The Runcible Blog

I've been thinking a lot about Judo lately. On December 1st, my sensei promoted me to yellow belt, which was exciting if only because it matches my blue gi well. It's nice to see progress recognized, even if the belt system can seem very arbitrary (I've sparred with some yellow belts who were clueless, and some higher belt folks have forgotten basic things).

The more I learn about Judo, the more subtleties I see that I've yet to internalize. For instance, when I first started, I often became frustrated because it seemed to me that despite all the talk of minimizing effort and using one's opponent's weight against him, actually throwing someone required great strength. I would look around and think that everybody must be stronger than I was, because when I tried to throw, I felt that I had to exert so much. But after 6 months, I'm finally starting to figure out kuzushi¹, and the techniques make more sense now. With the right kuzushi, throws feel effortless for both parties. A good Judoka was demonstrating uchi mata on me, and it felt like nothing was happening until I landed on the mat after spinning through the air. A poorly executed uchi mata feels like a kick in the groin and an awkward, hard fall. Technique, and especially kuzushi, make all the difference. A clean throw should make uke² feel like he's going for a pleasant ride through the air, followed by a clean landing, distributing the impact across the body. Bad technique is painful, like when my foot sweeps were more kicks to the shin than anything resembling a sweep.

This focus on continually improving the technique keeps me interested. I'm turned off by the brute strength in typical MMA style grappling, and I'm surprised that I used to watch UFC matches on TV. These days, they're pretty much lugheads bashing each other. On the other hand, watching the old masters demonstrate the gokyo inspires me with their effortless execution³.

Judo has made me stronger and better balanced. Whereas wrestling requires extra strength training to compete, just doing Judo (and the many many uchikomi⁴ we do) builds enough strength to do the techniques. How do you move someone 100lbs heavier who doesn't want to move? You push and pull in little movements, using the whole body. All of this searching for kuzushi ends up strengthening one's core muscles such that the body becomes more spring-like. Every step and movement in a throw contributes towards maximizing the explosive power from the body. It's really an amazing thing.

Sometimes we talk amongst ourselves about how challenging sparring can be with a heavier Judoka, and then we wonder how a real life situation would look. Judging from the ease of throwing most normal people who walk onto the mat for the first time, I'd say that Judo would seriously injure someone on the street. It's sobering to think that some of the throws that we do to each other every day might kill a person who didn't know Judo or at least understand how to fall correctly.

Aside from the physical aspects, Judo has helped me stay...err, grounded. And it's helped me with some personal adversity and stress where I may have crumbled before. I don't know; I'm still often surly. Maybe Judo can't help with that aspect, but it reminds me that at the end of the day, someone is going to launch me into the air onto my back. If you can pick yourself up off the mat every time, suddenly those other life problems aren't so abiding.

On July 18th, I competed in Redline's first grappling/MMA night. Above is my first match against training partner, Jordan. I wasn't very satisfied with my performance — I still have trouble finding entrances for throws. And it was an ugly win. I never even try guillotine chokes in practice because they're too much of a strength move and not very elegant. I guess I just wanted the match to end at that point.

My second match went into double overtime and was more exciting (it was somewhat rigged, but we don't have to talk about that) before I lost to Humphrey via armbar. Nate took a bunch of photos of the night.

I've been meaning to post more about all of the recent news from my life, but I've been too busy living to type it out.  Soon.

I lost my fight at NAGA on Saturday. Here's the shaky-cam footage:

The main lesson that we learned from the tournament is that none of the guys had good stand-up skills or knew proper takedown defense. My coaches come from a wrestling and Judo background and have emphasized training 50% stand-up and 50% ground fighting. After the tournament, we switched back to training stand-up stuff in preparation for NAGA.

At Redline, my schedule lately has been beginner + advanced grappling classes on Monday with Mark and Vic, MMA on Wednesday with Paul, grappling on Saturday with Mark, and some ground work on Sunday with Eric's class (or anyone who happens to be at the gym). Sometimes I throw in some kickboxing conditioning classes, but I've kind of phased out the kickboxing because I haven't been motivated to put in the time to progress at it. Even though the MMA class offers a chance to work on takedowns and submissions, I'm not very excited about it because the grappling technique sort of goes out the window when you add distracting punches.

I talked to Mark about not having enough mat time during the week, and he suggested going to the gym that he attends, Tohoku Judo Club. I tried it out tonight and think that it'll really help — doing Judo seems to build up hand and forearm strength much more than our usual no-gi grappling. And working so much on the throws will definitely be an advantage in a grappling tournament. The gi will take some getting used to; I almost passed out from a collar choke because I'd never encountered one (for the record, the effect works very quickly!). I was a little nervous because I hardly know any Judo and thought I might get slammed, but in fact, everyone was helpful, and none of my limbs broke.

Now that I'm sold on Judo, I bought a cheap gi (why were my Jiu-Jitsu pants more expensive than a whole Judo uniform?) and plan on going to Tohoku on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That leaves Friday off for all of the wild, drunken parties that I love to attend (or more likely, much-needed weight training). Hmm, this is getting serious.