Saturday 30/5/15 Session (Open Training/Randori Nite)

We had a few new girls training with us today. Qaini gets them started with warm up exercises.

Wai Kit (in blue) helps get the beginner guys warmed up. In case you are wondering, the guy doing the high splits is not a beginner but a black belt with 16 years of judo experience.

Two brand new male players. Afterwards, they said they enjoyed themselves and will keep training!

Two brand new female players. Will they stay or will they go? I guess time will tell. We hope they'll stay!

We had two foreign guests on Saturday night. Mathieu (middle) is from France. Sven (left) is from Germany.

As usual, we started the session with some video (we turned off the lights to get a better effect and so everyone can stay focused on the screen). At KL Judo, we believe strongly in video -- for motivating the players and also for illustrating techniques. As a competition-oriented club we don't teach theoretical or flashy techniques but real moves that actually work in competition.

There were a lot of beginners on Saturday night. Wai Kit helped to teach them the basics, starting with newaza. Here he is showing them kesa-gatame.

And here, he is getting them to do some drills. At KL Judo, we believe very strongly in drills.

I take care of the senior players and competitors. Here I am briefing them about how the newaza session will progress, starting with newaza technique, then newaza drills, then newaza randori.

Recently, I've been teaching my elite players the "Trap Choke". Since we had two new guests, I demonstrate that technique again.

Sven recognized the technique, which is known as the Toelzer Roll in Germany, named after European Champion and Olympic Bronze Medalist Andreas Toelzer.

Drils, drills, drills. For our drills, I have them do them without resistance, 25%, 50%, 75% and finally 100% resistance. This is how you learn. You have to do the technique with progressive resistance.

Next, I teach them something special, the Huizinga Roll, named after Olympic Champion Marc Huizinga. This move has since been adopted by Asian players, including those from Mongolia and Japan.

Showing Mathieu how to get into position to execute this somewhat complex move. It's not a very intuitive move but it's a very effective one.

The execution involves a combination of a forward roll and a bicycle kick -- that is the best way to describe the movement.

And you end up in this position. It doesn't look like a very strong osaekomi but it is incredibly effective.

Showing Chern Yew how to get into position.

Chern Yew, about to do the "forward roll-bicycle kick" combination movement.

At KL Judo, we believe not just in drills, drills, drills but also randori, randori, randori. Lots and lots of it.

Here, you can see Mathieu in the process of executing a very nice roll against his opponent.

Here, you see Sven going for a very typical, European-styled armlock.

Reza executing an armlock. Did I mention at KL Judo, we are big into armlocks?

We don't do a whole lot of uchikomi at KL Judo. We believe in full throws but not on the tatami. Rather, on crash pads. That's why we have a total of 8 crash pads. Full throws allow the players to learn how to properly execute a throw (instead of just loading them up). Here, the beginners are in a line-up so that tori gets multiple ukes to throw. Best way to learn.

Wai Kit teaches them ippon-seoi-nage, a very good beginners' throw. Notice his lapel grip and straight legs? At KL Judo, we teach them like how it's actually done in competition. None of that sleeve grip and bended knee nonsense!

For the elite players, I got them to work on ura-nage. For this technique to work, you have to boldly hug your opponent tightly.

Ura-Nage is one of the few throws where I think uchikomi is helpful. I have the players practice lifting their partners up with their knees (they have to practice both left and right).

Chern Yew uses his right knee to elevate his partner.

Notice the nice height that Matthew gets through his use of his left knee?

Reza gets his partner airborne with the use of his right knee.

Here is another look at Reza's good use of his right knee to elevate his partner.

Everybody loves a water break.

The players getting ready for the highlight of the evening -- RANDORI!

Our two guests are looking forward to randori too! Sven wears a mouth guard to protect his teeth. He knows it's gonna be a hard sparring session tonight. I am getting all the black belts to fight them, so they will have a good fight on their hands.

But we don't neglect the beginners. At KL Judo, we get the beginners to do light randori as soon as possible. But of course we pair them with very experienced players like Chew.

Note: If you want to see highlights of our black belt randori session, click here.

What a nice, hard, fun workout we had this Saturday. We hope our guests had a good time and will visit us again. Saturday night is Open Training/Randori Night at KL Judo. Everybody's welcome.