Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

I'm glad that Kyle brought up a topic in class last night (Tuesday, 01/14/2010). He was talking about how our school is philosophically different than most of the judo world in that we stand with a straighter posture. After watching videos of national and international tournaments, and seeing how top level judo athletes compete, I found myself accidentally working mostly from a defensive position during randori, with my legs and hips back away from my opponent. Until Kyle acknowledged that difference, I think I had a conflict inside my subconscious (or maybe I'm blaming my bad habits and lack of following instructions on my subconscious).

Having accepted the philosophy of keeping good posture, would it still be considered good judo in our system to momentarily enter the position of a crouching jigotai, if only briefly, for the purpose of protecting your own balance or avoiding sweeps/reaps?

Karl Wenzel wrote:
Having accepted the philosophy of keeping good posture, would it still be considered good judo in our system to momentarily enter the position of a crouching jigotai, if only briefly, for the purpose of protecting your own balance or avoiding sweeps/reaps?

My philosophy is to play stand-up Judo, period, all the time. The best defense is a good offense. Even when your partner is coming for you, take it completion. If you get got, then get got. No biggie.

I was lucky enough to get about 30 minutes of randori with Greg on Saturday morning. The mobility and aggressiveness of standing straight is making more sense now. It sure doesn't leave much time for thinking though!

Indeed. High levels of play require the subconscious to generate the response as a reflexive action. This is one reason we stress so much nage-komi -- the allow your body to internalize the proper body alignment, at a slow enough speed you can process it.

You've seen the benefit of upright posture via sutegeiko training, dealing first with guys who stand still, then against guys who move. Defensive posture eliminates so many tools from the toolbox, mostly my favorite tools like footsweeps & hiza/ashi-guruma.

Getting a dose of Greg will provide months worth of things to work on, even for us old hands. He's an amazing athlete & technician.

Kyle Sloan wrote:Getting a dose of Greg will provide months worth of things to work on, even for us old hands. He's an amazing athlete & technician.

True dat!

I think it's worth noting that the common competitive forumal neglects a big segment of throws that are great for dealing with people with a bent-forward posture. Hiza Guruma, Ashi guruma, O guruma -- all great ways to throw a forward-leaning partner, except that those aren't "competition throws"

Chris Wilson wrote:Hiza Guruma, Ashi guruma, O guruma -- all great ways to throw a forward-leaning partner, except that those aren't "competition throws"

Are the aformentioned throws not considered competition throws because they don't typically score ippon?

Karl Wenzel wrote:

Chris Wilson wrote:Hiza Guruma, Ashi guruma, O guruma -- all great ways to throw a forward-leaning partner, except that those aren't "competition throws"

Are the aformentioned throws not considered competition throws because they don't typically score ippon?

I honestly don't know why, since the standard for ippon has been diluted a great deal. They just don't fit into their competition paradigm.

Someone said... wrote:Hiza Guruma, Ashi guruma, O guruma...those aren't "competition throws"

i was originally taught (in a more competition oriented club) that the only reason that hizaguruma was early in the gokyu is because it's so damned hard to throw that they wanted you to have lots of practice at it so maybe you could make it work by the time you got to be black belt.

I know - that's a bunch of BS, but sure enough, the way our teacher taught it (blocking the front knee), hiza was nearly un-throwable - it only ever worked by accident against clumsy judoka that you vastly outranked, and it never resulted in ippon.

I was surprised and shocked when Mac McNeese told us it was meant to be thrown by blocking the back knee, and sure enough, when I started doing that version it was doable. now it's easy to throw hiza against resistive, defensive people.

so easy, in fact, that i recently had a white belt student, who'd only had 4-5 classes under his belt, place in a tournament winning 2 of his 3 matches against more experienced judoka by throwing them with (guess what?) hizaguruma!

as for ashiguruma, the same instructor that told us to do hiza on the front leg couldn't really tell us any difference between haraigoshi and ashiguruma, so we sucked at that throw too.


surprisingly, we weren't actually too bad at oguruma...

anyway, i think youre right about those being great throws against forward leaning people. I also think they are fabulous throws to use in competition but i think that they are generally neglected in competition clubs because the standard versions that are being taught in those clubs are unworkable by mere humans.