Blue Judo Gi's

I now have two blue judo gi's and two white ones. My boyfriend, Jerry, got me a HSU double weave competition gi for my birthday, and it finally got to his house today. I picked it up and wore it tonight at practice. Oh, it was great!!! I love blue gis!!!! I don't know why, but I do!!! The other one I bought myself on Saturday and wore it to both Saturday's practice and Monday's practice.

My sensei is getting club patches for our gis and he's also getting our last names for the backs of our gi jackets. I'm getting this done to one of my white gis and my blue competition gi. I can't wait to see how that turns out. I also ordered a t-shirt. Now, I get to show my dojo some love (and advertise at the same time.)

Tonight was the last scheduled practice before the Kevin Book Tournament at UF. That's this coming Saturday. I am a little nervous about this because I'm not fighting in the weight class that my sensei wants me in and that he feels will be safer for me. He says there's a girl in my current weight class that he says has "bad judo". I can't remember what he says she does other than delibrately falls on people, but what is bad judo? I'm still trying to learn the "good" stuff. I almost hope she doesn't show up to this tournament..........

The guys in my dojo are pretty brutal. They kept pulling my gi over my chin trying to choke me. I don't know whether it was them being brutal or I was properly protecting my throat. I think maybe it was the latter of the two, but what do I know? (LOL) Of course, that's also what I get for being one of two girls in the adult class.

I think I realized tonight why I don't like being thrown. I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that I can see the mats when I'm on someone's back. No throwing was done tonight, but during the exercise mentioned below, I noticed that when I was on my partner's back and looked down, I got tense, anticipating the rest of the throw. When I closed my eyes and tucked my chin, it wasn't bad at all. (Something I have to remember for later.....)

I ended up helping teach some of the new kids tonight. These guys are so new, they don't even have gis yet. Sensei wanted us to practice getting our hips in for ogoshi, and I had no partner because he had to leave early. I like to help teach because it helps re-enforce what I know.

I think after the tournament we start practicing for belt testing. I think my sensei said something about that, but I've been so scatterbrained lately, I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I'll be an orange belt then. One step closer to that black belt I want so bad.