Ready or Not

Sonya

Despite my reluctance, I guess I'm going to have to add the label "teaching" to this blog, because I taught women's Jiu-Jitsu class again yesterday, and unlike last week, this time I did have a new student! It was one of our green belt Judoka, Sonya, so at least I already knew her, and she already had some knowledge. One day last week I saw her before she went to Judo, and I invited her to come to women's Jiu-Jitsu class. Little did I know she would actually show up yesterday, and that Amy would still be sick!

Sonya requested to work on Jiu-Jitsu techniques that she could use in Judo, so I had to scratch my lesson plan and come up with a new one.  The last Sunday of the month in women's class is usually no gi, and I'd planned on doing a lot of cross-facing, neck-cranking, and calf-cutting! I figured guard would be a good thing to work on with Sonya, and although she did have a basic knowledge of it, she didn't really know how to pass, or how to do any subs from there.

Since we focused on guard one of the things we practiced was, of course, my fave, sankaku-jime. Sonya didn't think she would be able to do a triangle choke because she has short legs, but she was able to lock it up. As long as you can do that, shorter legs can actually be beneficial, because there's less room to escape. Sonya's triangles were nice and tight, and she seemed to really understand the mechanics when I explained it to her.

I felt a little more comfortable in the teaching role yesterday, but my class was still somewhat random and unfocused. Skyler said she thought I didn't spend enough time on each technique, and that I tried to fit too much in. I think this is a common mistake many new teachers make, maybe because we don't want our students to get bored, or we want to teach them as much as possible.

Sonya said she felt like she really learned a lot, so hopefully that is true. After class I told her this was only the second time I've ever taught Jiu-Jitsu, and she seemed genuinely surprised, so I thought that was a good sign. I welcomed her to come back any time (preferably when Amy is teaching ;) and she said that she was interested. Watch out, Judo...your women are being tempted by the dark side!