I won a medal today!

As some of you may know, back in the day I did a bit of Judo. Pretty much stopped when I left the Army though.
In the second week of Jan I decided to start training again.

After the first 2 or 3 sessions my body hated me, I've not ached like that since basic training or the all arms course. I also discovered that for me, Judo is not like riding a bike - you do forget.

So today after 6 or 7 training sessions I entered my first competition of the new era.
I've had a cold this weekend and that added to the fact that I was fighting guys around 20 years younger made life difficult.
I was far from impressed with my performance, only managed one Ippon throw but I still came away with a bronze medal.

So not all bad, but I know now how much I have to do in training to improve.

Well done DP

I'm considering a return to martial arts myself, like yourself it's been a while but I was 4 gradings from a black belt in Karate at 10 years old !

Nice one Pete, good on ya, showing the youngsters a thing or two.

I took up wing chun a couple of months ago and my body still hates me every week, although I think it's starting to hate me a little less.

Congratulations! It must have been very difficult?

I did judo myself for a very long time: train the younger kids, whent to technical trainings (kata), competition every weekend, untill I injured my knee very bad one day. At the time I was 72 kg, now 7 years later I'm 92 kg . A while back (after 2 surgery's to my knee) I tried to go back, but after the training everything hurted for 2 weeks!

The problem was that all the guys from 7 years ago where still fit and I wasn't and they never backed down with me the first training. They see an old friend back on the tatami who looks fit but isn't

I didn't had the chance to take it easy the first time I went back.

Now, I'm going to start a diet to lose something about 15 kg first. After that I will give it another shot.

Well done DP... An inspiration to us all... It's only been 3 years off for me, but it feels like a lifetime. Maybe THIS spring.

I have a black belt myself............... its leather

Well done Pete!

It is very difficult getting back into a sport that you once did, but give it time to bring your fitness, reactions and suppleness back and theres no reason why you cant be better than you once were Age wont slow you down, it just brings wisdom

I used to box a bit and trained a lot with fighters of the ‘not for sport’ variety. I take my hat off to DP as I know for a fact if I dragged my ageing, slightly flabby and catastrophically unfit carcass into a ring with anybody even slightly competent today I would be on my arse in no time. Even if they somehow failed to hit me I would collapse from exhaustion!!

Well done mate, I’m almost inspired to get off my arse. Almost …….

Thanks for the encouragement guys, it’s been a pretty tough 2 months but at least I have an idea of where I need to improve.

I chose the nearest BJA club to where I live, it’s only 10 minutes drive away and they have their own place with a permanent mat area. What I didn’t realise is it’s a bit of an elite club, in that everyone there is a fairly high grade. I’m not sure that’s by design though as they have been quite happy for me to turn up and train.

There are several guys and girls training there who are on regional and / or national squads.

As I can’t find either my old BJA grading card or my AJA card I’ve started from white belt again. Just as well really as I have most of it to learn again.

Every time I’ve trained I’ve been covered in sweat and gassed for most of the Randori (sparring). At the end of the session we go into the fitness drills – shuttle runs with other exercises thrown in. We can take our jackets off for that, by that time mine is a sweat soaked rag anyway!

They said “Just do what you can and then have a rest.” For the first 2 weeks I did everything the younger guys and girls did in that phase, sometimes just a bit slower! (Apart form press-ups, I’m top dog at them – must be a leftover from the amount I did in the Army.) However, it took me 6 days to recover; the others were training twice a week at least!

The 3rd week I had to admit defeat, cramp in both calves! After a few shuttle “hobbles” I gave in!