Osotogari

Busy, busy day

5:00 am aiki with Rob.

• we worked on the Sankata knife stuff. I enjoy getting his CSSD Modern Arnis ideas at work on the aiki knife stuff.

5:30 PM Kid's judo with Gavin, Mason, and Emma

• Laps of the mat with silly walks for warmups.
• ukemi, including the demonstration forms and the crash pad forms
• osotogari
• osotogari→kesagatame
• osotogari→kesagatame→uphill escape
• taiotoshi

6:30 aiki with Kel and Rick

• ROM & ukemi
• tegatana with emphasis on using some ideokinesis ideas to improve posture and relaxation of the shoulders.
• hanasu with emphasis on loose, relaxed shoulders
• hand randori
• aigamaeate
• 2-3 of the Rokukata knife-taking and knife-retention techniques

PM judo and aikido

Kid's judo with Gavin, Whit, Knox, Emma, and Quin

• Ukemi - and lots of it with me throwing/spotting Whit, Knox, and Quin for about 30 minutes before class started. Then the others arrived and we went through the ukemi routine for the parents' demo in about a month.
• osotogari into kesagatame
• quiet sitting counting sounds that we can hear.

Aikido with Kel

• tegatana with emphasis on taking small enough steps that the heels do not strike or lift off the mat.
• hanasu with emphasis on 'stay-off-me' hands.
• chain #1, including shihonage, iriminage, and ushiroate
• some various interesting techniques from Sankata as the cool ninja techniques of the night.

I am exhausted from the three workouts today. Elise, my darling wife, has gone to purchase me a bottle of whiskey to drink while I lie in a scalding hot bathtub.

Early AM judo increasingly strenuous

5 AM Judo with Rob

• Warmup with ground mobility cycle and holding cycle
• Drill: uki→kesa→mune→ushirokata (10 reps each)
• Drill: uki→kesa→mune→udegarame→wakigatame (10 reps each)
• Drill: uki→mune→kesa→wakigatame→udegarame (10 reps each)
• nagekomi: R1/R3→outside cross grip→deashi/kosoto
• nagekomi: R1/R3→outside cross grip→osotogari (with a crashpad)
• nagekomi: R1/R3→outside cross grip→uranage (with a crashpad)

It was good to be back to a more vigorous judo practice after bruising/breaking (or otherwise busting) a rib a couple of months ago. I can tell I've lost (temporarily) some of my tolerance to having my chest crushed in groundwork. Well, now that I can play more vigorously again I'll get it back pretty quick.

Osotogari and taiotoshi uchikomi

Kids' judo with Whit, Mason, Knox, and Quin

• ROM, ukemi, movement skills
• osotogari ("the 1-2 throw) uchikomi sets of 3, throwing on the third. Emphasis on hitting the back of uke's knee with the back of your knee and pulling with your arms.
• taiotoshi ("the 1-2-3 throw") uchikomi sets of 3 throwing on the third, emphasizing tori turning his leg downward.
• standing randori
• intro to the shoulder-push-knee-lift turnover

1-2 counters 1-2-3

Judo with Whit, Knox, and Quin

• Warmup
• osotogari cueing off of uke putting a foot forward - every time uke gets a foot forward, tori throws osotogari (which they are calling the "1-2 throw").
• osotogari as a counter to taiotoshi. At the last tournament, all the kids were throwing taiotoshi (the "1-2-3 throw"), so I have been working with Whit and company on how to turn and reap the leg for osotogari.
• While Whit was practicing osotogari on me I was practicing the R1/R3 gripfighting patterns on him.

Last night's judo

Kids' judo with Gavin, Whit, Mason, Knox, Emma, and Quin

• warmup
• ukemi - we're practicing their ukemi set (fwd roll to standing, face fall, left fall from plank, right fall from plank, backfall) in proper order in preparation to demo it to their parents at the end of the season. We also practiced sidefalls from deashi with me as spotter alternating with laterals across the mat.
• osotogari uchikomi sets of three throwing on the third.
• newaza transitions from kesa to mune to ushirokesa and from ushiro kesa to tate to ushirokesa on the other side.
• crawling man randori
• standing randori to the first fall with each player staying out until the entire class had done randori with him.
• Somehow my students have gotten the idea that grabbing the opponent's legs is the thing to do, but they charge with their head down and often get smeared because of it(see the third iteration here), so we finished the class working on proper technique for shooting into a leg pick (level change, lunge, back knee touchdown and immediately back to feet, dumping the sprawled opponent off the side).

5am training

Judo/aiki with Rob

• footsweep to control deashi & kosoto from outside cross grip, normal grip, and 2-sleeves grip
• releasing (R1 &R2) into cross grip into osoto or deashi or kosoto or wakigatame
• Sankata tachiwaza empasizing that each technique can be treated just like a chain of checkpoints rather than a kata of specific steps. This makes the technique smoother, gentler, more flowing, and more robust.

Thursday aikido

We had no 5AM class this morning - Rob had a test to study for.
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Kid's judo with Gavin, Whit, Mason, and Emma

• Warmup, ukemi, spider-crawling alternated with big falls (teguruma) with a spotter
• Osotogari uchikomi "by the numbers" sets of theee throwing on the last rep and trading partners. Whit was doing especially good on the osotogari, and hammered Gavin once. Gavin tried to whine about it but then started laughing.
• Osotogari into kesagatame
• Uphill escape from kesagatame. Mason was majorly out-doing the others on this escape with an excellent bridging action.
• Crawling man

Aiki with Rick

• tegatana emphasizing balls of the feet and short, conservative steps.
• hanasu #1-4 emphasizing the feeling of release.
• partner evasion exercises using release motions to evase and brush off lunges.
• suwari kokyuho (kneeling freeform pushing exercise)

A helpful handful: kubiguruma

The first of the 'black belt techniques' in our syllabus, kubiguruma exemplifies a new type of motion not seen in the previous fundamentals kata. Following are five faithful pointers that have helped me.

• Anything named guruma in this system is done with a slightly later timing that things named otoshi. Otoshi happens right as uke steps down onto a foot but guruma happens an instant later as uke tries to rise from the preceding otoshi.
• Guruma is also a spinning action whereas otoshi is a straight action. Define an axis from the crown of the head through the center of mass to the lead foot and turn uke around this vertical axis.
• Try this as a followup to the second movement in yonkata – the inside gyakugamae release. Bump the wrist as uke steps down with the front foot then, holding the wrist and the neck, back around drawing uke down a line perpendicular to his stance line.
• If you can only get a partial guruma action around that vertical axis, but can’t get uke to fall, osotogari makes a great backup technique. Do the guruma then pull in and clip the leg. Osotogari is roughly equivalent to aikikai’s tenchinage, so tenchinage also pops up in this situation a lot.
• Guruma is a very versatile action. You can try this thing with uke leaping/punching at tori, with uke grabbing one wrist (gyakugamae posture) or from a two-wrist grab.

Judo and aiki classes

Judo/aiki with Rob

• footsweep to control
• uchikomi: osotogari guruma
• Goshin jitsu
• Owaza jupon

Aiki with Kel

• releases
• nijusan #1-5
• Rokukata ryote mochi maeotoshi

"What just happened to me" aikido

Kid's judo with Gavin, Whit, Mason, Knox, and Emma

• ROM, warmup, ukemi
• skipping alternated with a spotter flipping the kids from their knees into a side breakfall
• Crawfishing out of the Referee's position
• osotogari into kesagatame
• a randori-ish exercise where partners move around in a standard grip and any time they turn their side to tori they get osoto gari'd

Aikido with Kel

• Tegatana emphasizing putting feet under center instead of center over feet.
• Hanasu emphasizing getting the releasing feeling, or as Kel calls it, the "what the hell just happened to me?" feeling.
• Standing kokyudosa as a way to start teaching randori.
• randori

Don't forget the Call for Submissions for Carnival #5. The theme for this month is related to non-violent resolution of conflict.

Shortcuts

Judo with Rob

• warmup with the groundwork cycle. We worked on shortcuts from munegatame to tateshiho and from the guard to tateshihogatame.
• randori - rob started out beating me a couple of rounds, once with a very uncomfortable face-down rear mount and the threat of a RNC. Towards the end I wore him down some and had better success. I then sprawled as Rob shot in and got him in a facedown position with a relatively wimpy collar choke but the addition of the sprawl submitted him.
• osotogari working on getting the timing and direction of the individual pulls right.

Aiki with Jill

• walking kata and releases
• chain #3: wakigatame and kotegaeshi
• nijusan wakigatame working on emphasizing the release feeling and brushing off.

Don't forget the Call for Submissions for Carnival #5.

Improvement on osotogari and kesagatame

Judo with Gavin, Whit, Mason, Knox, Emma, and Quin

• warmups, running, ukemi
• kneeling kubinage into kesagatame - most were doing much better on getting into kesagatame
• uphill escape from kesagatame - this is the first time they'd seen it and most of them did pretty good. This will give them incentive to get better at kesagatame, which wil in turn, give them incintive to get better at uphill escape and to learn more escaping actions. A cool feedback loop.
• osotogari - all were improved and we worked on uke's falling action - making sure the butt hits first and slapping instead of putting arms down. We also wlrked on supporting uke by pulling up with both hands on one arm and moving in beside the chest as uke falls. The 6+ year olds were grtting this action pretty good.

Aiki with Kel

• warmups, tegatana (worked on some hand motions), hanasu (kinda off tonight)
• Chain #2, including maeotoshi, over-the-shoulder straight armbar, shihonage, aikinage, sumiotoshi, and tenkai kotehineri
• This transitioned into randori. Kel was doing well tonight.

Parkers do judo

Judo with Whit, Knox, and Quin

• ROM and warmups: running, tornado twisters, smashing pumpkins, etc...
• ukemi: rocking&slapping, teguruma with me as spotter interspersed with more running
• newaza: crossface far knee tap turnover to mune
• tachiwaza: osotogari emphasizing kicking knee-to-knee and helping uke to land properly. Whit hammered Quin once. We'll have to work on falling better as well as showing tori how to help uke better.
• newaza: kneeling kubinage into kesagatame. This seems to be the best way to get kids to actually do kesagatame.
• Below is a technique that Knox spontaneously invented tonight - nose gatame - submission by nose honking!

December 2007 kohaku shiai

Today's club shiai was a blast. The parents got fired up and had nearly as much fun cheering as the kids had grappling. The champions for the month are:

• 1st place - Mason Alford (8 wins)
• 2nd place - Gavin Jarrell (5 wins)
• 3rd place (tie) - Whit Parker, Knox Parker (3 wins)

Our goals for the month after last month's shiai were to work on the crawling man game, making each person a little better at holding and each person a little better at shucking off the holder and escaping. Everybody did much better. The crawling man game was the most exciting event and they were definitely thinking on their feet (on their knees?) because they would roll over the holder to keep going and they would dig in with their feet and drag the holder and they would roll around resistance, even crawling backward in order to make progress. Overall some great grappling. Amazon wrestling was a blast too. last month or month before they were only using the knee grab tactic but this month they were securing side/rear bearhugs and attempting sweeps too.

Our goals for next month will be to add another skill or two (i.e. crawfishing) to the crawling man game and work more on Amazon wrestling and standing randori skills (i.e. osotogari).

Kinds of sidedness in judo

In judo, the motions in different throws interact with our sidedness in different ways. In other words, there are different kinds of sidedness in judo.

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Universal Dominant Throws

There are a very few very versatile throws that are easily learnable with minimal training and are throwable with the dominant side whether the opponent is moving left or right, forward or backward. The only universal dominant-sided throw I have in my circle is osotogari. I can throw it right-sided whether the opponent moves forward, backward, left, or right. The opportunity for right-side osotogari literally happens on every step the opponent makes. That doesn’t mean that I can necessarily pull it off every time, but the opportunity is there.

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Universal Variant Throws

There is a larger set of throws that can still be thrown on every step forward, backward, left, or right – but different variations are required in different situations. For instance, I can throw deashibarai on any step the opponent takes, but if I catch it early in the cycle it happens with one leg and if I catch it late it happens with the other leg. Two variants of deashi that are equally effective but together they make deashi possible everywhere. Hiza is similar for me. I throw a left and a right variation of hiza as well as an early and a late variation, which makes hiza pretty much a universal throw for me.

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Ambidextrous Throws

There are other throws in which the motion is so simple that they are truly ambidextrous. For example, the drag-and-drop kosotogari that is so effective for me in randori is so simple in its action that my natural sidedness never comes into play. It is trivial for me to do left-sided, so I also have no problem right-sided.

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Special Situation Throws

There is a fourth class of throws that I can only do in special situations or on a particular side. These special-purpose throws seem to fill in tiny holes in the system where it may be easier to throw in this particular way than using one of the universal dominant or universal variant throws described above. Virtually all hip throws are this way for me – particularly the one-legged hip throws like haraigoshi.

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Overcoming Sidedness

Now, my premise in a previous post was that it is basically a waste of training time to obsess about overcoming sidedness. For instance, I listed haraigoshi as a special-purpose throw above. Obviously it is possible to learn to do it on both sides – you have to do both sides of it in Nagenokata. Junokata also gives good practice in left-sided hipthrows. But I still maintain that in training people to respond to general randori/shiai situations it is better to train the hipthrows predominantly on one side, whether it be arbitrarily chosen as right side or whether it be the player’s dominant side. In addition to taking immense amounts of training time to bring the off-side up to a satisfactory level of execution, it is just un-necessary because of the existence of the universal-dominant, universal-variant, and ambidextrous throws.

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Of course, the usual disclaimer applies. This is how my judo seems to work for me right now. There are lots of people who could beat me up in shiai and could out-teach me too. So, your mileage may vary.

Nine of Forty

Here is a really exciting video of some judo ippons, etc. If you watch you'll see that virtually every throw that is thrown is one of the Divine Nine that I've been talking about lately, or a minimal variant of one of the Divine Nine. This really boils down to the 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, basically restated as, "80% of successful throws will come from 20% of the possible throws." So, with a throwing syllabus of a few more than 40 throws, 20% would come out to about nine throws. The Divine Nine.

There is one major exception to the rule of thumb that pretty much all throws that you ever see are from the Divine Nine. Uchimata is the most successful throw that is thrown in judo competitions. So, why didn't I include uchimata in the 'Divine Nine' list of judo kihon? It's not kihon because: 1) It's a variant of ukigoshi, 2) it is harder to learn than anything in the Divine Nine, and 3) it is harder to fall from than anything in the Divine Nine.

This brings up a pretty important point when you begin trying to define a small set of kihon for judo. You can't reduce the whole system to these nine throws. Not only do other throws, like uchimata, comprise a significant portion of the opportunities for throws, but sometimes it is specifically the threat of some of these other throws that make the Divine Nine so easy to throw. If you have to watch to make sure the opponent doesn't get you with 40 possible throws, you tend to leave about 9 holes in your defense. When you try to plug some of these nine holes, like stiffarming to stay out of osotogari, you make bigger holes for other throws.

So, while the Divine Nine are representative of all of judo, and as such are worth some practice time during every class, they are not ALL there is to judo as a system.

Osotogari and hizaguruma

Osotogari and hizaguruma go together like peas and carrots. Actually better - nobody around here actually eats peas and carrots together, but I know from experience that these two techniques partner so well that learning one of them well impoves your performance of the other one. The reason that they go so well together is that they are dynamic opposites that occur from the same position. One is a forward throw and one a backward throw. One is (usually) an otoshi motion, the other a guruma. One is an attack on the near leg, the other attacks the far leg. One attacks an offbalance parallel to the opponent's stance line and the other attacks his perpendicular.

So it's just incredibly hard to avoid taking one of these two falls if you let the other guy get anywhere close to that position.

Yeah, baby! Deashibarai!

If osotogari is the King of Throws then deashibarai can probably easily be considered the Queen of Throws, or the mother of all footsweeps. Above we see an excellent, classic deashi against a higher-ranked highly resistant opponent. Both of these guys had a lot of trouble once they ended up on the ground but the throw itself was superb. Below we see an unbelievable, superhuman counter (uranage) to osotogari, demonstrating that not even the King of Throws is foolproof.