Brown Belt Sneaks in Surprise Promotion Mid-Celebration
On Monday, December 30th, 2024, amid the fanfare surrounding Ryan Hanssen’s promotion to “Shodan” or blackbelt a smaller, but no less significant, promotion was issued.
John Long, the man who served as “uke” (the person upon whom a technique is performed; the fancy way of saying living throwing dummy) for the Nage-no-Kata (the performance of a pre-arranged sequence of techniques to demonstrate technical proficiency), was promoted from “Sankyu,” the first rank of brown belt, to “Nikyu,” the second rank of brown belt. Serving as uke for kata is one method of earning a promotion, as doing so properly demonstrates competence, if not mastery of several fundamental skills for any “judoka” (judo practitioner), most particularly “ukemi” (the skill of falling without harm or injury). Serving as uke for any kata requires extensive training prior to even undertake the weeks of practice necessary. It is also a substantial time commitment, as most judo kata are interactive, meaning the “tori” (person performing the technique) cannot practice without the uke being present.
John is an active and competitive judoka, maintaining a an extremely fit physique, in contrast to his laid back and easy going attitude. Outside of judo, he enjoys travel, often spending weeks at a time in Asia, craft beer, comedy shows, and somehow finding time to fit in anime and videogames. On the mat, John is known at the Des Moines Judo & Sambo Academy for his powerful “uchi-mata” or “inner thigh throw,” which can be described as both elegant and text book. Of late, he has been diversifying his arsenal by working on his “seoi-nage” (shoulder throw), and has recently been noticed dropping white belts with foot sweeps.
Mr. Long’s well earned promotion leaves only “Ikkyu,” the final brown belt rank, between him and a blackbelt.
(John is show wearing his brown belt in the associated picture, which is from when he received his Sankyu in April. This is because it appears John snuck out on Monday without getting his picture take. Bad John, old picture for you!)
Great Performance at 2024 Iowa State Championship
Des Moines Judo & Sambo Academy had seven Judoka compete at the 2024 Iowa State Championship, hosted at Teikiatsu Judo in Ames, Iowa, on November 9th, with several wounded members making an appearance to coach and support.
Junior competitors Brayden and Jayce Hanssen each earned silver in their respective divisions after obtaining a win each. Senior women’s medium competitor Olivia McBee also took silver in her division. Josh Pohl, the regular instructor for Thursday evenings, took to mat to claim gold in his division, winning both matches by throw for Ippon. Upon winning his first match via his well honed drop seoi-nage, some crowd member was heard to exclaim “it’s funny when it happens to someone else!” between burst of riotous laughter. Recently joined white belt, but long time wrestler, Christian Wilson was able to claim gold after stepping onto the tatami for the first time and looks to have a strong future in his new found passion.
Lastly, the long standing rivalry between training partners and close friends (some say too close) Logan Ballanger and Jacob van Cleaf had an unexpected upset, with Jacob claiming his first two victories on the competition mat, and the Masters Heavy weight gold medal over Logan. Ballanger found some measure of revenge in the Senior 220+lbs division, claiming victory by pin with Kesa Gatame.