The Judo Thing... Revisited

The year is (roughly) 1985. The place is geography class. Coach Todd catches me leaving class and asks "hey, how much do you weigh?"

"Um... about a hundred pounds, why?"

"We need a wrestler at 105lbs, you ever do any wrestling?"

"No, I haven't."

"It's ok. Practice starts at 4 in the cafeteria. Be there."

"Uhhh, I'll have to ask my dad, but ok."

Flash to the first wrestling practice where coach Todd says "You guys who haven't wrestled before, you're going to be sore in muscles you didn't know you had. This is not a sport for wimps. Spraw drills. gogogogogogogo *SPRAWL* gogogogogog *SPRAWL*"

Well, coach Todd was right. I was sore in muscles I didn't know I had. Now, that was 20 years ago. I thought I was done with wrestling practice. Bzzzzt.

See, before last week, I didn't really know what Judo was. Yeah, I've been practicing Tae Kwon Do for quite a while now, but I had no clue about Judo. I mentioned in a previous post that at my dojo it's now ... er... well... required? ... It's at the least, highly encouraged within the TKD system to have Judo and Aikido skills. Well, now I know what Judo is at it's essence. It's "japanese wrestling." Or at least that's what it feels like. I thought I was done with that kind of soreness back in high school. Well, it's back.

I have honest to god mat burn on my ankle. Real mat burn. Just like wrestling practice mat burn. My ribs are sore and it hurts to laugh. I guess that happens when you're tossed on the ground (thank GOD I know how to fall, or I'd really be hurting) by a 220lb dude. And what's interesting, is that it's not getting tossed around by the big guys that hurts. It's getting thrown by the little guys that'll wake you up.

Some of the more senior guys in the class tell me it takes about six to eight weeks to get up to speed physically. I can believe it. It's so physically demanding that I was asking for an oxygen bottle at the end of class. Keep in mind that I can run 3 miles in about 26 minutes. I imagine part of why it's so physically demanding is that I'm doing it wrong. I'm probably staying too tense, too wound up when I need to just relax and use technique.

We'll see.