Hurray for Everybody!

What a great week!

I haven't been blogging much because I was at the Joint Statistical Meetings - kind of like the Olympics for statisticians but with people who are in WAY worse shape.

Since I was in a hotel with hopelessly slow Internet, I did not get to watch any Olympic judo except the first day (which was before I left for San Diego).

Thanks to twitter, I was able to follow the step by step move of Marti Malloy to a bronze medal and then Kayla Harrison for a gold medal! First American gold medal in the Olympics, first time the U.S. has ever won more than one Olympic medal. Many well-deserved kudos to them and to Jim Pedro, Sr. and Jr. as coaches.

I went straight from San Diego to Las Vegas for a conference that had the added bonus of my grandchildren being there. (They were with their parents, not attending the conference).

Then, I came straight back from Las Vegas and went to the Staples Center without even stopping at home, so I could watch Manny Gamburyan fight another judo guy, Omigawa from Japan, who had been Asian champion. It was a must-win for Manny since he had lost his last three matches in the UFC. I've seen him grow up on the mat could not have been prouder of him if he was my own kid.

 His performance in the third round was amazing. You know he was tired and he really dug deep, picked Omigawa up and slammed him repeatedly. If you can find the video on line anywhere, you have to watch it.

Well, I am back home and back to work. Just wanted to say, congratulations to everybody!

Animal Judo Theme: I. The Shrimp

I didn't do this on purpose but I just happened to notice that all of the exercises I did for warm-ups had an animal theme. So, for the next few posts, I'd like to go through the "animal exercises".

First there is the shrimp. At some judo clubs they call this exercise 'ebi', which is just Japanese for shrimp. You probably know the shrimp crawl. You lay on your side with your knees bent push off with your feet and have both hands in front of you with your elbows bent.

You "shrimp" first to one side and then to the other, usually all the way down the mat. Do you know WHY you do that?

Well, I don't know why YOU do it but why I do it is because that is the exact move you use when trying to stop someone from pinning you when they are coming at you from the side.

In the picture above, you see Manny Gamburyan coming in for a pin and his opponent is doing that same shrimp move.

In the second picture, again, you see someone trying to pin me in judo with kesa gatame and I am doing the exact same shrimp move where I have my hands between the two of us to make some space so I can turn out before she pins me, my feet are on the floor, knees bent, turned on my side and I'm going to do that shrimp move to get out.

Two points:

1. Many of the exercises we do in judo and other martial arts were originally developed for specific moves. I've been to lots of clubs where people just blindly go through the motions and don't know why.
2. Whether it is mixed martial arts, grappling, judo or jiu jitsu, a lot of the same moves still apply.

Everybody has their own dream: The Sequel

"I have it all - great career, nice wife, huge house, lots of money. It's like I'm living the American dream - but it's somebody else's dream."


One of Ronda's teammates on the 2004 Olympic judo team, Dr. Rhadi Ferguson made the point that no one who has earned a spot on the Olympic team decides not to go, what people do is decide not to train for the Olympics. Karo Parisyan qualified for the 2004 Olympic Trials at 81 kg but went into the UFC instead. He said he never regretted it. Rick Hawn, who won the 2004 Olympic Trials at 81 kg, placed ninth in Athens and is now a fighter for Bellator. He also says he never regretted his decision.

Here is the continuation of the discussion Ronda and I had (with guest commentary from Henry Akins of Dynamix MMA) about whether people really choose the UFC (or anything) over the Olympics - and what do you do after the Olympics is over.

Everybody has their own dream

Since I am really busy with work and behind on The Book  (which now has a new title our editor at Black Belt liked --- Winning on the Ground )   I decided to rope Ronda and Henry into doing a video blog with me. (Thanks, guys!)

The topic was whether we agreed with Dr. Rhadi Ferguson, who believes that anyone who had an opportunity to go to the Olympics would take it or whether we believed Karo Parisyan who said he had never regretted not going to the Olympics.

 (Disclaimer: We've known both Rhadi and Karo for years so nothing here should be taken as unbiased - but, of course, if you've ever read or listened to anything on my blog, you know that nothing here is ever unbiased!)