The Shintaro Higashi Show - Judo for Intermediate BJJ’ers

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Recently, many intermediate BJJ'ers are dabbling in Judo to improve their takedown game, but are they approaching it the right way? Some Judo throws can be detrimental if used incorrectly in BJJ. Is it better off for the intermediate BJJ'ers to learn wrestling? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter go in depth on how intermediate BJJ'ers should incorporate Judo into their training and 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. Thank you first and foremost to our sponsors Jason and Levon. Thank you so much, appreciate you guys. Join us on Patreon, be a sponsor. We'll give you a shout out. Patrons, you get to join our Discord server. And talk to a bunch of people. About Judo, BJJ, all kinds of grappling. Yeah. Yep.

All right. So today we're going to, it's a follow-up episode to our previous episode about BJJ for intermediate judo class. We're going to talk about judo for intermediate BJJers. So like, I think your blue belts, purple belts, saw some judo videos and hey, maybe I should do, learn some of those takedowns yeah yeah yeah so yeah i think that's the primary demographic of guys who wander off into judo to get an edge

you know yeah a lot of blue belts do that yeah just to just get that's an edge right like i if you just do pure bjj at that stage yeah you usually yeah i think you're in the main market demographic where you're a mid-30s guy who's doing blue belt division tournaments right and then the both of those guys want to take the other person down they still have this like this is the thing right they don't have a very very refined guard game yet if you're an intermediate black belt they know what they want what they want to do. Most guys are great guard players. It's a lot easier

for the super high level guys to pull guard, sweep, get those points and keep it. Yeah. Blue Belts have a much more

top dominant game. Always. They still have like top is better. So, they're much more likely to engage in like this take down battering ram sort of a thing. So that's when they're like, oh man, I don't really know how to take this person down.

Yeah. And then double legs are very difficult too. Because if you're older, you're shooting underneath, they sprawl on you, front headlock risk. All this stuff is really difficult to get out of and it's very, very energy consuming. Also, it's harder with the geon because you get stopped there's so many handles to stop yep and if you go within range they get gripped and now you can't connect your hands around their legs or whatnot and this is the thing they're not fast and explosive enough i'm not saying everybody okay easy but if you're in that primary demographic yeah if you're a late 30s, mid 30s guy who's never really done other grappling arts, you don't have a fast enough drop step to shoot by those hands from a distance.

So naturally, without a gripping game, you're going to lock up 50-50, face each other. Two strong guys, most likely saw stuff. They're trying to be pushing and pulling, and now they're like, wow, I've got to learn judo. That's really tiring, too. yeah yeah all right so do you so let's approach from this angle so now you are teaching judo at a bjj school essentials is it yeah essential yeah yeah so and assuming that a lot of your students are in this demographic yeah intermediate bjjrs trying to learn judo so what are some of the things you teach you know obviously i guess we could do it like this uh the same way if you want to learn let's touch this first if you want to learn judo

as uh judo i take some elements from judo to help your BJJ game for those people yeah so what do you recommend yeah let's go with that first yeah I think once you develop a traditional judo game yeah

the sky's the limit right in terms of like reactions actions putting moves together combinations you're never gonna get to that

because you're not gonna have a very refined defensive system when you're going against a guy who's inexperienced yeah take like a boxer going in with another box who's experienced there's a lot of nuanced stuff going on feints like setting stuff up you know what i mean timing counters all this stuff as opposed to like you're going against a street fighter he's going to take one wild swing you know all that intricate stuff kind of goes out the

window right so similarly with judo, those little feints and then the little nuanced stuff might not really help you because they're not going to react. Yeah, yeah. They're not going to be able to process like, oh, what was the immediate threat? You know what I mean? Fake turn Taniya Toshi.

They've never really seen a fake turn. Yeah, yeah. So they might just drop to their knees if that happens. You know what I mean? So what are the ways you could gain a reaction first and foremost in BJJ from your opponent? And then what are the moves that are going to supplement that reaction? It's like sort of my number one thing when it comes to helping jiu-jitsu guys supplement with judo. Yeah, I see.

So what is the number one thing that transitions to the ground is guard pulling. Yeah. And when you pull guard, everyone knows what it is. They keep their posture up They reach out and grab a leg to go headquarters and whatnot. Yeah, so that's the reaction that we're looking for So 5050 quick fake guard pull the posture up and then you cut a sleeve go coach you Oh Chi or you go like pick That's like the easiest low-hanging fruit so almost like you do the fake tomoi nage and then push forward yeah I see yes and that's why tomonage is so hard to hit on jiu-jitsu guys because they know that's the first defense they learn the guard because it's very similar to the reaction for guard pulling guard

defense and then tomonage defense are almost the same yeah you see what i mean yeah so when a judo guy with judo experience like oh this guy sucks at judo i'm gonna throw him tomonage it's not easy yeah you know what i mean and then you have guys that pull right versus right with their right leg collar hand side guys that pull right for versus right with their sleeve hand side, and you got guys who just switch grips for no apparent reason, pull with their right leg, and then guys who switch for no apparent reason, pull with their left leg.

Yeah. So all the different variation and entries for Tomonage, straight back, yoko yoko, with different grip configurations, Jiu-Jitsu guys are just capable of reacting to those. Right, right. Even if you have a pretty good

tomonaga game yeah yeah you know obviously like with the momentum and then with it integrated with kochi ochi and stuff like that you can make it happen you can make it right it's a little bit you know yeah but this is the thing right like because you could be in a very defensive posture in stand-up and kochi ochi people aren't really good at it. You know, like there's no like it's one set like oh, this guy's going to pull guard I'm going to defend it.

So if you just go to monage it's very, very difficult and kochi, ochi is not as easily accessible because of the posture and there's no penalties. You know what I mean? Every rule set of every grappling thing

is dependent on the rule set what forces them to do what. Yeah, yeah. Even boxing, right? It's like, oh, you're close enough, you can hug the guy, then we're just going to break you apart. You know what I mean?

But if you're in there and you can kind of push and shove and throw forearms and keep doing et cetera, et cetera, it's going to change the game. Yeah, yeah. Could you imagine if boxing, like if you go for a clinch and hug

them, you get a penalty every time? How different would the boxing look like? I always wonder why they just allow the clinching like that. That should be a criticism. Because if they're so freaking quick, they as in the martial arts community, they say like,

oh, Jiu-Jitsu guys pull guard, you can't do that straight. Oh, Judo guys guys you can't grab legs that's not a complete martial art how come no one criticizes the clinch in boxing then we might get some

reaction out of this I don't know enough about boxing maybe there's safety concerns who knows but I mean all the rules

are safety concerns in a way we'll see comment down below tell us how wrong we are about boxing. But we think clinching should go. Yeah.

And if you want to criticize boxing, like, yes, these kinds of defenses, what about without the glove? Yeah. You know, having a 16-ounce glove, 14-ounce glove, that creates a little bit more... Cushion, yeah. Yeah. So, it's different, you know? Yeah. We're not here to shit on boxing, though.

No. Yeah. We're talking about how can we incorporate judo into bj so yeah so basically you usually start with a fake guard pull and then uh pushing throw like a backwards throw or gaining hand position yeah right because whenever you go guard you do generally release and bring your hands down to work the legs to pass the legs. So you're going to use that sort of reaction to gain hand position.

And then you could snap them down, sidestep, create angles. And then what I suggest to all the guys is that if you're going to pull guard, might as well make it a Tomonage. Or what they call a balloon sweep. A balloon sweep? That's what they call it. sweep a balloon sweep that's what they call it

like overhead sweep whatever it is now basically you get the you get back on top instead of yeah yeah so they fail then all the sudden it's like oh yeah essentially a couple yeah so when you're doing judo training you go into a dojo and then you want to be attacking to mononages all the time but you don't want to be a drop and flopper so that's why you have to learn the rules of the game a little bit first right because and you have to respect the rules oh why can't you just do tomonage 10 times in a practice you know this is stupid this is stupid it's like no there's a lot of stupid things in every martial art that you could criticize and you're not like boxing yeah

you're not being a good uh practice partner like if you spam seoi nage or if you spam you know if you keep flopping on the ground it's not you know you're not there to learn really yes yes yes yeah so i will go with that but you know this is the issue right you go into a dojo generally speaking like average dojo in the united states how many of them are specialized Tomonage guys very very unlikely yeah unlike BJJ who

become naturally specialized in Tomonage defense yeah so you're never gonna you know so that's why you kind of have to do your own research

and you have to buy my Tomonage instructional that's right but how would you go if you walk into judo school and then say hey I'm a BJJ guy but I want if you walk into judo school and then say,

hey, I'm a BJJ guy, but I want to learn, you know, judo so that I can get better. But then you listen, you also listen to Shintaro Higashishiro and it's like, hey,

I'm gonna practice the fake guard pull and then kouchigari. And then go to monage after that? Yeah. Like I said, I mean, I guess if you string those things together it's fine i think that's a valid yeah it is and you know what you're gonna catch a lot of guys

yeah there's a lot of judo guys because very unusual yeah general intermediate judo guys aren't good at defending tomonage and here's an interesting one i'll say a very uh controversial statement bgJ guys are better at defending Tomonage than Judo guys intermediate guys not the high level guys high level guys

can cartwheel no handed you know forehead flip onto their head and then dive over I'm not talking about the advanced guys

or the super proficient like the professionals average intermediate guy in a Judo school versus average intermediate guy in a BJJ school BJJ guy is probably gonna have better defense i hate to say it i get that i mean i mean just another exposure thing like they're more

exposed to it yeah they are and it's a surprising thing you know so why not leverage that yeah you know what i mean why not leverage it and you're not gonna be like inconveniencing anyone by doing like fake Tomoe to Kochi and then Tomo Nagi I think that's a legitimate combination so I don't think

I'm going to say anything no one's going to like you because you're a white belt with a jiu-jitsu experience throwing green and brown belts in judo

with Tomo Nagi yeah all because you listened to this podcast yeah how great is that it's amazing

and after you throw that person for Ippon you say how'd you learn that learned it from the Shintaro Higashi that's right

yeah but if they say hey here's a standing Ippon Senagi now for you to try to hit that in Judo impossible

for you to hit that in BJJ impossible it's gonna take years you know what I mean so you want some level of success first early on to kind of get know what I mean so you want some level of success first

early on to kind of get the ball rolling so then you're inclined to use those advantages and now all of a sudden people fear

Kochi Ouchi Tomonage etc etc which may open up a Ippon Senage yeah and then

that's how you grow your game that's how you grow your game you have to grow it in a cohesive manner yeah yeah that's how you grow your game like that's how you go again you have to grow it in a cohesive matter yeah yeah that's a great point i always tell people that like don't try to like go out and try to emulate gordon ryan right away he got there because he encountered all these difficulties and he's trying to solve the problem as you go yes yeah um all right so let's flip the coin and then go to the other side. So you're a BJJ guy, and then you saw some, you saw Shintaro Higashi video,

and you're like, oh, my God, I want to learn that. I want to learn judo as for judo. How would you recommend approaching that? Well, BJJ wanted to learn judo for judo. You just go in there and do everything else all the judo guys are doing. Hopefully you're in a good school with good teachers. You know what I mean? And then just kind of do that teachers you know what i mean and then

just kind of do that you know what i mean so how i think i think for for tachi waza that's easy but there was a like like how how would you because you know you got going into judo yeah don't do leg locks that's it that's all everything else is essentially the same you're gonna smoke everyone in judo right but you'll find quickly that the rules are a little bit weird. Different, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what I mean? You'll be surprised when it's like, all right, let's roll. And then one person goes down and turtle. And you're like, what the hell is this?

It's like, oh, theoretically we missed a throw and this is the position that we encounter the most when guys go for a turtle and they go belly down. That's where we start. And if there's no action,

we're going to switch. And then they're going to be like, what? You know? But keep an open mind that they're playing a game with a different rule set. You know,

the goal isn't to like, you know what I mean? Find flaws like we did with boxing. Let me tell you about boxing. They tape their fist shots too. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. It's like, what if you're ever in the streets, like you're boxing they tape their fist shots too yeah i mean yeah yeah that's right it's like what if you're ever in the streets like you're gonna tape your fist so you can't grab the

guy that's why that's useful that's why i walk around with my gi on all the time that's exactly right yeah so okay so i mean it's pretty easy i think if you're a bjj guy you've already know you already know what grappling it's like jud. I think if you're a BJJ guy, you already know what grappling is like. Judo is the same. It's just different rule set. Be respectful. Do the things they tell you to do if you want to learn judo as judo. Should I do this next episode?

Why boxing is not legit? Oh, God. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It is legit. It is legit. I'm kidding I'm kidding it's legit

it's legit it is legit yeah there are a lot of flaws that people the same criticism for judo and BJJ is not being had

on boxing I mean you still hear it in the connotations like oh yeah I boxed for years I'm so tough I'm better than you

it's like dude you went to the 6am thing you shot a box you never really sparred before you didn't box bro I think that's sparring most people everyone like this

oh my god he was a boxer that means literally nothing to me it's like how many concussions you see how unathletic that guy looks

he's not an athlete he's not a martial artist he didn't box he joined the boxing how do you know it's not cardio kickboxing that he did and how many concussions

has he had I mean that's a good measure. That's right. That's right. Don't even get me started on that. We're going to do a whole separate episode. I love boxing, by the way.

Yeah. Boxing is great. It's one of the toughest sports, you know. I don't know about that. Anyway, so, okay,

moving on. So now, we covered both cases and now, let's talk about your experience teaching judo to BJJ people. Like what have you noticed? How do you structure practice? Maybe we'll start with that.

Like I know you teach that fake garpo into that. But how do you teach, have them do uchikomis? Or do you do more like BJJ style? You know, so at first I was trying to do more like BJJ style you know so at first I was trying to do more gripping stuff because I thought it would be beneficial

but after doing lots and lots of BJJ yeah it's not helpful because the reactions aren't there right and grip fighting

is not a thing in BJJ you would think in the ground work it would be more yeah right and so I'm trying

to take that approach and I said this in the last episode as like sort of you know cerebral like gap so yeah like a cerebral approach of like right i'm in knee cut knee shield okay i have my leg anchored backwards i have a lean forward lean my goal is to put my hand on the collar to anchor myself so i kind of go around the corner right yeah and then like pull the person in so like he's crunched in and then i can work the legs whatever you know what i mean but a good person's not gonna let me get that collar but like that intricate like fighting for position parrying the hand going here cutting the

hand using the other hand making it look like i'm doing for something and then putting the hand out and gaming it right so it's not really a thingit fighting is not really a thing as it is in judo. Right, right. Yeah. So, teaching grit fighting, I thought would be a lot more intuitive for everybody

and people would just get it. But it was much more difficult than I thought. You know? I see. So it's actually better to show, like,

alright, everyone reaches with their right hand with a lead leg. Right? Lead leg, right? Yeah. Lead hand. Which is generally a no-no

in most grappling in wrestling judo and sambo they're like don't do that because you get you can just

you expose your lead leg right you expose your lead leg you give the dominant hand away essentially and so it's like the worst thing you could potentially do

but getting these guys to not do that was very difficult too so we're building a game around doing that right or letting the other guy do it and accepting it and then incrementally advancing from there and using that i see to the advantage so like i'm really changing sort of like the gripping curriculum and approach to looking for takedowns from there you know what i mean so that's one thing doing standing uchikomi for

uchimata or sora gary you're going to be very useless yeah for these guys because you're never in that upright position yeah yeah but it doesn't mean uchimata is useless which amount is very very useful you made a kenken uchimata video for jiu jitsu guys specifically and it's a back step uchimata where you spin to the back side right spin in a way so you don't have to dive underneath you don't have to expose your back you're using your hand as a frame because you're working to the outside they understand framing very well yeah but that happens a lot on the ground yeah yes so letting the guy put their hand on the collar the wrong side hand right and then gaining an advantage there put your second hand on where you're kind of winning already right and then And then snapping them down, faking guard pull, and then circling to the outside and entering Uchimata is probably like the most useful thing a BJJ guy learned from judo.

So that's something that I do and I just let them work that. And then it's like, okay, now your hand's a little bit higher. So now you could drop to your knee and go ankle pick here, ankle pick there. Or you could go guard pull there so it's always sort of in like a jiu-jitsu context that I'm teaching

right and yes we do some throws at the end and etc etc but I never let them do randori oh you don't do randori zero randori

in my class oh wait they're using this as a supplement to their jiu-jitsu training right if they're doing randori

and they get injured in my class, that's like the worst thing ever. Do you even do ground? No. Not in my class. It's literally one hour of drills and skills. Me teaching, drill it.

Teach, drill. Teach, drill. Teach, drill. So it's very, very unique, and I think it's an extremely valuable class. It's not very well attended but we do have a very good you know and the timing is also it's like at a weird time it's like 5 45 on thursday and it's just kind of one-off class and it's like also corresponding with like the you know advanced yeah there's like a little bit of overlap there but we do have a core group of guys that are there doing it yeah I'm just extremely happy with the guys that are on the map there with that how long

have you been teaching now I would like six months or so I do I mean I feel like once those core guys become efficient and they start yeah you know steam rolling people they choose this yeah they do my class they go to the advanced class all right let's let's roll And there's 70 guys on the mat. There's no space to do stand-up really. And then the moment they show any sort of real proficiency with like, oh, shut the sand, go hand high, fix, you know, the guy's like, oh, my God.

And then they just drop to the floor. And now they don't get to work it. But every now and then they do. And then they'll launch someone, and then those guys will come back, yo, wow, I hit that thing yesterday, and I'm like, yo, that's amazing, and it's a great thing.

But it really is catered to jiu-jitsu guys, the way I'm teaching this class. It's literally judo for jiu-jitsu, and it's not something that someone taught me how to do it. I'm figuring it out as I go. I don't think there's a lot of judo instructors.'s a lot of judo for bj classes that i've seen out there yeah and they've all sucked i shouldn't say that but i've never seen anyone that's like really good i'm like oh but now that i'm proficient in bjj as well right you can figure

it out i could say that now with 100 confidence i could say i'm proficient in bjj by anyone's standards um now i could really cater my judo expertise because judo i'm an expert i'm not just proficient i'm an expert right and i'm a master teacher yeah so now i could use red white red white that's right and then i can use that to like cater something specifically for that crowd and i think one day it'll be very valuable and then i think maybe like you know yeah it'd be useful to the entire grappling community i think yeah you know that's um how do you solve the exposure problem like with bjj the way it's taught with the way the rules are like you just don't get exposed to no but we'll do like lots of drills in this setting right where i'm showing the techniques

showing uh you know forcing these reactions and usually it's a guard pull reaction and then yeah so because they're doing it for an hour right when they encounter that 10 second 15 second yeah slot right where they're like oh this this is i've seen this before i've been here before i spent you know hour once a week, I do an hour of this. And then if they can pull the trigger, they're going to slam these guys. I see. So that's how you get away with not doing Rondori. Yeah, because they don't need to do hard Rondori.

Right. In order to beat the guys that they're trying to beat using this skill. Right. So that's just, to me, is that they're trying to beat using this skill. Right. So that's just, to me, is unnecessary risk, you know, exposure to risk,

you know? And that's the way, I'm a true believer of this, you know? I can always see, like, some judo purists kind of saying,

oh, that's not judo you're teaching, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, I feel like, It is judo, though. Yeah,

it's, we gotta get out of here. Did you not hear Tomonage, Koji, gripping, hand position, Uchimata, backside U yeah. But, I mean, I feel like... It is Judo, though. Yeah, it's... We've got to get out of here. Did you not hear? Tomonage, koji, gripping, hand position, uchimana, back step uchimana, kenken uchimana, finish. Yeah. You know?

Kenken uchimana, cross body ochi. That's pure Judo in the purest way. Yeah. You know? It's just designed for a different rule set. Yeah. Using different reactions that might be more apparent. Right.

I mean, that kind of... I think we have to see it as like... What is pure judo? That's my question to those guys. This shows the versatility of judo that it can be applied in a lot of the different grappling arts. I've seen a lot of high-level BJJ people hitting uchimaras and...

Yeah, that's the thing. They're getting good. Yeah, haraig good yeah and they're like wow that's not shabby like really good I don't think I can do that Justin Flores is teaching Judo

to Keenan Cornelius and their group Dubious Dom is a guy who does Atos you know in California in San Diego

and he's doing a lot of Judo now let me tell you when I went to BJ classes and like doing no-gi I naturally try to do uchimaras but i can't hit it as well as these guys in that setting nogi setting it's it's it's very it's a oh nogi yeah yeah like very different you know different yeah so they're doing something

great and i think that shows the versatile speaks to the versatility of judo all right for sure cool that's very it was very interesting to hear your perspective on teaching judo for intermediate bjrs i hope everyone found this helpful um all right anything else no man thank you so much for listening and then please find us on social yeah and uh yeah all the stuff that i mentioned it's video products somewhere on the internet so go seek that out thank you guys for listening as always i'm very grateful yeah thank you so much and we'll see you guys in the next episode