Black Belt Training

The head sensei of my JJ association decided to call us club instructors in for a session on Sunday. None of us really knew what to expect – except he mentioned something about going over the syllabus to correct mistakes. Maybe we were going to get a grilling, maybe just a lecture (I brought my pen and notebook just in case). Instead, it was a run through of basic common mistakes that Head Sensei commonly sees from the kyu students at each grading and wanted us to be aware of them…and practice them ourselves. In the end, it turned out to be an excellent masterclass of basic ju-jitsu training which had us all sweating buckets by the end. I haven’t been chucked around like that for a long time and I forgot what a really great work-out it could be. When we watch Head Sensei perform a technique, it is pretty phenomenal to watch, the sheer power and efficiency of technique is jaw dropping - that’s why he’s the head of JJ.
My favourite bits were a new way of looking at the first counter to the hip throw and a much improved way of doing the outer winding throw. Head sensei also likes kicks, blocks and stances done a certain way, which made a lot of sense to me.This kind of specific syllabus training sessions for instructors only were never really done before, but now that Head Sensei is going to do them more often, I’m really looking forward to the next one.

byMeerkatsu

in

February 26, 2008

Black Belt Training

The head sensei of my JJ association decided to call us club instructors in for a session on Sunday. None of us really knew what to expect –...

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Gripping Stuff

I’m back on the mat, finally. Last night I returned to Mill Hill JJ to do some BJJ. It was my first session for over 5 months, and boy, did I feel it!Instructor Nick covered basic escapes and then went over some really cool half guard techniques. It seems that in the half guard, prudent use of the gi grip really works wonders for your game. For example, you are half guarding on the bottom but can prevent your opponent passing by grabbing his gi skirt portion and feeding between your legs. Not only do you have a useful block, if he does something silly and gets flipped over, by retaining the grip, you can continue to control him. I learned this to my cost as I sparred with both Nick and wunderkind Daniel (who I hasten to add is now a junior world champion) and found myself being flipped upside down and inside out more times than a Wendy burger. I was pretty rubbish before my 5 month break, now I’m even worse – and everyone has got much better. Having said that, it was a thoroughly enjoyable session and I hope I can keep up the BJJ training.

byMeerkatsu

in

February 19, 2008

Gripping Stuff

I’m back on the mat, finally. Last night I returned to Mill Hill JJ to do some BJJ. It was my first session for over 5 months, and boy, did ...

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Warm winds

Meerkat the martial arts nut is still here...just.
Not been back to BJJ training since DJ was born, but life is beginning to ease up and I may find some free time to get back into gear very soon.
In the meantime, I was intrigued to be asked by some of the office staff to help them get into shape, but they didn't want to do anything too vigorous. In fact they didn't actually want to get into shape at all. They just wanted to not turn into immovable lumps of furniture sitting at their PCs all day. So naturally, I felt obliged to help.
The ladies were all keen and eager and I thought this would be easy, so the first exercise we did was just rotating the shoulders. Oh dear, in between nervous giggles you could hear creaking and groaning and someone saying that it hurt and another exclaiming that one shoulder turned more than the other. This I realised was going to be harder work than I first thought. Mentally I recalculated the drill list to rule out all bar only the very easiest joint and muscle warm ups. The rest of the session finished without incident, but later in the day one of the participants complained to me that her knee really hurt. I felt a sudden pang of panic, oh no was it the one legged squat I made you do? No, she replied, it was most likely a side effect of her ligament knee surgery (that she failed to tell me about beforehand). Gulp, one simple simple session of barely warming warm ups and I have crippled half the work force at my office. I wonder if they'll want to continue next week?

byMeerkatsu

in

February 16, 2008

Warm winds

Meerkat the martial arts nut is still here...just. Not been back to BJJ training since DJ was born, but life is beginning to ease up and I m...

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