Judo

I haven’t written much about Judo since I busted my shoulder. That’s because there hasn’t been much to write about. I go to work out, when I’m not on the road, and I say things like “no throws for me, bum shoulder” a lot. Along the way I’ve gotten a lot better. I’m perhaps 90% strong and flexible in that shoulder, and it doesn’t even ache anymore. Lately, I’ve taken to doing a lot of shoulder rolls and controlled falls in an attempt to get it to whine. No dice. The thing that really gets the shoulder, though? Backpacks. Going two-strap for any substantial length of time is a one-way ticket to next-day-sucks ville.

Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about me for a minute. I went to a Judo tournament and kept score today. It was fun. You learn a lot keeping score … the refs tend to call a point – but you’re left to determine on your own who scored said point. Now naturally there’s a right answer. The refs know it, the players know it, the coaches know it … and the scorekeeper is expected to know it. I knew it about 90% of the time. The remaining time, I guessed right about 50-50. So, there were a couple of times where I was like “oops” and hit the “undo” button.

Anyway, here’s video of a really good judo player as seen from the scoring table. Observe how he throws exactly one attack during the entire match. “One point,” or “Ippon,” indeed.

— UPDATE — link corrected. Thanks atgatg.