After breaking my arm at the start of the year, I had an enforced layoff from judo of 8 months, give or take. In that time I decided to look for a new dojo, motivated not least by a concern that the one I had been attending seemed to have a bit of an issue with injuries.
Perhaps it was just me, but a couple of broken arms, some missing teeth, and some knackered ribs (spread across a few students, not just to me) within a period of a couple of months seemed excessive.
Moreover, I didn’t hear anything from anyone at the dojo, other than the guy who had broken my arm (who was suitably apologetic), which left me a little underwhelmed. The final push was that Maire simply didn’t want to do her judo there any more.
Looking around I decided to give the Mount Vic dojo a spin. So far it’s been a very, very good experience. One big plus has been that there are generally three or four instructors present every night we train, which helps get good quality instruction, and that Alan-sensei has a good focus on a positive attitude and avoiding injury while learning. Another plus for Mai is that there are a few other women attending, who don’t have the same hang ups about getting in close and working hard with a woman that many men do.
(A minus is that the teenage boys are so terrified of the women that they are rather ineffectual with them. Not the women themselves, but of the thought of, horror of horrors, a hand going somewhere it ought not.)
It’s working for me, too. While my standing work is still very ropey (as one might expect), I’m beginning to get the principle of kuzushi, although not usually at the same time as I have all the other ingredients of a good throw in place (given ten practice throws, I’ll usually break uke’s balance a few times, have my grip right a few times, my feet right a few times, and rarely have more than a couple of these overlapping at the same time).
This week we’ve got a visiting sixth dan from the Netherlands who’s teaching a Wednesday night class of kata - starting with naga no kata for us more junior types, and more sophisticated kata for the senior players later on.