Defend Your Child Against a New School Year

As every parent prepares their Children for the new school year there is always plenty of advice. I therefore hesitate to offer this little tidbit but just in case it helps someone I received this article in my email from a very trusted people called "Starting-the-School-Year---The-Kidpower-Way--Seven-Steps-to-A-Positive-Experience"

It does just what it says and offer Seven ways to help you child safely adjust to the new school year. The advice is simple and easy to put into action.

1. Take a realistic look at your child's emotional school-readiness. 

2. Be clear about both safety and learning expectations.  

3. Make a plan for potential problems.  

4. Stay in touch with what is going on.  

5. Offer support to your child's teachers and schools.  

6. Prepare your children to set boundaries and to advocate for themselves.

7. Advocate for your children when things go wrong.  

Even if any of these sound the slightest bit complicated trust they are not. Read the article and try them.

 

A Standing Armlocks

I like the idea of standing arm locks but I have never been able to pull one off in competition. They seem to me to be a great tool to develop.

This arm lock was sent to me some time ago and I really like it thought I never got to use it but I thought that I would share it.

The time to use it is when someone has a grip on your left lapel near your collarbone, and is holding you fairly close, so their arm is bent at the elbow. Take your left hand and slide it up so your wrist is between his wrist and your body, with your fingers pointed up towards the ceiling (palm facing to your right). This gives uke the feeling that you're resisting the grip, but weakly--so it doesn't seem suspicious, but also doesn't seem threatening.

To do the armlock, quickly turn towards your left and simultaneously slip your right arm up between his elbow and ribs, so your right hand should go up past his shoulder level. Quickly join your hands palm to palm and straighten your arms at the elbow--you've got him in standing ude-garami.

A couple of important points: the turn is important, as is making sure you get the angle just right, or else uke can escape by just straightening his arm and wriggling away.

One sensei said it was one of his "secret weapons" when he was in tournaments...just about everyone would watch out for his seoi-nage, so this was one of his techniques he could pull out of the blue when someone had him too well scouted. :-)

Enjoy

         Richard

Shimewaza - How Effective are Strangles

I came across these two interesting articles.

Don't be put off a by a bit of Russian martial-art proselytizing at the start, its worth continuing.

They really goes into the anatomical perspective on the various ways strangles work, common misconceptions, and a bit of what you can do when in the predicament. (eg. how breathing techniques can decrease the effectiveness of strangulations and buy you a little more time to fight).

It would be great to try to remember some of it next time I'm stuck in Sankaku. The problem is that as far as I can ascertain from Doctors and other medical people that I know the basic premise is just not True.

It turns out that is is perfectly possible and in fact all too easy to squash the carotid arteries. So why do I pass this information on, because some of the information is useful in that so long as you are using good muscle control to protect the carotid arteries you can actually increase the length of time you can manage a strangle with good breathing technique its just not the amount of time the author would like it to be.

Anyway Give the breath strangle a read but check it out with your local Medico before you put any of it into action.

This is my Judo Suit and some Kicks

Martial Arts Supplies Quality Martial Arts Gear, Equipment, uniforms & shoes

Pure frivolity really to show this. I have no idea where this child comes from or who he is, but good on him for showing off what he loves.

I've had to learn the hard way that it is not always prudent to tell anybody that you do martial arts of any kind. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be proud of your achievements.

It took me a long time to sort out how to balance the above  seemingly opposite points of  view and a lot longer to work out how I should communicate that to my students. After all what's the point of learning something and then telling nobody what you know.

We do not want our Judoka to keep secrets because that implies there is something wrong with what they are learning: but at the same time we don't want them unwittingly putting themselves in dangers because the tell the wrong person. I'm sure an Martial artist knows what I mean

Eventually I managed to come up with:
"Be Proud of What You Achieve in Judo But Be Careful  Who You Tell"

Enjoy the video:
           Richard

Jigaro Kano & Ju No Kata

You know I'm sure everybody in the whole Judo community has seen this by now but I just get a kick out of it so much that I decided to share it again. I think it is really net to be able to watch or founder perform this classic Kata.

There is a disturbing element however when watching Jigaro Kano doing Ju No Kata, under todays rules this, our most famous of all Judoka, would probably not win any Kata contest.

It's a bit ironic really that times and rules have changed so much that the man who started it all would have to do retraining in this Kata were he around today.

I'm not exactly sure whether the change in rules are an indictment on modern judo or if it's just a sign of the sort of growth that Shihan Kano would be proud of and to some degree I don't really care, it's still pretty net to watch.