Judo Club, Day 2

This is going to be a little disjointed, as I’m a little rattled from overexerting myself and being tossed around and whatnot. By the way, eating a pound of ramen a half hour before physical exercise is bad plan. Just so you know.

Tonight was my second practice with this judo club. I had to sit out for a while ‘cause I was starting to get a little faint (目が回る = “eyes are spinning”). These guys are pretty hardcore. As in, the girls that weigh half as much as I do are about as strong as I am in the upper body. I may not be musclebound, but I consider myself fairly average for someone my size.

Tonight, I found out why I haven’t gotten a single throw to execute on any one of them without them very obviously giving it to me. I should start at the beginning, though.

Now, my luggage was overweight to begin with, so there’s no way I could’ve packed the amazingly heavy gi into my luggage, even if I had one. So I came here, and they’ve got a box full of various sizes of gi for visitors (and new members who haven’t yet bought their own) to use. All the belts are old black belts, so I’ve been wearing a black belt during practices, which is sort of embarrassing, but you have to have a belt. I figured this was normal, and pretty much everybody was just wearing a black belt ‘cause it’s what was lying around.

Ha. Ha. F-hah.

Turns out that the people there have, on average, been practicing judo for ten years. One of the girls has only been doing it for two years, but she’s apparently good enough that she’s a probationary black belt and I think she’s the youngest, judo-wise, by at least five years.

I’m not sure that got the point across.

TEN YEARS.

Let me remind you (or inform those that don’t know) that I practiced judo almost ten years ago for a little under two years. Against my will. (Don’t worry, it’s fun now)

Needless to say, the only thing I’ve been able to successfully do is stuff that I am probably only getting away with because I’m a gaijin. I gi-choked someone into tapping out once, got an armbar on someone else, and managed to pin one guy once, but that’s all matwork, which is sort of my specialty, and with that said, I was still only succeeding at stuff they’re not used to defending against. Don’t worry, everything I did was legal, even within the pansy American rules.

Now, all of that said, I’ve been pinned twice myself, and I would’ve lost to time one other time, but I’d say that’s pretty damned good, given the opponents. Oh, and a I sat on one guy. Totally BS’d a technique out of nowhere, picked ‘em straight up off the ground, and sat down.

Did I mention I weigh about 50% more than the heavier guys in there?

Anyway, it was fun. They said I can take pictures next time, so you can look forward to them my Thursday, which is America’s Wednesday.

I wanted to get that off my chest, so thanks for listening, assuming you got this far.

Zzzzz….