Watching Jimmy fight is an incredible thing. He is constantly at work. He never lets his opponent to rest. It is incredible how "hard wroking", his style of judo is. There a number of judo players who win matches by fighting like a mauler, and trying to make their opponents to get more penalties by making them stall. A good example would be Aurelio Miguel - BRA who won the 1988 Olympic title in Seoul, with very little scoring at all. Not Jimmy however. He is constantly gripping, constantly attacking, and his incredible condition is what allows him to do that.
I joined Jimmy Pedros's club in winter of 1997. Jimmy had a knee injury then, and had to miss the 1997 World Championships in Paris, France. I remember that from the first day we learned and practiced how to grip. Gripping was the initial basis of Jimmy's judo, and he definately practiced what he preached. We practiced gripping with same sided, and opposite sided people. We also practiced cross gripping, and attacks off the grip. This is something that I paid a lot of attention to, and which helped me tremendously in tournaments.
One of the best throws that I learned in his club was Jimmy's own invention. It was an ouchi-gari from the cross sleeve grip combined with an ancle pick. This is an incredible throw, and anyone who will learn how to do it correctly will benefit from it for a long time. Jimmy has used it numeorusly throughout the world, many times surprizing the strongest oponents. One of the best examples would be in 1999 World championships, when he threw as his father Jim Pedro Sr. called "The Strongest Russian", Georgi Revazishvili - GEO for yuko with this technique. Revazishvili was 1996 European Champion, and many times Europena medallist. He won a silver medal at 1997 World Championships. He is a very strong and aggressive player, and Jimmy caught him on that technique, which was incredible!
