Somebody's Blood
A little over a week ago, I injured my left shoulder somehow. I guess it wasn't too serious since I don't recall how it happened. It could have been from shomen-uchi ikkyo; that seems reasonable. So, I decided to take a week off in hopes that my shoulder would improve a bit. It still causes me a little discomfort, but I went to class this morning nevertheless. It didn't seem to get aggravated this morning, though.
There was a bilingual (Japanese/English) notice on the bulletin board about repairs on the 4th floor dojo in March. For three weeks, the Sunday beginner's class will be held on the 2nd floor. I got a bit excited: Maybe they are going to enlarge it! That would certainly be nice, considering there were close to 40 students today. But we will see...
We did a lot of sitting techniques (suwari-waza) today; it seems that Irie Sensei likes to focus on them in his classes. That's fine because we don't seem to do those a lot in the weekday classes that I attend. We did suwari-waza ikkyo, nikyo, irimi-nage, and kote-gaeshi. My uke (partner) for nikyo was much shorter than I, so I had trouble applying the pin because his arm was too short for me to get a good grasp. But it's good to practice with people of all shapes and sizes; I can adapt the technique as I go.
We also did standing techniques: irimi-nage and kote-gaeshi. Due to the large number of students, Irie Sensei sometimes tells one half of the class to practice while the other half sits in seiza and watches. This is good because we don't have to worry too much about restricted space. However, it's bad because we have to sit out. My uke for irimi-nage was a yudansha (black belt). He was quite good. I got frustrated because as he entered, he would totally stop and force my torso sideways. A few times he didn't even enter and break my posture; he just downed me. I thought about this later, and I finally realized that maybe he was trying to show me how to do proper ukemi: I think I needed to go in more sideways instead of facing him with the entire front of my body. I'm not sure if this was the reason. I'll check next time.
While I was changing in the locker room after practice, I noticed somebody's blood on various parts of the topcoat of my gi (uniform). I knew the blood wasn't mine after quickly scanning myself. What's good about the heavy judo-gi that everyone wears is that blood usually washes out completely after laundering. A few people wear thin karate-gi, and I'm not sure if stains come out of them as easily. If one looks closely at the mats in the dojo, one will see all the faint bloodstains. It's not as bad as it sounds: Usually people bleed because they scrape their feet or fingers on the semi-hard "tatami"-style mats repetitively. That's usually what happens to me. At the end of each class, the students sweep, clean, and vacuum the dojo. When there is fresh blood on the mat, that means a few people have the privilege of scrubbing/blotting until most of it comes out. Not an easy task.
There was a bilingual (Japanese/English) notice on the bulletin board about repairs on the 4th floor dojo in March. For three weeks, the Sunday beginner's class will be held on the 2nd floor. I got a bit excited: Maybe they are going to enlarge it! That would certainly be nice, considering there were close to 40 students today. But we will see...
We did a lot of sitting techniques (suwari-waza) today; it seems that Irie Sensei likes to focus on them in his classes. That's fine because we don't seem to do those a lot in the weekday classes that I attend. We did suwari-waza ikkyo, nikyo, irimi-nage, and kote-gaeshi. My uke (partner) for nikyo was much shorter than I, so I had trouble applying the pin because his arm was too short for me to get a good grasp. But it's good to practice with people of all shapes and sizes; I can adapt the technique as I go.
We also did standing techniques: irimi-nage and kote-gaeshi. Due to the large number of students, Irie Sensei sometimes tells one half of the class to practice while the other half sits in seiza and watches. This is good because we don't have to worry too much about restricted space. However, it's bad because we have to sit out. My uke for irimi-nage was a yudansha (black belt). He was quite good. I got frustrated because as he entered, he would totally stop and force my torso sideways. A few times he didn't even enter and break my posture; he just downed me. I thought about this later, and I finally realized that maybe he was trying to show me how to do proper ukemi: I think I needed to go in more sideways instead of facing him with the entire front of my body. I'm not sure if this was the reason. I'll check next time.
While I was changing in the locker room after practice, I noticed somebody's blood on various parts of the topcoat of my gi (uniform). I knew the blood wasn't mine after quickly scanning myself. What's good about the heavy judo-gi that everyone wears is that blood usually washes out completely after laundering. A few people wear thin karate-gi, and I'm not sure if stains come out of them as easily. If one looks closely at the mats in the dojo, one will see all the faint bloodstains. It's not as bad as it sounds: Usually people bleed because they scrape their feet or fingers on the semi-hard "tatami"-style mats repetitively. That's usually what happens to me. At the end of each class, the students sweep, clean, and vacuum the dojo. When there is fresh blood on the mat, that means a few people have the privilege of scrubbing/blotting until most of it comes out. Not an easy task.
posted by Chad at 2:12 PM
1 Comments:
You wrote:
Due to the large number of students, Irie Sensei sometimes tells one half of the class to practice while the other half sits in seiza and watches. This is good because we don't have to worry too much about restricted space. However, it's bad because we have to sit out.
Well, it's not at all bad to watch other people do technique, you know. "Mittori no Geiko" - learning by watching...
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