Judo 5-23-09

I am slowly getting back into the swing of things at the dojo. I think my mind is still muddled or atrophied from my recent time off.

Today we played our footsweep drill, moving from a deashi sweep into other throws. After that we did some very light randori, practicing going from a failed deashi into any other throw. During the course of that, Pat taught me ashi garuma, hiza garuma's evil twin from the mirror universe. I really like ashi garuma. Pat tweaked my foot placement on hiza and ashi - I was stepping too far outside of uke's line of weakness to pull off the throws. They're working much better now, I think, and I can't wait to try these on my nephews. We also worked on a counter to deashi, tsubame gaeshi.

We worked on what to do if we end up sweeping too far with deashi, and helping uke instead of throwing him. I've got to learn to recognize when my sweep isn't working, and taking that as my cue to switch from "doing" to "feeling"... letting go of it if it's not working. My tendency is to hang on to what I was planning to do for dear life. I've got to lose that mental hitch. It reminded me of my first time trying to water ski. Pretty soon after being pulled up out of the water onto the skis, I fell forward, but my mind was determined to salvage an unsalvagable situation. For what seemed like a long time, I couldn't let go of the handle. I was being pulled along by the boat head first, swallowing way more of the river than I should have. It took a while for me to finally figure out I could simply let go and the trauma would end. So if my sweep fails, I need to just go with it. Let it go - it's not accumulating interest, and I don't have to try to catch up to it. I should heed one of Jack Handy's "Deep Thoughts":

"If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because man, they're gone."

We looked at "hooking" from the hamstring during different sweeps. The timing is tricky for me - I kept trying to hook too early, but I need to wait until the instant before uke's foot settles back down. Again, being a "feeler" is important here. Developing that sensitivity is going to be key. I also need to learn to reference my own feet better when I'm in synch with uke.

On days like today, I have trouble deciding whether I suck more at groundwork or standing, hah! Slightly frustrating, but more than that, it's exciting to see what I'll be able to do one day.