Judo Girl

It was a cool night at Jiu-Jitsu.

A normally hot summer evening, with a normal turnout of regular students, but with two new faces in the beginner group.

One was a tall, athletic guy. He seemed nice, but very ordinary for a beginner.

The other new person who showed up was his friend. She already had a gi, as she has significant Judo experience. Somebody said she is a Brown Belt, and somebody else said she had competed nationally. Very cool.

If she is, in fact, a Brown Belt, that would make her about equivalent of our most senior students.

However, Jiu-Jitsu is not Judo. She wore a White Belt, and seemed happy to do so. When I started, I put aside my Shotokan Karate Black Belt and also put on White. Our instructor is a 5^th degree Black Belt in Hapkido, and he also started Jiu-Jitsu as a White.

In the beginner's class, we worked on “Establishing the clinch with an aggressive opponent” and “arm bar from guard”.

The clinch technique is something that a Judo person wouldn't know. In Judo, there are no punches, so why would you have to prepare from somebody trying to knock your block off?

She tended to stand too close. Perfectly normal for somebody who is used to opponents who walk up and grab. She corrected when told, but tended to revert to closer range. Interesting.

The forward movement to grab the puncher is done very quickly, and she did that very well. However, there is a hell of a chance of eating a punch while doing so. Therefore, we do the blitz in with our arms covering our head as much as practical. Judo girl shot forward with her arms outreaching to clinch immediately.

We shoot forward, hands up, impacting the puncher's chest with our elbows, then clinch. We get close before the grab, protecting the entire way, and with a big of a football style impact into the opponent's chest. Her instinct was to shoot in, arms wide, and clinch immediately.

After one correction, she did it perfectly.

She did our “arm bar from guard” move perfectly on the first try. I bet we do it a tad differently, but nothing earth shattering.

I don't know if either or both will return. I sure hope they do. Likely she will be able to absorb the beginner curriculum very quickly.

Besides gaining two new people, why do I care?

Before class started, she did a few flying break falls to warm up. She does them better than anybody in the joint, including our instructor. I suspect that her Judo skills are darn fine.

I would really, really like to become good at throwing. If you rate arts on their ability in this area, Jiu-Jitsu rates as maybe a 5, and our instructor's other art maybe a 7. Judo is a big old 10.

For example; we have a hip throw. Judo has 11 versions of hip throw.

I hope she keeps coming, and that I can talk her into Judo-ing up my throwing. It's also just cool to refer to moves with Japanese names. Calling it, “O goshi,” instead of “hip throw,” is neat.