Even though a lot of people talk about Bruce Lee this, Bruce Lee that, and how he started a lot of things, how he revolutionized a lot of things, what I love the most about Bruce Lee is the ideas that he left behind. Here is one of them.
"Like everyone else, you want to learn the way to win, but never to accept the way to lose - to accept defeat. To learn to die is to be liberated from it. So when tomorrow comes you must free your ambitious mind and learn the art of dying!"
-Bruce Lee (in case you didn't want to watch the video)
I was talking to Chris about why he was tired, and we were talking about his diet, and he mentioned going really hard at Jiu-Jitsu practice. I thought of this quote, and all of a sudden, there was newfound significance to it. I had only thought about it in terms of actual life-and-death confrontation - if I accept defeat, that I will die, then to hell with it I'll take this guy down with me. And 90% of the time the other guy is not willing to pay the price to kill you and he will back off after realizing how much damage he is about to suffer.
But this applies during practice too. If I learn how to lose, how to accept, to "die" during practice, I will not waste all of my energy and power attempting to apply a bad technique that has no mechanical advantage (not that Chris does, but sometimes I find myself guilty of this, though not so much anymore). If I don't feel the mechanical advantage I have by having better technique, then to hell with it, I deserve to be submitted/choked out/armbarred/whatever have you! If that guy's technique is better than mine, assuming he is bigger, faster, stronger, then what chance do I have? No, I will let him tap me out, learn where my technique is flawed, and then continue, and beat him with technique! But I was so concerned about winning, this would be impossible. By accepting the loss, I am liberated from it - because first of all, I no longer see it as a loss, rather as a learning opportunity, and second, I am slightly more liberated from the next time someone attempts to do whatever move I just was tapped to - because there is one less mistake I will make!
Bruce Lee will appear in many of my posts, since I am of the belief that every single onscreen appearance of his that he left behind was in some way meant to be some sort of lesson to the Martial Arts practitioner. Look at Game of Death - notice how the highest level, which had Kareem Abdul Jabbar's character - didn't have a style! Kareem didn't have a style, the style of no style was the highest obstacle to overcome! (This was a central idea that Bruce seemed to advocate)
Judo practice was awesome today. I learned so much! I'll just list all of the specific things, and then I will go into the deeper concepts.
Today began with some combos:
OUCHI GARI to KOSOTO GARI
- You must really attempt the Ouchi Gari
- The defense for the Ouchi is that he must first untangle the leg from yours, and then he must place weight on it, as if he does not you will just Ouchi him again
- By pushing towards the same side shoulder as the leg you are sweeping, you attempt the cut his base out from under him and then drive his center of mass in that direction
- By forcing him to step back, his weight is now over the foot that you attempted the Ouchi on
- So his other leg must be light, hence allowing the Kosoto
- Instead of halting your forward motion and turning sideways, almost spiral/turn it over to travel in the direction of his other leg (the one that you just swept). Continuous motion!
- Since you have very little base after attempt the Ouchi, all of the momentum for the Kosoto must come from the original Ouchi momentum or the hopping momentum
OUCHI GARI to TAI OTOSHI
- By driving his weight backward, after he regains his base, he will undoubtedly attempt to drive back into you to stop your forward drive
- So help him out and pull him into you for the Tai Otoshi (thanks Sensei! :D)
- You must really lift him up
OUCHI GARI to MOROTE SEOI NAGE (though I'm doing Ippon instead)
- Ippon Seoi Nage is slightly slower, but Morote just doesn't work for my shoulder/elbow it's too weird lol
- Same principle as the Tai Otoshi
OUCHI GARI to UCHI MATA (I suck at Uchi Mata so not going to elaborate)
OSOTO GARI to SOME WEIRD SWEEP THAT WENT UNNAMED
- They resist your forward momentum somehow, usually because the leg you are attempting to sweep is still under them, or the other foot is planted behind them for base
- Cut the corner, use their forward momentum and spiral it into the same direction you were originally going, and use the non-osoto foot to cut their other foot
- This is so cool; my partner (sensei) showed me to use the spiraling motion, and this fits in with everything Phu Ngo talks about, which I totally agree with since it's helped so much (will elaborate in later posts)
- Moving the body as a coherent unit at the hips and mental+physical connection to the uke is key
- Bodyweight in motion is important
OSOTO GARI to HARAI GOSHI
- I have a hard time with Harai Goshi, but sensei made it really easy. That guy is such a baller.
- So you attempt the Osoto with your back foot not right next to theirs, but a little farther back, but it's not working for some reason; they are resisting forward
- So you turn sideways to them, hop your back foot right between their's and Harai Goshi
- Key is full body contact, and to enter with an upright posture, the more contact, the better
- Throw them as a part of you
- Hand up high for max leverage
- Point your toes!
- Use the momentum of the entry and spiral it into the throw (this is haaaaaaaaaaaard)
Cool, so got that out of the way. On a different note, the partner that I was working with, he was incredible; everything he was doing just made me feel so off balance all the time. His kuzushi is remarkable. I want to do that to people. He told me the key was wrist motion, and push/pull in the right directions.
So I went into randori thinking I'd work on the following things:
- Movement using the "fundamental motions" as I so call them (I have a theory)
- Attacking along the stance's weak line
- Taking the fall so I get better at ukemi
That was it. Everything else I worked on kind of subconsciously, without real conscious effort.
So my first randori round was with the guy that I talked to when I expressed interest in joining the club, and also the same guy who showed me the ropes of judo (whose name coincidentally was also Ray; funny story, I learned the throws on my own through YouTube, and the first time I demonstrated it to him, he said it was near perfect! LOL. But I still need the sparring experience, the little details, and the kinks to truly make it work) I just tried to move him around, and it worked! I even lifted him completely off of the ground a few times! Not that that was enough to throw him (well...it was a couple times, but you can tell he was letting me, his defense was really solid), but still, I could move him around! Except he took advantage of it a few times so I'd have to work that out. We had a super leg sweep duel, and it was really funny; he caught me with some lightning fast Ouchis and De-Ashi-Harais and send me tunneling down to the floor. He even tied up my arms and threw me with Tsurikomi Goshi.
The next round was with one of the green belts, he was pretty cool. I just tried to move him, and I could! A lot! But he took advantage of my momentum a couple times, and I was not committed enough. So he threw me. A lot. At least my ukemi is getting better LOL.
Then I went with the guy that Ray said might have been a fake black belt, or bought his black belt or whatever. I had some fun though. I threw him a couple times and successfully defended all of his throws XD. Not that that means anything to me, in fact, I'm kind of sad because I didn't get to practice my ukemi, and I didn't get to steal whatever move he did to me. (The same cannot be said for my other two sparring partners LOL) But man, the fundamental motions sent this guy stumbling all over the mat, and I (in a not-so-pretty fashion) found a way to stop his legs from catching up to him a couple times.
Then we did newaza, which I won't really go into since I don't care much for pinning.
So, what did we learn today?
- That little wrist pop that you do to really hurt someone with a fook sau? That's the same motion you use to take all of the slack out of your grip and transfer your energy directly into the other guy. (THANKS SENSEI! :D Man with barely any strength he was twisting me up and stuff it was cool)
- It's all about controlling that upper square, and that is done through grip placement (collar grip not so high on the collar, since you want to be able to push their shoulder...or if you go high, pull them down!)
- Drop stepping is hard when someone is attacked to you; you must do collective drop stepping (which is risky, but really, really effective haha)
- The weight must be off of the leg you intend to sweep...and after you lift it up, you drive them in a downward arc towards whatever direction you wish for them to fall. Or...you must trap their leg in midair that is about to receive their weight. I know this already, but never hurts to reiterate.
- To successfully do a midair footsweep...you must know that that leg is about to move before it actually moves. Because everything else was too slow...or I could lift them up, sweep the foot, and after make contact, drop everything? Will experiment with Chris tomorrow.
- Moving from the hips is so good it's almost unfair
- Spin wheel/draw bow is a TON of power
- Spirals, spirals, spirals!
- Try circular motion instead of rectangular motion. Sensei Ray got me a couple times by getting me to circle to my left, and then doing an Ouchi because he knew I was going to post that foot...or else I'd fall!
- Enter throws where you intent to bend down nearly perfectly upright so that you have room to spring
There is a lesson for you to learn every day. Every single day. For me...there's usually like 50,000 LOL.
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