Sunday, August 31, 2008

West Coast on You Tube

Saturday we had an easier practice than usual as we had some new people starting at the training center for the first time, a couple of people coming back from injury and several of our players at the Fall Classic/Ladders and Junior World Trials.

Kudos to Crystal Butts for her first place in the ladders today and good job to Yazmin on her third place. Three ippon wins and only a brown belt is not too shabby. I heard you were attacking a whole lot more than at Golden State and I was very happy. It is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. The people who make me shake my head are the ones that make the same mistakes over and over.

Given that practice was fairly light, it was an opportunity for Tony and I to pay more attention to our younger and lower ranked players. One thing we did was give a video camera to Dan (a.k.a. Eileen's dad) and to Allen Wrench (a.k.a. World's Most F***ing AWESOME masters player) and have them take random clips of 30 seconds to one minute during drill training and randori.

Here is a clip from the first warm-up drill.

A few comments ---

Harmik - your throws look good. Keep doing it like you're doing it.
Jonathan - most of yours are good but your technique needs improvement. Sometimes you lean backward on that harai goshi, which is a very bad habit. You WILL get countered. Focus on going forward every time. It's okay if you feel off balance, your partner will cushion your fall when you land on top of him. Make sure you find time to work with Tony on that harai over the next few weeks - every chance you get.
Megan - D*mn! I didn't know you had a drop seoi nage. The only thing I ever see you do in tournaments is uchimata. Nice seoi.
Erik - Throw harder! I know that you and Julia are the youngest ones in the place, but she isn't a baby. You can throw her harder than that. I know it doesn't bother her to slam you when she gets a chance.
Kamal and Sammy - Okay, I know one of you is new and the other just came off a serious injury but I have two words for you. Harder. Faster.
Rachel C. - Nice technique, but you can do it harder. Your throws are pretty but we want them to be effective, too. I know you are relatively new but just so you know, everyone here is tough, you don't have to go easy on anyone.
Eileen - One word. Harder. Be sweet when you go home.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So whats the latest on Fletcher, half expected him to run for another office.

Dr. AnnMaria said...

The latest:
1. I believe USA Judo is trying to claim they followed their own by-laws which say you have 180 days to complain and since these complaints were not filed within six months of the molestation that it is okay and USOC needs to accept that USA Judo followed its published procedures.

2. Today I received two new affidavits. I don't know if these are authentic or not, so I am sending both to the USJA Ethics Committee and the attorney for the other women. They can determine what to do with those.