Friday 18 September 2009

On the mat

Grappling
The first thing you learn is the pins.
In certain competitions, such as Judo or wrestling, you can win a match by pinning the opponent's shoulders to the mat.
In submission wrestling or combat grappling you need to pin the opponent before you can move to a finish.

So you learn the pins first:
The Mount
Kesa gatame - the scarf hold
Yoko gatame - the side hold
The Guard

Pins such as Kami shiho gatame and kata gatame, which some of you are familiar with are secondary pins.

Each pin has various escapes and you learn these in time, how to turn a position of disadvantage into one of advantage.

An early drill we pactice is escape the mount - pass the guard.

Submissions
We cause the opponet to submit or "tap out" by putting them in a choke or jointlock.
In Judo you are only allowed to lock the elbow, whereas in free fighting you can lock the wrist, knee or ankle.
The achilles lock is a particularly good leg techniques, a pressure point lock.

You learn straight armbars such as juji gatame, and the bent arm variations.
There are leg variations of some of these done from the guard.

Mount - ude garame, juji gatame
Yoko - ude gaeshi, both up and down branch
Scarf - choke, juji
Guard - sangaku jime, juji, ude gaeshi
Leg open - achilles, ankle lock
Uke turtles - take the back - choke, leglock, arm hammer

These are some basic moves, there are further secondary moves you learn later.

Every move also has a counter and reversal.

Throws
We focus on the Jujutsu nage as they are refined in Judo.
The first thing you learn is the appropriate breakfall for the throw to be practiced.
Then you practice uchikomi - the entry.
Then you learn to give and take the throw.
Then you practice throw for throw loop drill for flight time.

Turning throws include:
o goshi hip throw
koshi guruma - cross hip throw
seoinage - flying mare

Reaps include o soto gari and morote gari leg takedowns.
There are also single leg takedowns.

Sweeps
There are sweeps done in Judo, which we cover, but we focus more on sweeps as they appear in karate.
You can use them as part of an attacking combination (ABC) - kick, punch, sweep - or in defence where you sweep the opponent's kicking leg or his support leg.
There are also waza where you catch his kicking leg and take him down.
There is a whole dimension to leglocks done here.

Locks
We also practice our Jujutsu locks, taking the uke right to the mat for a finish. These are done more "positively" then possible on the wood.
We also practice locks with the stix and tonfa here.