... they move with you so well... using so little effort or strength... that you just cannot feel them. You are thrown with such pure, maximally efficient skill that it is unfathomable magic. To me, this feeling is like grabbing a tissue and trying to move it around violently - there is so little resistance to your strength that you can hurt yourself if you are not careful trying to muscle it around. I also liken it to the way a gnat is blown out of the way by the air preceeding a slap.

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Such empty jackets are few and far between in the judo world, but they are not mythical beasts. In 20 some-odd years of judo I've only laid hands on two Empty Jackets, and one more guy that is nearly that good.

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A couple of weeks ago I had the extreme pleasure and fortune to not only be able to move around with an Empty Jacket, but to ask him a pointed question... "How do you progress from being 'pretty good' at judo to becoming an Empty Jacket?"

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Here are some of the main points that I got that day - should be enough to keep me occupied for years.

• My hands move only me - never push/pull with the intent of moving the other guy. Only use your hands to help you move your own center into position for your throw. I think that he was saying that tori's hands only do tsukuri - not kuzushi or kake!
• Never stop moving long enough to execute a technique! (same advice and Henry Copeland gave me regarding Jodo!)
• Pay more attention to rise and fall in newaza - just like you do in tachiwaza
• Do more newaza escapes from static, resistive positions instead of pulling the trigger before uke gets set - learn to get yourself out of worst case scenarios

WOW! I've got a long way to go! Any of those points would probably be worth a decade of study and effort.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木

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What is karate?

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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June 2010 Starkville Judo Seminar - Day 2

Today is newaza and shiai.  For the morning class we'll be working through basic positional grappling and basic submissions.  Again, like last class, we'll be working principle ideas.
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For escapes, we'll do:

• kesa and 4 escapes (leg entanglement, situp, uphill, bridge&roll)
• mune & 2 escapes (bridge&roll, knees-in)
• tate & 2 escapes (bridge&roll, elbow escape)
• kami & 2 escapes (bridge&roll, spinout)
• uragatame & 1 escape (scrape)
• dojime, 2 breaks (elbow, knee), 2 passes (over, under)

The principle ideas that we'll be looking at include:

• minimize friction and flatness
• turn to face opponent
• 2 hands on 1 point
• shrimp-bridge
• elbows&knees in between
• the above ideas tend to tear apart holds and facilitate escape techniques
• each escape technique, when it fails, it makes the next one easier to do.

For submissions, we'll do

• wakigatame and udegarame
• jujijime and hadakajime

In the afternoon, we'll have a spate of rank demos, including a friendly kohaku shiai

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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June 2010 Starkville Judo Seminar

t-minus 9 hours and counting till we kick off our Judo seminar in Starkville.  Here is a brief overview of the material we'll be working on.

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Tonight we'll make a whirlwind tour of the tachiwaza through about nikyu or ikkyu.  This time we won't be beating details of any single throw to death, but I'll be trying to emphasize two ideas:

• Since judo is supposed to be a soft art, maybe we can actually practice it softly!  Judo nagekomi does not necessarily have to be practiced by trading spine-breaking ippons one after another. Sometimes this idea can be a stretch for the minds of poor judo animals - especially at a college club populated by young adult males.
• The teaching syllabus is not an un-ordered collection of 40 or 60 random throws.  It is a set of systematic variations on a few themes organized into an orderly system.

The throws for the night will include:

• deashi, kosoto, hiza, osoto, ukigoshi
• kouchi, ouchi, ogoshi, seoinage, koshiguruma
• sasae, sodeTKgoshi, okuriashi
• haraiTKashi, haraigoshi, taiotoshi
• ashiguruma, oguruma, hanegoshi, sumiotoshi

So, obviously, doing nagekomi for 20 throws in about 120 minutes, we'll have to be efficient with our time. I'll try to minimize lecture time and maximize throwing time.  It's also obvious that everyone will have to be careful with their partners (think soft judo) and we'll have to trade partners seamlessly between throws (everyone works with everyone).

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Owaza Jupon, Kondo style

The second set of Owaza Jupon contains three techniques that the student has already learned in Junanahon Kata - shihonage, ushiroate, and kotegaeshi. This repetition is typically justified by saying that these throws are done differently in Owaza - more dynamically and in a separating fashion. Well, Dr. Kondo told us a few weeks ago that this is his students' normal operating mode for Junanahon kata, so he felt the repetition in the second half of Owaza Jupon was un-necessary.

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So, what would you do about the repetitiveness of this kata?

• Would you maintain the repetitive techniques in Owaza?
• Would you drop these three techniques, reducing the ten-point kata to seven points?
• Or would you substitute new techniques into the kata?

Dr. Kondo's take on this was to substitute three new techniques into the second half of the kata in place of shihonage, ushiroate, and kotegaeshi:

• seoinage - much like the seoinage from nagenokata
• osotogari - much like the nanameuchi osotogari from Kodokan Goshin Jutsu
• ushirodori makikomi - similar to the third technique of junokata, but executed with uke doing a rear bearhug.

This made for some really interesting practice, Things I noticed...

• Unless we study nagenokata a good bit, we probably don't spend enough time throwing seoinage, etc... from fast-moving separated attacks (hamarejudo) like in Owaza Jupon.  Even having done nagenokata a good bit, this technique was awkward for me in this particular context.
• Seoinage, if done with a guruma-like emphasis (as would be suggested by throwing this technique into Owaza Jupon) is virtually the same as udeguruma from the first set. This makes for even more repetitiveness in the kata. Speaking of which, I thought it was interesting that the three repeated techniques in the second half of the kata agitated Dr. Kondo but the first three gurumas in the first half (identical except for gripping action) didn't.
• Osotogari was difficult for me to do from this attack with a guruma action. Perhaps osotoguruma would be a better throw in this kata.
• The ushirodori makikomi is really cool - obviously guruma - so it fits well in this context. It also adds another class of attack to the kata (ushirodori) but still illustrates the principles of the exercise (guruma and separation).

 What do you think of the repetitiveness of Owaza Jupon?  What do you think of this particular solution?

 

 

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Training log

Kids' judo

• ukemi
• Gracie Games:spiderkid
• more ukemi - swinging from a rope and doing ukemi into a crashpad

Aikido

• tegatana w/ emphasis on offline evasions, recovery foot, and pushing motions
• aiki brush-off
• shomenate, aigamaeate, oshitaoshi

____________ Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮 ____________ Subscribe now for free updates from Mokuren Dojo ____________ Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

The Super Six!

What if the Divine Nine was actually the Super Six?

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Notice in the previous article that kosoto, osoto, kouchi, and ouchi don't have much of a technique cloud surrounding them. That suggests to me that some of these are not as foundational as the others.  I mentioned in some of the original Divine 9 articles that ashiwaza was probably over-represented because of my personal bias.

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What if these 4 ashiwaza were collected into a cloud represented by one kihon? Which one of them would be the kihon that the ashiwaza cloud is based on? I say one could modify the Divine 9 into a smaller set as follows...

• deashibarai - okuriashi, haraiTKashi
• kosotogari - kosotogake, osotogari, kouchigari, ouchigari
• hizaguruma - sasaeTKashi, koshiguruma, ashiguruma, oguruma
• ukigoshi - haraigoshi, hanegoshi, uchimata
• ogoshi - tsurigoshi, tsurikomigoshi, kubinage
• seoinage - seoiotoshi, taiotoshi, ukiotoshi, sumiotoshi

I guess my original point still holds - that we need a small set of kihon that are representative of most of the rest of judo, which we can practice more often than the rest of the gokyo.  How an instructor constructs that set of kihon might vary, as will their selection of which waza to put in that set. 

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There is a lot of room for variation and preference in my kihon scheme. For instance, I've discussed with some of my students that taiotoshi is such a good technique, it is so foundational, that it could probably be the kihon within its cloud instead of seoinage. I've also discussed with some other instructors that ukiotoshi could be considered the foundational technique of that same set. It's also come up that sodeTKgoshi might be a better foundational technique than ogoshi.

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So, your mileage may vary, but the Divine 9 has worked well for my students and I, and I figure to see for a while how my ideas coalesce around this Super Six.  I don't figure to change our syllabus (yet?) or the order that things are done in, but just to reorganize in my mind how this huge number of throws in judo coalesces into a systematic, orderly whole.

 

 

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Cloudy with a chance of... judo

I have written several articles on the idea of a core of a very few representative techniques in judo - a set of kihon that should be practiced more often than the rest of the gokyo. I selected nine techniques as the set of kihon that I teach but I also mentioned that even though these nine are a core and deserve more attention than the others, they are not all of judo. There are many more important throws that teach great skills and illustrate vital principles.

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In my scheme of things, we have the kihon (The Divine Nine) and most of the kihon techniques have a set of related techniques that go with that kihon in sort of a cloud of waza surrounding some central principle or idea. 

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Here are my kihon and some of their related techniques (not all the related techniques, but it should be enough for you to see the general outlines of the cloud that surrounds each kihon).

• deashibarai - okuriashi, haraiTKashi
• kosotogari - kosotogake
• hizaguruma - sasaeTKashi, koshiguruma, ashiguruma, oguruma
• osotogari
• ukigoshi - haraigoshi, hanegoshi, uchimata
• kouchigari
• ouchigari
• ogoshi - tsurigoshi, tsurikomigoshi, kubinage
• seoinage - seoiotoshi, taiotoshi, ukiotoshi, sumiotoshi

This is the tachiwaza material and structure that we'll be working through this weekend at the Starkville seminar.

[photo courtesy of emdot]

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮 

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Subscribe now for free updates from Mokuren Dojo 

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What is judo?

____________
Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Training log

Kids' judo

• Gracie Games: crazy horse, crazy feet
• newaza randori with emphasis on turn to face, taking the back, and escaping from the back mount

Judo

• deashibarai and okuriashibarai with emphasis on proper timing
• harai tsurikomiashi and sasae tsurikomiashi as failsafes on either side of hizaguruma

____________
Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Deashi down, okuri up

We (my students and I) have a common problem. We practice deashibarai a lot! We practice it as the basis of most other throws. But if (when) we get lax in actually throwing it or if (when) we start thinking about deashi as just a feint or setup for some other throw, we start doing the timing wrong.

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See, deashi is a down-throw. It is thrown as uke's feet are separating and one foot is entering the ground. Okuriashibarai is an up-throw. It is thrown at the peak of uke's upward motion as uke's feet are approaching each other and leaving the ground.

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If you're not careful, it's tempting to try to throw deashi as an up throw, because it's easier to get one of uke's legs into the air this way. But this is less than optimal because:

1. it takes more strength from tori to sail uke this way
2. it's actually harder to get uke's back to hit the ground this way, and
3. it mostly consigns deashi to the role of a feint or minor setup instead of being a real throw of its own

If you recognize this problem in yourself (trying to throw deashi as an up throw), then you are really hitting the okuriashi timing - you're just out of position for okuri.  You are mixing up the timing and position for these two throws.  Try moving to okuriashi position when your brain says to pull the trigger on deashi.

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My students can expect several classes (at least) worth of particular emphasis on "deashi-down, okuri-up."

 

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Organization of Junanahon kata

When you consider the amount of understanding and thought that goes into creation of a kata, it's awesome. You can't just grab a handful of your favorite techniques and throw them in and shake them up. There has to be an underlying logic (riai) to the selection, ordering, and execution. For instance, Junanahon kata exhibits several forms of organization, including:

• generally easier-to-harder ukemi
• techniques occur in complementary pairs, like gyakugamaeate and gedanate
• progressively looser connection between uke and tori (atemi then elbow connection then wrist connection then floating throws)
• progressively more flowing (later techniques are more indirect and take more time to execute)
• progressively more movement involved
• progressively more timing dependent
• most immediately useful stuff first

What other trends or forms of organization have you found in Junanahon kata?

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Training log

Judo

• ukigoshi, haraigoshi, hanegoshi, uchimata
• a lovely uchimata-taiotoshi combo that Mario wanted to work

Kids' judo

• Gracie Games: croc control, crazyhorse
• crocs&cows
• taiotoshi and ukiotoshi

Aikido

• release#1 into junana #1,11-17

____________
Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Subscribe now for free updates from Mokuren Dojo
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Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter