Mizblog

Coach Mark taught this Tuesday morning class, and he followed his theme of judo takedowns for BJJ. Today we learned Harai Goshi, which is a technique where you pull your opponent in while turning your back on them and blocking their outside leg just below the knee with your lower leg, then twist your body to dump them over your blocking leg. We practiced this first from the leg blocking position, then with the entry. Oh yeah, the entry. Starting from half-man with an over-the-shoulder back grip. Your front foot should make an equilateral triangle with your opponent’s two feet. Replace your front foot with your back foot (pointed away from them 180 degrees) while turning your back (obviously, otherwise you couldn’t turn your foot 180 degrees), pulling them close to the side of your chest, and sticking out your former front foot so that it blocks the outside of their leg just below the knee. From there, you just need to twist your upper body to pull them over your blocking leg and dump them down to the ground.

Then we rolled. I started with TJ and he arm barred me, but lauded my defenses. Next was Dave, who I asked to start on mount top so I could practice. I reversed him once, then got stuck and just survived the round. After that was Matt, who was trouble but we had a good roll. Then Jen, who tied up my arm and wouldn’t give it back. We had a fun moment when we were both weakly choking one another. After that was Andrew, who wrecked me. Then for the last 47 seconds of the last round I played with Skyler but we didn’t get much done.