This really cocky new kid showed up at judo last night, at the fundamentals class. That doesn’t happen very often. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone come in with ‘tude.

I don’t think he’s brand new, or he’d be working on his breakfalls and rolls with his own instructor instead of working out with rest of the class. However, he hadn’t been around long enough to lose his inflated sense of ability. The kid, who I’d guess was eighteen or nineteen, went on about how he was a natural, talked up all the high school wrestling he did, and generally screwed around a lot. He kept trying wacky moves instead of working on the technique being taught.

The head instructor of the judo club happened to be teaching that night, and he noticed. The sensei’s a friendly guy, so I wondered how he’d deal with this. However, he teaches a lot of classes, so I should have been able to guess that this was not really a new situation for him.

First, he agreed to roll with the kid during a water break. He ran over him, but while he stopped to talk to someone, the kid jumped on his back. The sensei took it with good humor and turned around and choked the kid, with what looked like ryote jime.

Later, he made sure the kid got opponents for newaza randori that he was sure would give him trouble. First up, a black belt who happened to be on a rampage that night, so I’m sure the kid got run over plenty during that round. Then, me.

I have to admit, I was pretty honored to be trusted to run down this arrogant young fellow. It’s a weird feeling because I’m proud of this, yet I’m embarrassed to be proud because I know it’s a rather trifling thing to be proud of. I am, after all, ranked as a green belt. I should be able to handle a cocky white belt.

(If we went by the commonly accepted translation of schadenfreude as “shameful joy,” this would be a wacky new form of schadenfreude! However, it appears that schadenfraude actually comes from the German words for damage and joy, not shame and joy. So, no convenient German word for this one.)

The kid actually tried slamming me a couple times, Rampage-style, while he was in my guard. Then, he was told that that’s not allowed in judo. It didn’t matter, though. Here’s the thing about slams of that sort: They don’t really do anything if you can only lift your opponent a foot off the ground.

He had a lot of energy but didn’t really know how to use it. So, I mounted, choked (made him pretty uncomfortable but didn’t have the patience to finish it), then armbarred him. There was also a pin somewhere in there. Sensei passed him to another green belt after that. I moved on to weather a rampage from the aforementioned rampaging black belt.

At the end of the class, the kid had chilled out some. He even volunteered to take on post-class vacuuming duties. It appears that movie-style two-hour humblings really do happen once in a while.

Tags: judo

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