Judo By Con Griffin A London Champion

1973 B.J.A

My Favourite Hold-Down

Kam-Shiho Gatame

In London in 1967 myself, my brother Chris and sister Bridget were members of a Judo club near Warrington Road. The club had an instructor by the name of Bill Harbo. I had been wrestling for 3 or 4 years and felt that I was quite experienced and was also interested in doing extra training and wanted to start a new sport.
My sister introduced me to the club at the time and it had been running for some years before that. Myself and my brother Chris went a long to join the club. We signed up for 2 evenings a week, Mondays and Fridays.
Thursdays was ladies evening as at the time males and females did not mix, although at a later stage they did. The club was made up of mostly local Londoner ' s and Jamaican ' s who were the predominant immigrants. Chris and myself were the only two Irish pupils. Bill Harbo was a real gentleman instructor.
He understood all of the theory, was a very good instructor and was gentle in his approach towards Judo. He understood all of the Japanese theory and the culture that goes with Judo. He was a stickler for that type of formality.
As we got in to the Judo we had another instructor called Barry Baldock.
He was the opposite to Bill Harbo in his attitude towards Judo and had recently been promoted to Black Belt.
The other students and I quickly christened him the ‘ Bombastic Bulldog ‘ . Barry was an ex-Royal Marine Commander who behaved very much as if he was still in the Commandoes and we were his Squaddies.
He used to shout and roar, “ come on, come on, come on, “ like a real commander. He weighed about 17 stone and was 6 foot 1 in height. He was very good at groundwork judo in that he was very strong and he would take line ups.
There were 20 of us in the club, he would line us up and take each of us on, one after the other.
One evening he lined us all up for groundwork. Bill was there and he was acting as referee. Barry took us on one after the other.
We were all young at the time, in our early 20 ' s. There was a big strong West Indian lad of Jamaican origin. He was very heavy at 12 and half stone and it took a lot out of Barry to pin the Jamaican down.
I was next in line for Barry and weighed about 12 and a half stone myself, so Barry was the heavier. However, I had the added advantage of wrestling experience that was going to help me on groundwork Judo.
This form of Judo competition is done by 2 men sitting down back to back on the mat.
The referee would clap his hands, which was the signal to go. We would turn around quickly and start wrestling. We had a hard tussle for about 30 seconds and I managed to get Barry underneath, I was on top. Barry had shown me a move earlier on that evening when his opponent would come on top to slip his thumbs in the back of the judo belt, and with an upward movement like a bench press he lifted the opponent off him and threw him to one side. He did this move on me when I was on top.
I had a good hold on him so he got his thumbs in the back of the belt to demonstrate the move to the students.
He shouted to the students at the time “ look at this, this is what I have instructed you on earlier.
This is how you get out of this one. ” As he pushed up the arms the belt came away, it had worked its way loose, and it came away in his hands
. Barry at this stage was frustrated and wondered what next to do as I had out fought him on ground judo. Bill shouted to Barry “ don ' t treat this guy just as an ordinary white belt. “ Barry bowed out after that, he tapped the ground in a signal of defeat and he asked Bill to have a go and try to succeed where he had failed.
Bill was not as hard a man as Barry so I had very little trouble in pinning him down. Some of the students had a great laugh that night. Chris would have been pleased if I had come off second best but that night I was in good form, I had pinned down both black belts.
Barry taught in the Warrington School for a couple of years until finally he got his own club in Swiss Cottage, which he called the Camden Judo Club. Barry intended to make it one of the best in London and he brought a long a lot of his students from the Warrington School and several other clubs. He encouraged me to come a long to Swiss Cottage on the opening night. Some years later he entered me and some others in to the London Championships at Newham Town Hall. Most of the other club members were beaten early in competition. At lunchtime, the championship was about half way through and I had played and won 3 competitions, gaining 10 out of 10 for hold downs. A hold down is one way you can win in Judo and a 10 out of 10 points win is equivalent to a knock out in boxing or to a complete clean throw in judo.
As the day wore on I was still pinning each opponent as they came. At 3.00, I had gone through 5 opponents. Keith who was from a rival London club was a young, tall, judo competitor and he was an outstanding stylish player. Up to now he had equalled points to me, meaning that he had beaten 5 opponents by means of throwing. His favourite throws were Harai-Goshi or Tai-Otoshi.
The time came for me and Keith to compete. We were both concerned about one another and had mutual respect. The referee gave the order Hajime to begin. Keith turned in for his usual Harai-Goshi. I counted him by squatting low and taking him back on to the mat using a sacrifice throw. I did my favourite groundwork hold down which was Kam-Shiho Gatame.
This means I am top with my two elbows under his arm pits gripping his belt and turning his head to one side with a quick flick of the mid ribs area. When turning his head to one side this meant that I could control it to prevent him from bridging. Whichever way I would turn his head I would concentrate all my power and weight to the opposite side, controlling and knowing that he could only turn one particular way.
This went on for some time and Keith got a half point with a half throw, so we ended up with half a point each.
It meant that I had held him for half the time and got a half point and he had done a half throw, which was called a Wazari.
At this stage when Keith turned in for a Tai-Otoshi I squatted low and took with my left foot to the back of his left heel, this move took him back to the mat again and I secured my favourite Kam-Shiho Gatame on him. This time the referee counted the full 30 seconds when I scored a full Ippone (meaning one point in English). Keith was choked, having lost. I must say I felt a little sorry for him, as he was a very stylish and good judo player, also very popular with his followers.
Keith came to me afterwards, shook my hand and said “ fair play to you Paddy ” , you ' ve done it. ” But he said “ you are in trouble in the finals, you are up against Brown who is the all English champion and I don ' t give much for your chances against him.
He is also a very good groundwork judo player. ” I had grown in confidence at this time and I said to Keith “ Don ' t worry about him, I will beat him. ”
In the finals there was a young Jamaican man, called Brown who later represented Britain in the Olympics. I pinned Brown early in the session and I became the London Individual Q Grade. Champion Later on that year at the Renchard Inn Club at Great Portland Street I captained the team for Camden Judo Club, it was a 3 man team. We also won the competition that year. So in one year we won the Individuals and the Team events. The following year we defended the team title at Swiss Cottage, Camden Judo Club.
The same year I also captained the team which included Sam Roseville from Africa and Bill Broderick who was a Londoner.
We also won that competition 2 years in succession. Barry was over the moon with this and was delighted that his club had been so successful. Barry and myself were still rivals on the mat, he would sometimes get the better of me in a night ' s training.
In 1973 there was a man in London called Dave Starbrook who had returned from the Olympics as a Silver Medalist. Barry decided that Dave and I would have a ground work competition to take place in Swiss Cottage on a specific date. Barry felt confident that I would win the competition so he organised a London Ground Work Judo Competition and invited people from clubs all over London.

On the night of the competition, Dave failed to turn up. So Barry awarded me the winner on a walk over. At that time Barry had become a Free Mason. He was an Electrical Contractor and had lots of men working for him, but that year he had branched out in to property speculating.

That was one of the many years that there was a boom but then there was a bust in the property market and Barry lost a lot of money.

I had known Barry for some years when Barry suffered a heart attack and since I have lost track of him. A decade and a half later I heard through my son in law Stephen who was involved in Judo in London, that there were some people still talking about Con the Plasterer, so I had made some impression as that was the name they called me when I was in Camden Judo Club. Stephen said he was surprised to find out that it was me that they were talking about.

At that stage I had gained enough points to be a Third Dan, but there was a lot of theory involved and lots of formalities, so I never officially took my grade. I have not done any Judo now for some years and I am sorry that I did not have the same success with wrestling which was my first preferred sport. In wrestling I never achieved the same as I did in Judo which was my second preference. It was a great experience to be involved in Judo in London as it took me in to places to meet new people that I would not normally have met if I had not been involved in the sport. Most of the people were foreign nationals, and as an Irish person it was a good experience to be involved in something different as the English and Irish tended to socialise in the pub scene.

Don ' t get me wrong I did enjoy a good drink and dance myself but being a member of the Judo scene gave me the opportunity to mix with different social cultures and to meet many interesting people.

I also had the opportunity to get to know some Free Masons and they are about as far away as you can get from Irish culture. I have met some very nice people who were involved in the Masons including Barry, who gave me many a break in business and I found him very helpful and un-begrudging.

I have also seen the other side to the people in the Masons. I have seen the National Front side, a very nasty side that hated you for very little reason. But I knew too many people like Barry and I was too much of a good mixer for it to effect me. I could mix with the best of them. Even some of the worst could accept me and I had no problem getting on with all types of pople.