Second Fundamental’s Class Promotion Sees Three Students Rank Up
Des Moines Judo Academy’s fundamentals classes, originally developed as an experiment to make taking up Judo later in life easier for adult students, has continued to have great ongoing success. While individual class sizes fluctuate, most evenings see four to eight students practicing, with the heart of the group being a consistent core of students whose primary engagement is through the program. This program, helmed by Sensei Chaye Thompson, has experienced numerous successes, including increased student retention, and strong tournament performance among its attendees. It’s most recent success was had on March 9th, 2026, when a group of its students underwent the programs’ second round of promotions.
From Left to Right - Sensei Chaye Thompson, Rachel Salisbury, Audrey Wirth, Joseph Swedenhjelm
The promotion group consisted of Joseph Swedenhjelm, Rachel Salisbury, and Audrey Wirth.
Joseph Swedenhjelm (“Joe Swede” or “Swede” for short), is a married father, former wrestler, and regular competitor. He recently took silver in two divisions at the Governor’s Cup and gold at the 2025 Iowa State Championship. He almost exclusively attends fundamentals classes, with occasional visits to Thursday night classes with Sensei Leo. While his Ko-Uchi-Gari to O-Soto-Gari combination brought him a lot of success at the 2025 State Championship, and he continues to work on a tournament legal version of Kata-Guruma or “Fireman’s Carry,” due to its familiarity from his wrestling background, he has recently had success with O-Goshi and been developing his Sumi-Gaeshi. He’s also grown more expressive with his fellow judoka in class, though is still subtle and quiet. Swede was promoted to gokyu, receiving his orange belt.
Rachel Salisbury, a pharmacy technician whose passion for judo was ignited when she observed the 2023 Iowa State Championship, has been a frequent competitor with a ravenous training scheduled. In addition to fundamentals classes, Rachel also attends 5:30 PM judo classes on Monday and Wednesday, Thursday class, Friday and Saturday open mats, and open mat at our sister-school Grinnell BJJ on Sundays. This training schedule has fueled an explosive amount of growth, as well as consistent silver medals at the 2026 Governor’s Cup and 2025 State Championship. Rachel continues to develop her drop Morotre-Seoi-Nage, which, along side her O-Soto-Gari, has brought her much success at tournament recently. Similarly, she continues to cultivate her ude garami from guard, but has expanded her ground game to include a solid Kesa-Gatame and Koshi-Jime on opponents in turtle position. Rachel was promoted to gokyu, receiving her orange belt.
Audrey Wirth is the newest edition to the promoting class. A manga enthusiast whose passion grew into an interest in martial arts, Audrey first started judo several months ago. Originally having started in 5:30 PM judo classes on Monday and Wednesday, and Thursday class, Audrey found the fundamentals classes better suited to her needs and transitioned to primarily attending those. She is also a regular attendee of Saturday open mats. Audrey currently only knows a very limited number of “nage-waza” (throwing techniques), the majority being footsweeps, namely De-Ashi-Barai and Ko-Uchi-Gari, due to her small stature. Despite being small, she has also developed an explosive Hasami-Gaeshi (Scissor Sweep), allowing her to easily take Tate-Shiho-Gatame (mount) against opponents in her guard. Audrey was promoted to rokkyu, receiving her yellow belt.