Mizblog

It was a very small class today. Just me, Andrew, and Matt as students, with Mark, Christian, and Greggo as instructors. Pretty good instructor to student ratio!

We started with an informal bow-in (just a circle of hands and 1-2-3-Oos!) We then did a couple of 8 minute flow rolls. First was with Greggo, and he coached me a bit on getting the over-under when securing the back. Next roll was with Andrew, and he walked me through the butterfly guard sweep.

After that, we did a few rounds standing, with maybe 30 seconds max on the ground before standing back up. I started with Matt and we actually went kind of hard. I was bad at cooperative randori. I found this out when I next went with Mark. He described it as “holding mitts” for me. He chastised me for playing an outside game. Instead, he said I should just get some grips and work with those. Of course I didn’t take him down once, but I did make him laugh when I attempted a makikomi. I guess he likes those.

Then we did some drills with the hip toss. We all lined up on the crash pad and took turns hip tossing everyone twice. That was fun. You’re really just squatting their hips and then rolling them off the side of your hips.

After that, Christian taught us Osoto Gari. We practiced that a few times, then we did another drill with the elbow and over-the-shoulder back grips, where we would first do kazushi and then osoto gari, then with the same grips we’d do the hip toss. You can get the grip and do them in combination, too!