The Shintaro Higashi Show - Finishing Throws

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

You can't always get that picture-perfect ippon throw, so it is important to know how to "finish" the throw. What does it mean to finish a throw, and how can we practice it? In this episode, Shintaro shares some of his tips in "finishing" throws. 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 Shinto Heigashi Show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about finishing throws, being a finisher. Yeah, and before we go into that, we just want to give a quick shout out to our sponsor, LeVon. One of our biggest sponsors. That's right. Thank you, LeVon. Yeah, we're the reason why we can keep doing this and keep the suggestions coming. And if you guys want to support us, join us on Patreon and then join our Discord server.

Talk to other grapplers and you can talk to us and suggestions and all that stuff. Yep. Join us on Patreon. Yeah. That's right. All right. So what are we talking about today? Finishing throws?

Finishing throws. Yeah. Like the mechanics. When people say like finishing throws, they think like Nagakome. Yeah. Right. But I'm not talking about that. Okay.

I'm talking about when you enter into a throw and it doesn't really succeed but your legs are entangled or you're in this limbo position right usually it's like osoto ochi even drop senai when you're stuck underneath the person and now you have to run the technique down or finish in a way where it's not one swooping movement like everybody wants it to be, but tons of people make a living in this special place. So you've gotten into the position to throw, but it's not like this perfect position yet. So how do we adjust our body to be able to finish it? Kind of like that.

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. All right. It's like understanding the mechanics of it. You know, that's what we'll talk about today. So should we go down the list

of different throws first or do you have some general point that you want to make about finishing throws? Yeah, I think the most important thing is understanding their line of defense, right? So you understand the goals of what your body should be doing, and then the reasoning behind

why you're pulling with the sleeve, why you're pulling with the right hand or the collar hand, and what your legs are supposed to be doing. Majority of people, because stand-up is so difficult, just keeping their balance and making the shape of the technique is difficult. So people never really look beyond that, right? And every now and then then they do it in one perfect swoop and then it works really good and that's the only thing that they're chasing but there's a lot of stuff that happens in between there you know right so now when you're trying to work on the finishing mechanics of a technique you have to look at where you get stuck and why right how come i wasn't able to finish this move and can I force it

or parlay that into another thing? Whether it's the same move finished in a different way or do I transition into another move? Right. Okay, so maybe an example would do well here. What would be an example of that situation?

Ouchi, inside choke. It's very rare to get it in one shot. Where you reap the leg and the person falls flat to the back. It just really never happens, right? Right. So what are the main defenses that somebody might do? Sure. Yeah.

Okay. That's a good example. Shifting their weight to their supporting leg. Yeah. Right? And so that you get into the hopping situation. Hopping situation. You're both hopping on one leg each.

Yeah. You're this two-legged person. Yeah. You're this two-legged person. Yeah. You and this other person, right? Right, right. And you're determining which way the person or both or either will fall.

Yeah, yeah. You know? So now we're looking at finishing, whether it's a cutback ochi where you're cutting back to the right side or the 45 degrees to the back side. Right.

Where you're reaping that leg. Or you're going to the 45 degrees to the back side. Right. Where you're reaping that leg. When you're going to the 45 degrees to the other side. Right. And trying to take their head over the support leg. Right, right. Yeah. So it's like alternating between those two, how and when. Right.

And then. Yeah, yeah. Do you usually go back and forth between those two directions? Is that what you're saying? Not me so much. I have a preference, obviously. But if you can do both, it's even better. Sometimes you can go straight backwards too if they're not so slick.

Right, right. But this becomes this thing of keeping the leg elevated, making it look like you're going to go for one direction, and then go in the other direction you know right right so like if you're hopping oji backwards then you cut back to the right 45 right to the backside 45 and then in order for them to base they have to take their leg and hop it underneath them yeah okay so as they do so you could shift the body weight to the other direction and run it at that 45. Right, right. I see.

I see. So you force one way, and then when they're kind of losing balance, you can go the other way. Yeah. It's like, you know, when you're playing football, right? You're running a slant, you know, like a wide receiver. You're running up the thing, and then you cut to the right or cut to the left really fast, you know? Right, right. Because the defenseman is running backwards, the person who has,

who's running the formation Yeah. kind of has a jump start. Advantage, yeah. Yeah, a little bit, right? Switch direction faster. Yeah, and sometimes you quick cut right,

go left, and then go right back to that other 45, you know? Right, right. Yeah, only difference here is that there's no ball in judo. Yeah.

So the, it's, it's interesting you mentioned switching back and forth because you can, for example, you know what Kosei is known for, just driving to the supporting leg, right? Yes. So what's the story there? Why did he finish your Uchi-Gari there instead of going back and forth? He was really good at it. You could only be good

At one finish too If you're able to enter Into an Ouchi position And you know One finish really really good You could force that finish Every single time Yeah yeah

You know what I mean But in a way also Right You have to realize When he goes to that Ouchi He's running it Running it Sometimes he drops

On the knee for drop Senagi Yeah You guys forget In a way how to drop Senagi Also Also he can do He can hook the Ouchi guard running it, sometimes he drops on the knee for dropsenage. Yeah. You guys forget anyway how to dropsenage. Also, he can do, he can hook the uchi guard and then do an uchimata.

He can, and sometimes he enters uchimata and then the uchimata doesn't work. Go to the uchi, hops, hops, and then does dropsenage. I've seen him do that too. Yeah. He's so good. I know. He's in a little bit of hot water now, you know. Why? What happened? I didn't know that

I mean this is not a thing That I wanted to say On the air But you know He was caught Entering a hotel With someone That wasn't his wife

Oh Oh Yikes And I only said this Because I saw it On the Japanese news So it's public information Okay

You can look it up Yeah A little bit of But you know This is the thing right People cheat on their wives All the time You know Right Peter Well that's not me What the fuck you can look it up yeah a little bit of but you know this is the thing right people cheat on their wives all the time you know

right Peter well not me what the fuck no they do but you know In the Land is such a wholesome thing about him

I know and he's always been the protector of good you know yeah protecting the students and athletes and all that

just like cares so much the most wholesome young man, just what a lovely human. And he's held to such high standards, you know what I mean? And then all of a sudden he gets caught, and then it was a huge deal. It was a huge deal. How the mighty has fallen, huh?

Well, I don't really know what's going on with him, but it's not very visible now. I saw it on the news once. I was like, oh, my God. And now all of a sudden i haven't heard anything about him oh maybe maybe he was a good friend of his and that colse maybe he's enough to move to the united states you're gonna hire him yeah i don't know i don't know if i can afford him well anyway yeah so you're looking it up right now? I am.

I looked up Inoue Kosei News, but you know what? It's not on there. You see, this is the thing about propaganda in the news. You know what I mean? Oh, shoot. Okay. I'm sorry. It's not on there.

I saw this on Japanese news. Maybe it's a... All right, well... I typed in Inoue Kosei cheating and then did not match any news results

zero results well maybe you have to search in Japanese you know what I'm gonna have to do that yeah anyway

we're digressing I'm sorry about that it's really a ridiculous digression but the point being about that. It's really a ridiculous digression. But the point being is that, you know, of course, he was so good at finishing throws. If he's listening, I'm so a fan. I love Judo.

That'd be amazing if he was listening to this. Yeah, maybe he could be. I think his English is pretty good, I hear. Yeah, he studied in scotland or something right in uh england yeah oh he's in england yeah yeah anyway anyway back to finishing throws okay so you know where jose did all this tricks to be able to finish ochi guard a one sign, like that, supporting leg sign. Well, that's what he was known for. So,

he's closing out judo matches, not closing dates. Oh my god. Why do you have to keep going? I'm trying to get sweet. All right. So, yeah,

closing up judo matches. That's right. He's very good at that. All right. So, so what's that? Okay, what were we talking about? Okay, so your ochi gari was that. Okay, so you could throw in other throws, like you could

threaten the person with other throws and then maybe that'll make your ochi gari more easier to finish. Yeah. So here's the thing, right? You can focus on gri gripping and entering Ochi, slipping that leg in without the risk of getting like early stage counter when they can anticipate it, they get foot sweep you or Sasai you, right?

Yeah. So you get good at that. And that can be a sort of a drill. Right, right, right. And then once you get really good at that and then you're really good at finishing, now all the stuff in between that you may usually do in Judo in terms of like gaining position and then trying to do this or looking for misdirections and combinations all that stuff going out the window right because now your scope is on the beginning where you're trying to fight hand position and force a mana position with your

leg a leg entanglement position and then you're really really good at finishing so you can hook it and then just go from there. Yoshida was like that too. Yoshida. Yoshida. Hidehiko Yoshida. He would always just like maybe let you grip fight for position

he would just slip the leg in for like an ochi. Yeah. And then he would either try to finish ochi or just go ushimara. Ushimara. But he was very very flexible.

So that's interesting because all the time all the time you would you know emphasize this context, like how to make the throws, like all this misdirection, like you said, the better grip position and all that.

But now you're saying there's another way. If you focus on the finishing side, you can kind of ignore the part you are very gung-ho about. I don't think you could ever ignore the beginning part because if you're still attacking from a bad position, it's a lot easier to counter the stuff if you don't have a good hand position.

So it still is a precursor to have a good hand position. If you don't have the hand on the collar, like high on the collar where you can manipulate the person's head, then you can't finish it. Think about it. If you have your hand down by the stomach, then you're not going to be able to pull their head down or move their head to any direction.

So it still is important. But if you really, really know how to finish and can prevent all the counters and such, you can go from 50-50 position, slip a leg in and go, which I still can't advocate for that because it's just too much risk, right? And I'm kind of risk averse when it comes to dynamic throws like judo where you could take your ACL in under half a second. You know what I mean?

I see. Yeah. I mean, it is possible, but you're like basically saying that's not really, yeah, there's too much risk involved. Yeah. Too much risk involved. Yeah. Too much risk involved, you know? So I guess why not, why not focus on all aspects of it, I guess. I mean, you do.

And the Finnish stuff, I think is another big gap. You know, that's one of those things that hasn't really been explored in like the Judo YouTube space, you know? And it still is like one of these things that I still know about and i've done and i have sort of an idea but i've never really done a lot of youtube videos on it yet you know yeah so i'm starting to kind of like go into that direction where you know i'm always talking about judo teaching judo as you know as all the listeners know and i'm thinking to myself what portion of the judo game do i have i not really exposed to the public yet you know i what I mean? I haven't brought them to it yet.

In my most concise and easily digestible chunks of wisdom. Yeah. You know, and it's the finishing mechanics, a lot of this stuff, you know? I see. The dream is to like fight for position, move, misdirect. The guy doesn't even see it coming. They're upside down and they're getting swooped under the head, right?

So this is not as exciting. I used to hate the Keggen stuff because it just kind of makes you think like, oh, it didn't work on the one shots and now you got to force it. You're bumped to the head, right? So this is not as exciting. I used to hate the Kekken stuff because it just kind of makes you think like, oh, it didn't work on the one shots and now you got to force it. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So there was sort of a thing that I didn't like about it. Right.

You know what I mean? I'll give you another example. When Ishii came to the United States and fought in the U.S. Nationals. Satoshi. Yeah, Satoshi Ishii. Everyone was hoping for him to just launch people into oblivion. You know what i mean yeah uh but when he did like a hopping ochi people were like why couldn't he just like

throw him to his back in one shot or like taiyotoshi he signaged taiyotoshi and all that yeah and i was like first of all the person who i heard overheard complaining about this was i'm like well who gives you the right to complain? You know, it was just like really, I was annoyed by that comment. Yeah. But it's true though, I get it. It's cool to like, you know,

when you throw somebody and say, oh, I slammed this guy in the finals and people say, oh, what'd you throw him with? You say Sanagi. And then when they tell you like, was it standing he pulled Sanagi or was it a drop? Drop Sanagi. It's like it a drop it was a drop

like oh you know like there's still like a little bit of a thing attached to it you know because Judo is about that flashy point

you know Teddy Teddy Renner gets that criticism too I think yeah we all get that criticism but it's still beautiful you know because

when you don't get into one shot and you have to finish it the right way, you know what I mean? There's a lot going on there too. So finish in Osoto. How many ways do you know how to finish it? Can you read the person and see what they do?

Are they trying to counter the Osoto with a backstep counter? Are they countering the Osoto just in the same direction you're going for? Are they turning and then trying to grab your waist to lift you how do you defend against that you know right getting into those positions and understanding and reading your opponent and then making adjustments on the fly and that's a whole other skill in itself right and you say you haven't made a lot of videos on this but you did you do have a video about finishing seoi nages, like drop Seoi Nages, you know? Yes, but you know what? It's not like the in-depth, like, all right,

what if you guys circle around to the right? What if he goes to the backside? You know, what if the guy tries to sprawl? You know, and how you're making those adjustments and how you're running it. It's not really like that. You know what I mean? Those videos don't really, I haven't made that in-depth finishing videos.

You know, because people want to see three Seoi Ngies that you could add into your game immediately yeah and you know that's the most exciting ones and then the more niche and useful it gets to a higher intermediate and advanced crowd the less eyeballs there are on it because you need to cater to sort of the biggest population for it to be having the most views to be right so i try to like pepper in some of those like more experimental like the high level stuff yeah i pepper those in and then i'll like mention those in passing what i'm talking about the stuff that everyone can get a best roi on their attention know, it's really the work of a genius. I can't even, I can't stress this enough. Yeah, I'm in the presence of a genius right now. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So you're really saying like, you know how a lot of people, usually the instruction on seirinage will go something like this. Oh, you're going for seirinage, like drop seirinage and it's not working. The, you know, the person sprawls, and you can't really do it, then you're taught to really just switch to another throw. But right now, you're saying

there are ways to really just force the way, once you enter, and you can force a throw despite all the defense your opponent is employing. Not always. You know, so like if you're doing a drop senai and then he pushes that hip in the opposite

side and then he cuts that sleeve hand and now you don't have a sleeve hand. Right. You can't finish it. You have one hand on and your hand is back here. And then the person grabs that wrist and dives out for a juji. There's no finishing that senai there. Your arm is, you got a top there right so like understanding where you are in that cycle like how deep you are how close you are to throw

you know filling that person out sometimes you go and drop senagi and they're walking around the back side so now all of a sudden you have to do sort of a quarter turn drop senagi to meet them and anticipate them stepping out that way you know so like those things are you know what i mean like it takes a very long time to develop yeah you know so yes it's contextual because the more you can stagger the timing for them to defend it fake fake moving coaching and you pull them out then you drop underneath and they almost go over that's a great timing to learn how to to finish right and there's a couple different finishing methods there. So yeah, that's kind of the idea. That's what I'm talking about

working specifically and explicitly on. Alright, so I think we have a pretty good understanding of what you mean by finishing throws, but how would you work on it like doing your day-to-day practice? So getting to that position

more is important, right? How many times do you get into drop Senagi finishing position or Ochi finishing position? Not that often, right? Maybe, like, if you're an Ochi guy, Senagi guy, you're spamming it. Majority of the time when you're doing Rondori, you spend a lot of time stepping out of bounds, stepping in bounds, facing each other, grip fighting,

grip breaking, grip fighting, stepping out of bounds. One person goes for one or two throws, already two minutes gone. Yeah. Right? Right. And I love this example. So I sent this example the other day, and everyone's like, dude, you use this example all the time.

The high backhand in tennis. Yeah, I saw it. YouTube comment then. YouTube comment. I sent it in the dojo. I was like, dude, you really like that tennis bat. Comment. But you know, that comment really like, that example really hit me because when my sister started getting tennis lessons and started beating me in tennis, you know, it drove me

crazy. And she would always give you the backhand. She would always, high backhand or drop shot. Oh, I see. Yeah. And I can never, and then, you know, I'll break my racket. And then eventually I just stopped playing tennis against her. I was a sore loser.

Yeah, because I couldn't fathom a world where my sister could beat me in sports, in any sport. Oh, my God. And then when she started beating me, I couldn't take it. And, you know, I was a sore loser back then. And, you know, I couldn't take it. You know, and I was a sort of loser back then. And, you know, I still am actually. But like, you know, the high backhand and the drop shot, how many times will I encounter it? Maybe one time or two times or five times I played with my sister.

And every time I won't get it and I'll blow my mind. I'll lose my mind. Yeah. Blow fucking, you know what I mean? Yeah. So like, as opposed to like, all right, let me just receive the high and then the drop shot. High backhand drop shot. How many of those can I receive in one practice if I deliberately trained it?

One two-hour session, probably like a hundred. Yeah. So the next time my sister hits it to my high backhand with a drop shot, it's my hundredth and fifth time. Hundredth and ninth time that I'm being exposed to this. I do it every day and my sister will never beat me in tennis again right that's the idea

so that's the idea so then how do you put yourself into that finishing situation no you start there so oh you start

okay yeah our next podcast is going to be situational training situational training this has been a theme at my dojo for like the last two months. I see.

Oh, okay. Okay. I'm getting a sneak peek of what's going on in KBI. Yeah. So you go, I go inside trip, Ochi, Ochi position. Right. And then I'm trying to finish and then time goes and the other person, you know, not even time goes.

You know, you escape it and then the other person starts. So now you're used to this. Right. Right. Right. You're used to it now you're used to this. Right, right, right. Used to it, used to it, used to it, right? And then the person receiving it is trying to counter it actively. Ah. So you get really, really good at,

you start specializing in that position. And any time you get to force that position in competition, you should have an advantage. Yeah. Because you've seen it more times. Yeah. While those people are circling,

going out of bounds, hey, what are you doing this weekend? Going out of bounds, grip fighting for another 47 seconds, aggro's drop, how much has really occurred in the four minutes of Andori? Not that much. It's not efficient. And these

are the kind of things I'm starting to see in jiu-jitsu training as well. They do that a lot I think maybe it's a little easier on the ground to do this on the ground a little bit yeah I'll tell you this man I had a role like the other day like you know shake hands

guy pulls guard put me in spider lasso like we're stuck there you know what I mean like someone almost lands on us we start over on our feet same thing guy pulls guard spider lasso I'm trying to fight out of it and it's like you know what i mean i break out of it yeah you know we go to half guard and he like locks down and like i'm trying to like leg extraction and then the round's over yeah you didn't get to do much i guess no yeah yeah and then this guy marcus teaches over there he's amazing and he's like you know what not efficient we're gonna just

do this position you know we're just're just going to start in headquarters. Pass, you reset into that. Okay, we're going to do this. We're going to do Del Hiva. We're going to go to Fallen Pass. And then you start there. Right? So now, all of a sudden, you're not wasting time.

You know, you have different starting points. Right. I see. You know what I mean? And this is a traditional training when we'll discuss, we'll dedicate another episode on this. Yeah, yeah. We'll talk a little bit more about this

and then like starting in bad positions, winning positions, Georgian A, Georgian B, put games that you can play to improve your judo immediately because everyone's talking about games right now in martial arts and like having objectives and this and that

to make your training more efficient. But no one's really talking about exactly the specifics of how, you know? Right, right. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that all right starting in the ochi position starting in the osoto position even just like kind of going 30 without finishing just feeling it out yeah so you get into the habit of like what is this guy trying to do here you know even like nagakomi instead of just taking him and just dumping him with a ogoshi that you know you could do that for nagakomi, you get no ROI on that anymore.

Everyone knows you can make the shape of a hip throw. Yeah. On a person standing right side versus left side, you already have the grip. You throw your hips across and take him over. That is the most useless exercise. That's the biggest waste of time. Especially once you know how to do it. Yeah.

It's like, why are you doing that is my question to some of these black belts. Right? But, if you go Ogoshi there, and the guy hip checks, and you cut back Ochi right there, that's a worthy thing to drill. Nagakome, you know? Even like,

alright, we're going to start three feet away from him, or four feet away from the mat, open the leg of Ochi, drive, drive, cut back, cross body, and then switch to Osorio. That's a good Nagakomi drill. It's very specific to finishing mechanics. You're taking into account the guy's reactions. You're developing a sensitivity to what they're going to do and then countering that on the fly.

You see what I mean? Yeah. So I think a lot of times the entry gets more attention maybe disproportionately so yeah because judo you know uchikomi kind of emphasizes that i mean i'm not we're not saying that's not important it's also very yeah but i think a lot we're kind of you're saying wow that finishing part is a little missing in our training. I mean, like, I've always been this guy that's talking about contextual judo, what precedes the attacks, you know what I mean? Hand positioning, grip fighting, one, you know, misdirection,

and then feinting and, you know, mistiming everything. Yeah. Entries are another thing that everyone talks about this stuff, but then the finishing now. I want to be a finisher. You know what I mean? Sounds like an action movie. There's a finisher you know what I mean sounds like an action movie there's a finisher

maybe alright well anything else no just thank you guys for listening as always we're very grateful

for all our listeners people coming in and like telling me about the podcast it's amazing you know and we're very grateful

yeah very grateful very grateful and you could support us and make it much better for Peter to be spending his time with his brilliant PhD mind

that he could be designing AI software but he's out here talking judo with me so. I don't know. Sometimes I think this is this makes a bigger difference

in the world. Nah. All right. Well, yeah sometimes I think this makes a bigger difference in the world nah alright well yeah I mean this really I mean your support makes this more fun and enjoyable to do and I'm really

we really appreciate it and yeah thanks for listening and we'll see you guys in the next episode