Simple little anti-groundhog drill

One reason I think a lot of people who are initially excited about judo eventually quit is that it gets to be like Groundhog Day - remember that movie where he woke up every day and had the same day over and over? So, the first time you learn a shoulder throw or even how to fall it might seem cool but after having had essentially the same lesson twelve times during the year, it gets old.

Here, pulled out of my bag of tricks is a really simple thing. Instead of practicing back breakfalls or side falls, have your partner grab both lapels and lower you down close to the mat, then, without warning, let go. You practice turning out of pins.

When Erin and Bradley are doing it in this video, I am telling him to let go but that's just for a demonstration. You really just let go whenever you feel like it.

Some older instructors are opposed to turning out of throws because they are worried people will get injured. My answer to that is:

1. People are probably going to try to turn out in competition anyway they're less likely to get injured if they practice it.
2. I'd rather get injured than lose (says the woman with a total knee replacement). Still, most the people I know who won far less than me got injured at some point, too, including people who just did kata, so I don't think it's fair to blame my competitive streak.

Yes, this is just a simple little drill that if you practice it a few times each takes about a minute.  Here's the thing, though - I have a very large bag of tricks, so I can pull out five new ideas every practice.

Shameless plugs - you can find more cool stuff like this in the book from me and Jim Pedro, Sr. WINNING ON THE GROUND

for the Kindle, here
the Nook, here or
Sony or other ereaders, here

You can get it in the iTunes store, too. And it comes out on paperback in March, those of you into dead tree media can order it in paper back from Black Belt here 

CHECK OUT THE GAME BELOW FROM MY COMPANY. IT'S AWESOME. Click on the picture to go to the Kickstarter site and get a license for the game, a signed photo of Ronda posing for a fight scene in it , a poster and other cool stuff.

Tomoe Nage Arm Bar- Hey, I didn't touch your leg

With the new rules in judo pretty much saying if you go near the person's leg while standing, we spent some time at practice today trying to figure out what is still legal. We went through several moves that Crystal, Erin and I happen to like and Oscar (Bradley's dad) took a video of all of the ones that we concluded were still legal.


Here is my favorite. You go into tomoe nage and when the opponent blocks you, throw your leg over and go into the arm bar.

Shameless plugs - you can find more cool stuff like this in the book from me & Jim Pedro, Sr. winning on the ground.

for the Kindle, here
the Nook, here or
Sony or other ereaders, here

You can get it in the iTunes store, too. And it comes out on paperback in March, those of you into dead tree media can order it in paper back from Black Belt here 

CHECK OUT THE GAME BELOW FROM MY COMPANY. IT'S AWESOME

Teaching by the Book

I was thinking about what to teach today and then it occurred to me, hey, I wrote a book. I could use something from that!

One of the things Jim and I argued about (besides everything) when writing our book - Winning on the Ground  - was whether or not it should have techniques and drills for beginners, and if so, how much.

As with everything, it was kind of a compromise, but unlike some compromises, it came out for the better. There's nothing on how to tie your belt, bow or fall. There are, however, plenty of techniques and drills (mostly written by me) that are for people who are beginning - as in, had at most a few months of lessons - and plenty of techniques and drills (mostly written by Jim) which are much more advanced.

We finally agreed that
a.) Even extremely experienced players sometimes make basic mistakes and get caught,
b.) Everyone needs to drill the basics. I ask my kids class "Don't you think Michael Jordan does free throws?" but now I am getting so old and out of touch, most of them don't know who he is and I will have to come up with a new analogy.
c.) Many of those more advanced moves stem from the basics.  So, you learn steps 1 to 6 when you are in judo for a year or two and then when you move into more advanced competition, you learn steps 7 to 12 to add on to it.

So,
For a) we are doing the help 'em up drill at practice today.
For b) we are going to be drilling your favorite throw, whatever it happens to be, straight into a pin, and
For c) we are doing the Collect the Arm drill into a pin, into an arm bar. It is a little bit advanced but these kids have been doing judo since September, so I think they will get it okay. Yes, they'll look a little raw, but hey, they're new at it.

The collect the arm drill we're doing is going to go from pin to arm bar. You can also go from the collect the arm to pin to punching. That had nothing to do with anything, I just like to tease Crystal about that picture. That move IS in our book, by the way.

A client of mine, who has nothing to do with judo, saw that picture on my screen and said,

"It looks like a judo race riot."

I told her,

Oh, no, those are our friends. We've known Crystal and her family since our youngest kids were babies.

She just shook her head and said,

"Holy shit, I'd hate to see what you people do to anyone you DON'T like!"

Since I know you are dying to know .... you can buy our book
for the Kindle, here
the Nook, here or
Sony or other ereaders, here

You can get it in the iTunes store, too. And it comes out on paperback in March, those of you into dead tree media can order it in paper back from Black Belt here 

CHECK OUT THE GAME BELOW FROM MY COMPANY. IT'S AWESOME

The Meaning of Life

I write another blog on statistics, programming and small business. About three times as many people read it as read this one and there usually isn't much overlap in topics. I am randomly posting there a list of 55 things I've learned, hoping to finish by the time I turn 55 in August. This overlaps a lot what I posted on that blog today, but since it also answers questions a number of judo people have asked here you go.

Someone who follows my judo twitter commented on all of the different activities I had mentioned lately.

  The free rice group - Ronda,runs leading up to a fight. You go to the site, join her group and for every answer you get correct the sponsor donates 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme. To date, her fans have donated 83 MILLION grains of rice. The RondaUFC group for this fight alone is over 52,000,000. Mostly I just tweet and blog about that, ask companies that sell MMA and judo apparel to donate the prizes and send them out.

  Kickstarter campaign - we are making a game to teach math, with a MAJOR focus on students on American Indian reservations. We received $100,000 from USDA to develop a prototype under its Small Business Innovation Research program. With that, and a good chunk of our funds, we built and tested six levels, that had very promising results in raising mathematics scores. Now we are applying for an additional $450,000. A significant part of that evaluation criteria (20%) is your commercial potential. Which is why the Kickstarter campaign is important. Our goal is to raise $20,000 to tell USDA - see, it does have commercial potential. Go to Kickstarter. Pledge $35 - we'll send you a license and give one to a student as well. If you pledge $50 we'll throw in a signed photo of Ronda.

Our book - Winning on the Ground  - I thought I knew a bit about matwork that might help some people and Jim Pedro, Sr. knows a lot that is worth preserving. It's selfish to just keep your knowledge to yourself. You can buy our book
for the Kindle, here
the Nook, here or
Sony or other ereaders, here

You can get it in the iTunes store, too. And it comes out on paperback in March.

Not only will it, I hope, teach some people matwork, but I told Julia to research charities for her Christian service credit hours and pick one to donate the royalties because it's not as if she needs ten more of the same shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch. She picked a program for homeless youth.

I also teach judo at Gompers Middle School in south Los Angeles. I'm the evaluator for a project on the Spirit Lake Nation. I teach a doctoral course in statistics once a year.

  I'm helping, a little, with the organizing of the Don't Throw Up, Throw Down fund. Ronda is matching donations to the Didi Hirsch Clinic for outreach mental health up to $5,000 and to be sure they GET $5,000 she is doing a seminar at Glendale Fight Club in March. When I run through all of this, usually there will be  at least one person who posts in the comments,

"Yeah, we get it, you're great. You brag too much and .... "

and my response is always to think, although I never respond because feeding trolls is definitely NOT useful,

"What the fuck is WRONG with you?"

First of all, to quote Ronda from the UFC Primetime show tonight, who are you to say I shouldn't have a good opinion of myself?

But no, my point is not I am great. My point is all of these activities I just mentioned have something in common - to be useful. To help feed people. To help teach people. To support programs that are doing good in the community. That's how the world gets better, you know. Why on earth should I not tell people about them? Most people are pretty good, I think, and if you tell them about something they can do to help, a lot of people will.

 Each of those things I mentioned is not a major deal. It's not the Gates Foundation. But it's something. Too many people, because they can't do something huge, don't do anything. What most of the things I mentioned have in common is that ANYONE can help. If you are completely broke, you can go on over to the free rice site and answer some questions. If you are super-busy, you can go to the Kickstarter campaign and pledge $10 or $100, whatever. You can give to Didi Hirsch. Just put Ronda Rousey fund in one of the boxes on the form. Or don't do any of those things, but do SOMETHING. Yes, I am busy all of the time, but I am busy doing things that are interesting and are useful. Otherwise, you may end up someone who has nothing better to do than write spiteful things to people they don't know on the Internet.

The really sad thing (for them) about the haters is they will say, "We get it, you're happy with yourself" as if that's a BAD thing.

As a matter of fact, I am happy with myself. There is never a day that goes by that I don't say to my husband or one of my daughters,

"Don't we have a great life?"

I think the secret to the meaning of life is this - If you're useful, you'll BE happy.

Wrestling: Politics Ruining Olympic Sports - again!

When I heard wrestling was out of the Olympics, I was initially shocked - and then I wasn't. I was shocked because, come on - wrestling? It's one of the original sports, it's practiced all over the world, it has much higher TV viewership than modern pentathlon. Quick, without resorting to Google, tell me exactly what modern pentathlon IS? Exactly. You don't know and you don't care either.

While ostensibly decisions were made based on TV viewership, global participation and anti-doping, wrestling had more viewers and participation than modern pentathlon and only one doping violation.

It's no surprise to me that the decision was made on political grounds.

When we were writing, Winning on the Ground, Jim Pedro and I argued about a lot of things in addition to mat work. One point he would never give up on was,

I can't believe you never wanted  to go to the Olympics. 

He was convinced that I must somehow have felt cheated because women's judo didn't become an Olympic sport until 1988. I  had Ronda in 1987 and her sister, Jenn, in 1986, so going to the Olympics was not on my to-do list. Also, I was in the middle of my doctoral program by then. As I have explained about a hundred times - and I don't know if this will make anyone in wrestling feel better, but it might ....

You forget what was going on with the Olympics. In 1980, no one from the U.S. went to the Olympics. We boycotted it. I had friends who made the men's team and they didn't get to go either. For the athletes who did go, in a lot of sports, without the U.S. and some of its allies there, it was an Olympics with an asterisk. You didn't really beat the whole world. In 1984, with the eastern block countries boycotting, again, you didn't really know that you were best in the world. You were the best of the people who were not prevented from competing due to political reasons. It continues to this day, remember the Iranian player who forfeited his match in the Olympics. He was coincidentally matched against an Israeli player? 

I wanted to be best on the planet. I didn't care about opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, Olympic gear from Ralph Lauren or running around telling people I was an Olympian. I wanted to beat everyone in the world. If that's what you want and you are a wrestler, you can still be best in the world and that is an unbelievable feeling. I am very sorry you got screwed by politics. If it is any consolation - and I know it isn't - it's just the latest in a sad trend.

Some days, the world is just good

Years ago, I commented that I thought I had more true friends than I deserved and Jacob Flores, Jr. (I think it was maybe at his birthday party) said he thought people got exactly the friends they deserved. I sincerely hope he is correct because if so, I am much more often than I have previously believed.

We have a Kickstarter campaign going on. If you don't know what that is, in brief, you put up a project and if people want to see it happen, they can pledge say, "If you make this, I'll pay $15 to get a license for the beta version of the game."

So .... short version of long story - we received $100,000 to cover the cost of building and testing a pilot version of an adventure game that teaches kids math. HALF of the companies that got those grants will EACH get a $450,000 grant to fully develop their product. A big part of that decision is who commercially viable your project is. SO ..... we put it up on Kickstarter and tried to get $20,000 - on the average, getting 400 people to give us $50 - some will give more or less but the point is to demonstrate this is something people would support and fund, and that we can get some attention to it. In fact, getting $25 from 800 people would actually help us more.

Looking at the dashboard, I can see who pledged money, where the links came from, who tweeted it, who posted it on Facebook and - wow, just wow.

First of all, I am really, really touched because there are some people from the reservations who pledged money who I know really don't have a lot. So, that person pledging $15 out of their social security check to see that this game gets made to help kids learn math - it sort of renewed my faith in humanity.

Then there are the people who really went out of their way to help and get the word out. My sister, Dr. Joy Harris, emailed everyone she knew, and then she suggested that I contact her daughter, Jessica Bueler, who is president of the Loop Business Association in St. Louis. Jessica got right on it, pledged, posted it on Facebook and got her friends to do the same. Jessica's younger sister, Samantha, is still in college and doesn't have the business connections but she is a Facebook fiend, so she has posted and shared the link to our Kickstarter site on Facebook many times. My friend and long-time business partner, Dr. Erich Longie has also been active on Facebook and promoting our project.

Then there are the people I don't even know who went out of their way  - a person I only know as @customNinja on twitter pledged over $500.

I don't know what I did to deserve so much help from so many people - but THANK YOU.
If you'd like to see what Spirit Lake: The Game is and would like to shoot wolves, escape from bears and learn math without the homework, please click here and watch our video.

Judo Gene - Can't Beat Math

Met up with Judo Gene Lebell today at the Glendale Fight Club where we did this ad for our adventure  game, Spirit Lake, that both is a lot of fun and teaches kids math.

He did several takes. I'm going to put them up one at a time. Please let me know what you like best. Any suggestions for ads are greatly appreciated.

By the way, speaking of ads, if you don't know, our book, Winning on the Ground is available as an ebook now and in paper book in March.

And …. my book on mat work is available as an ebook for Kindle at amazon -

for the Nook from Barnes and Noble

and Sony and other ereaders at Kobo

It will be out in print in March. If people want an actual paper book  they can pre-order here. 

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/winning

Yes, I will be honest and tell you that I only put in two escapes from arm bars because  - well, I think it's obvious, no?