Codex Audentia

It finally happened — the thing that I most feared could throw a wrench in my Judo journey at the Kodokan.

I got injured.

Specifically, it’s in my right wrist (my tsurite, which is all about the wrist action). I also have an injury in my left knee, and minor issues in my right elbow and right knee.

I feel frustrated, I feel angry, and I feel stupid. I also feel grateful.

First, I’m grateful because it could have been much worse. I’m glad that I didn’t break something major, and I can recover without surgery. I’m also extremely thankful to my classmates who think of me and check in with me often to see how I’m doing.

Aside from that, I’ve also been thinking about all the things I could have done to prevent my injuries:

Not neglecting warm ups? More sensible and consistent strength training? Listening to my body and not continuing to train when I first noticed the issues?

This is what bothers me most – not the injuries themselves, but rather the fact that I could have been more responsible.

So here’s what I’ve learned.

1. In Judo, warming up ALL your joints is un-fucking-negotiable.

Judo is an impact sport, and has many explosive movements. The tatami is also much harder than a wrestling mat.

If you don’t warm up (as I should have, diligently), the risks of getting an injury are much higher. Travis Stevens, the Olympic silver medalist in Judo and also a BJJ black belt, said that he never got ONE injury in BJJ — all his injuries are from Judo. That’s how much of a difference there is in the nature of the sports.

Over the last few months, I was one of the guys who came late to class and usually skipped the long warmups. I did a short one, mostly for my legs and spine, but it’s not nearly enough.

Even if you turn up late, you have to warm up all the joints that take a beating in Judo, and it only takes 10 minutes. There are many modalities for this, you have to listen to the experts (I believe the gymnastic prep is the best — they’ve really turned warming up into a beautiful science).

I personally like starting at the bottom and move my way to the top — feet (ankles and toes), knees, thighs and pelvis, spine, wrist, elbow, shoulders, and finally neck. And do some ukemi too.

And if you show up on time for class, of course you’ll do a traditional Judo warm up.

2. Strength training the smart way

For the longest time, my only interest in strength training was motivated by having big muscles that look good, and in being stronger than my competition.

Both were based on my ego. And I was impatient about “results,” thinking that strength was just a few months away.

I had heard from several REAL coaches in the fitness industry that the journey takes years, not months. But I had chosen to ignore their warnings.

I focused on progressive training for push ups, pull ups, and the like — doing low reps, which further irritate the joints.

Here’s what I’d tell myself now:

First, here’s some context for why the fitness journey takes years for most people (especially beginners).

If someone didn’t actively play many sports as a child and well into their teenage / early adult years, then they probably lack an extremely important thing that most people don’t even mention: an athletic foundation.

Athletic foundation has to do less with your muscles, and more with your tendons, ligaments, and joints.

I lack that foundation. I did play some sports recreationally, but I was a chubby kid. I wasn’t an athlete. Therefore, as an adult, I have to first go back to the basics and build the “inner strength” before I can even think about impressive numbers or good-looking muscles. (I’ll talk about my specific training regimen in a bit.)

Now, this might be pseudoscience, but I don’t care. For most “untrained individuals” (i.e. people who are training seriously for the first time in their life), it takes a while to get your mobility and flexibility (and stability) to a level where you’re ready to safely do heavy muscle-building strength training.

Your muscles will get stronger much faster than your joints, and very soon this will cause you to get injured. Two steps forward, three steps back.

Second — and this is a mindset issue — stop setting GOALS for strength or physical transformation.

There are two types of games — finite games and infinite games.

I now strongly believe that physical exercise should be seen as an infinite game, where you simply take it one day at a time and don’t have any time horizon for when or how you’ll achieve certain milestones or goals. In fact, it’s better to stop setting goals altogether (at least removing deadlines).

The fact is that I’m really bad at estimating how long things will take, not just with my physical body but with many other things.

I do have a VISION for what kind of athlete I’d like to become someday, but I’ve stopped putting timelines and targets around it. And instead of progressive strength training, I’m now training for movement quality.

It’s actually much more freeing and enjoyable too. Now I can show up to a workout feeling excited about what I’m going to learn and experience, instead of worrying about how I’ll “perform,” whether I improved enough from the last time, or how far I still am from the next exercise progression.

Here’s a loose description of my new regimen.

1. “Regressive” strength training: I’m following the Convict Conditioning process of starting with simple, high-rep bodyweight movements.

Eg: for push ups, I regressed all the way back to wall push ups, doing sets of 50 push ups each. (Though it would be more accurate to call them “push aways.”)

I actually love them. I can really feel each rep, and they burn really hard, but I’m under no hurry to move to the next progression. I’m going to keep doing them until 3 sets of 50 feel like a walk in the park.

Paul Wade, the anonymous author of Convict Conditioning, calls it “milking the program” — i.e. staying at the same level of an exercise for as long as you keep getting benefits from it. Why the rush to move to more difficult exercises, when the current one isn’t easy yet?

2. Mobility, flexibility, and balance: This is more for my legs and core, but it actually makes the whole body stronger and more coordinated.

I’m following the GMB method, that has a lot of animal movements. Bear walks, crab walks, monkey hops, frogger jumps, etc. Someday I’d like to be able to “hang out” comfortably in a deep squat with my knees close together.

It also includes peacock squats, side lunges, sissy squats, and other great movements that most strength training programs don’t include.

3. More walks outdoors, and a gallon of water per day: this is just for mental well being and for detoxifying my body. My skin has gotten much nicer and I feel less stressed overall.

The interesting thing, is that Coach Wade says that the long way is actually the short way.

If I’d been patiently doing the above routines for the last 2-3 years, I’d be in a much better place now — probably having close to my ideal physique and being able to take on bigger strength challenges, maybe even trying sports like powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting.

I don’t care how long it takes – I’ve realized that the fastest results I’ve ever gotten in life so far were when I had only a distant vision for the future, and then played an “infinite game” everyday until I got there. Taking a really long view is the best for my personality type.

The best games are so enjoyable that you don’t want them to end. The older I get, the more I’m rearranging and reorienting my life around such games.

It finally happened — a month after my humbling first shiai (bout) where I lost by ippon twice within 10 seconds each, I had the opportunity to go again.

Leading up

This time I approached the day from a place of surrender. I didn’t care how it went. If I lost, so be it, I’d continue my Judo journey as it is, with no hurry to progress. If I won (which I had very little confidence in), so be it too.

In my heart of hearts, I didn’t believe I would win. I couldn’t visualize victory. In fact, I only registered for the shiai because a classmate encouraged me to (“This time your chances are >95%”).

The night before the shiai, I played through a few scenarios in my head. Mostly, I planned to play defense first, move my opponent, and hold out. I’d only go for a throw if I saw one.

On the day

I was calm and still in surrender mode. This time, the room was full of test takers — more than 25 people showed up (only 5 people at my grade though including myself).

I was fully prepared to go first this time. But as luck would have it, I got called later! I’m wondering if during my first ever shiai, sensei had called me first deliberately, so that I would have my worst experience from the get go. Or maybe it’s just the way it works in Judo — the lowest rankers / juniormost test takers always have to go first. Somewhat draconian, but maybe it’s for the best!

By the time I was called, thankfully, my first opponent Grant Baker had just had a tough bout and was fairly gassed.

The first bout

As soon as the sensei signaled “Hajime!” it felt like something switched on inside me — I approached him like an attacking player, and was the first to engage.

I took fairly high, tight, dominant grips — on the tricep for the hikite, and a high grip above the collarbone for the tsurite. He gave me a little bit of trouble with grip fighting (at one instance he prevented my right hand from getting to his collar), but thankfully I was able to snap his hikite off and punch-grab his collar.

I also took one of the most effective (and annoying) stances that you can in Judo — I hung onto him with my heels up, transferring like 50% of my bodyweight onto him. It made me quite light on my feet, so I could move around easily. But it made him even more tired than he already was, and unable to move in for any attack.

I moved him around a bit, and tried to go for an ashi-waza a few times. Grant has a habit of crossing his legs when he moves, so I hoped to catch him when he did that. :)

But the sensei suddenly stopped us, and apparently warned Grant for taking an illegal grip on my right hand (apparently his finger or thumb was inside my sleeve). I hadn’t even noticed! I guess that’s the benefit of taking a dominant grip.

We engaged again (somehow I was very aggressive today in taking grips), and the sequence played all over. In the end, neither of us threw the other, and we drew.

The second bout

I was asked to remain, and they called my opponent over — Kudo, a Japanese kid from high school.

I aggressively took dominant grips again. The hanging really works for me, so I felt very safe.

This time I felt a little better positioned to attack, so I played a more offensive game. I went for a few ippon seoi nages. Didn’t get it, but I kept trying to force it through, even switching to a harai or something.

At a certain point, I fell/dropped forward on my knees. I planned to instantly get back up, but this became the turning point in the bout.

We went straight into ne-waza. I tried to hold him off and get an armbar (because he stretched his arms out), but he managed to recover and hold me in kesa-gatame.

I tried to escape in the wrong way — instead of using a proper technique, tried to use strength — but it didn’t work. He held the osaekomi for dear life and won by ippon.

Reflection

1 draw and 1 loss. Didn’t get taken down, didn’t get injured, and didn’t go blank.

The loss wasn’t even embarrassing — I was dominant for most of the bout, played both defense and attack, and only lost because of a couple of easily corrected mistakes and impatience.

But Judo has suddenly become a lot more fun, and my path forward has become a lot more focused. Here’s how.

(UPDATE: I passed the test and graduated to 3rd kyu!)

Narrowing the pool of approaches

As I said in my previous post, there are many many things that I could do to improve my Judo.

But I was looking for how I could apply the 80-20 rule — i.e. finding the 1-2 things that would push me the farthest along the route. And I think I’ve found them:

1) The hanging stance

I’m tall AND lanky (<65kg), so most opponents are either shorter and similar weight but with a stable center of gravity, or they’re of similar height but physically much stronger and heavier.

So transferring my weight to my opponent works well for me. It helps to even the playing field a little, and keeps me light. It’s also fairly easy to do, so I can just make this my default.

2) More focused uchikomi

I’ve found my default stance, but I realized that I haven’t practiced attacking from it.

Attacking from a defensive stance is a little more complicated, because you aren’t starting from a neutral base. First, your feet are behind you, and there’s a larger distance to step in. Second, your weight is already on them — so you have to release the weight before you can apply it again in a different direction.

As soon as you release the hang, your opponent experiences an instant weight shift which creates some kuzushi (i.e. they suddenly go from a little crouch to a more upright posture, and straighten their knees), and you have to practice how to use this momentum against them.

So, going from the hang straight into a waza is the name of the game, so that you can capitalize on this tiny window of opportunity.

The first step is to simply get used to the reaction people have when you release the hang, and do an explosive half-uchikomi (i.e. just close the distance, open their arms up, and get them on their toes ideally). Once I can reliably get kuzushi on people, I’ll focus on how to chain attacks.

My uchikomi just became a lot more directed and motivated!

3) Choosing a few staple techniques

I’ve already been going in this direction, but I’m at the point where I need to zero in on a few techniques that make sense for me, based on the height and weight difference.

The weight shift opens up many interesting possibilities, so the next month of uchikomi against all kinds of opponents will reveal which will be my go-to.

What I can say is that the morote seoi-nage is a tough one for me, mainly because of how some people have very tight gis where there’s a risk of injuring the right hand while turning.

I’m seeing a lot of potential to develop my wrong-side ippon seoi-nage and ouchi/kouchi. and harai or hane-goshi or uchi-mata for shorter opponents. Also sasae and osoto gari.

Conclusion

The biggest issue with learning Judo as a beginner is the large number of things that you can focus on to improve technique, and also how individualistic the sport is.

While learning Japanese, I was able to steadily improve and make tremendous process over time by sticking to a singular activity — reading and listening to native content — and showing up every single day.

In Judo, I didn’t have that clarity of process yet. But now I feel like I’ve found my training process. A lot of the small strategic/tactical things, such as posture, grips, moving opponent, staying relaxed, attacking consecutively, etc are settling in place. But these alone can only take you so far in Judo.

Without good technique and kuzushi, you won’t throw people. And my uchikomi training so far was just not transferring well to randori. But now that I know my starting point for every attack (the hanging stance), and the kind of kuzushi I will have to begin with (the sudden weight shift), I can drill this move a thousand times and build muscle memory.

On to the next mini-chapter of the journey!

Judo is, like any martial art, has infinite variations. Every person has their own style.

Powerful judo, beautiful judo, aggressive judo, fluid judo, surprising judo, deceptive judo.

Judo means different things to every practitioner.

I’ve struggled with randori for a long time, and gone back to the drawing board many times to figure out just what I need to focus on to improve. And the list is endless. There are infinite things you can do to get “better” at Judo.

But let’s dissect that goal once again. What do I really mean by getting “better” at Judo?

The honest answer is a straightforward one: To throw more people, and get thrown less.

No matter how much you tell yourself that randori is about practice and not a competition, nobody likes to “lose.”

The reason we train is to throw with a higher percentage. We train to win, not to lose.

But recently another thing dawned on me: why is it important for me to “win”? What am I really trying to get out of my Judo journey?

I didn’t start Judo because I wanted to get good at technique, or to become more graceful in movement, or to learn to defend myself, or even to get stronger.

I got into Judo to overcome my fear and insecurity about being “weak.”

I wanted to be reborn from the timid kid I was growing up. I wanted to become the kind of person who would face danger head-on — like the superheroes I saw in the comics as a kid.

I started Judo to get better at offense, not defense.

But my approach to Judo training has been completely at odds with this inner goal. I’ve been so focused on protecting my ego in randori (don’t want to get thrown, want to throw the other person), that I forgot to practice the very thing I signed up to Judo for: being able to engage fearlessly with a man of any size or strength.

And the way I train on the tatami should reflect that.

Specifically, it means that when I’m doing randori, I have to confront my fears. This means, going for the attack not in spite of the possibility of being countered and getting smashed to the ground, but precisely because of it.

Like Roger Federer said: he would purposely try to engage with his opponents’ strengths, to push himself to be better. If someone had a dangerous forehand, he would purposefully aim for their forehand and try to beat their forehand.

If what I’m scared of is to be countered and get humiliated, then I have to purposefully aim for such a deep, strong, committed attack that I willingly OPEN myself up to being countered and humiliated.

It all ties into what my sensei told me the very first time I asked him for feedback on what I should focus on: “waza wo kakeru” (apply the techniques).

The most important next step of training in Judo is to go and face my fears in randori.

If I keep training the way I’ve been doing right now, even if I get “better,” I will still be same person I was before I started.

To be honest, now that I think about it, I couldn’t care less about winning in Judo. I don’t care about being the terror of the mats who throws everyone.

What I really want is to feel like a peer of the tough guys on the mat — to have the confidence and character to challenge anyone, and to do brave, courageous Judo that is fearless and demands respect.

So, what is my Judo?

It isn’t strong Judo, or beautiful Judo, or smart Judo.

My Judo is brave, fearless Judo.

So the next time I do randori, I will tell myself that the reason I’m there isn’t to win. It is to live fearlessly and assert myself. And to do that, I must attack — deep, consecutive, powerful attacks that convey that hunger to rebirth myself from the timid boy I was to the fearless man I want to be.

In my last post I reflected on losing my first two shiai in spectacular fashion.

Today, 3 days later, I finally got a chance to randori and put my learnings into practice. We did around 5 rounds.

Here’s what I learned.

Moving your opponent is easy and you should constantly do it

Relaxing my arms, and moving my opponent around, was very helpful.

It’s surprisingly difficult to think strategically and make decisions when the situation is constantly changing around you — which is what your opponent has to deal with when you’re moving them unpredictably. As soon as they decide on a throw (in fact, before), you’re somewhere else!

It doesn’t even take too much movement; in fact, just a few flicks of the wrist here and there do more than enough to keep their brain on alert and prompt a reaction. It’s very instructive to watch when that happens.

Breathe through your nose to keep your stamina

I ran out of gas by the second round, because I was exerting myself. Then I reminded myself to breathe through the nose, and managed to keep the same (weak) pace for the next 3.5 rounds! If only I did that from the start.

Enough said.

Smile during randori

I’m not even kidding. It helps you relax and keep your stamina.

Watch your opponent’s neck

The only times I got thrown were when I was so tired that I stopped watching my opponent, and also stopped moving them around as a result.

Instead of looking at their feet, or worse, your own feet, looking at their neck gives you a view of their entire body. And this is when you find way more openings.

Attack deeper

Partly because of being tired, partly out of looking at their feet, and also partly out of habit, most of my attacks were quite shallow — they didn’t look like the combos we trained in uchikomi practice.

For example: while going for osoto gari, chest contact is essential. You can start from afar, but if you don’t close the distance afterward and connect your chest, it will be very difficult to finish the throw. But I believe I will get better at this with more uchikomi.

As I’ve written about before, every throw requires a certain amount of “space” (or lack of), and if you just keep that in mind, judo becomes much easier as a whole. The more I train, the more I become aware of this fact.

Another aspect of deep attacks is that they should be explosive, and made with the intent to throw. It’s better to wait for an opportunity and then explode periodically than to constantly make little shallow attacks that don’t go anywhere.

A new focus for uchikomi

My best throw in randori will never be prettier or cleaner than my average throw in uchikomi. This fact has become dauntingly clear to me.

For example with the seoi or ippon seoi, I’m good at the basic technique, but as soon as I speed things up a little, my uchikomi form declines considerably and only 4/10 times do I manage to lift my opponent gracefully. I still have a long way to go before I can automatically adjust the distance etc with my opponent and keep doing each move accurately.

It’s painfully obvious that if you can’t enter a throw gracefully in uchikomi, how can you expect to confidently do it in an instant in randori?

In summary: PRESENCE is the way

The main realisation over the last few days is that there is so much that I can improve in Judo before I even have the luxury of complaining how hard it is. Judo is frustrating yes, but it’s not an opaque wall. There is a path, a method to the madness and if I simply improve and keep practising and getting better, the results will come.

That’s why I like what they say on the Kodokan website on a short, dedicated page about “mental requirements” for joining the school: The most important thing is to never give up.

Another big realisation is about PRESENCE. If you can be fully in the moment in judo, fully aware and appreciative of your partner, like in a ballroom dance — completely in tune with every twitch, breath, and step they make — your judo will be ferociously strong. Losing this presence and having your head inside your own ego (“I just want to throw this person, I don’t want to get thrown, I am scared, I want to attack, I will look weak or stupid if I don’t perform, yada yada) is the root of most of my issues.

My journey of learning Judo is helping me get better at life itself.

Let’s keep improving!

Yesterday, I took my 3rd kyu test at the Kodokan. It comprised of two things:

1. A quick demonstration of mae-mawari ukemi (forward rolls).
2. A shiai (competition) with classmates (2 rounds)

Here’s what happened:

I got my ass handed to me — twice — in a children’s tiffin box.

I lost my composure as soon as both shiais opened, in a panicky “throw as soon as you touch them or they’ll throw you” mode. And that’s what happened — I attacked single-mindedly, and lost both bouts within 10 seconds. Mine were the quickest shiais among everyone who took the test.

I didn’t take any time to think. Forgot to get into position, to watch my opponent, to move, and to breathe.

I don’t even know which throw I got hit with. I have no memories of what happened or how it happened.

All I remember is that I went for a big pull, then pushed into a quick fake kouchi (which failed to get any sort of reaction because I was too far from the opponent), and then pulled again into a seoi nage that again failed because I was in a bad position with bad grips.

After the failed attacks, I switched into regroup mode and don’t remember what happened next, just that I played into whatever judo my opponents were doing.

But it wasn’t all a disaster. There were some good parts:

1. Didn’t get injured (my worst fear). I did very good ukemi on both my falls, and sprang back up.
2. My mae-mawari ukemi was the best I’ve ever done (another big fear I had). I’d been working on my technique for the last several weeks, to be able to do it painlessly and beautifully — and it happened to come together yesterday. Still needs improvements, but it’s pretty good.
3. I didn’t feel like I got “outclassed” — I know that I’m much better than my performance yesterday, which means that luck was not a deciding factor. Yesterday’s humiliation has ignited a voracious hunger in me to fix the mistakes I made and come back next time much stronger.
4. Before the test, I helped a couple other people remember the names of throws. I feel good that they performed better because of it.
5. I was well-nourished and hydrated, and properly warmed up before the test.

The next month: turning my judo around

1. Randori, randori, and more randori. Get as much real mat time as I can. At the end of next month, being anything less than feeling completely present and rational in randori, properly observing my opponent and attacking with confidence, is unacceptable to me.
2. Breathe, relax, and get in close. Work on creating the right space for different attacks — close enough for kouchi and kosoto, and low enough for seoi and others.
3. Have a very good posture and get comfortable in the knowledge that you won’t get thrown so easily. It’s better to feel safe and slightly overconfident and be able to do your judo, than to feel paranoid and get paralyzed.

この悔しさをバネに、次回もっと打ち込んで頑張って必ずいい結果を出す。