Week 6: Grading, newaza shiai & randori

For Week 6, we did not work on new techniques. Instead, we revised some techniques we've been learning in recent weeks.

But before the session began, we had a simple ceremony awarding yellow belt to Kenneth, who has mastered all the techniques needed for yellow belt. Different countries have different syllabuses for belt colors and even different clubs have pretty different standards. I've seen yellow belts who hardly knew any techniques. At KL Judo we've set a pretty high standard. The players are required to know five standing and five groundwork techniques. Plus a set of Japanese terms. Kenneth passed with flying colors. In the coming weeks and months we will have more players "graduating" to yellow belt. I think it's about time. Anyone who sees our videos can see our players are pretty good fighters for white belts. But being a good fighter, of course, is not enough. They must know the techniques in the syllabus. Our ideal is that our colored belts are players who (a) know the techniques (b) fight well. One without the other is not sufficient.

Taping up the fingers ahead of the gripping drills.

Athletic tape is such a necessity when you do competition training.

After the players finished their gripping drills, we had some "hanging" contests.

How long can you hold on?

A good way to test gripping strength

We also did some newaza shiai for the first time.

But we can't end the session without some standing randori and shiai.