On the Mat Day 369: Be Careful When Throwing

I arrived at the dojo early last night and was surprised to see so many people there still after the kid's class finished. After Dmitri finished his deadlifts we did a bit of uchikomi for judo throws. I was doing osoto-gari and he showed me tai-otoshi which seems kind of hard to get the hip rotation. We also got the crash mat out and tried flying triangles with the gi but it was harder to elevate the leg past the shoulder because the material slows down the movement due to friction. This causes the legs to be in a weaker position when crossed. I guess it just requires practice. I actually recall a chance during sparring where I could have used it but only thought about it later when I got home. It was a perfect chance because I had the inside lapel and he was hiding his other arm so I could not get the sleeve. His arm was basically hanging down next to his body and at that moment I should have jumped into the triangle. I find that a lot. Situations where I see openings only after the fact. Dmitri also showed me a countermeasure to uchi-mata which is a suplex move. I tried it on him a few times and the last time missed the mat a little so his head struck the normal mat in the dojo. He cursed because he's worried of his previous concussion. I think I should get him a big bobble head crash helmet when he plays uke for me.

And the helmet I ordered for him

Dmitri's brain x-rays are in!

 F-sensei showed us techniques from butterfly guard against a kneeling opponent. The thing is, it's very rare someone will come onto their knees to work on passing. Most guys at our gym stand to pass. I like to pass on the knees because I use over-under pass a lot. The sweep where you are in the dog-fight position (I think Eddie Bravo calls it this) and tuck under him, grab his leg and roll to end up in side control or top half-guard is worth doing more as well as being fun.

I sparred a bit but was very careful of my injury. I even tried the twister side control to try and take the back but messed it up because I don't lock the legs down enough. It's frustrating. I did ok against another purple belt considering he is younger and has a judo background (hell the all do over here). I stood with him and kept inside lapel grip at all times. It was surprisingly easy to block him from coming inside to dominate the grips. I screwed up though. I had the dominant grip but not the arm, he let go, and for some reason so did I and we reset. I should have attacked at that moment. He then went to grip my lapel and I tried to strip it and he threw me with seio-nage but I rolled to turtle. I was not only slow at intercepting the lapel grip because I think my hands are too low, like a boxer with his hands by his side I am vulnerable, but when I tried to strip the grip I should have forced it down but I tend to do it away from my body horizontally and therefore expose my arm for a throw as happened. With that said, I now need to drill keeping my hands high to intercept grips and stripping straight down (lose my bad habit of punching out horizontally).

I also managed to hurt my leg a bit due to m own stupid fault. I used lasso spider and managed to smack my heel against the injured leg. I had to stop and let the pain diffuse for that one. Then continued sparring because I ain't no pussy...grr. I am contemplating not sparring for the next week or 2 to let it fully heal. Having to ice it every night after training is sucking donkey's nuts. I was disappointed to see a couple of guys sneak off home after only sparring a couple of rounds. I see this a lot particularly from blue belts who don't train often. It may be that they are busy, have to work, but I also suspect that there is hesitation to spar with some of the tougher white belts we have. I think sparring with the toughest guys at your gym is the best thing to do and the only way to improve.

Sparring time: 8 x 6 mins = 48 mins (1 round with Matt working escapes but damn was I so tired after getting up for Kettelbell at 6 am)