The Shintaro Higashi Show - Ashi Waza

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Judo places a bigger emphasis on Ashi Waza or foot techniques than other grappling arts. Yet, Ashi Waza can remain elusive to many. What is the key to integrating Ashi Waza to your game? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss the primary mechanics of Ashi Waza, and how to train and integrate them into your game. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu, THE Peter Yu. He's been away for a long time, he was in Korea, some surgeries, he looks like a K-pop star now. Yeah, I'm trying to, you know, get into the K-pop business. I heard it's pretty hot these days. If you're listening and not watching this on a video platform, his forehead is shining, his hair looks full. I don't know how they did that. But you look amazing. You look like you're 20 years old again. Oh, man. I mean, you know, it's amazing, the medical technology.

It's pretty. Yeah. I got to go to Korea. Get these, like, wrinkles taken care of on the forehead. Oh, yeah. That's easy, man. That's not even an operation. Dude, that's the dead giveaway for age when you have the forehead wrinkles.

I don't really have the crow's feet yet. You know, like if I smile, I got it. But like it's not there when I'm not smiling. So, you know. That's the easiest stuff, man. Like it's 30 minutes in and out. Nothing. In and out.

Anyway. Well, yeah, I'm back now. You know, I spent three weeks with my family. Went to Japan and everything um and spent a lot of time in korea you did not grapple correct no i couldn't too busy and i was forbidden by the doctor your hair looks great though all right thanks man we don't grow out of just to clarify i got a transplant so you know yeah um yeah it's I'm trying to normalize I've been telling everyone

it's not something I don't want to you know hide or anything like they take your pubes and then put it on the head yeah

basically that's what it is you know so a lot of soccer players get it over the summer because they're off then and now oh yeah

yeah so I was you're very public about it these days yeah that's true I'm just going to do it normalize the stuff yeah exactly so i i was kind of there you're very public about it these days yeah that's yeah exactly so you know if you're if you are struggling not you don't have to get it but if you want to you know it's pretty good now so there's that and then quick shout out to levon and jason you know our biggest sponsors thanks for funding my transplant i'm just kidding i'm just kidding yeah well thanks for all the help and sponsorship yeah

yes what are we talking about today today we're gonna we thought we're thinking about going over ashiwaza in general you know i think some general concepts and it's a very like a a lot of people are mesmerized by Judo's Ashiwaza system I think like wrestlers and BJJ people they I mean

last year when I was doing a lot of BJJ it was like a thing like a fad almost like everyone wanted to do the Deash Barai the slide by Deashi

yeah so popular in Nogi yeah let me tell you about Nogi, Deashi and foot saveseps, right? The sweatier they get, the easier it is to hit it. The less you have to time it.

Yeah, I can see that. Because even if the foot is weighted because of the sweat and the slipperiness of the surface, you could nail people with it. Yeah. So as long as the momentum is going in the right way, even if the leg is weighted, you could foot sweep that, which is kind of an interesting thing. It's hard to hit this right off the rip when people are dry and especially if you're not that good even if you're not that good at it the sweatier you get later in the game nogi rounds or nogi match what slippage is involved you don't even have to be that good

and you can hit it man cool so much more upright and no he too right so that so yeah let's kind of go into the general concept of this. So, like, you talked about the momentum and, you know, all that. So, I mean, I feel like Ashwada looks very simple, but it's actually quite hard to master it. It takes a long time. So, how do you usually approach it when you first teach people? Like, especially, you know, now you're teaching judo at BJJ school too

and the no-give stuff and all that. So how do you go about introducing ashiwaza to beginners? Okay, so I think there's two main factors, right? Timing from the person who's doing it and then the athleticism of the person who's getting it, right, receiving. Oh, okay. So people don't realize like a lot of great athletes are very good

at staying on their feet. Right. They're good at balance, they're coordinated, their legs, you know, like they're running for soccer, right,

they're playing soccer or something. Yeah. Someone slides underneath to attack the ball, they could jump over, stay on their feet. Even if their feet get clipped,

they kind of like cast your balance and keep running. You know, same with football, same with basketball. I think every sport you've ever played, athletic people are good at staying on their feet get clipped, they kind of like cast their balance and keep running. You know, same with football, same with basketball. I think every sport you've ever played, athletic people are good at staying on their feet

no matter what. Yeah, right. But if you get like a very drunk person, like when you're bouncing at a nightclub or something and someone's really drunk, it's very easy to footsie somebody. Because their coordination's off, their balance is off. And if the person's not very athletic,

it's a lot easier to take those guys down with foot clips too. So that's one portion of it, and the other portion is obviously timing. Understanding how the weight shifts from one leg to the other to catch your weight. Because these two legs, right, we're bipedal animals. Did I say that right? Bipedal or bipedal?

Bipedal, yeah. Bipedal, yeah, we're bipeds. I think so, yeah, yeah. Different from moped. But... Mopeds are fun. Bipeds, we're shifting our weight

from one leg to another in hopes of like the weight being caught with our legs underneath. Yeah. If you're anticipating there to be a base and then someone

takes that base out, you're going to lose your balance. Right, right. How fast can you replace that balance with by slipping your leg out or something like this those kinds of things you know help you get toppled over right it's like magic when you foot see somebody yeah yeah it's it's it's like such a good feeling

like it's so effortless if you get it right so how about how do you drill that though it's like it conceptually makes sense. Yeah, of course. Conceptually makes sense. How well does the other person balance him or herself and how can you time it? But how do you even get to that point? Nice. That's a very good question. Yeah.

So when you're walking, right? So going back and forth and just trying to time the footstep, right? You ever like be running in gym class back in the day and you're running behind someone and you try to clip their feet across to make them trip over their feet? You ever do that? Yeah. You walk behind them and you kick this foot into their own leg. But you have to time it so that your foot can make contact at the right time. You have to time it so that the foot is getting unweighted,

and then they're trying to bring their leg forward. See what I mean? So kind of like that, you're facing each other, and you're going back and forth, and then taking a rhythmic step. One, two, three, four, five, sweep. Like a dance class, like in dancing. So it's like sweep on two. One, two, right?

As the foot becomes off, like there's no weight on me. Right. So timing it in a coordinated fashion is the most important thing. You can do it front to back, side to side, and then you can do also a circle of the ashi where you're circling it back in the feet. This whole episode is a plug for my ashi waza instruction. I'm not going to link it.

It's concise. It's like 10 to 15 minutes long. It's $20. Go check it out. But yeah, that's how you coordinate it. And very important to have a good partner to do this. If they're trying to keep their balance, their rhythm's going to be on. Right.

If they're trying to time it for you, really learn the true timing in a coordinated sense. Right. A good partner is everything when it comes to this. I see. I see. Yeah. So, I see. I see. Yeah. So, I see. So, you basically start by just kind of walking together as a, you know, as partners, just

like dance class. Yeah. So, side to side and things like that. And if your hips are really far back, then your legs can't reach. Right, right. Everyone has a different leg length, you know? Yeah. If they're really, really tall, you don't have to, a little bit more further away than

if you were short. So, you have to, a little bit more further away than if you were short, so you have to take those things into account. You know? And the more people you drill with, the more people you're going to kind of naturally understand. Yeah. Like, where your hips are relative to your opponent and how far you have to reach to attack the leg to make contact with the leg. Right, right.

So, timing, hip placement and all that stuff and hips relative to your opponent, all these things play like a factor. And you can train all this too. That's the beauty of it. I think that hip, your point about hip position is actually very interesting because what I noticed when I was training a lot of BJJ, a lot of people were trying to do the foot splits,

but they were kind of hunched over. So, you know, they were sweeping. The sweeping action wasn't as strong I that maybe I don't know if I'm describing it correctly but yeah so you kind of have to like get your hip engaged and then almost like sweep like you are not probably like a soccer kick but you have to get your hip in yeah yeah because hips are hinged backwards right very difficult to apply right worse think about kicking a soccer ball really far.

You've got to have your hips forward. Right, right. Think about kicking a Muay Thai kick or something. You have to have your hips engaged. Yeah. So there's sort of like a little bit of an interplay if you're doing no-gi stuff or even shooting on the legs, like faking the shot, faking the shot,

and then the person changing levels. Right in the forehead lock, snap down, forehead lock, snap down, so they're much more upright now. You don't want to get guillotine choked or snap down if you're in a wrestling context so now they're taking more of an upright position i mean and now your hips are much closer relatively near you can access their feet a little bit more yeah oh that's an interesting trend because um does it not happen in gi bjj like oh it does yeah you snap down, you snap them down,

they start poshing. The problem with Gi BJJ is, you know, a lot of people just pull guard. Once you're able to connect, it's easy to pull guard and it's very sticky, you know? Yeah, you can pull guard in Nogi as well, but it's a little bit different. I see.

So it's kind of a sidetrack, but would you not recommend working on ashiwaza if you're focusing on bjj i mean that wouldn't be the first thing right knowing how to pass properly or like retain guard i think you know if you're doing bjj those are more important skills to have i see if you don't have any jujitsu basics and you're just working on foot sweeps you'd probably be better off just doing jujitsu right stand up you know i think with foot sweeps, you'd probably be better off just doing judo. Right. You wouldn't be able to stand up. You know, I think with jiu-jitsu, because, you know, you could develop a very sophisticated ashiwaza game, foot sweep game,

but the moment they pull guard, all that stuff's kind of out the window, right? Because now you have to enter into a new position, which is a ground position, open guard, or whatever it is, you know? So you don't get the best ROI on your time. Right. Since judo, a lot of the guys are very, very,

you know, sophisticated in the way they attack and defend. So you can play this much more sophisticated set-up game. Yeah.

So like different reactions, the proper reactions, all the different lines of defenses that you may encounter, you kind of take advantage of it and exploit it from like a

strategical standpoint. Right. But if you're doing jiu-jitsu and these guys don't have any of those reactions, like for instance, if they've never seen a turn throw

and then you fake the turn throw, they're not really going to react because they don't know that the wrist is getting bumped. So if you want to go chest-to-chest upper body, fake a turn throw and they try to back out and then you put a hit of de-ashi, that's wonderful. But if you fake a turn throw and they don't react, they're still pushing

it to you, now that same de-ashi is not there. Might as well just go for a turn throw then. Yeah. You just keep doing, yeah. Yeah. I've got to tell you, even with Jiu-Jitsu, as you're doing it and then as you're competing, being a threat on your feet,

it's a big one. People look at you differently. People are much more likely to pull guard. If you're very good at top game, if they pull guard, that's great because you're top game. Yeah. I think it's worth learning even if you're doing BJJ. Right. There's a lot of this stuff in wrestling.

Obviously, judo, that's where the majority of this stuff I learned from, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, it's pretty good stuff. And, but no gi is a different story you're saying because you can't really pull guard. I mean, what happens? Because you can pull guard. No, you can definitely pull guard.

But with gi, you could have a collar sleeve and then pull guard, right? The moment you're within touching distance, you could grab a sleeve and pull guard. Now it's stuck where you're stuck there. They throw their leg over for a lasso or whatever. With no gi, you can't just touch them and then pull guard, right?

Because there's rules against that kind of a thing. Oh, okay. I mean, maybe you can. I'm not a no-gi rules expert. Yeah. It depends on the rule set. It depends on the organization that's running it. But with gi, it's a lot stickier.

Right. That's why it makes it so hard to shoot him. Because within reach, you get within arm's reach, someone grabs you. Now, that pulse is not going anywhere as opposed to if they're doing that same pulse with their open hands on your shoulder you could obviously pop it off and shoot underneath the arms right if they're grabbing the gi you can't just pop it off right you know so then when you're grabbing the gi you have a lot

of control and you can pull them the time foot sweeps. Pull their head down a lot more, right? With no gi, the moment they back out, now you can't really force them to move a certain way. You could fade the shot, then you could work the head a little bit, but if they're out of, like, just a little bit out of arm's reach, like if your arms are extended, you can't make the same purchase

on their upper body to force their legs to move a certain way, if that makes any sense. Yeah, so that, so let's bring that back to judo now like so how would you integrate how would you recommend integrating um ashwaza into people's games because do you because you you generally don't teach uh ashwaza right away to beginners right like you usually teach i'll teach the room i guess i also the guy is ashwaza yeah yeah teach... I'll teach the room. Well, I guess all of the guys are ashiwaza, yeah. Yeah, and you know,

if the room is intermediate to events, then I'll just teach it and then it'll be there. You know, that's not the best thing to do from a business standpoint, I think, but you know, whatever, right?

With the foot sweeps, I think there's a couple components to it that I talk about in my video instructional, ashiwaza instructional. Number one, being able to do this

in a coordinated fashion, like I told you, front, back, side to side in a circle fashion and understanding those, right? You're looking at outside to inside foot sweeps where you're sweeping

the foot inwards and now you're looking at foot sweeps that are going outside. Yeah. Like Kochi. Yeah. Ochi's a little bit different. Ochi Osorio

is a little bit different. We're mostly talking about like society Ashi Kochi. Yeah. The timing where you timing. The timing, OG, you can put that leg in and force stuff from there. Because you kind of

attack a position. Osoro, osoro position locked in, that's a position, you know? But like a kochi position, it's not sticky enough. It's not going to be

staying there forever. Unless you do a kochi maki homi. Yeah. Whole other animal. Right. You know what I mean? I see. So learning how to time this stuff

in a coordinated way, learning all the different combinations of this, looking for kosoro that attack the deashi as they're shifting their weight backwards, Right. I see. their foot down, you're driving him and then you're sweeping all the leg, all this stuff. And then how to finish these foot sweeps as well. Because usually if they see it coming, they understand it's coming, as it's happening, they're like, oh my God, I have to unhook my leg and bait myself. So understanding where the leg goes up and over and then trying to time that. Right. So I talk about the finishing mechanics of the Hoshiwaza as well. I think that's where most advanced to intermediate guys

sort of separate in part ways. Like an advanced guy knows how to finish these things. The intermediate guy can time it, but they can't really finish it if they don't time it perfectly. I see. So, and then obviously you, so there's a statement I've heard a lot throughout the years that foot sweeps are like the jab of judo.

Do you still agree with that statement? Like, I know I've heard that being thrown around a lot. Like, what do you feel about that statement? I mean, kind of, but not really. Yeah. Because jab can be so many things, right? Jab is like, you can feint the jab, go to the body, feint the jab,

parry it, hit him, roll the hand. You could throw the jab out there to manage distance. I don't think it's as useful because, I don't know, maybe. I mean, it's a good entry point into stuff, right? If you create movement and then attack the feet and off balance them, then a lot of the bigger stuff will open up.

If you're showing the big turn throws and they're reacting a certain way, you can attack the feet a off balance them, then a lot of the bigger stuff will open up. You know, if you're showing the big turn throws and they're reacting a certain way, you can attack the feet a little bit more. I don't think the jab is like an analogy, but maybe, you know. I guess in the sense that to set up bigger turn throws, the jab, because I think the point was that the jab can set up for a bigger hook

or a straight, I guess. Yeah, I guess you're not, but you know, you don't knock people out with a jab. Yeah, exactly. I think, but then you can. You can knock someone down with a foot sweep. Yeah, exactly. All right. You can kind of make the argument like, all right, what are the Ashiwaza like? It's like the pawns of the game, chess game, very important.

Together, they're very strong structurally if they're organized in a a certain way i right right all structure is a big one you know but there's always philosophies kind of analysis you know but yeah maybe in certain sense i wouldn't go too literal or take that you know i take it with a grain of salt yeah okay jab foot sweeps are like a jab judo great but right yeah so we've been focusing a lot on the speed, you know, how the legs and, you know, the lower body should work with Ashiwaza.

But personally, I think how you control the upper body while you're doing the, performing on Ashiwaza is also important. Not if, not, you know, just as important.

So can you kind of touch on that aspect i don't know if you cover that in your video but yeah definitely i do talk about hand positioning yeah if you're winning in position you can control their posture more if you control their head a little bit more which makes it easier to finish right yeah think about like if you're attacking the feet and then moving their feet across their body and you have a control of their head and you can club their head to the opposite direction it's a lot easier to take someone down with that foot sweep than if you're holding

off their hips. That's an extreme example. So having the ability to move their head while your opponent can't really move their head because you're winning in hand position that's like a great thing to be able to do. And how to try to time the person

by shifting their weight from leg to leg and then attacking the feet. And then once you attack the feet, how to try to shift their weight back onto that leg that you just took out is another skill. You know, we talk a little bit about that in the video as well. I'll tell you, it's 10 to 15 minutes. Everything I'm talking about in concise ways

and how to drill it and then bang, bang, bang. Right. So it's pretty cool. Yeah. Check it out, guys. Yeah. Check it out. There's also like you can do attack the feet in a way where you don't have to time it as

much when there's weight on the leg too. So we talk a little bit about the stick of the yashi. Yeah. That's what some people call it. And some people also call it, I like to call it the heel hook yashi because you're like heel hooking the guy. You're a little bit more dangerous. But, you know, this is much more common in right versus left.

Yeah. Right versus left is amazing because you're attacking leg. Essentially, you're pointing at each other. It's so close, right? So you have to be able to attack that lead leg somehow. And a lot of people don't have an attack to that lead leg, you know. And in that case, it's definitely like a jab. Right. To open up more.

Yeah, open up more. You can still finish the fight. Yes, you can. Which is a little more unlikely with a jab, I guess. Alright, well, I think that was a good overview of the Ashiwaza.

If you guys want more visual aid and more details on how to practice and execute these throws, check out Shintaro's new instructions. Where can people find that? I mean, honestly, you don't even have to buy the instructions. I've done so many Ashiwaza videos on YouTube. So if you type in Shintaro Higashi Foot Sleepeps ashwada all of the tons of videos right but the thing about that is that it's all free you know and the links are probably linked but it's not as concise and it doesn't follow a sort of a flow to understand the whole picture you know like i teach this one foot sweep i teach that one foot

sweep i teach this combination to hit this foot sweep you know yeah that's not very helpful because you may not get those reactions. Understand it conceptually, how to do it from the beginning to end, and then making your own timing and making your own methodology of attacking the feet in conjunction with the judo that you already do, that's where you're going to get the most thanks for your buck, and that's what this video is about. Biggest ROI.

You love ROI. Check it out. All ROI, yeah. All right, guys. biggest ROI you love ROI yeah alright guys yeah anything else no thank you guys for listening great to see your face again

yeah great seeing you again and you know it's good to be back and I'll we'll see you guys in the next episode