My first coach, Gary Wilcox, earned his Judo Black Belt at the Kodokan while stationed in Japan with the US Marine Corps. Gary was a BIG guy, and a tough as nails former wrestler (and later AAU Sombo National Champion and CT wrestling coach of the year). I learned that he was very good friends with Yas Yamashita after seeing a picture of the two of them training together. It was very obvious to anyone training with Gary that he had mastered his good friends famous Uchi-Mata: a move I was on the receiving end countless times. Much like the clock choke, his other tokui-waza, he did not enter into the technique gently! He liked to describe Judo in terms of Sumo to help us understand that while Judo is described as the “gentile way”, it was anything but. While training could be done in a way to benefit everyone, when Judo’s efficiency was combined with power the results were like a 1+1=3 equation.
Although I didn’t have the same aptitude for the throw that he had (perhaps because I was not built like a football lineman) I did take away a number of valuable lessons. I think the most important of which was: take my time setting up, enter deep, get my head DOWN and my leg UP ,and, crucially: anticipate counters. Somewhere along the way I added a trick I picked up from Greco, which was to turn my opponents far-side wrist: locking their elbow in place (this small trick is so clever and helpful, not only for throwing but also hand fighting from the guard while setting up triangles). I also began to find some finesse after training with a few other notable martial artists.
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