Every Wednesday morning, for the past three weeks, we have been going to Judo lessons with Primary 6. We have been learning lots of very sore and hard moves with a man who we call Sensei. We learned a move called “DE ASHI HARAI.” This move is when you take your opponent by the shirt, hold his hand and put your foot over their leg and then you trip them over so that they fall under you.

Before we started our session we always had to bow and say Ree to Sensei. As a warm up at the beginning of the class the Sensei would tell us to run on the spot, do star jumps and we would play a quick game of Monkey Tig. You play this by crawling on your knees and you have to try and catch as many people as you can.

To teach us a new move, the Sensei would chose a child from Primary 6 or 7 to help demonstrate. Usually at the end of each lesson, we play a game to test our reflexes called “Land and Sea” and in this game the Sensei will shout either land or sea. If he shouts land then we have to jump on to the mat and if we hesitate or make a wrong move then we are out. However, if he shouts sea then we have to jump off the mat onto the floor and the same rules apply.

By Daniel and Oliver.