Judo champ Harrison teaches her Olympic-level sport

WAKEFIELD – Kayla Harrison paced across the mat, looking at the adults on the sidelines, including me, who seemed a bit reluctant to join her for a judo lesson on Saturday.Perhaps you couldn’t blame us for hesitating. After all, Harrison is the first-ever American to win an Olympic gold medal in judo, achieving the feat at the London Summer Games in August. Judo, a martial art developed in 19th-century Japan, involves throwing your opponent. We had just seen her demonstrate how to do this with fellow judokas (judo participants) at Pedro’s Judo Center in Wakefield.Harrison persevered with us, urging us to come onto the mat. And when she saw that I had already taken off my shoes, she more or less sent me to join in the lesson.Thus far I had been an observer at an open house at the dojo (martial arts studio) run by Lynn native Jimmy Pedro, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist and coach of Team USA in London. I had watched Harrison lead a kids’ class for the many youngsters who showed up. What lay in store for us adults?Harrison started with warmups. We jumped between the bars of a ladder on the mat. The warmups got more challenging as we did “ski-style” diagonal leaps across the bars. At one point Harrison reminded me to keep my feet together.Then it was time to learn how to fall. You need to do it backwards, tucking your head toward your chest. As the middle of your back hits the mat, your legs need to be up in the air, you need to slap the mat with both hands, and it helps to yell ? that way, you don’t get the wind knocked out of you, we learned.Harrison showed how to fall from a squatting position, then had us stand up, sink into a squat, and fall.”It’s the first thing you learn in judo to protect yourself,” Harrison told me later about falling. “It’s the most important lesson.” She added that once people understand how to fall, “you’re able to unleash yourself as an athlete.”Part of that unleashing involves throwing your opponent. Harrison demonstrated how to send a foe toppling backward onto the mat, a multi-step process involving a sleeve grab, a shoulder grab and a movement of your leg against your opponent’s to bring them down.Harrison had us all find a partner and line up facing each other to practice the same techniques she taught. Perhaps to our collective relief, we were not asked to take each other down.Still, Harrison said during a subsequent Q&A, it was this take-down element of judo that attracted her to the martial art.”It’s one of the best forms of self-defense out there,” she said. “A small girl against a 200-pound man can throw him. It’s very, very easy for her to do that.”Audience members got to handle her gold medal (“I trust all of you,” she said, and deadpanned, “Don’t steal it, because I know judo!”) and ask about the final match against Gemma Gibbons of the UK.”She had an amazing day,” Harrison said. “I had a little bit better of a day.”The audience asked whether she was considering a career in mixed martial arts, or MMA, and she said, I don’t see myself in an MMA career at this time.”Afterward, I asked whether the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro were on the horizon.”Right now, I’m taking time off,” she said. “I want to go to school. I’m working out, staying in shape, having fun. I would love to travel to Rio if it would be possible financially.”And regarding any new contracts or deals, she said, “Nothing I can talk about.”But, in the Q&A, she did have quite a bit to say about the role her coach, Pedro, has played in her success. And it came in response to a question about who would win in a judo battle: herself or Pedro.”You see those gray hairs?” Harrison said about her coach. “I think I could take him!” More seriously, she added, “I respect Jimmy very, very much. He wipes this mat with me every single time I work out.” And she described herself as “eternally grateful” for all of his assistance.Later, reflecting on the same question, Pedro had a slightly different answer.”It’s unfair,” he said. “I’ve