The Shintaro Higashi Show - Judo Strategies

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

In this episode, Shintaro and Peter talk about Judo strategies-- grip strategies, combinations, newaza transitions and many more! Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hey guys, what's going on? Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk a little bit about judo strategies. That's right. So last time we talked about different styles of judo around the world and I think that kind of brings about a lot of diversity in the strategies you need to use to kind of match all the different styles. That's right. That's right. And we're talking a little bit about your korean judo style versus the japanese judo style that you sort of picked up for me because i'm very heavily influenced by the japanese judo machine right right so you have sort of a hybrid

style and you know i picked up some stuff from you and uh it's very important to be able to discuss where some of these specifics and these types of ideas and concepts come from. Right. And then looking at the overall general strategy, then looking at specific strategy, that sort of puts some light on it. And then if you can listen to it and then implement some of these ideas

into your own judo system, I think that's a win for everybody, right? Yeah, I think so. And so having said that, why don't we kind of start with the traditional Japanese style, like the two hands And so having said that, why don't we kind of start with the traditional Japanese style? Like the two hands-on, you know, and then we'll kind of branch off from there. Because that's where everything started.

That's a great place to start. Yeah. So the traditional classic two hands-on, you could be right versus right or right versus left. Ayotsu or kenka-yotsu as they call it. And that's where it is. You start with two hands-on and then you throw. That was all of it, right? And thatyotsu as they call it. And that's where it is. You start with two hands on and then you throw. That was all of it. And that's sort of the beginning of it.

And then people have the concept of tokui waza, which is your favorite move. You've done 10,000 times, 100,000 times. You could throw anyone and everyone from your two hands on. And that's sort of the classical judo style. Now it's a little bit, I don't want to say outdated. There's people who live and die by it. Right. It's definitely branched off and there's much more diversity in,

in world judo now. Right. Right. So the, would you say you kind of started also from that style and then evolved from it? Yeah. Yeah.

So the 50, 50 judo. Yeah. My father was a big fan of that, and he was old school judo. And you can take the 50-50 position where it's like, hey, you have your right hand on my collar. I have my right hand on your collar. You have your left hand on my sleeve. I have my left hand on your sleeve.

Right. Now we're dead even, same exact position, and I'm blasting away some of my favorite attacks, and you're blasting away some of your favorite attacks. If you're going for a big turn throw, I'm going to guess and try to defend it. Right? Maybe you fake and you go ouchie, and then maybe i catch it and then i try to counter it uh that bruce fort style is very good you know for some people if you're big strong athletic tons of hours in the gym right tons of experience you know those that's that could go a long way and there's some people in the world who still fight like that yeah i guess that's why i mean a lot of the japanese players can't afford to do

that i guess because they have a lot of mess time and it's great that's right yeah that's right and then the nuances of like person's hand is about to move or they feel it right they feel it they understand it there's only a certain number of things that you can do from that position. Right. Right. And then even though when you're adjusting for position to gain slight advantages in hand position, like you kind of feel it, you kind of understand it,

you could anticipate it, right? You could attack and then adjust the position. That's a big part of my sort of teaching. Right, right. So can we talk about that a little? The little adjustments that you do? I know you emphasize that shoulder roll all the time. Yeah, so right versus right. So can we talk about that a little, the little adjustments that you do? I know you emphasize that shoulder roll all the time. Yeah, so right versus right.

Right hand collar, left hand sleeve, right? If I could bring your collar hand down a little bit and then bring my collar hand up a little bit, right? Now the lever arm is much longer from the center of gravity, right? Longer than the lever arm. So now I have a little bit more control of your upper body. And if we lock in 50-50 Osotogari, I could push your head a little bit more with force and tip you over as opposed to you cannot because your hand is much lower on my chest, right? Yeah. So that's sort of the idea. If your hand is very high on my collar here,

then I can't turn into that hand. But if have my hand up here right i could sort of really force and then if your hand is low i could turn my body away right it's really about controlling posture yeah that's that's subtle adjustment honestly like that was one of the biggest biggest like one of the biggest things i learned from you because it really changed my game like it doesn't you don't really need to do much to gain the advantage and it's like kind of a little subtle shoulder shimmy almost yeah and where where did you i'm kind of curious i've been meaning to ask you like where did you get the idea did you learn it from japan or do yeah i learned from japan i was in kakushikan high school

kakushikan college university you know every time I went over there, they would emphasize that. And sometimes even if it weren't explicitly said, I would be doing judo and I would feel my lapel hand sliding down little by little. And then the more it slid down, the less I was able to attack successfully. I see. Right? So then it became a game of like, all right, how do I keep my lapel hand high? How do I bring my opponent's lapel hand low? And this is specifically in a right side versus right side setting.

I see. And a lot of people still kind of do this intuitively. People who have never been taught this do it intuitively. They just know the higher the hand it is on the collar and the more they could crank on the head, the more that they feel uncomfortable. So naturally, intuitively, people are already sort of doing this. But I just happen to teach it explicitly. i think i think that's that's very important you know like i saw i think it seems like a lot of like people at kukushikan kind of picked it up because of the so many hours on the mat yeah but you know we don't in america it's that's hard to do yeah and as a teaching tool it's like you show sotagari and people are worried about their balance.

What do I do with my feet? How do I step? What should my hands be doing? They're not really thinking about the starting point of like, okay, here are the cues for me to go into a sotagari. My lapel hand has to be higher than their lapel hand. They're not really thinking that. So like, hey, watch where your hands are. Put your hands higher.

Gain better advantage. Attack from a position of power. And that's sort of what I always, always sort of preach. Are there some other little adjustments that people do over there in Japan? Yeah, for sure. For sure. You know, there's a lot of things. Like if you're losing in position already, your opponent's hand is very high on the lapel,

and you can't bring that hand down, you put your chin over and you lean into that arm. So you see the 50-50 extreme position like this, and then people have their chin over their hand. That way you're leaning away from all the turn throws, all those sotogaris, all their power-oriented attacks. Now all of a sudden, the one thing that's available to your opposition is the Sasai. Sasai, yeah. So now you know the Sasai is available for them. They might really blast into it

so you can kind of anticipate it and try to time an Ochi or a Kochi or something like that. I see. Or simply just shoving them as they're kind of going back. I see.

You know what I mean? So that's something that you want to have but that only works on a sophisticated opponent who knows that. Right, right. If you kind of have the opponent's hand up high, you can't take it down, you lean into the arm, person tries to force an Osoto, you could counter it.

Right. But most good people are not going to go for an Osoto there. Right, right. But unless you're Shohei. Yeah, he can put forces on. Yeah, he could brute force some of that way. So it really depends on the person's athleticism how big they are how strong they are how tall they are right how good they are at osorogari

do they have a society in the first place they don't have a society you don't have to worry about none of it you could just stay in the pocket down low here leaning into the arm and just do judo the whole time and picket the person's uchi picket the person's kochi and then just looking for your own turn throws yeah right so that's like basic right first right strategy so in that situation now that say uh you basically i want to ask you about the counters to this little shimmy and 50 50 judo yeah going into the dominant position this traditional traditional uh two-handed judo um how what do you how do you usually combat that when you can't really fight the yeah yeah that's a good question so sometimes

i'm locked up 50 50 i put my chin over the hand or adjust the shoulder and bring the hand down now they're also doing the same thing to my right right hand as well right my hand that controls the head they're pushing it down so sometimes as they're pushing down i'll release it and then pull right so now all of a sudden they have this sort of emotion right and then their posture comes back up and now when it's up high here they release the pressure on this arm here so now this is a good time for me to bite the hand up or going for a soda or something like this or maybe when they do that you know you attack the feet and then you take the hand off right so you can not just squeeze and put pressure but you can cut the hand off right i mean that's better than 50 50 yeah it's better than 50 50 yeah right so that's

something that you can do i know uh when the arm is pinned you could roll the arm inside the gi and then try to bring your opponent's hand to the inside of the the sleeve and then you throw your arm across to cut that hand. Right? I made a couple videos about that and the right side versus right on my YouTube. Yeah. So, and you know, you can't just do one of these. Right.

It's very nuanced, right? So sometimes they put pressure down and you try to roll the elbow and then cut the hand. Doesn't work. They're still pressuring down. You're rolling the hand, pulling them off balance. You're attacking the feet. You're cutting their hand. Right?

There's a lot going on. You know, it's kind of like drumming. You know, one pulling them off balance. You're attacking the feet. You're cutting their hand. There's a lot going on. It's kind of like drumming. One hand's doing something. The other hand's doing another thing. You're trying to keep your balance by keeping your feet underneath you. You're trying to monitor some of the different attacks that he may do. So it gets kind of complicated, but this is one of those things you can learn over time by doing and doing and doing. Of course, you could watch youtube videos right it's a very that's what makes judo a very tricky thing yeah for me yeah for me i think uh yeah these things take time but i for me what

helped was you know you you laid out some of the big pictures to the students, like the little shimmy, you know, the basic idea of how you got to pin the elbow and then you want your, uh, lapel hand to go high. So from there, everything kind of flows out.

Right. I think that's a good way to look at it. Like you emphasize that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And then you could have one hand tax, right? So like now all of a sudden you have two hands on and they have their sleeve you

completely controlled and they rip that hand away now you have one hand on it's your right hand or something now you have to have a weak side upon saying i don't you don't really have any threats from there now you're losing because they have a short dominant turn and now you have a weak side long turn right so like a long distance left Ippon Senagi versus a short distance right Ippon Senagi off this hand that shouldn't be on. Like I'm losing in that position, theoretically, right?

So being able to deal with that is important. The advantage of being able to grip is you don't have to do a lot of this stuff, right? If I could put my first hand on and then if I could put myself in that completely dominant position, right, then I don't really have to worry about the person adjusting or squeezing If I could put my first hand on and then if I could put myself in that completely dominant position, then I don't really have to worry about the person adjusting or squeezing or moving the shoulder or none of that stuff.

Because you're not starting in 50-50. You have your one hand on, you're attacking, attacking, attacking. And by the time you get your two hands on, you're already fully dominant. You've already shut off everything that they already potentially have. That's where your one-handed judo comes from. right you've already shut off everything that they already uh potentially have that's yeah that's where your uh one-handed judo comes from right like how how to even start like you don't even you don't even try to go right away into the uh double hand grips really sometimes i do so sometimes if i'm doing one-handed grip one-handed grip and i'm consistently right so it depends on finding right side versus left side but let's talk right versus right because it's the most common

and it's a lot easier to understand. So I want to put this left hand on, sleeve, lapel, sleeve, lapel, right? So offense hand, defense hand, right? So defending my sleeve. Every time they go for the lapel, I'm parrying, moving and punching and punching. But if I do that every single time, right?

Of course, there's some variations to it. Then people are going to start understanding. Maybe they're very good in that position. So I'm going to look like I'm going to go for two they're very good in that position so i'm going to look like i'm going to go for two hands and then i just jump and go double hands i see sometimes i'll do that you know every now and then once every three or four exchanges or something like that just to mix it up right and uh you know i haven't been caught right off of that yet you know so that's something that's uh can definitely be available to you. I see. So the one-handed attack, the grip fighting strategy you do,

actually, I used to do it backwards, and then I got caught a lot because I have a left Ipponsei, I'm a right Ipponsei, but I have a left Ipponsei, I guess. So because I was so confident with it, sometimes I would lead with my right hand in my one-handed grip fighting and grip their lapel yeah and i'll get counter so can you just kind of go over the actual strategy you use kind of pinning down the uh sleeve hand and whatnot the attack hand yeah with the one so if the person's leading

hand leading right i'm leading right and if i could grab that lead hand and that sleeve and I could bring it down, that hand needs to be on my lapel to control my posture. Now I control it completely. I fully have it. I have one hand on, he has zero hands on. And then I'm attacking one-handed tatoshi, one-handed ponzenage, arm drag if you want to just take the person's back. As I'm attacking for all those things, I fake one thing, I go for another,

maybe shosode, and then I throw this right hand over the back right so now they're completely dominated and from there and only there do i start launching my kochi ochi society or soto big turn throws like these forceful big attacks you're different and unique because you have a lot more attacks to the left as well not only do you you just go for left side Ippon Senagi off that right hand lapel, which is to the weak side, you also go for it and go for that far Osorogare to the left side. You have a left side Osoro off that Ippon Senagi. Yeah.

Right? And then you go for that, and then you miss, and then you go drop Senagi. So it's a pretty good system. You have three attacks to the weak side off of that hand. So that's a very dangerous thing that Peter does that you should watch out for if you ever fight him. I'm exposed now.

Yeah. But I used to, but I think my problem was, before you pointed that out to me, I would just go for that right away instead of fighting my right-handed judo first. So I would start with pinning down the sleeve hand, attacking my regular Osoro, Ochimaras, whatever, and then kind of surprising them.

And that was another big eye-opener for me. That's right. Because if you're just leading right and then you want to do most of your attacks to the right, but instead of fighting to get into that right side versus right side position, you're putting yourself in a bad position and attacking off of that, you know, the wrong side, right? It's not really wrong, but it's the wrong side.

And you're only doing that. That should be sort of a surprise attack, right? Yeah. And everyone expects you to have one attack to the left, the weak side, right? Right. Whether it's a Sai or Lefty Ponce Anagi or Sode, some people have Sode if they're pretty slick. then you have kataguruma and all that stuff uh but generally people have one or two attacks at a weak side you have three three or four maybe even five you have a left side

one-handed tie-up right i had a video about that yeah yeah write that in you know if you're fighting peter uh if you're gonna fight him in the Detroit area, keep that in mind. So what you want to do is right side, right side, right side. Fighting for position. Fighting for position. Attacking off one hand to the right side. Strong hand. Put two hands on.

Ouchi, kochi, uchimata. You're doing all your judo, judo, judo. And then all of a sudden you find yourself in this left side. And then you go for Ippon Senagi. Someone very good, it might not work. But they're definitely not expecting you to go Ippon Senagi or Sotogari and to drop Senagi right and then now we're fighting fighting fighting and then you get outgripped you get yeah one hand you they control your sleeve first right and you're like get off me get off me and they have no clue that you're gonna turn

and do a left side one-handed tie-up right and that's that's your secret weapon really yeah and that's you know that actually even if those like my left side attacks fail that actually opens up the other side like my right side of judo so i think it really going back and forth really helps and yeah and showing that too soon is a problem too right because all of a sudden it's like oh i'm out gripping this person to the left, right versus right. And this person's kind of fighting mostly to the left. Let me shut that stuff down. You know what I mean? And once I'm comfortable with that, now for you to return and to beat me as a right versus right is going to be a little bit trickier.

Right. Right? It needs to be surprised. I mean, you could go both ways, really. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you have some good left-sided attacks. But to me, knowing your judo,

I know your right-side stuff is a lot more powerful. Right. You could string together more stuff. You could go force Uchimata to the right. You're comfortable being on that left leg. Ochi, Uchimata, turn, Osoto, fake the technique, go to Sai, snap down, Korean Seinaga, whatever. You're good at all that stuff.

So because you're mostly right-handed right you could kind of sort of depend you know adjust your strategy based on that right if they don't know right you could mostly be doing left-handed stuff left-hand stuff left so then surprise them right hand too yeah that's an option as well right so that comes into sort of like the game it's not game theory but it's this idea of like do they know your style yeah imperfect information yeah information yeah yeah yeah but you know a lot of people if they're not skilled and if they don't have the intelligence to break not intelligence but like judo iq to break this stuff this down yeah like all that information knowing this stuff it's not going

to mean anything right because your body has to keep up with some of this mental stuff too it becomes very cerebral and i remember i love talking to you about like my matches or other matches because you know you can kind of see right away even from the sideline you know and but those those uh check out uh shintaro's commentary like the randori commentary videos they're really informative yeah and you have some

great strategy you know pretending to tap in a tournament and not actually that was a great one right that's my

secret weapon yeah he tapped like he tapped like this so the referee can't see and the guy's like he tapped and people are like

I don't know what you're talking about that's the best strategy you've ever seen in judo right that that's yeah i think that was my uh i probably should have quit judo back so now we talked about the same side of stuff you know going from starting from one hand a getting the diamond two grip, adjusting and all that. How about offside? Like the right versus left situation. That's a totally different situation. Yeah, that's a totally different thing. And when we sort of have this conversation,

we're assuming that the person's a true lefty and they have 90% of their attacks going to the left side. Right. And then I'm a true righty and I have 90% of my attacks going to the right side. Right. So inside versus outside configuration configuration right side versus left right because it's not exactly the same if we both have our lead arm on the opponent's collar one arm is going to be underneath one arm is going to be over the top one arm is going to be inside one of the outside

right so that's the battle first that's the battle. Putting that first hand on to determine who gets inside control or outside control. Sometimes people like outside control and I like inside control. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Right. I put my hand on, they put their hand over, comfortable. They put their hand on over the top. I'm like, oh, I like inside anyway. Go for the inside.

Right. And some people say inside is always better. That's not necessarily true. Yeah. I have to reiterate that if you're on the outside player and you know that position really well that's good for you right not inside is always better you know if you're much taller than the person going inside can be good but you know maybe you like going on the outside who knows right and pulling the person in squeezing the person in so if you have your hand on first i like inside you like inside you come

underneath i said nope and i could close this window right now they cannot have access to this lapel they have to go around see all this space over the top and as you're going for it i create this frame here right and create the frame sleeve you need a strong post in between your body and their body so now they can't close this distance that's the big idea right the controlling that distance between you and your opponent and so that you have space to go in for your throw yeah you have control in the distance which is kind of an esoteric thing right it's hard to really understand what does it mean to control the distance right you know what i mean and i i like to put it in a way where if i have inside control if i don't want the person to come closer to me

i could prevent that with the strong elbow post or if i could physically push with a nice strong post here right but if he the person has their elbow over and then has crunched my arm down in this weak angle now even if i want to push the person in because my arm is scrunched in this way i can't really push them away from right like bench press versus you know yeah yeah bench press versus like a shoulder lateral fly situation so that's one portion of it once you have a strong post on the opponent you grab the sleeve and then you could physically push and pull to turn the person's shoulder right right and because we're trying to throw in the same space like if we're right versus left we're both trying to throw here right if i could turn their shoulders towards me this direction a little bit better it's a lot

easier for me to throw them here right so control the distance create a post and then turning the shoulder is sort of the grip fighting slash uh positional adjustment thing right I think grip fighting is a little bit more prominent in the right versus left, right versus right. Yeah. Because you're fighting for that lapel hand coming down and up, right? Right, right. And you're breaking and you're breaking.

Right versus left is a little bit less grip fighting. Less. Less. Right? It's a little bit more judo. I see. Because I guess, guess yeah you just you kind of have to have just let each other grip the lapel and then kind of go for it from there i'll just think

right you're turning into each other's arms you're turning into each other's techniques i spin this way you spin that way we're turning in and against each other and the thing that's really preventing it is this hand so you have to freaking fight for it and take the hand off and this and that right right right versus left even if you have a strong post not completely losing i still kind of attack and turn my hips so now it's fighting for that sleeve and then getting that shoulder turn right right so there's a little bit yeah of less grip fighting so and then the interesting bit about uh turning your opponent's shoulder yeah in the right left uh configuration so in that it's sometimes that's hard to do because i think when the left uh my opponent shuts that down that that turn with their hip

yeah and i try to applying the downward force with their whole body with the starting from the hip like and so how do you is there any trick to that what's your strategy when they try to uh shut everything down and going to that direction you know so if they like turning with their hips then i open them up with a society because naturally that's going to be sort of weak right and then if i'm pushing and pulling and they're resisting back this direction i could release and go society this way which is going to take him off balance over here and as they return to neutral that's when i post his hand and then fight for the seat back but it really does come down to this posting arm yeah because if my arm is scrunched from the inside right i

have inside control they have outside control and they've done a good job of holding this arm down. Now that they're pulling this hand and turning my shoulder, it's very difficult for me to just pull their entire body with this one arm. Right. I need to be able to push and pull to physically turn them, right? So it's a little bit of like, you know, I need to keep this fight arm strong in order to return this hand. I'm going to use society to open him up first and then bring him back right so there's a little bit of a game there you know and do you

have a lead like the ashi like a sticker dash you do like a heel hook dash yeah i like to call it you know do you have that do you have an ouchi there to return that person's leg to have them a little bit more square so you could win this position like those things all really come into play that's another big uh big idea i guess the action reaction like you know yeah if one way doesn't work go the other way so that you can come back to it stronger yeah so yeah so a lot of it is pattern recognition right like let's say gripping you know it gets pretty complicated but you know we're pretty much even. Sometimes you're winning, you know, advantage a little bit. Sometimes I'm winning by a little bit and it's dead even, 50-50. Now gripping's sort of out of the game.

Right. Right? Like you're not winning. If you're outgripping the person every single time, you have, you know, 10 exchanges in a match, exchanges in like 30-second shots. Yeah. But to throw the person, you know, for 10 out of 10 you're in a great position the likelihood of you getting taken down are a lot less right because you're attacking from a better position right right so you don't have to think about it but now if we're like sort

of splitting the difference right half the time you're in great position half the time i'm in great position now a lot of it is like pattern recognition of attacks if you're constantly going for ochi ochi ochi ochi ochi even though i'm going to lose in position as you're coming in i could try to counter it because i know it's kind of anticipated right you know what i mean so the action reaction stuff is true right right right right right right left right forward forward forward forward forward back you know high attack high attack high attack drop senagi right the one thing that really doesn't work is drop senagi drop senagi drop high attack drop senagi right the one thing that really doesn't work is drop senagi drop senagi drop senagi drop senagi you get strangled right i used to do that

we've all done it at some point you know trying to learn some kind of a drop attack yeah and then getting stuffed and getting choked we've all been there yeah yeah it really does um so we cover right left and another uh more another popular question is stiff farming like how do you deal with the full video on this with judo fanatics good good full blown video series that so can we uh let's talk about a little bit out there how how you deal with what what kind of strategy you employ to deal with stiff-armed opponents. That's a very interesting question, right? Because it's not very relevant to competition. Right.

Because if you're stiff-arming your opponent, and you're just stiff-arming and just keeping the person away and defending, now all of a sudden you're not really actively trying to throw the person, which will get you penalized in judo. Right. It's the equivalent of in wrestling. If you're backing out the whole time, and you not really actively trying to throw the person, which will get you penalized in judo. Right. It's the equivalent of in wrestling. If you're backing out the whole time and you're not actively trying to take the person down, the referee says, you're passive. You're losing points.

You're penalty, penalty, passive, passive. You're not trying to take the person down. Same thing in judo. Stiff arm, stiff arm. You're not trying to actively throw. You're doing negative judo. Not positive judo where you're trying to slam the person. You're scared. You're weak. You're going back back you're not doing nothing you know penalty team penalty so

this is only really relevant in training i learned this new sanagi the person stiff arming me i learned this osorogare the person's just trying to create distance and not get thrown those things are a real issue and a lot of the times stiff arming one of my favorite ways to counter it is not trying to go into the person because that's where the strongest right so as they're pushing you away you go in the opposite direction try to strip that hand oh strip one of the hands now all of a sudden right and the way to do it is if you do like an ochi or something and then you want to create body separation between you and the other person right so now it's your body going this way my body going this way and the tension of that is all in

the person's hand connecting to your gi right and then you attack it by adding force to that tension right that way that's the only way to really take it because if we're standing still you have my lapel and i'm trying to physically just take it off with one hand that literally is my pushing strength versus your gripping strength right and you know you got gorilla hands there are some tricks with their grips yeah yeah so it's like that that's that's the first trick yeah i see and then are you able to attack off of that posted hand on the lapel some people have great soda you know not not me i mean i have a decent soda but right i'm not too comfortable it's not one of my main things so it's like having soda having a korean sayanagi right being able to go the opposite direction cut that hand right you could adjust

from there and then snap the person down and create angles and attack the legs all these different uh things come into play i see the other thing strategies of yeah yeah another thing i learned throughout the years is that when someone is de-farming you you actually want to do the opposite and then stay more relaxed to allow yourself to enter uh your throws and then kind of instead of doing the traditional kuzushi you you can kind of because they're so stiff you don't need to do much of the kuzushi because they you don't uh they'll they're already kind of going over with the stiff with the stiffness what do you do you think there's any like validity in that somewhat you know you could always say like oh the person person's stiff. Now I have to go soft and kind of go like that.

I guess it's not really actionable. I used to hear that a lot, but I used to get confused. Like, okay, what does that exactly mean? I mean, you could also say things like, oh, the person's stiff. Therefore, he's not that quick. Now you have to be faster and quicker by being softer. It really doesn't really help you. i think you know what i mean it's yeah so like yeah i get those things and uh you know but that's not really an actionable thing if i yeah here's a little bit more of an

actionable one if they're stiff upper body and they're posting away and their hips are back now also they're defensive that creates a big space underneath their arms, right? Right. And going for a turn throw might be difficult if they're double-pulsed on your shoulder because now you can't turn

your shoulders and change levels. But if you could pull them forward into your body and then slip underneath for a tomoinage, Right. Right. But do you have a tomoinage?

Right. Do you have a straight tomoinage? Do you have a yoko tomoinage? Can you fake the tomoinage and cut the hand and then now all of a sudden you're dominant and you're stuffing this head down and you're kicking him in the shin. Can you do that?

And having many different strategies and having one or two of them where you could actually throw the person off of it is important. And yeah, you kind of have to be a little bit gentle and soft and smooth to be able to implement a lot of this stuff. Because if they're stiff and you're stiff and you're locked up like this right nothing's happening right you know and that's what you see when you have two beginners right who don't want to get thrown locked up 50 50 and then one person lunges at the other person's knees with an osoto and now you got an injury you know what i mean so you know telling a beginner like you have to be more less stiff you have to be more less stiff. You have to be more relaxed. It doesn't really help them. Yeah. Because they don't, why?

You know? And it's like, they understand it conceptually, like, why I should be more loose to be more athletic. Right. Right? And they watch sports, you know, Tom Brady throwing the football. They're like, you're not stiff and tense, like, not holding the ball as hard as he can. And then, right, he's like loose, moving, right? Right.

Boom! Exploding into these movements. the ball as hard as he can and then right he's like loose moving right right boom exploding into these movements if you look at an olympic lifter in the bottom pocket position where they're about to do like a clean and jerk right they're not like stiff at the bottom of the movement yeah you know i mean they are because they have to like stiff embrace their core but all right they're not maybe that's not a good example well they have to stay yeah you have to stay explosive and that require yeah it's more about flexibility it has to do with flexibility too it's not just a brute strength and yeah yeah we'll just leave it at that what yeah i think i i sometimes

like when beginners ask me for advice i tend to say that but i forget that it's more about like you said you have to give them actionable items to get to the get there instead of just reiterating the goal state yeah yup yeah that's that's yeah we got stiff arms bent over it's very similar and you want to get good at each one of these things, right? If you don't know how to counter a stiff arm, you can't really train and get better at certain techniques. So you have to kind of break through that. Even though you won't see it in competition, it's a skill set that you need to improve your judo. Right.

You need one-handed attacks, two-handed attacks, adjusting for position when you're linked up. You need one-handed attacks to threaten the two hand attacks and long time ago there was no handed attacks right which means you could just shoot in on the legs that was long range judo right person's coming towards you with their hands up high you just change levels and shooting on the leg without having any hand control right and that was a thing you know and it's a little bit different than wrestling because if you're able to reach out and touch the person in judo, they could grab your gi. And now if a set's not really coming off, you have to actively take that hand off.

As opposed to wrestling, they could reach out and touch your – post your hands on your shoulder. You could literally just pop it right off and then shoot it on the legs, right? Right, right. So the range that you're shooting from in judo is a lot further out. Because if you're close enough to touch the person, they're going to be gripping your gi and you can just stuff stuff the shoot the shot yeah it depends on who's shooting too right right so you had the no-handed judo the one-handed judo then you had the two-handed judo that was sort of the idea back in the day right right but now there is no more you can't just shoot it on the legs anymore so now there's one-handed judo and two-handed judo and when

you're gripping you can sort of jump the line and not have to adjust because you put yourself in a dominant position right and you can be very very effective gripper if you could throw off that one hand right yeah so the next portion of the strategy that's really important that you need to know how to do is the transitions to Newaza. Right. Before Newaza, right? Just transition to Newaza. If you're winning in position, the opponent's going to go for a bad bailout attack.

Right. I like to teach my bailout attacks as Tomonage, Sumigayashi, Ippon, Seinagi. Drop Seinagi. Because those three things can effectively get you out of that position and transition the match down to the ground. Mm-hmm. Right? So how do you attack that you know and that's right strategical thing yeah so the that i think because in judo the typical judo practice you kind of separate those out

you know the standing portion and then there was a so a lot of times people don't get enough uh you know, the standing portion and the newaza. So a lot of times people don't get enough training or even an emphasis on the transition. So besides the, yeah, so let's start with the bailout attacks. Like what kind of situations you look to do bailout attacks? And then when you do bailout attacks, what are some of the things you need to be cautious of? Yeah.

So if I'm fighting you right verse right your hand is high on my collar controlling my head you're pulling my head down and my hand is let's just say completely lost right down by your stomach on the collar which means i can't really throw you a soda or any turn throw right i need to get out of that position it's only a matter of time until you like fake the turn snap me down create an angle cut at my knees kick me in the shin snap me down yeah until you blast in for a big massive uchimata or something right you know what i mean and then if you have a really nasty uchimata i don't want to be subjected to that you know i don't want to be exposed to that sort of risk therefore i'm going to take it to the

ground right right which means if i go straight tomonage yoko tomonage to the side you know connect my left shin to your lead leg and drop to the side yoko tomonage bring my right foot up to your hip whether i throw you or not you end up sort of in the top position i'm gonna be in the bottom position right and then from right there what do we do you know right being trained to be able to attack like if you're on bottom like shin to shin guard we'll go for for a tripod sweep and then you on top being able to stuff that tomoyanage and going for an over under pass immediately which is the best pass for judo because the rule sets kind of change how newaza is fought right right and attacking that or maybe if you go for a drop sayanagi i already have the hand on the collar

as you're dropping i'm already setting up my loop choke yeah not my loop choke or the clock choke right or the british strangle yeah it's different attacking those transitional moments then person misses a throw wow we drop to the floor you're turtled up and then i land on top i'm like okay here we go we're gonna go for a strangle now right right it's a little bit different right right so the uh the attacking the transition so i did have a question about that because i do i do a lot of drop saving ag and you you counted that as like a bailout attack so if i'm doing the drops if i did the drop saving ag yeah how do i can i effectively attack that transition yeah and so if you do the drop Seinagi, boom,

there's ways the person defends the Seinagi. Right. Right? If you're dropping and turning to your left, I could go in the opposite direction and I could let you go through this hole here. Right? And then I could step out through there.

Kind of turn your body to the other side. Opposite side of the Seinagi. As opposed opposed like if i'm here and you're dropping sayanagi and you want to throw me that way i step through this way right so yeah when you do that right as we're missing the maybe you don't get the sayanagi right my arm is going to be end up in this position right so then you could grab it and then tuck yourself and roll underneath ah i see that's a possibility i see i see now if i step towards the side of the technique now you're right prime time for the right regime or the clock choke right can you pull guard from there i see right can you pull guard effectively and then attack that arm right away you know and if you could do it instantaneously and if you train to do so, that's something that you could do. You know what I mean?

And it's different from like, oh, this guy just dropped Senagi just to get out of the thing. And now we're doing Nuwaza. And now I don't really want to do Nuwaza. And now like, oh, looking at the ref, we're like, oh. As opposed to like, drop Senagi, boom. Oh, shoot, he's cracking on my arm. Oh, my God, I got out of there. I'm dominant. I'm about to throw Yosoto drop Seinagi, boom. Oh, shoot, he's cracking on my arm. Oh, my God, I got out of there. I'm dominant.

I'm about to throw Yosoto. Drop Seinagi, boom. Right? I go for the clock choke, but now you're pulling guard, and all of a sudden you're trying to sweep me. I'm like, oh, shoot, my base, my base. Right, right, right. Right? It's a totally different set of strategies.

Right. You know what I mean? But generally speaking, when you miss a drop Seinagi, you're in a worse position. Yeah. to drop say nagi you're in a worse position because if the person has very very good attacking the back system then you're going to be in trouble especially they're anticipating your drop and like you said they could i i've gotten that a lot just loop chokes and yeah yeah chokes yeah clock chokes mostly right yeah in the british triangle yeah so too and it's a little bit different from being good at nirwaza period when you're training for nirwaza right uh because when you're going

into the nirwaza the transitions that you're going to be attacking you could be proactively bringing the match to the ground or you could be reactively bringing the match to the ground right the difference being like right versus right you know you have the chin down i kick the leg for the side and then i drop you to your knees and i'm proactively taking you down right right into transition nuance and i could go for that british triangle right away right or i'm snapping you down going for tomoy nage and trying to go for jude i'm proactively trying to taking you down to the ground as opposed to you going for tomoy nage to bail out of a technique or actually trying to

throw maybe even from dominant position right i'm reactively taking the match to the ground now and then going for the over under pass right so you have to train both you have to train both yeah and this is an interesting topic especially because it had i think we this topic has uh some relevance to bjj um so a lot of times you know bjj protectors want to take the fight to the ground so they like sometimes jump guard and whatnot so how do you how what would you recommend for bj BJJ practitioners to maybe focus or what kind of strategy would you recommend to them to effectively kind of exploit this transition period? Yeah.

So it depends what the rule sets are, right? It depends. Are you talking about training or competing? If you're trying to compete in judo, I've seen like unbelievable, unbelievable Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners get down to the ground. And now they have one, two, three, four, five to improve position. Or the referee says, stop, get back up to your feet.

Right. Right. And I've seen them go to the ground, you know, five or six times and not being able to capitalize because the guy is just really tight looking at the ref. Like, okay, one, two, three, four, five, you know. And then they're kind of getting pissed off. Like, why is this? And then people are saying things like oh they're favoring the judo guy they're not giving a bjj guy enough time ample enough time to do nirwaza but it's all within the rule sets right the rule sets are guiding that decision and yeah is there favoritism

with the referee of course there is always we're all human there's all the people always going to play favorites right especially me but that's the thing you know uh playing to different rule sets really matter right if you're trying to compete in judo and you already have a big jujitsu background you want to develop your techniques that's going to bring the match to the ground fast and you can attack right away those transitions i talked about right so the super successful he's flavio canto right he has the side tomonage into the canto choke yeah instantaneous fast bring the match to the ground go for the choke boom boom boom boom it has to be that kind of a thing right you know what i mean even the pass is like all the bjj passes that you may learn knee cut uh toriander pass yeah x pass this pass that pass dragon pass you know whatever pass

none of that stuff's gonna work because the rule sets don't penalize you oh the person's passing my guard i'm gonna go to my stomach in jujitsu you get penalized for that right you pass the guard you get points you give up your back you get you give up points right because the goal is to strengthen if in judo someone does an x-pass to me in a competition i'll just go to my stomach and if i could hold that position no forward progression one two three four five referee's just say stop get back up to your feet right right all right will i do that in practice never because now all of a sudden i'm giving up my back. Time doesn't stop. Time keeps going. It gives him a better position. Now he's going to slowly strangle me.

Attack my arm. Go for the choke. Attack my arm. Go for the choke. Stripping my hand. Seat belt. I can't really move. I'm trying to escape.

I can't really escape because his chin's tight on my shoulder. So in practice I would never do that. But in a tournament, of course I would. Because the rules are different. Right. You know what I mean? Same thing in guard position. Like, yes, you could go for Tomonage, be in bottom position and go for the De La Riva.

Right. But the De La Riva works because the person is in a bent, straight, bent knee position coming into the technique. And his goal is to pass. Right, right. If he doesn't really want to pass and if he's just standing there and if he could stay keeping a wide base for one two three five or if he's going to say mate get back up to your feet right because that's the name in the game if you're competing right so if you're trying to do judo as a bjj practitioner you know first you have

to learn how to grip not being in bad positions so you don't get thrown second you have to be able to actively take the person down uh you know not take the person down necessarily but transition fast and attack fast based on the judo nirwaza rule set right and i think those are really two sort of important things but this is the thing if you're just training to do that and winning competition, you're kind of doing yourself a disservice because you're not being an overall grappler, right? You're not really learning some of these other beautiful positions, beautiful techniques, beautiful things,

and ideas and concepts and movements that is like the most unbelievably amazing thing. That's what you're there for, right? To get better. Competition is only a small portion of this. That's why I'm not like a huge competition advocate because you're only learning grappling in a very small subsection.

And it's necessary to have those really restrictive rules because it's kind of got to be safe. It's kind of got to be spectator friendly. There's so many different forces at play as opposed to like me and you, we're going to make each other better. We're going to grapple, hang out, get beers after this. And it's got to be spectator friendly. There's so many different forces at play as opposed to like me and you, we're going to make each other better. We're going to grapple, hang out,

get beers after this and it's going to be fun. Yeah. Right. Right. That's right. Yeah. So that's a, yeah.

Approaching, approaching judo as an art and then a holistically, not just like a, like a, a means, like a tool to just win competitions. Yeah. That's important and another thing i wanted to ask about now that we're talking about bjj a little bit uh you know a lot of other

arts that allow leg shooting especially um coming to judo and then they kind of have this bent over posture. So what do you think about that posture? Is it advantageous or why do judo players tend to maintain the upright posture and how to deal with the bent over posture? Yeah, so the bent over posture with the stiff arm makes it very difficult, right? Because you create separation up here and now you're creating separation from your stiff arm makes it very difficult, right? Because you create separation up here, and now you're creating separation from your center of base to your legs, right?

So your legs are far away, right? So from the point of your hand, which connects to the opponent's gi, and your feet are very, very separated. So now for you to access the feet is very difficult, right? So you need to be able to have a tomonage or a fake tomonage and then you could snap now it's a lot easier to snap someone down that way right but they have double collar right and they're hanging on tight it's very difficult to bring their posture down so you may have to go the opposite direction cut one of the hands right and if they're hanging just on one hand now you could

start moving and creating angles and snapping them down fake a tomonage and doing all these different ideas right right right so it is a good thing. You know, people say, oh, don't hunch over. That's defensive posture. But sometimes you just need to be in a defensive posture. It's defensive posture for a reason. It's defensive. Yeah. And of course, now you, when you take that posture, you're not capable of attacking because you separated your hips and legs so far away from your opponent when you want to bring your hips underneath the lift the person you have to close that distance first right so immediately you're falling into this hierarchical thing of like okay

you're attacking i'm defending as opposed to if we're locked up 50 50 i'm attacking your attack and i'm attacking you're attacking we're locked up 50-50, I'm attacking, you're attacking, I'm attacking, you're attacking. We're doing offense and defense simultaneously. Once you bring your hips back and you have that stiff arm, I'm saying, okay, I'm doing defense. Now you're doing offense. It's kind of the equivalent of playing football. And one person is on the drive and the other person on defense. It's a little bit more clear cut. I see.

So now how does the offensive person break through this? Right. Right. Got it. I see. So now how does the offensive person break through this? Right. Right?

Now they're capable of doing it more successfully if they're very experienced because they could only focus on breaking the balance and the posture and trying to force their technique. As opposed to now you're not really worried so much about the person's Sanagi, the person's Uchimata, the person's Osorigari. You don't have to worry about that stuff anymore. Right? So that's sort of the advantage and you have

it's hard to really put to words right a lot of people say oh don't be in defensive posture because you could get slammed Uchimata right away right

it's like really you're gonna throw that guy the wrestler that's going like this with their hips back you can just throw him Uchimata at will not really

you can't you can't right but there is an advantage there for being uh in the offensive side like you can play to your you are the driver now you're the driver yeah yeah but you know also from a defensive standpoint you're winning you know right there's 30 seconds left in the match all you have to do is hold on for another 30 seconds right you need that you need to be able in the match. All you have to do is hold on for another 30 seconds. Right. You need that.

You need to be able to do that. Right. So you have to be, it falls into the general overall strategy. It's like never bring your hips back and never stiff arm that never, it's bad advice. That makes me need to be able to do that. Yeah. That makes me wonder.

So say you're a bjj practitioner you're learning some judo and you're you're trying to you're trying to compete in a bjj competition where you don't really have to take the person down to win well you just have to take them down to the ground so many so would you recommend would you still recommend like being upright and trying to be more positive in the takedown game for in that situation or do you get two points for the takedown right you know this is the thing like those high amplitude throws don't get really rewarded right whether you launch them with a belly-to-belly suplex or whether the person goes for a guard pull and you catch their ankle and you drive them to the ground you still get stained

two points right you know what i mean so would i go posture up i would definitely start grip fighting right right because if i have the sleep down first the same way they don't know how to grip fight at all right right and you grip fighting you have one hand on and you almost have to assume that they're going to go pull guard there right all right so then catching koji catching the leg pick there and then ending up top scoring a quick two points would be sort of a good thing i say will i try to stand upright to force a nippon senagi no right you wouldn't even really yeah you know yeah i might because if they're like you know what judo guy you know maybe i might because if they're like you know what judo guy you know maybe i want to test my skills and i'm gonna lock up upper body you know it happened

to me when i fought in a jujitsu tournament once right this first guy i had no clue who i was he was like much bigger than me he wanted to lock up i was like god bless you boom right and then the second guy as i'm doing my second match the guy's like he does judo and then he was like oh shit you know like sat down right away and then uh you know you had to play your guard game like guard pass him on that yeah now i'm not gonna try to stand up and throw him there yeah you know because he's just sitting to the ground right so it's like you kind of have to adjust you know right and then in bjj, if they're pulling guard, there's a transition game. They're transitioning down to the ground.

You could attack that. I see. You're not proactively taking them down. That's sort of the reactive transitional game. And you have to be prepared for it. So the game changes based on the rule sets. But that's the thing. You don't want to play to just the rule sets.

You want to be able to grapple overall. And that's what your goal is in practice. So you have to have a tournament strategy, general tournament strategy. And then you have to have a strategy just for training. You know what I mean? I see. And then you have to be able to adjust and maneuver the levers and say, here, I have a competition coming up. I'm going to do this.

And that's partially why I don't like competition because you're just training for that one thing. It's a very restrictive grappling thing. Right. Yeah, we had to change our practice structure drastically for coming up for competitions and whatnot. That guy Luca's doing that right now. He wants to compete.

Oh, yeah? You know Luca, Big Luca? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he has you know Luka, Big Luka? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he has no, none of this stuff. None of it. You know, he's been doing it for a very long time. Like the transitional Nwaza, he doesn't do any of it. And so I'm like trying to teach him little by little.

The Nwaza of just attacking the turtle in a competition setting versus like, ah, yeah, you know, hooks this and over under that and then a seatbelt that and you grab the wrist and fight weak side, strong side, you attack it's like forget all that stuff for competition you know we're gonna go 30 second goes right yeah i miss saying agi you're attacking it you miss saying agi i'm attacking that you're defending it we're gonna do 30 second goes and we're gonna do 10 of them you know that's yeah very directed yeah that's good practice that's? Okay, now, bail out Tomonage. I go for Tomonage. You're going to over-under split and pass it.

He's like, what about the Nikka sliding thing? I'm like, forget that because it's not going to work in competition. The guy's going to roll to his stomach. We'll only do over-under passes now. This sucks. I'm like, I know it sucks. Can we just do Randori? I'm like, no, man, because the guy is gonna you know no

it's not gonna work yeah not gonna that's a yeah you gotta do Rondori but you know what if this is the

reason why you lose you know and this is why we gotta prepare for that specifically right right that's

yeah that's an interesting balance I mean I think you do need to practice that side but then yeah that's boring

who wants to do that yeah you know wait but like i remember you told me like in boston you guys would do oh you know over under passes like hundreds of times a day just to get good yeah it's like drop sanagi juji you know like 30 times in you're like holy moly yeah and then you know you're like 30 times in you're like holy moly yeah and then you know it's like what's next like tomanagi split the legs you're like jeez and then the drill after that is like tomanagi inside turn opponent turns in then you're like oh turns out it's like oh and then you're like you've been 45 minutes in you've been doing the same thing every single day for the last eight months you're just like, holy moly. But you get good at it.

Yeah. I mean, look at KLA and Travis. Work for that. Yeah, here's a story for you. Jimmy's fighting this guy. Not Jimmy. Travis is fighting this guy who he's never beat. Yeah. Russian guy or Georgian guy.

And Jimmy goes out there and he goes, yeah, you know, this is going to be tough. They just trained in training camp and Travis got thrown or whatever it is. And Jimmy goes, maybe the guy goes to his back. Which means maybe the guy goes for a tomonage, and you over-under pass and pin him. That's exactly what happened.

Yeah, that was exciting. Guy's really good. Get an outclass on his feet, whatever it is, and the guy goes for a tomonage or something, and Travis is like, got you. Boom, over-under pass. Guy's trying to turn out. He knows exactly what to do because he drilled it every single day

for 45 minutes for the last 10 years right for that exact moment it was it was a yeah yeah and it's a good percentage of times that you end up in that position right bailout attack what can you do sumi tomonage ipon senagi okay he goes ipon senagi i'm gonna go for these chokes if he goes for tomonage or sumi i'm gonna go for the over under pass right that's it there's a good chance you find yourself in that position right both times reactive nirwaza transition always always gonna happen so if you're good at it right but this do i want to teach that every single day and have everybody drill that every single day yeah if you know my goal was to make yeah everybody goes to the olympics everybody's training everyone's competing and that's that but who's gonna sign up and do that right you know

nobody and is that good to be a over you know good well-rounded grappler no you know what i mean yeah so that's all it's a that's a interesting point about the competition uh training and whatnot well now we talked a lot about setting up to a throw the grip fighting and then how to establish dominant positions and dealing with all different postures and whatnot how about the throws themselves you know a lot of times i hear you only need three good throws to be good at judo the three tokui wazas whatever do you think it needs to be uh more like oh you have to know a little bit about everything or do you really think you only need three and kind of throw away the other ones it really does come back to your overall strategy and your physical abilities.

And it comes down to the individual judoka. Right. It really, really does. And body type has something to do with it. You know what I mean? I spent years doing Uchimata, but sometimes it's hard to get it on people with longer limbs. Right? If you can't outgrip the person, it's hard to do Uchimata because if you're in losing position, you're going to get countered.

Right. Especially if they know how to counter it. If they're taller, they can outgrip me. I'm gonna be able to throw the muchimara right especially if they're taller they can outgrip me and counter it now i'm screwed yeah but in fact that's all i got okay what's my other technique ouchi as a means to go into the uchimara kind of a same similar technique when i'm attacking the inside of the leg right right okay so that doesn't work either what's my third technique osoro you know he's tall than me he has control but now i'm done there's no way i'm gonna unless i could beat him in the trend then then that's a good example of okay i have to transition to a newaza how good is his

newaza right or does do you have the over underpass can you capitalize on my mistakes right all these different ideas come into play but you know there are people who are unbelievable at this sort of a thing with ipon senagi they know freaking 30 different ways to enter ipon senagi if they could get their hips and arms across the body of the center line you could finish it there are people like that you know so it's two different schools of thought i think there's people that can train five hours a day like if you look at the japanese team yeah they all have a favorite technique right they train five hours a day they've done millions and millions of repetitions for this one technique they know all the defenses all the lines of right reactions you know that that's something to be said about that right but if you're learning judo in a hobby

setting which most people are in the united states that's really not the way about that. But if you're learning judo in a hobby setting, which most people are in the United States, that's really not the way to go, I think. Because you could drill Uchimata 10,000 times, but if you can't fight for position, how are you going to use that technique? So it's contextual. You know what? I guess the main point you're trying to say is

no matter which path you take, you have to be able to utilize. Like you have to be able, your breath has to be big, wide enough that you can react and counter react to different situations. Yeah. You can either go with a lot of techniques or focus on a few techniques with a lot of varieties within them, I guess. Yeah. There's some techniques that everyone should know, right? Oji. That's a good one.

It opens them up, goes back, then sets up your forward attacks. But a lot of these judo techniques are similar. Most of your turn throws are all turn throws. You know what I mean? So it's like the footwork's the same. It's like, do I want to develop an uchimata or aai or taiyo or koshi gruma or they're all kind of the same you just turn your hips right you can't really turn if the person has double shoulder posted on you you know hips are far away and their hips are lower than yours it's going to be very

difficult to get lower and underneath right right so all these different things matter and having a coach that can sort of guide you is good and you know maybe you say oh this guy's defensive so i'm gonna do tomonage all of a sudden you're doing tomonage as part of your game tomonage tomonage tomonage that person to be like okay i'm getting thrown with tomonage i'm gonna start posturing up a little bit and bending my knees a little bit more right and then leaning back now all of a sudden it doesn't work now you have to do something else to get your right better and that sort of pattern is going to help you develop that specific subsection of your entire strategy and then i go with peter who has one-handed judo attacks going left side

you know three or four different attacks i'm going to get good at that right so when i do encounter someone that does something similar to you i know how to deal with it because you help me deal with it right right and every time i know how to stuff those different things you have to come up with new ways to get better and best me right yeah and one time it was a tomonage that you caught me now i'm like okay that's an opportunity for peter right he turns to the left has three or four different attacks and he goes tomonage to that far side right you hit me with once right yeah i can count i remember that yeah yeah so now it's like people who can do that i've sort of seen it before right right if i'm fighting someone that has very good transitional and there was attacks i've encountered those things so i could defend

those things right and it's hard to put your attention on everything all at once so it's recognizing this pattern this guy fights kind of like peter he has this left side situation right i fight uh you know girl it's or something he does these different things right he likes the close range judo i'm familiar with it because the close range judo i've done this with him many many times i do these things he did these things close range i use that sort of as a reference and he's lefty right so that's why you need to train with a lot of different people right if you're training just to win though i have to put this word out there you're not you're doing yourself a disservice because you're not putting yourself in that left versus right use girls as an example close the distance right versus left hip to hip he loves

that place if i'm finding him to win i'm never going to be in there because that's what that's his favorite spot i'm going to strip it get away from it every time, I'm never going to be in there because that's his favorite spot. I'm going to pull, strip it, get away from it. Every time he goes, I'm going to bail out. I won't fight in there. I just won't if I'm winning. But if I put myself there in practice and allow myself to get launched sometimes,

I can learn that position that he's very good at. So the next time I fight someone that can force that specific position on me, I'm going to be familiar. And that's sort of a general strategy to judo in your training training yeah i see so then now we talked about the actual grappling part of the judo match so now it's this is getting towards more like judo match specific things but you know when you go out there it's, this is getting towards more like judo match specific things. But you know, when you go out there, it's not just about being good at judo.

You gotta, uh, typically your day consists of multiple matches because it will be a tournament. So like match management and like playing by the rule, like playing the rules a little bit, all those external factors, I guess, outside of the match kind of matter too. So any strategies in that that you like to think about? For sure. So you got to play the rules, right? Right.

If the person doesn't have a good mat awareness, and this was something that I used to struggle with too, like I'll be trying to throw the person, trying to fight the person. Before I know it, I'm like stepping into the red red and the person kind of shoves me out of bounds and now all of a sudden i've gotten penalized right i'm down a penalty right happens again you know i might be able to throw him i'm feeling like i'm gonna throw him we're doing it was i'm doing all the right things but i step out of bounds again oh shoot two penalties i get another one i'm done right right now all of a sudden i'm fighting back i'm like a little bit desperate.

Right. To play the rule, you know, to get in the penalty card situation. Force penalty, force penalty. And some people are very, very, very good at that. Right. Playing the game. Right? Because it's a game.

And people are like, that's not real judo. It's like, it is judo. It's part of the judo. It's competition. Right? And that's another thing. That's another subsection of of it that plays a big part forcing penalties right so if i have you know one exchange exchanges where me

and you grip up and go for stuff transition to the ground the referee says stop or the match action stops because we go out of bounds that's one exchange right so the first exchange you know you're offensive i'm kind of defensive we get dragged down to the newaza referee makes note of that right sex in the second exchange i step out of bounds referee makes note of that third exchange i step out again he's like penalty right fourth exchange you've attacking attack and attack and i do no attacks like this guy's hasn't attacked in four exchanges penalty again for shantara right so appealing to the referee and playing that rule the rule set the rules like that's a big part of it you know and it's a fair and legal part of it so people are very good at appealing to the ref and like oh look i'm going for all these different things or if you go for a san

agi it's like wow he's just dropping to his knees you're gonna make a little show of it i guess yeah you know it's kind of like when you're soccer you get shoved and you fall down rolling on the ground like ah my leg you know you kicked me and broke me and broke my leg and then the where's like okay red card get out of here but they didn't really injure him right guys playing next next uh you know what is it next round next match next next match yeah i mean yeah that it's people like love to hate that, but there's a lot of soccer players that do it because a lot of times refs miss it if they just don't flop around a little. That's true.

Yeah. I mean, I still hate it, but... Yeah, I do too. But I can't say much because, as you guys know, we talked about this, but I kind of play that a little uh in one of the matches so yeah that uh yeah i think uh it's the the caution that the warning games is very important because especially like as you go higher up um you know

when uh you know the skill levels are very, very much equal, you know, nothing much happening. Even little things like the match management makes a lot of difference. Yeah. So, like, yeah, so you got playing the rules, you know, you got burning the clock, you got to manage the clock when you're out there. When you're training, sometimes, like, oh, there's 10 minutes on the round or five minutes on the round. You do one round, you go another, whatever. It doesn't really matter that much, right? It's like, oh, I'm tired.

And managing the clock has a lot to do with just your gas tank. For me, at least, it is. It's like, oh, man, I'm out of shape or I haven't trained. But when you're in a competition, it's like you're up by a score. There's a minute left. That's two exchanges. It's like he has two opportunities to launch me. Do I know what's coming? Can I his sleeves can i do this has what if he gets me be outgrips me both

exchanges right likelihood of him throwing me in the last minute is pretty high especially if i'm tired okay so what do i do what's the best method right and i look at a coach who's very skilled and say okay burn the clock there was a force force force nowaza right right so maybe i forced nowaza now all of a sudden as opposed to actually going for things that's going to submit him or choke him or turn him all i'm doing is trying to create movement to improve position slightly right the timer resets right so you have a mental clock of like one two three four five nothing happens referee stands you up. Okay.

He misses a throw. He's down in turtle position. 1, 2, 3, 4. I sit him really hard to the side as if I'm going to try to pull him into my lap for the crab ride position. Okay. Timer resets. I can return him back to his stomach after that. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Now I'm looking for the arm bar and I'm threading my arm and going for it. Okay. He's going for something. Let's let this thing continue. One, two, three, four, five. We're locked in. Okay, I transitioned back out of it. Now I have the over-under thing, the seatbelt grip. Now I'm sitting to the opposite side.

Oh, he's going for something else. One, two, three, four. Now you've already burned 30 seconds, 20 seconds. Yeah. Mate, back up to the feet. Okay, last exchange. 30 seconds left. He comes outgrip say boom he's about to launch me i go to monage now i'm in there was a guard place yeah right and then instead of

holding the close guard there i go for juji oh he's going for juji one two three four five looking for the sweep he's getting tipped over oh is he gonna tip him over one two three four five right time management just clock management burning it burning it burning it right you know what i mean that's another type of a strategy that you could only really gain through experience experience yeah yeah and i was great at burning the clock really good at it you know whether i was winning or not i was just i get tired so i would just be like oh man did you burn it through Newaza play like that, like you just described? You know, when I was competing a lot, I wasn't very good at Newaza,

and I didn't like Newaza. Right. So I didn't really try to do anything. You know, a lot of people told me the stuff that I preach now, but it wasn't a big part of my game. Right. Because I was always so confident that I could throw someone on my feet right right so i like preferred to be on my feet even though it wasn't always the case like it was kind of like you just felt more comfortable on your feet i feel more comfortable

on my feet so it's like i didn't really want to force nuanza like why bother if i miss it if i go for it if i miss it you know my tank wasn't very good right i wasn't known for my endurance so if i'm like forcing a turnover or something if i don't get it oh i've burned some you know tank so the tank management is a real thing you know for gas tank yeah right so like i never really played especially i was because i was in the wrong division right so if the person's much heavier right if i'm trying to do nirvana it's a lot of weight that i'm trying to move, it just wasn't part of my thing. So how did you burn your time? Yeah, just doing that.

On the feet? Yeah. Well, you said. Oh, yeah. So gripping is great for that, right? So if I'm up, just going to grip fight, grip fight, one hand on and go for bad turn throws or bad demonages to just force it into the ground. You know what I mean? I see. But then if I'm going with somebody that's a good Nwaza guy,

and if I knew the Nwaza was better than mine, I would try to avoid that. Right. A lot of dancing around, faking moves. A lot of dancing around, faking moves. Kicking the shin, trying to bring them to their knees so that I can go behind him and hold that position as opposed to go for anything.

Right. Preventing the person from pulling me into the guard position right by just sticking to him real tight right and as they're trying to go for the guard situation like rolling into guard or something like that i'm preventing it and moving so then the time is kind of burning things like that that i would try to do but you know i was a decent compelling a great great competitor like an olympic top level competitor or anything like that but 34th in the world though 43rd 43rd oh 43rd one time i touched that but that's pretty high well yeah that was uh we covered a lot about the strategies like from grouping all the way to match management,

all the nitty gritty. So I hope you guys enjoyed it. Any parting words for the audience? Nope. Just find me on Instagram. Find me on YouTube. Check out my stuff. I have a couple of Judo Fanatics DVDs coming,

one of them being Stiff Arming Opponents. Good. And one of them being Tomoinage opponents good yeah and one of them being Tomoe Nage which is all the stuff that we were kind of talking about today right

if you have any questions reach out to me on Instagram and then if I have time I'll respond cool alright well

thank you Peter thank you and stay tuned for the next episode guys