There's some days that I go to judo, and it's a good workout, and mostly I just conclude I need to get better at everything. Which is true. But then there's workouts that make me think of really specific issues. Today, I thought of all of this stuff:
- Spider guard: As long as your foot is in the crook of the elbow, you don't necessarily need a hand on the sleeve. You do have to follow their arm when it moves, though.
- Sweeping from guard
- Don't forget to move away from closed guard so you have space to sweep, if that's what you want to do.
- Cross grip (and pull) is critical for sweeping from guard. I used to know this!
- I always sweep with the foot on the outside of the hip, but you can also do it with a butterfly hook.
- Armbar on arm reaching toward your upper torso
- Focus first on flattening uke's arm to your chest, then move your leg around their head/over their arm. If you move first, you'll lose the arm. In some cases, you can get the armbar without even getting the leg around.
- Passing guard by lifting a leg is dangerous if you have your shoulder by their knee because you could be triangled. Need to have the shoulder near their ankle.
- Triangle: You really need to pull the arm all the way through before attempting.
- Harai goshi: For me, easier to get kuzushi for this than for anything else, except osotogari.
- Ippon seoinage: Focus on not leaning over ahead of time. Establish a connection at the shoulder with your back upright. If you lean over ahead of time, you can't pull them all that much.
- Randori
- Gyaku juji jime: Need to push their hip back while choking to break their posture.
- Someone kept pushing on my neck from inside my guard, which is not a choke but is intended to make you move in some disadvantaged way. I just stuck it out and broke down the arms, but I completely forgot about armbarring. Need to remember next time!
- Counter o-goshi isn't working anymore. Maybe I'm ducking down too early?
- Left side (both hands on the left lapel) osotogari worked well. Easy to switch to that from an unsuccessful right side grip attack.
- Had opponent in bent over posture that's a good uchimata opportunity a bunch of times, but I don't think I rotated them enough, and it never worked. Probably forgot to pull the left arm out.
- There's a balance between getting in enough attacks and waiting for the right opportunity. You don't want to move around and let the opponent do all of the attacking. But I need to shift back toward feeling out when someone's balance is vulnerable and do more with my wrists to disrupt their balance in small ways.
- Need to remember to maintain my own posture when attacking.
It could very well be my state of mind going into it as much as what actually happened in the class itself.