I guess I forgot what it was like to be a novice in a martial art. This definitely brought back fond memories from when I started jiu jitsu with Renee. The instructor tonight was the regular one, and he is very well spoken, clear, concise, and a very good teacher. We did breakfalls 3 from sitting, squatting and standing, 6, and 7. The way they come out of breakfall 6 is a bit different; almost like a short horse stance with feet pointed in the direction you were rolling in versus coming up in a defensive or forward stance. We worked on more kuzushi and the entrance to o goshi (major hip throw)

Well, class was interesting that’s for sure.

There were 9 new people, including me. About 4 of us had jiu jitsu backgrounds, 2 guys had done judo a long time ago, and the rest had no martial arts experience at all.

The entire class was about 25-ish people.

After the warmup, we were taken aside and worked on breakfalls: 2, 3, 4, and 6 and were pretty much exactly how we do it. I got some weird looks when I was doing mine because of the counter kicks and x-blocks were instinctive. The instructor also pointed out after seeing my breakfall 2 to bring the hand in that did the slap and cover up your head. We then did some shrimping and a version of shrimping when you’re lying on your stomach; you use your arms to drag your body across the mats. we worked on some basic kuzushi and then moved on to ippon seoi nage (our “basic” shoulder throw).

Some comments on the judo vs jiu jitsu method of ippon seoi nage:

Foot and body positioning: judo tends to keep a bit more space between uke and tori than jiu jitsu. By a bit more, i mean tori's feet are about 5-6 inches in front of uke's and there is no hip-to-hip contact. The basic mechanism is as follows. Tori steps across with his right foot. As Tori turns to the left to bring his left foot in, he pulls uke's right sleeve with him. Tori is using his own body rotation as well as arm strength to pull uke with him in a circle. This pulling breaks uke's balance and makes him lean forward as tori finishes stepping into position. Tori then continues pulling uke through the throw and uses uke's forward momentum to aid in the throw. This is a LOT easier than throwing from a completely static position, though it requires better timing than from static.

Overall, the class was what I expected, but I was a big disappointed. The instructor who was teaching us seemed totally unprepared for the class. Comments like "keep doing front rolls until I figure out what to do next" didn't exactly exude confidence. He said that the regular instructor is working nights on Mondays for the next few weeks so he’ll be subbing. I hope he’s a bit more professional. It took a lot to not overstep my bounds and show people how to do stuff. I hope he just had an off night.

I went to judo last night. The class had probably 25-30 students plus about 5 black belts. They have traditional judo tatami but they have a sprung floor underneath. Oh. My. God. Training on those mats is incredible! Where have those been all my life?

The warmup was typical; a few laps, stretching, pushups, situps, burpees, then breakfalls 6, 9, 7, and 13 (cartwheel). We spent about 20 minutes working on uchi mata. I learned more about kuzushi in that 20 minutes than I have in my entire time in jiu jitsu.

Unfortunatly, they didn’t let me participate in randori, which is understandable, But the senior belt took me aside and wanted to “show me” the scarf hold.i managed to get him off with some difficulty; since you’re not allowed to push on the jaw to bring the head back to hook the leg around, you have to do something else. After he asks me to get him in the scarf hold and see if I can hold him down. First time I had it kind of loose and he was out easily. 2nd time I gave it and kept him on his back the whole time.

My biggest comment is that it was VERY humbling. What I know about throwing and kuzushi is but a drop in the bucket. All of the practice was done dynamically and I kind of felt like a fish out of water (and BOY do I ever have gi rash! Time to get some rashguard!)

I will definitely be signing up for at least one semester starting Feb 1.