Judo Drill Day and Assistant Instructors

On Friday, I have to be at a a company event in Santa Monica by 5:30 and it takes at least an hour to get from Gompers Middle School in rush hour. I hate to miss class. So, what do I do?

Here is my plan. Feel free to steal it. Half of it I stole from other people.

I'm going to run class from 3:30 - 4:15.  I plan to do is a series of drills for their matwork and throws. After I leave, the assistant instructors, who are all green belts, but certified teachers/ paraprofessionals which means they have superb classroom management skill, will go through the same drills.

I think repetition can be a good thing, as long as you don't over do it. It’s my same idea in math, to sometimes teach and then re-teach and students remember better.  Hopefully, we can get through this series three times in the 90 minute class. Even twice is good. Students will be able to see a noticeable improvement in their matwork skills particularly the second time around. With both math and martial arts I see instructors often move on too quickly to the next concept or skill before students feel confident in the first one taught.

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Here is the drill series and how long I have planned for each one.

• The pushing and pulling drill. When I say, "Push!" you both push against each other. When I say, "Pull!" you I got  this from Jim Pedro, Sr. He does it for longer with his elite athletes. The main purpose is to build up strength and stamina in the exact muscles you use for gripping. A second benefit is that you learn to react to changes in direction from your opponent. Do this for 1 minute then switch partners. After another minute, switch partners again.  (3 minutes)
• Running back and forth in groups of 3 or 4 fitting into your throws. You have one person at each end of the mat. Either 1 or 2 people are in the middle. The middle person runs to one end and fits into a throw. Then, they run to the other end and fit into the same throw.  Do this for 2 minutes then rotate in so that another person from the group is running. I got this drill from Venice Dojo. It is primarily conditioning but it also lets you watch and see if the students are gripping correctly and placing their feet correctly when they step into the throw (6 minutes)  
• Another 3 person drill where one person fits into a throw, another is the person being thrown and the third is holding the uke (person being thrown) by the belt and the collar. In this drill the person throwing can go in really hard and the uke doesn’t get slammed. Each person goes one minute and then they switch positions. (We did this for something that was filmed recently on how I was training Ronda when she was young. It brought back a lot of memories.) (3 minutes)
• Matwork drill where one person is on his/her back and the other person gets as close as possible without touching him/her and when you say Go they have 10-15 seconds to pin that person. Do this 3 times then switch partners and do another 3 times. This drill develops reaction time and teaches both the person on the top and bottom to react right away to better their position. (3 minutes)
• Matwork uchikomis. Get a partner and do your favorite matwork move 15 times right and 15 times left. I've been doing these for 40 years and it is one of the keys to my success. (5 minutes)
• Spinning matwork drill. One person is on all fours (hopefully with elbows bent or they deserve to be armbarred) and the other person is on their back. When you say, "Spin!" the top person spins around in one direction, leaving all of their weight on the opponent. When you say, "Reverse!" they spin in the other. When you say “Attack!” they both attack. Give them 1 minute, then switch positions. After they’ve both done both positions twice, switch partners and do it again. I got this from Venice Dojo, too. It develops quick reaction from whatever position you are in and provides practice in matwork in a competitive situation (8  minutes)

Of course, those minutes don’t include the time to move between drills, get new partners, water breaks.

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Variety (and guest instructors) are the spice of life

If you are ever at a gym where they discourage you from training anywhere else - run, don't walk, away from them as fast as you can.
I'm not saying if they discourage you from training at a particular gym. I've probably never met your instructor but I'm perfectly willing to give him or her the benefit of the doubt that Bob's Gym 'o Slimeballs is a terrible place to work out.

However, here is a fact:

Anyone who claims to know everything about martial arts is either a liar or insane. 

I'm pretty good. I've got a gold medal from the world championships and a few other medals to back that claim up. I'm not so dumb to think that I know all of judo or that there aren't people better qualified to teach certain techniques than me. That's why I'm always THRILLED when we have guest instructors.




Let me give you a few reasons:

1. Each student gets more individual attention.   As you might be able to see, we have a pretty full mat, with another instructor, we can divide the students into groups.
2. Almost all classes have a mix of experience and ability. Gompers Middle School Judo is no exception. This being the beginning of the year, we have several brand new students, a few who began at the end of last year, and a group who have been in judo a year or more. With a guest instructor, you can divide the class into novice and advanced and teach each group appropriately.
3.  No one is equally good at everything. Whoever visits is probably going to be good in some areas that are not your strength. Having that person teach will aid your students in that area.
4.  Having a new person adds some variety and they may be a bit more attentive and work harder. No matter how awesome you are, your students have seen you hundreds of times.
5. Inviting in guest instructors is being a positive role model. It shows your students that you are not arrogant, that you recognize many people in the world have knowledge to contribute, not just you.

So, you can understand why I was so delighted this month when we have had not one but TWO guest instructors stop in to visit. Friday, Steve Seck, Olympian, national champion, international gold medalist and teacher at King Drew Medical Magnet High School stopped by.

I asked him to teach uchi mata, because he is really, really good at it. In fact, he was one of the people who taught it to Ronda when she was little. I brought her to LA City College where he was teaching at that time for that express purpose.

While he taught uchi mata to our more advanced students, I worked on turnovers to a pin with our new students, then taught them falling and then taught them a throw.

At the end of class, Steve talked to the students about the opportunity to attend a magnet high school, specifically his, and encouraged them to apply. This is really important to start thinking about early in the year, and I could tell that many of the students (and the parents who had come to pick them up), were paying close attention.

Two weeks ago, Michael Fujimoto, a very successful competitor who had represented the U.S. internationally as a junior, stopped in and taught seoi nage. Being young and in shape, Mike also did randori with several students, giving them a challenge that they are not going to get from someone old and half their size like me. At the end of class, Mike talked about the University of Washington, where he works, and encouraged students to look him up if they end up attending there. (Are we seeing a pattern?)

 Two of the least utilized resources in judo, in my opinion, are guest instructors and assistant instructors.

If you are trying to be the big wheel and teach everything yourself, you are cheating your students. Cut it out!

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Judo for Everyone

Recently, a high school student asked high-ranking judo instructors, (including me), for advice on how to make judo more inclusive for students with special needs. Since I put some actual thought into my answer, I thought I would post it here.

I have taught judo to students with Down Syndrome,  mental retardation, epilepsy, visual impairment and severe learning disabilities.
Now I teach judo at a middle school. I’d say the key to inclusion begins with the instructor.

There are a few things I do:

1. I have zero tolerance for any kind of meanness - teasing, bullying, and will call anyone on it in front of the class.
2. I watch out for cliques. If someone doesn’t have a partner, I will assign partners. When we go out as a team, if anyone is sitting by him or herself, I have them go sit with a group of other kids. I have a good idea of those who are the most welcoming to other kids. 
3. I publicly praise my students a lot, both individually and in groups when I see them helping or being kind to another student. I tell them a lot at the end of practice the many things I enjoy about teaching them, and that is one of those characteristics I often point out.
4. I recognize students for academics as well as athletic ability. I have friends from universities who send me college t-shirts. I give them to students who bring their grades up - these may be students who brought their grades from Ds and Fs to C’s and D’s or students who have all A’s.

After this answer, I received a follow-up question,

When dealing with such a diverse group of students how do you address the needs of an individual while trying to advance the entire group? In other words, how do you address individual needs?


One way to make sure that you address the needs of an individual while advancing the entire group is by making productive use of assistant instructors. Generally, I have from 1-4 additional instructors in the class. While many clubs have one “O-sensei” who teaches while the other black belts stand around, I think that is silly. Any time I can get a friend to come as guest instructor, I take advantage of that, and that leaves me free to help any students having trouble. Also, you don’t need to be a black belt to help out. I have three teachers from the school who are green belts. They can help a student learn how to fall or do a shoulder throw - and they do. One silly idea we have in judo is that you need to be a black belt to teach. Look how many soccer players learn from high school kids or someone’s mom or dad.

I think it benefits adolescents to figure things out on their own and get some practice in. I’ll correct one person, then move on to the next, letting the first person practice on his/ her own.

Another soap box of mine is that I think we try to teach far too many skills in one lesson and don’t give enough practice time.

Yet another thing I do is teach a basic skill to the whole group, say, a shoulder throw, and then split off the more advanced students and have them do a combination with that throw or a counter to it, while the less advanced students keep working on perfecting the first skill.

One last strategy is to have the more advanced students help a newer one. So, if I have three advanced students, I will put one new student in their group and tell them all to help the new person. All of my students are pretty nice people so they are usually willing to do it, and since it is 3:1 , you will have two students working while one helps the newcomer, and they can switch off, so each is only teaching 1/3 of the time.

One size definitely does NOT fit all

On Sunday, there was a judo tournament, so many of the usual suspects were not at practice until later. The first hour and a half or so was just Scott (an adult novice, north of 200 pounds), Christian, a purple belt weighing around 70 pounds and Elias, his little brother, who is a about 40 pounds on a  heavy day.

(Apologies if I didn't get the weights exactly right. This is not the LA County Fair and I am not the weight guesser guy.)

In such a situation, what you should NOT do is try to teach everyone the same thing. For three hours, we went through different moves for different people (we were eventually joined by Liam, later by Blinky and I don't know who came after that because I had to leave).

We all did ko uchi makikomi, although I do think it was a better move for the smaller people. We did it both right and left. We all also did that drill showed on the Armbar Nation site with Julia where they run back and forth doing uchi komi. That is really just a conditioning drill and everyone can get in a little better shape.



Then, we did a sacrifice throw into an arm bar. While each person tried each variation - and here Christian is doing the variation I asked Scott to emphasize.



The way I usually do this move, is I do the throw, do a backward roll as I do it and land ON TOP of my opponent.

Now Scott, as I said, is a good 200+ and well over six feet tall. As I unnecessarily pointed out to him, Olympic gymnast material he is not.  So, when he did the throw, I had him do  the arm bar as demonstrated above, where he threw his opponent with a sumi gaeshi . There is a nice video of how to do sumi here. We did not actually do it that way on Sunday because that is a bit more advanced. We did it for people who we bent over stiff-arming you.

So ... Scott did the sumi gaeshi to the arm bar.
Christian did a drop seoi nage to this same arm bar.
Elias just did the throw to the pin.

Too often I will see coaches who are 5 foot 1 (a perfect height, by the way) who teach everyone to do a drop shoulder throw because that is what they do.

Don't be like them. Be like me, Captain Modesty.

Oh, yes, check out my book of matwork tips and techniques which did not include the one above. Maybe that will be my next book if enough people buy this one.

If not, I guess I'll write my next book on statistics, which would be okay, too.

Falling Really Isn't That Important to Me

First of all, in response to some of the comments in the blog I wrote recently on What Do You Teach First, I never said that I DON'T teach falling.  In fact, I said that I spend 10 or 15 minutes on it the first day of class and 5 minutes or so every class after that. So, I do teach how to fall and reinforce that teaching almost every practice. For someone to be a good judo player, he or she cannot be afraid of falling and everyone is going to get thrown at some point, probably at several points in every practice.

What I DON'T agree with is the old-fashioned way of spending two or three weeks or more just having people learn falling. I have heard various justifications for this,

"We want to make sure the students were serious about learning before we waste any time teaching them."

"If you don't know how to fall, you can get seriously injured, so we don't start the students on throws until we are satisfied with falling."

"Falling is the most important part of judo and the most difficult to teach."

I think all of those are wrong. Students shouldn't have to PROVE to you their worthiness to learn judo, or anything. If a person comes to me and wants to learn statistics or judo or any other class I had agreed to teach I think it is being an arrogant jerk to first make them go through some ritual to prove they are worth my time.

The second justification is true in some cases. If you don't use a crash pad and students are going to be thrown hard from a standing position in free practice, then yes, you probably have to teach them to fall well first. Personally, I have them do throws from their knees when they are doing matwork in the first practice. I also have them do throws on the crash pad.

So, although we do throws the first day, we don't have anyone getting thrown hard on the mat for a few weeks, just like my friends who teach falling for weeks. The difference is that my students get to do some throws the first day.

At Gompers Middle School, I pretty much start each year with a fresh class of beginners. At other programs where I have taught, if I have more advanced students, I would let them new students work out with them and have the advanced player just defend. Either way, a new student gets to throw and pin someone on day one, that's why they are there.

The whole most important, most difficult to teach part I don't really get. Sylver and Chad both made a great point in the comments on the last post, though, that LOTS of people never get in a fight where they need to throw or arm bar someone but everyone falls down. I've fallen down ice-skating, biking (when some idiot ran across the bike path), roller-blading and who knows when else. So, they do have a point. If you define important as "likely to use outside of judo", then okay.

The most difficult to teach? I still don't get that part.

What I DON'T teach first (and why)

Despite the fact that I learned o goshi (major hip throw) as the first throw when I learned judo AND that many people still teach that as the first throw, I do not. The previous statement is a lie. And it isn't.

Let me explain. First of all, as JudoWill pointed out yesterday, o goshi, where you grab your opponent's right elbow with your left hand, put your right arm around your opponent's waist, lift him/her up on your hips, turn and throw is a powerful throw and easy to do. Thus, it is very reinforcing for beginning judo players.

It also addresses those points I brought up yesterday, getting a grip, pulling, turning your back to your opponent, having BOTH of your feet now facing in the opposite direction. Those two Japanese words that are the first two parts of a throw - kuzushi: off-balancing and tsukuri: fitting in.

So, what is my big gripe against o goshi? Simply, this, the right arm around the waist part. You almost never get that grip when standing. The exception is if you are fighting an opposite side player who takes a high grip, for example, a right-handed player fighting a left-handed player.

I'm not against the throw at all, mind you, just not having it be your first throw, because then, until you learn a second throw, it is your ONLY throw. In most cases in randori then,  you have two right-handed kids both trying to get their arm around the other kid's waist - which is pretty easy to prevent-  and nothing really happening.

That's why I don't usually teach them ogoshi until I have taught a couple of other throws.

On the other hand, I DO usually teach it the first or second day, just from the knees as a transition into matwork. When kids are new at judo, often they will be in matwork like the situation above, they both get up and try to get a headlock on the other kid and throw them to the mat.

In this situation, I have them do exactly o goshi but from their knees, as you can see the player in the picture above on the right about to do.

One reason I do this is, like Al also said in the comments yesterday, people come in different sizes. The shoulder throw they are doing might not fit so well for the 200 pound player. So, we can do this "hip toss" throw from the knees that is a really good move for a heavier player. Also, it is not a hard fall from your knees, so they get used to grabbing and throwing someone and being thrown AND they learn to go right into the pin .... but that drill is for another day. Or, you can read our book. I actually described it in detail.

A Great Idea for Teaching Judo (or any sport)

I've been teaching judo for 40 years - ever since I had my YMCA membership waived as a teenager for being an assistant instructor. One thing I have learned is that all classes are different. So, although I have certain standard things I try to do with every new group - teach a forward throw, a backward throw, a pin, an arm bar, a choke, an escape - there is also variation.

My usual novice class goes like this:

• warm-up and conditioning for 10 minutes
• MATWORK: practice a technique we already know for 10 minutes
• MATWORK: teach a new technique and practice it for 15 minutes
• STANDING: practice a technique we already know for 10 minutes
• STANDING: teach a new technique and practice it for 15 minutes
• matwork randori for 5-10 minutes
• matches for 10 - 15 minutes, including both standing and mat work

I might rotate the matwork and standing practice and instruction, but this is pretty much my regular routine. When I teach a beginning kids class I don't see a point in more than 20 minutes of free practice because they really don't know much to practice yet.

Occasionally, though, I rotate the order of the practice and I recommend you do, too. Here's why. In education, most people accept that regular assessment is a good idea. You don't go on to teaching division of two-digit numbers with remainders until you're pretty sure that your class understands division of numbers without remainders.

The same applies to judo. Just because you have taught something does not mean that your students have learned it. So .... every few weeks, I will have the free practice at the BEGINNING of class, right after the warm-up. I watch the students to see what I think are their weak points as a class. Does no one attempt a choke? Does anyone escape from a pin?

Then, I call them all together and explain that this is what I saw when I was watching them, and that is what we work on that day.

By  the way, this is also a good plan for when you are asked to teach a clinic. People generally pay more attention if they know you at least have SOME idea about the judo they do rather than giving your standard dog and pony show you've given 450 times before.

The Lion, The Anaconda and Reaction Drills

Just bear with me as you read this story. There is a point here. I promise.

Imagine you are an anaconda, lying in the grass, digesting the deer you caught a week ago, when a pride of lions comes by. You and the head lion get into a discussion about hunting. He explains his method of hunting to you. It is very organized. The lions stalk a herd of deer, following a scent. They select a deer that is slower than the others. They chase the herd one way and then the other until this deer is separated. They chase it down until it is exhausted. One lion leaps at the back legs and cuts the ham strings. Another lion goes for the neck, and the result is deer meat for dinner. The lion asks the anaconda, 

“So, how do you hunt?”

You reply, 

“Well, I just lay here in the grass and when something comes by, I wrap around it, squeeze it to death and swallow it whole.”

The lion exclaims, 

“That’s wrong! That’s not how you do it! How often does something just walk right by you? Maybe you’d catch something really slow and sick that way, but no, you have to chase things down and kill them. That’s what hunting is. Besides, look at you. You can’t swallow a deer whole. That is impossible. I don’t mean to call you a liar, but it sounds pretty unlikely to me.”

Now you are confused. On the one hand, you’ve seen the lions hunting and they are the king of beasts. You have to admit, they look really impressive and beautiful chasing deer in a disciplined formation across the plains. It certainly sounds  like the Lion King is right. He is, after all, a lion.
On the other hand, you’re lying here digesting a deer you’ve caught and you’re a 30-foot long, 500 pound anaconda, the largest snake in the world, which means you’ve actually caught a whole lot of deer. It’s all very confusing.

The lion is equally troubled by the thought of the anaconda spreading this misinformation on hunting to little snakes. Why, they’ll surely starve to death except for the odd exceptionally lucky one here and there.

This is almost exactly the conversation Jim Pedro, Sr. and I had earlier this week, well, it would have been if Jim was a lion and I was a giant snake and we were talking about judo instead of hunting.

I’d say, about two-thirds of the time that I send him anything for The Book, he calls me up and says,

“That’s wrong. You did that wrong. It won’t work.”

I listen to him, because I have a lot of respect for his judo knowledge, but at the same time, I think,

“I know it works, because I did it lots of times, and not just on little kids, but at the world level. I even do it some times now on people way younger and stronger than me.”

Sometimes he’ll send me several pages that show something really good and say,

“See, you had it wrong in the chapter you sent to me. This is how you do that move.”

And I think to myself,

“No, this is how you do some other technique. It’s very good. But it’s not what I was trying to do.”

Over the last few weeks, I have been editing the chapter Jim did on matwork series and it is brilliant. There is no question that the moves he showed will work for lots of people. I have seen Ronda , Kayla Harrison, Jimmy, Jr. and others do those exact same matwork series on many people at a very high level, and they have been very successful. At the same time, as I was reading it, I thought,

“If this was my training program, I would hate judo.”

In fact, when I was younger, my coach, Jimmy Martin, did a lot of these same series, like the tie-up series. He tried to get me to learn. It’s a great idea. Jimmy Martin won lots of matches doing these techniques, as did Tony Mojica, Dawn Beers and many others from our club. At some point, I told my coach,

“I hate this shit and I’m never going to do it. I just hate this.”

Having really thought about it over the past few weeks, I think the big difference between the way Jim Pedro does judo and the way I do it is that his is very methodical and predictable. That is not a bad thing. Watching both Ronda and Jimmy, Jr. over the years, there have been many times in a match when I know that they have got it won because they have passed the point of no return. That is, they have gotten far enough into a series of steps that the only possible end is for the opponent to be turned and arm barred.

Last night I finally had the chance to watch Ronda’s last fight on TV because we had it on Tivo. When she was pulling Tate over on the final arm bar, my husband  (who knows about as much about judo as I know about crochet, that is, he knows how to spell it) said,

“That was the point where I knew she had it”.

So, no, predictable is definitely not bad.

But yet ... there is another way of doing judo and that is what I do. When I was looking through all of the pictures that Jim said were wrong, I noticed a couple of things. He was correct in that the reaction of the opponent varied from picture to picture. He was right when he said,

“Once in a great while, the person might move their arm out like that to stop a half-nelson, but maybe only one time out of a hundred.”

And yet, in almost all of those pictures I was arm barring someone. And yet, in almost all of those pictures, they were NOT posed. That is, I would try a half-nelson, and whatever the person did, I would go into an arm bar. So, they obviously DID put their arm out.

Why, they’ll surely starve to death except for the odd exceptionally lucky one here and there.

When I was competing, it was a big joke among my teammates and I how often articles after events said that someone else was favored but “AnnMaria got lucky and won”.

There are three differences in how I trained for judo and competed from what Jim does.
1. He sets people up to provoke a specific move, for example, he will pull in their wrist to control it, setting them up to pull the arm up allowing space for a half-nelson. I react to whatever the person does. That is, if they put their right arm out at all, even for a second, I am going to jump on it and do juji gatame. I may fall backwards. I may turn towards their hips. I am going to improvise based on whatever my opponent does. He plans. I react. Both ways require A LOT of practice, because, as Jim pointed out, for my way to work, I need to anticipate what the opponent is going to do. His way requires lots and lots of practice of the same few moves. My way requires lots and lots of practice of different moves. I would be bored to death doing judo his way, but for some people, it is just wonderful.

2. My way generally requires that you be faster than your opponent. That is, I grab the arm before he or she can react. Because I have practiced thousands of times being in that exact position (and my opponent probably has not), I am usually faster even when the other person has more natural speed than me.

3. In my way, it helps if you are stronger than your opponent. For example, in the rolling turnover, if you have enough strength to reach up, grab your opponent’s gi and roll him head over heels - or at least get close enough that he reacts by sticking out an arm to stop it - that helps.

Because of those last two points, the “reaction drills” that I do work more when you are young and fit. For this reason, a lot of older instructors won’t like them. I will be the first to admit that I am nowhere near as good as when I was young. Many techniques, I don’t have the power to force them through that I did when I was young. I’m fine with that. Judo is an Olympic sport. I bet whoever won the Olympics in the 100 meters in 1984 can’t run it nearly as fast now, either.

One (of many) reasons that I like matwork is that strength is more of a factor in matwork than in standing technique. If you are stronger than most people, which I almost always was in competition, then it is to your advantage to be in situations where strength matters most.

Jim’s very methodical way of teaching and training matwork is good because it works for a wide range of people, and as someone who has coached for many years, that is what he needs to do.  Jim’s way works for more people because it does not rely on natural athleticism.

Most of my life, I have only had to worry about two athletes - first myself and then Ronda. There is nothing wrong with using your strength and athleticism, if you have it. If you have it, use it!  My way might work for the top 10% in natural athletic ability - but if you are stronger or faster than most people, why on earth would you NOT want to leverage that in competition?

Years ago, a very good coach was watching Ronda and he commented to me,

"Your daughter is not fast. She is sudden."

He was right. When you have practiced many times to react when the opponent is "in the guard" and puts the left leg down just a little bit, allowing you to roll over it, it is sudden, just like an anaconda waiting to strike.

A snake doesn't hunt like a lion. It doesn't stalk. It doesn't have a process. It just reacts suddenly because it is ready when an opportunity occurs.

And a snake isn't a wrong lion.

It's just a snake.

Ronda's Judo Middle School Style

Class was a lot of fun today. It is always nice coming back after having been away for a while. It makes me appreciate the students, the teachers at the school and just judo in general more.

First, we covered the switch, where you pull your opponent forward and then, when  the opponent reacts, slide your leg behind their legs and throw them backward. Here is one student showing the entry into the throw after the person resists.

Here is a picture of a second pair of students finishing the throw.

The thrower should have turned his body more toward the mat and been more on top of the opponent, but considering this is the first time they had ever learned that throw, I thought they did very well.

Second, we practiced o soto gari - what the announcers on the fight called a leg sweep. Since this was the first throw they had learned at the beginning of the school year, it was just practicing it. Some of the students had watched the fight on Showtime and were very impressed when they saw it that Ronda used a throw they already knew. I made the point that this is a technique that people use from their very first tournament right up to world and Olympic competition.

Then, we finished off with harai makikomi and arm bars. With the arm bars, we focused on two things. First, breaking the arm free when the opponent is holding on for dear life (lock it against your body and rotate toward the head). Second, I explained entry into arm bars and how even though Ronda had done the same arm bar twice, she did two different entries into it.

One of the teachers at the school took pictures on his camera, so I'll have those next week to talk about how to do the arm bars.

Speaking of teachers - I want to note that this program has been going on for THREE YEARS and Mr. Jose Gonzalez, a social studies teacher at Gompers Middle School has volunteered his time after school for the entire three years, on the mat, supervising this program. A second school staff member, Mr. Jimmy Sanchez, began coming this year to assist.

The next time you hear someone running down public school teachers, think about these two gentlemen staying around on Friday after having worked all week, to work more, for free.

My Judo Class for Tomorrow - and maybe yours too

I am sad because I have been away from judo for three weeks. It wasn't all bad. I spent a lot of time with my lovely granddaughters, one of whom can be seen here after she dominated Ronda with cuteness and took away her world title belt. And there was that Ronda winning the world title thing.

So, here I am at 11 pm after finally having caught up with it all, shipped the last deliverable off to a client, met my last deadline and planning what I am going to do at class tomorrow.

Then, it came to me. I'm going to bring my iPad and let anyone who hasn't already seen Ronda's fight watch it (it's short). After warm-ups (which will include The Gecko and the shrimp) , we are going to go over each of the moves Ronda did in her fight.

First there is "The Switch" which is a fake forward and then a sort of cross between tani otoshi (valley drop throw) and ko soto gari. My friend, Kenji Osugi from Sawtelle Dojo always has very proper names for everything and explanations of why a throw is done properly or not. I, on the other hand, believe if the other person fell down and you landed on top, it was all good.

Second, o soto gari - what the MMA announcers call a leg sweep (which is not at all what we judo people call it.)

Third, there was a very nice cross between a harai makikomi and o soto makikomi, where both Ronda and her opponent were airborne. It was very nice. If you were the one on top.

Finally, of course, there were the two arm bars.

We'll go over all of that, then do some matwork and some standing randori. Nice plan for class tomorrow, don't you think?

Feel free to steal it. I do ask in return that if you do, you post one of your ideas here so I can steal it in return.

Who's the Greatest of them all - how NOT to do a clinic

A few years ago, I went to a clinic taught by 1987 World Judo Champion, Mike Swain. It was a really good clinic, attended mostly by kids, and some green belt and brown belt adults. I brought my youngest daughter, who was probably seven or eight years old. When Mike saw me, he laughed and said something like that he was afraid to think what I would think when I saw his clinic.

Mike skipped (yes, actually skipped) around the mat as part of a warm-up. He taught tai-otoshi and o soto gari, two pretty basic techniques. He talked about doing o soto gari like you are running past the person.

It was all very basic. One of the players was from Steve Seck's club. Steve had been on the 1980 Olympic team and in 1984, he lost to Mike in the Olympic trials. I heard one of the brown belts walking out the door mutter,

"I can't believe that guy ever beat Sensei Steve."

What did I think? I thought he did a great job. I was very impressed. It's difficult when doing a clinic - to resist the urge to show off and try to impress people with your greatness - especially if there are other black belts there, doubly especially if they are people who have been international competitors.

I've attended a few clinics where the point was for the clinician to show how great he was. Twenty different really difficult techniques were demonstrated that no one could do, leaving everyone with the impression that this judo stuff is really hard, too hard for me, but yeah, that guy is great.

Or, they taught really impressive throws where you picked the person up with ura nage and slammed him, or did an uchi mata where you landed on the other person and the building shook. The impression you left everyone with is that this judo stuff really hurts, but yeah, that guy is really great. Oh, and unless you are in your twenties and can dead lift your own weight, you're never going to be able to do that technique.

Hal Sharp calls this looking at it with black belt eyes. As a black belt, you think that stuff is really great.

Since, at the time, I had an eight-year-old kid, I tried to see what Mike did through eight-year-old eyes. The skipping was funny so the kids liked it, plus they were warming up and thinking about timing. O soto gari and tai otoshi were just basic techniques they could do. They didn't do them amazingly well - most of the people there were below brown belt - but they practiced and they got a little better. When they went home, they had had some fun and been successful and they were happy.

As an instructor, I did NOT think it was a waste of time. Quite the opposite, I got some good ideas for teaching basic techniques to beginning and intermediate players, who comprise over 90% of who comes in the door. What Mike did that was very smart is taught to the great majority of people who were there, not to the one or two black belts. As one of the few black belts there, I didn't stand around and sneer that I knew o soto gari, I took the opportunity to steal some ideas on teaching it better.

I knew Mike when he was young, by the way, and he was as much of a show-off as anyone, but I'm guessing being a parent is what changed his perspective. If you're a decent parent, you go from it being all about how great you are to actually caring about these younger people in your care.

 Oh, and that young brown belt? The two of us had a talk at the next practice. I did not sneer about how I knew more advanced judo than Mike or he wasn't really that good of a player.  For one reason, neither of those things are true, but even if they were, what is the point in running down another instructor? So I can look better by comparison? I see people do that all of the time but I don't think it really works. Not with me, anyway. I just think the person complaining is an ass, because almost always the real complaint is, "That person doesn't teach exactly like me".

Instead, I pointed out that what Mike had done was exactly right for the level of the people in the room, with one or two exceptions. Instead of patting themselves on their backs for their greatness, what those few exceptions should have done is tried to see how he taught and picked up some pointers for teaching. Those young brown and black belts were very new to teaching and the ones that weren't too busy telling each other how they were too great to practice o soto gari learned something about teaching judo.

Of course, maybe I was just impressed because when I teach a clinic, I try to do it the same way, so that people leave having learned something they can do, rather than having learned how much judo I know but not able to do any of it.

The point of a clinic isn't to show how great you are or even how great judo is. It's to help whoever is there get a little better.