Working with Juniors

I've had many opportunities to work with juniors in the past year or two. In part because of the surplus. In another part, because I have not been ready to test, so my time had to be occupied somehow. Any time on the mat is a chance to learn something new, but I was surprised as to what I learned by working with the juniors.

Since juniors have not typically been able to teach me as much, somewhere along the way I decided that I would be most entertained by playing games with them. Usually, I'll grab their leg as they walk away carelessly after pinning me. Or I often like to squirm out of a ground lock to show them that it wasn't completely working. Always fun, but somewhat linear. They know what I'm doing, expect me to do it and either react accordingly or just get used to saying things like "I should have seen that coming". That game mostly serves the function of telling juniors that I can't be trusted. A lesson that I wish they would learn sooner rather than later.

Recently I developed a new game which does something a little different. As the junior rank began to get better at Ukemi, I started finding it funny to throw them in increasingly wacky angles. Nothing too extreme, but a throw that requires some adaptation. Later, I would lead them away from the expected position only to see/hear/feel their response & then bring it back for them. Not surprisingly, they soon became capable of taking back their positioning once they felt it slipping away. Which is a pretty impressive feat! I'm not convinced that they know that they're doing it as they do it, but it's nice to see it happen nonetheless.