In Denver airport on my way home from the women's judo camp. It was GREAT! I totally did not expect it to be so much fun.
Mornings were dedicated to kata and exercise. I had to work every morning so I'm just going by the schedule. That was the first thing I learned at the camp. If you want to go and you don't have three full days to devote to judo, that's fine. You can come for one day, two days or all three. If you can't make it some mornings because you have to work, come in the afternoon, or vice versa.
Afternoons, we focused on techniques for competition. I taught a lot about transition from standing to matwork, particularly arm bars.We played a lot of games and I even learned some new ones.
Here is one example:
Put the group into two teams. One player from Team A gets a player from Team B in a pin. Four players from Team A surround the two. Now, four players from Team B have one minute to get their player free.
My plane is boarding so here is the most important thing I learned - make decisions for yourself and don't judge based on rumor.
I had heard for YEARS that the women's judo camp was all kata. I'd also been told many times directly that I would hate the women's camp, that it was full of people who were very prim and proper, that I would get in trouble for not having ironed my judo gi, not having the right color gi, not bowing properly, etc.
Those rumors are so widespread that while I was here, I kept getting text messages asking if I was really at the women's camp, because, as you probably know from reading this blog, I have a way of offending people in the least prim and proper circles, without any additional gi-ironing requirements necessary.
As I said, it was GREAT and nothing like I had heard. When I told Eiko that she asked,
"Who told you those things?"
I realized how stupid it sounded even as I answered,
"People who hadn't ever been there. "
Judge for yourself.
Also, practice your transition from standing to matwork, but that's another post altogether.
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