Highlights, analysis, commentary, and Words of wisdom from Hassan’s Shia engagement at the Quebec Open.

Hi,

Had a good time at the tournament.  It has been almost two years since I last competed so it was good/bad (but mostly good!) to compete again. I thought I would share some of my "lessons learned" so some of the other students might benefit from my experience.

Didn’t warm up properly…paid for it with a sore hip and really sluggish first match.

1st match:  Totally forgot how to fight for the first 3 minutes. No stances, no gripping, and no pace. Got picked apart with two ouch-gari’s for minor points.  Finally, body started to warm up and Tony yelled at me … not sure what but I’m sure he said "he’s on his heels". Finally got a kouchi-gari, then faked an ippon-seoinage into harai. Ippon. Whew!

Lesson learned: 
- Warmup.

- Fight with good posture.

- Listen to your coach.

2nd match:

Fought a tall, totally competent right-hander. I did a horrible job of controlling his right-hand and got caught with kata-guruma for wazari. I turned into an armlock attack, but we went out of bounds.

Again, he gets a hold of me and as I attempt to figure out how to get that right arm off my back he fakes uchi-mata and catches me with sumi-gaeshi for another wazari. Darn. Note from Tony: Get that right arm off the back.

3rd match: 

Yay! A left-hander. Right away got my grip and hit him with a hook kosoto-gari. I don’t think it scored. But it got him moving. Bounced him once, ouchi-gari and then yoko tomoe-nage. Ippon. Felt good. So far I’ve got 3 matches for my $50.

4th match:

Fought this right-hander before, and we were currently 1 and 1. I did a lot better job of controlling his right sleeve, but then he would grab my right sleeve as well. I have zero double sleeve attacks in my arsenal. He tried tomoe-nage, which I killed and he became very active in newaza. In fact, this guy loved newaza. I passed his legs and went in for a hold down, but not quick enough. He escaped. Matte. Again with the double sleeve. I though "what the heck" and went for yoko-tomoe nage again. I got him up, but I somehow lost his sleeve and he cartwheeled out of it. I think he beat me by a koka.

Tony’s feedback for me was that I needed a bit more experience and need to work a few more situation-type drills. By the way, he was a great coach. I took a lot from the tournament and definately will be incorporating the lessons learned into training.

Cheers,

…Hasan