Officer Advances to Orange Belt

From Left to Right - Connor Essery, Sensei Ryan Suhr

On March 25th, Officer Connor Essery of the Des Moines Police Department tested for and received the rank of gokyu, earning his orange belt.  This promotion comes five  months after his initial promotion to rokkyu in November of 2025. 

Conner is a frequent attendee of Monday and Wednesday adult judo classes, and occasionally stays for fundamentals classes as well.  He takes a structured, thought out and longitudinal approach to his study of Judo.  For example, after discovering he was having difficulty determining which techniques to use during randori, Connor made a weekly list of techniques to work on, limiting himself to approximately five throws each week, with only a few throws changing each weak in his schedule.  This approach not only eases the burden of the decision making process, it also forces him to work on each technique to learn its application, and overall makes the learning process less burdensome.  He can frequently be seen training with Adam Thompson.

As his training has progressed Conner has moved away from O-Soto-Gari, and become more fond of Tai-Otoshi, particularly the version he learned from Sensei Chaye Thompson in Fundamentals Class.  He’s also picked up a liking for head-roll Juji-Gatame.