Girl on Girl Action
30 Aug 2006
On August 27th, Thomas competed in his first Judo tournament. He has been studying Judo for about a month now and, to our delight, he won a trophy at his first tournament (though, to be fair, he was twice the size of the only other guy in his belt category). Way to go, honey! (see the video).
The Judo tournament took the entire day because they had two separate tournaments. One was specifically for Black Belts - Adults only. There were some decent fights and I got a video or two of the best ones. In this tournament the competators fought on teams of three with team-based scoring based on wins. After a break for lunch, a new tournament started for all belts and all ages and genders. This was an individual-win tournament with best friends fighting best friends and trophies given out at the end. The best part of the younger fighters were the girls, who were full of so much more energy and enthusiasm towards the fight than the boys, yet hugged eachother once they got out of the ring. It was also pretty amusing to watch them put Jerry Springer fighters to shame with hair-pulling and clothing-ripping. I put two of these videos up for your viewing pleasure (video 1, video 2).
The rules are pretty simple, as you can see by watching the videos. Each match is timed in case neither fighter can score an "ippon" (full point), in which case the fighter with the most partial points (awarded for techniques not quite worthy of full points because of insufficient technique) wins the fight. There is no "TKO" in Judo because there are no fists in Judo. All fighting is done with grabs, flips, and pins. In order for a competator to win, the winner must flip the other fighter on his or her back, maintain a pin for 25 seconds, or force the opponent to tap out. Also, the fight is stalled with the word "Matte" and resumed back at the starting lines whenever the fighters go outside the bounds of the ring - usually signified by a red square. Fighters are generally matched by belt class (white, brown, black) and age class (youth, adult), but sometimes exceptions are made for exceptional fighters. Also, females only fight other females at this level of Judo.
It was a long day for a pregnant woman sitting on hardwood floors, but it was a very educational and fun experience. I'm glad I am able to share my videos with you.