What a busy month May 2018 was for Southampton City Judo Club! It started with an amazing evening spent introducing the Scouts of 21st Romsey Scout Group to Judo.

The evening was for the Endeavour scouts and they seemed to enjoy their first taste of Judo. Quite a broad range of Judo aspects were shared from sword work (wooden not steel) from Kime no Kata, though to self-defence ( Kodokan Goshin-jutsu ) and of course tachi-waza where some nage-komi was even possible and randori with our Judo coach Lance.

We shared the core values of Judo ( Honesty, Modesty, Courage, Respect, Self-Control, Friendship, Courtesy and Honour) which matched up very well with the core values of the scouting movement and provided a great opportunity for the leaders of the group to highlight the similarities. We have signposted Fleming Park Judo Club for the younger members to attend if they wanted to try more.

The month progressed on with lots happening including our completing our exploration of the Kodokan Goshin-Jutsu and our Sunday sessions will for June be focused on covering the grading syllabus and ensuring everyone knows all the techniques they need for their next belt grading. The hope being to grade everyone we can up before the summer and especially before the student influx when the new academic year begins at Solent University.

This month we have had quite a few enquiries from adult beginners which is always fantastic and their timing is brilliant as the club becomes a little quieter as we head into the summer and more space (and attention) is available. We are also working through technique so again a great time to learn. June 2018 looks like we will have quite a few new people, so if you have not been along for a while, it is the perfect time to return.

Wednesday Uchi-komi sessions are ideal as their is no throwing, but it is a great work-out and fantastic for technique development which will help with the Tuesday and Thursday randori sessions. Sunday remains a relaxed session and in June it is a great opportunity to come down and say what you want to work on and the sessions will be shaped around what those attending want to practice.

Tuesday and Thursday Randori sessions will become a little more mixed this month.

With the students fading away as the academic year draws to a close we lose some of our membership and gain from other clubs that close (either now or over the summer), so expect the Randori sessions to be a bigger mix of tachi-waza and ne-waza. So although the Tuesday will still be our primary throws sessionand Thursday groundwork; both shall have more of the other aspect. This means whatever evening you are able to attend we shall have both standing and groundwork on offer.

Stay tuned for more as we plan to visit some other clubs and host a visit in June/July.