Tuesday 15 December 2015

Different ways of training

'It's Black and white'
Static-X 2001

I've not done a Judo (or any type of blog) for quite some time due to work being a bit nuts.  Thought my 1st blog back would be Judo based following a trip out to another club that I visit when our club isn't on.  Last night we visited them as our venue was closed due to a freak weather storm that flooded the north west region and so power was lost for 3 days.

Although me and my training partner enjoyed the night we noticed a big difference between he learning styles our club and the club we visited have (I think I've touched on this before).  In the car on the way back we got talking about this.  The main difference was that where we normally dedicate 1/2 the night to Uchi-komi and technical Judo, this club focused more on randori.  The only time they have done technically work/Uchi-komi it has normally been following something that has been seen in youtube, normally 'Ippon of the day' (this has become an ongoing joke between me and my training partner as the opening to this part of the session normally goes 'I was watching youtube last night, and, I saw this technique... son, show em how it's done.').  The problem with this is that not every 'Ippon of the day' is a practical technique to practice, Uke-waza for example.  Here is where our club differs, while their session consists of 90/10% randori:Uchi-komi/technical Judo, we do a 50/50% split of randori:Uchi-komi/technical Judo.  The other main difference is that our Uchi-komi focuses on perfecting the basic (Kumi-kata, Kuzushi, Ashi-waza...), our theory being 'if you can't do the basics right... you can't do the advanced techniques right'.  The club we went to is made up of 90% 1st Kyu and Dan grades, they are big guys for the best part, and strong.  Now strength and power are all well and good, but without technique they will only get you so far.  One thing g I did notice was that there was a common the am in the club... everyone used the same 2-3 techniques - De-ashi-barai, Ippon-seoi-nage (who doesn't like this in their repertoire?!?) and Uchi-mata.  Now I have seen these 3 techniques used by the club's 3 main competitive players (all high ranking players)... and they are awesome! But they are now being used by everyone, but the lack of Uchi-komi means that the techniques are not being working on or practiced. This has resulted in poor entry, lack of Kuzushi and a technique that is all power. This doesn't mean that the throws don't work, one of the guys who used to train with us and uses 'all strength no technique' was able to throw me with De-ashi-barai after spending most of the fight kicking my leg. But I will be the 1st to admit that when he got the throw... it was a cracker. Now this is hard for me to say, but when he got it... he got it good.

To sum it up, my view on Judo is that if you want to do good Judo then you need to get the basics right. You can get just as good a sweat on during an Uchi-komi session as you can in a randori session. It's a technical sport and with good technique... you can throw anyone.

Right, it's 06.30 and I need to finish my triple esspresso and head to work. See you all on the tatami peeps :)

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