The Shintaro Higashi Show - Judo Games

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Incorporating small games into your practice is a popular training method across many sports. Does this also work for Judo? In this episode, Shintaro and Greg discuss in depth various Judo games that can help you become a better Judoka. They talk about various aspects of the games such as how they can help you and how they have worked at Shintaro's dojo. 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 Greg Reagan. See what I did there? I just replaced Peter Yu. Said Shintaro Higashi Show with Greg Reagan. Yeah, Peter Yu's on a hiatus. He'll be back soon though. Thank you to our sponsors first and foremost, Jason and Levon. You guys are the best. And you know, we're working on some other sponsors too. So if you guys want us to give you guys a shout out or even promote your product or whatever that you do, reach out to us, right?

Judo Shintaro NYC on Instagram, right? Or GReagan1 on Instagram. Is that right? Yep. Always there in the notes, getting tagged. So you can find either one of us. It's good to reach out. Yeah.

Find us, reach out, and then, you know, you can sponsor us and it'll greatly help the show. All right. We're going to talk a little bit about judo games games to improve your skill set in judo so you've been working on some of these games we played some of these games oh yeah for sure yeah what are what are some what are what are your marquee games all right let's just say a very very specific game with very low consequences. I'm going to give you a little bit of a riddle. You guys can play along

too. When you're fighting right side versus left side, if you're righty and you're fighting a lefty, who gets to decide inside or outside position? Person who gets their hand on first. Yes, person who gets that collar grip first. Because if I grab it and then you go inside,

you block it and then they have to filter to the outside. Correct? Correct. Because you can filter them in to where you want your hand. So putting that hand on first is a skill that you need to develop, correct? Yes. And what kind of game do you think we should play for that?

Kind of like a... I want to say a movement, like tagging kind of game. Yes, just touching that collar, right side versus left side, with the hand that you intend on grabbing it with. Right? So if I'm righty, I'm lead leg right, my right hand's forward, and I'm going to try to put my right hand on your collar. If you're lefty, you're standing left leg forward, and your left hand's forward, and you're trying to put your left hand on your collar. If you're lefty, you're standing left leg forward and your left hand's forward and you're going to try to put

your left hand on my collar. You're going to sort of reduce the speed. You're going to say, hey, don't go crazy because now you're just jamming. Essentially, you're just fencing in a very unskilled way. Two unskilled guys fencing. That's never going to go anywhere.

With fingers near the eyes. Fingers near the eye, you're going to scratch, you're going to jam your fingers so it's like not even first to three it's like you're just going to exchange right and you're going to try to use some of these tools that i'm about to give you right he's coming i take a step back and then i punch in like a pull pull counter right in boxing right person comes to grab that collar you parry it with your hand you block it and then you go over and touch that collar right so then you could parry it with the opposite hand touch the hand you could faint they shoot their hand by to parry it then you punch their hand in right so this is an example of a game that you could potentially play

right i guess the you know one of the main ideas is like you can't – if you have one method of attack, it's going to get shut down eventually. So you have to have all of these other methods to go in. So you have to train that sensory-wise to really ingrain it. What other games – is this mostly grip-fighting games or – No. In general, there's a bunch what do you think is a good game to play for skill acquisition uh you know a little bit more on a it's a little bit of a rougher game but like that judo sumo that we would play every once in a while yeah that's a good one if it could be escalated down because it tends to go into

a high tier, kind of like high octane fight. Yeah. But in judo, a lot of other martial arts in the striking world, the force ends at the opponent. But in judo,

it starts at the opponent. So it's the ability to get your body weight behind your hands so that pushing and pulling sensory adaptation is so critical. And then doing it with a gi is big. So playing that game, commanding the center, it all plays well into the fundamentals of Judo. Yeah.

And you know, you could do modified on dori, right? Just forcing penalties. No one throws, no one takes anybody down. Forcing penalties, right? And just playing that game. And that's a crucial element of the game when you're doing strategic competitive judo, right? Because if you're up by two penalties,

if the other guy has two penalties, now the onus is on them to hustle and score, right? So that person's going to get a little bit sloppierier you know and then you could play a sort of a calculated game where you're just chipping away at the clock or something like this so you could play this game relatively safely and develop soft skills in judo which is actually not like the main skill of throwing somebody right but working the clock forcing penalties all these stuff with reduced risk you know what i mean yeah so putting your hand on first right if it's right side versus right side touching that sleeve collar sleeve collar sleeve collar with your left hand right while your right hand is protecting the

collar because you know right versus right right okay so like touching first touching first you can even just do grip fighting by itself as a game, you know? And then letting the person work out, et cetera, et cetera. And then trying to force shidos and then creating movement. Right? And like you just said, judo sumo. So when these things combine together, you're developing all the other skills that are taking flung out of the picture. Right.

And I think those are crucial, you know, being able to do that. Right? right and i think that's those are crucial you know being able to do that right the uh the russian something you described like the russian little kid over under game where you uh you grab the belt and then they hook the arm like i every time i show that to any of the beginners classes if they do that for 15 minutes they're infinitely better. Like the footwork and everything is just greatly improved. And it gets them familiar with standing up,

having a person in close proximity and how easy it is to enter. You know why that's so good? It's because the risks are low. You know what I mean? Remember when you're like in school, in grade school, and you have to read

or answer a question? And if all the kids are just laughing at you or mocking you if you got the wrong, or if you're stuttering, oh, this kid can't read, whatever it is, you're much less likely to ask a question. Oh, that question's so dumb. But if it's a good teacher with a good leader in the room, they'll create a safe environment for you to ask questions, no dumb questions. Anyone ask, everyone contribute. Oh, that's a great idea. Oh, that's an interesting sign you know observation now all of a sudden you kind of take risk and start trying to interact with the content

more correct and i think it's the same thing in the the dojo when you're trying to learn judo the consequences are very very small as opposed to like when you're doing randori you go over under you make a mistake you get freaking freaking slammed. That's not the time. That's only the time to learn that you did it wrong. But it's not the time to learn what to do. You know, like you need to have it go again. And you learn fear from that. But over under, let's say like, you know what, I'm going to go for a cosotto.

And then I jump onto the hip without actually controlling that topside shoulder. And you lift me up and slam me on my shoulder, dude. It could be game. I'm never going to do it again. Right? Yeah, you don't even want to. Yeah,

with play fighting, I hook a shoulder, you lift me up like, oh, I could have gotten slammed. Maybe I should have done it a little bit differently. Let's figure out how.

And you're going 30% and you know you're not going to get bombed. So now you're climbing on the hip and pinching that other shoulder down so they can't lift you. So you're sagging your weight over that hip.

Right? So that's how you learn, you know? Yeah. So good point on that, that Russian play fighting thing. Yeah, just, and anything, you know, moving Uchikomi-wise, just generating movement, you know, especially people coming in who aren't the most athletic, getting their movements in different directions,

planting on one foot, moving to another foot. Anything that facilitates that is monumental. And we did one yesterday, too, the Ochi position with the inside leg, trying to finish from there, driving Ochi to the backside at 45 or the front side 45, switching to the Uchimata. And that could be a little bit more like, all right, the goal is to finish, but the person standing is going to get finished. You're going to let the guy throw you, right?

But give him a little bit of resistance so that he gets an actual feel. And then you predetermine who's going to win. The guy who has the inside leg hooked is going to win because it's not fun if you're doing the drill with you and then the yellow belt can never throw you because you could probably outstep that leg, or put weight on that leg, or counter him,

or step over it with a sticky, you know, like a step over Uchimata. But that's not going to be fun. No. But it's already predetermined that the guy who's doing the drill is going to win, and you're going to let him, but you're going to just give him a couple of good looks, so it's a cooperative game. Right?

That's a cooperative game right that's a good game out of the room uh you know feel free to answer this or don't but like how many people do you think is showing that on the first time could understand that game with the hand position and the uh cutbacks very the first time ever doing it yeah like on a single shot nobody Almost nobody. Because it requires so much coordination, balance, core strength, hands doing something, understanding weight transfer, pushing it onto the other person,

using them as a, it's just too difficult. There's nothing like it out there. You know? Yeah. If you're like, sprint this way, cut a 45 slant and then jump up in there

and try to grab a ball, that's kind of intuitive, man. You've been doing this kind of stuff, you know, running around in football or something, like you're used to running, you're something. Like, you're used to running. You're used to jumping.

You're used to playing with balls. You know what I mean? Yeah. Right? You play soccer, baseball, basketball, right? But this kind of stuff is so unintuitive, and you're also not getting, like I said this before,

the best athletes in martial arts and grappling. Right. You're just not. The best athletes in your high school right now you take a look around they're playing basketball they're playing football playing baseball you know what i mean but it so yeah it's very rare funny like what you mentioned though like um the uh yellow belt going with a black belt or something and like being frustrated you know for me especially with that drill the ochi uchimata drill um it took me going with gianni who figured

it out yeah to feel that it was even possible to make these shapes because i was like there's no way i'm cutting my foot back and turning it into an uchimata and then i felt my head kind of like get wrecked downward and i was like oh this actually is possible i have to work i'm just that far from it. His cutback Ochi is so good. Oh, it's insane. 100% better than mine. I wish mine was a little bit better.

I got to drill it, actually, and train it. Because I'm teaching, I'm not really doing the drill. You guys spend a lot more time doing these drills. We didn't really do these drills when I was younger. Not a lot of it. Did you find a way to make it yourself or it was just never explicitly shown to you, this kind of thing? I mean, some of the technical stuff, you get bits and pieces of it, but you have to kind of, like, make your own training program, right?

It's like, I used to do this thing, it was like Fridays, you know, back in the day, like noon to 2 p.m. It was like a private training between me and, like, five of the black belts. And then we would come up with these drills and do them because we thought that was the right thing to do. You know, we had a couple of times a week we would do something like this. You know? Yeah.

My boy Vinny would come. Tarazzo would come. A couple of other black belts. Anthony Vannetti would come. And it would just be like five, six high black belts. And we'd just drill and do stuff. And we'll pick like three or four drills that we thought would give us the best ROI. And then we would just do Rondori after that.

You know what I mean? That's amazing. So, yeah, that was pretty cool. And then, you know, you get like a, you meet like a champ and they'll teach you some of these drills and you kind of have to do it on your own. A lot of these structured classes that we've been to, they would never do it, you know?

Right. Because it's too difficult or time constrained or whatever it is. But they're fantastic. And I think like it's even like the over under uh russian little kid thing and this thing if i i watched our whole dojo elevate in skill level when it comes to being in that position just from like a few like a week and then a little bit more of doing that and like my core has gotten stronger from it yeah the whole like like it's you know like uchimata anything inside tripping is so fundamental to judo

that the better you get at that you're just going to get better at the sport as a whole yeah so you develop these sensitivities you know nick asked a question of course nick asked a lot of questions but when you're switching directions when do you switch to the other 45 or direction and it's when you're driving and they're hopping you want to time it very difficult almost impossible to do right but time it as they're hopping to get their rebase underneath their center of gravity that's when you switch because now there's a split second where they have no contact with the ground right you know what i mean so like feeling that nuance you know what i mean and doing it and threading that needle that's something you could only get like by just doing it and being in that time being in that position you know what i mean and then yeah you could this is one for you ochi uchimata hopping

hopping switching that kochi as the foot hits the ground like right like half a second before that's also feeling where the person's bouncing up and down

anticipating where that foot is going to be right so you do a very good job with that you could probably teach it like verbally

and people can understand it conceptually but until they try this position many many hours you're not even able to do it you know what I mean

so yeah these games are really important I think oh they're fantastic and then breaking it up into that

like beginner intermediate advanced kind of games keeps that interest you know because doing

Nagakomi is not going to help you build any of the skill no it's such a brief moment in time interest. Because doing Nagakomi is not going to help you build any of the skill. No. It's such a brief moment in time. Not that it's

needed. Everything's needed. Like you said, ROI. I'd rather hop around on one leg in this for half an hour and see where it goes. Do you have any other games? Any other things in the works?

Just, like, grip fighting games and things like that. You know, if you're a Georgian player, getting Georgian, you know, that's a good game. Or starting in Georgian A, starting in Georgian B with the leg threaded, leg Osoto threaded to the outside. Those are also great games. You know, things like this. How about this one? Right versus right, you're starting threaded to the outside. Those are also great games. You know, things like this. How about this one? Right versus right, you're starting in 50-50. And then you have to fake snap and circle and then try to cut a hand or, you know, collar or sleeve.

You have to cut it. So you get two hands versus one hand. You know, forcing that. That's a great game too. I love that game. You know? Yeah. And inadvertently, some people are going to start trying to slam each other.

And they have to be like, dude, no throws allowed. You hear me say this all the time, right? We got to stick to the rules of the game. It's so dangerous if not. It happens with the little kids sometimes because they're getting better and then they'll cut a hand and then take someone down

pretty aggressively and I'm like, that's amazing. Don't do that again. Yeah, please don't do that right now. Yeah. It's like that. Like,

that's exactly what I told you to do. Never do that people buy this video the judo games video to improve their skill we're gonna have it on shopify we're gonna put it out on youtube if you want to pay for the subscription and uh and the shintaro higashi.com yes it's there for you to download areas yeah and we're gonna show right like all the different games and stuff like that we haven't filmed it yet we're going to film it tomorrow you know so by the time this episode comes out you're going to be able to purchase this and it's going to be one of those super concise instructional videos that you can you know x y and z right

yeah so they've been going very exciting it's gonna to be great. Yeah. So that's that. If you guys have any ideas for games, let me know. And some games are great. Some games are not. I've heard this one. You've heard this one before? You open the crash mat and you put 10 kids on it. And they all have to push each other off the crash mat. Sounds good.

Very dangerous. Sounds good once. Very dangerous. Yeah. But it trains them to be tough, you know, if that's what you care about. And that's the kid's need, maybe. You know what I mean? But I wouldn't recommend that game.

No. It's just too dangerous. What about this? What about this game? Yeah. You get a ball, and one kid goes into turtle and holds the ball. And it's the other kid's job to try to remove the ball. So it'll be like getting the lapels underneath,

separating the hands, getting the neck kind of stuff. Yeah. Would that work or no? I'm sure it would. I mean, it'll definitely develop like a tight turtle or protecting the ball. And it's, you know, puts like an element that's somewhat familiar, right?

Playing with a ball, you know? Right. It could potentially work. It could help? Playing with a ball, you know? Right. It could potentially work. It could help. I think there's, you know, other games that could be potentially more useful. Yeah, true. Kids in their waza is so flawed.

Is it, yeah? Yeah. Because all the turnovers you do without the context of chokes and arm bars, it's kind of useless. It's really difficult. You know, it's almost better if you could just learn a half Nelson

and just crank it and force him over. You but like the grab double elbow pull that stuff is useless you know there's just so much useless because with the introduction of chokes and armbars it just makes it so difficult to actually the three things to manage you know like nothing nothing is safe all the time. Yes. So, but then when you're, when you can't get choked and your arm can't get stretched,

you're just like, all right, don't flip me. Yeah, you could literally just like, go like this and you grab your collar like this,

tight as possible and just, you know, wiggle side to side and protect yourself, you know. But yeah, they got to rethink

and it wasn't for kids. They really do because it's a huge issue, I think. I mean, no one really cares because it's a huge issue, I think. I mean, no one really cares. You're trying to solve a problem that's not really there. But I mean, maybe there is a problem, you know? It would be fun.

Have you seen a kid's BJJ class? Have they been able to figure that out? Yeah, they choke and armbar and crank it and stuff, and they're going for it, you know? Really? They're allowed to go for the stuff, yeah. Whoa. They understand conceptually tapping and, like, uh...

I think they get it. I think they get it. I'm sure the referees are a little bit more quick to stop when there's an extended arm. They don't let kids fight out of it, I think. I think. I'm not sure. But they're going for submissions, these kids, you know? And I think a lot of this stuff, age-old stuff, like, hey, going doing submission

on a kid is very very wrong and it's messes up your joints forever i don't know how true that is you know because there's no studies back in this stuff these are all just like martial arts hearsay you know what i mean and actually if you look at kids joints they're much more flexible so you know the arm gets extended into straight, like, 180-degree position. Referees are like, stop, right? You know, what's the likelihood of the kid, like, getting severely injured from that? I don't really know. You know, but you don't really want to mess around with that kind of stuff.

You don't want to be the guy that's like, hey, arm bars for 10-year-olds. Arm bars for kids, jokes for kids. You don't want that. But yeah, the jiu-jitsu definitely does all that stuff, I think. I'm sure maybe if you're like... There's got to be some age thing.

Judo kids... I've seen clips online. These kids are throwing people Osoto. Other kids. It's real. You go to these kids tournaments like we talked about and it's real. It is real. It's funny. You could slam

somebody with a suplex. A five year old. But you can't choke on them. It makes no sense. I've seen more kids break their arms by putting their arm down and not taking break falls than any armbar. You know what I mean, right?

So, I don't really know what the solution is. So that's not the game. They won't be in the games. We're not doing armbar games for kids. No choking games for kids.

Maybe we'll do some Nehwaza stuff too, like knee cut games and stuff like that, starting in certain positions and having goals. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

That could work for adult games. That's been very fruitful for me anyway. Staying in the knee cut, working all the framing positions and doing stuff. It's been great. Right versus left, hip to hip position when you have over-under on one side and then controlling that shoulder,

whether it's a shrug or pressing down if you're on the outside. That's a game because there's objective if you're on the outside, like, that's a game, right? Because there's objective. How to control that close side shoulder, you know? And then how to gain inside position

with your hips and your legs so you can enter into turn throws from there. You know, things like this, right? And then if you have good shoulder position underneath their armpit and you have

inside leg position, then they can't go Taniya Toshi because you control the space underneath their armpit. They can't drop. You know, so like

these games like this without the risk of someone blowing your knee out because they're, you know, diving at your legs. So these are games that could be very

helpful, I think. You know? Absolutely. They'll be out. They'll be out. We'll film it. Yep. YouTube memberships,

Shopify, ShintaroHigashi.com. Go check it out. We'll link it down below also. Right? So thank you very much for being here again. Thank you guys for

listening. Thank you. I appreciate you all.