The Shintaro Higashi Show - Kuzushi

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

The word "kuzushi" gets thrown a lot in Judo and, to a certain extent, BJJ. It usually gets translated as "unbalancing", but there is a lot of missing context in the translation. What does "kuzushi" exactly mean? Does it apply only to Judo? How can we apply it in our grappling? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter go in depth about kuzushi. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show, Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about Kuzushi, K-U-Z-U-S-H-I. Yeah, Kuzushi. I guess a lot of people who listen to this podcast kind of know what that is, but for those who don't know, what is Kuzushi? Yeah, to break the balance. That's what it means, right? And you hear this in just regular day-to-day jargon. It's not specific to Judo, but you break something. Kuz means, right? Yeah. And, you know, you hear this in, like, just regular day-to-day jargon. It's not specific to judo, but you break something.

Kuzusu, right? So, like, oh, there's a house of cards, and, you know, you kick it over, and you kuzusu, right? You break it down. Yeah. And then, but specifically in the context of grappling, it means to off-balance. Off-balance, right. Yes, yes, yeah. It's not just in judo.

You know, does it matter in wrestling too? Yes, of course. Off balance is everything. You know what I mean? And famously, John Donahue,

who's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu teacher, speaks about this all the time. Kazushi, kazushi, kazushi. Okay. So he talks about, you know,

kazushi. It's like everywhere, everywhere in grappling, it really is sort of the fundamental building block of the sport. But it's not as simple as people think it is. Right. There's a little bit more complexity with it. You know what I mean?

Yeah. What do you mean by that? Like, well, what do most people think? Okay. So there's like this sort of common knowledge thing of Kazushi, Tsukuri and Bukake. Kake, sorry. You wanted to put that end on the screen. Sorry, sorry.

Kazushi, Tsukuri, and Kake. What have those been? Yeah, so there's three parts of the throw. You off-balance them, and then you make the shape of the throw, and then you execute the throw, right? The last part of the throw, right? So it's a three-part thing. But off-balancing someone, it's very fleeting

because we're very, very good at keeping our balance. Yeah. Our inner ear works to keep our balance, right? There's visual stimuli that work to keep our balance. We want to be upright day to day. And then, you know, it's associated with being a good athlete. Right. I mean, who's a great athlete? Athletes are good at standing on their feet. Generally good athletes, you know, it's like, OK, shift the person's balance to the outside of their foot to the left leg. And then you want to put all their weight on that one leg so you can reach that leg. That's Kazushi, but it's fleeting.

One leg, so you can reach that leg. That's Kazushi, but it's fleeting. They're instantly, and it's gone instantly. Right. Because we're very good at adjusting and shifting the weight back, so we're centered over our base. And our base is two legs, right? Yeah, yeah. And we're shifting our weight constantly,

one leg to the other, walking, keeping our balance. Right. Think about it. If you're taking that step and you step on a banana peel and your feet go out from underneath you, you're losing a base. You're going to be Kazushi'd. Yeah.

By a banana peel. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So what are some nuances that, I mean, I think that's what most people think about, just kind of losing balance. But what are some of the details that people miss?

Yeah. So the details, it's not just one thing, Kazushi this and then go into that, Kazushi that and go into this. Right. And a lot of the times we think about like, okay, we have to make this shape with our hands. You got to look at the watch, answer the phone,

pull them forward for Kazushi. Okay. But if you look at that maneuver, it's very difficult to do. Yeah. Because a lot of the times, if you're looking at the watch and pulling the sleeve head towards you like this in upward motion, you're using your rear delt, which is a very small muscle. Yeah. Okay.

And then the right hand, the tsurite, the hand on the collar, right, goes up like a telephone. And then you're wedging the sort of forearm into their armpit and you're pulling them forward. Okay. Now what are you using? You're using your anterior delts and your, your bicep brachialis. Like that's not a very strong muscle either. Right. You're using two very small muscles to drive the person forward.

Right. How does this kind of make sense? If they're leaning backwards, you can't do it. Yeah. Right. So nuances comes from, okay, I try to trip him backwards. He resists back. And then I'm adding to that force coming with my two small muscles.

Or I'm leaning away using my entire body weight. So now you have body weight engaged. So those are some of the nuanced ideas. Okay. So it goes beyond just making the shape with your hands and your body. Right. It's action, reaction, feeling the opponent, and then gaming. Right, right.

Right? So the people, yeah. Yeah, so like for beginners, you know, a lot of times people just say, oh yeah, they look at the watch, answer the phone kind of thing, and I think that really can be frustrating for beginners

because you try to do that at Randori. Of course, it doesn't work. Yeah. No. Yeah. So how do you kind of go over that frustration? But it is true that you kind of have to do it. A little bit.

A little bit. You know, it's not wrong. It's not the whole picture. So how do you approach teaching this? Hand position is huge. I always talk about good hand position. And my biggest example is

if we're 50-50 right versus right, you put your hand behind the collar and you take that other person's hand off. And you explain to them, hey, I can pull his head down. He cannot pull my head down. That's winning in position so far. And now that we're locked into the gi, he's not going anywhere. So from here, I'm going to pull his head down to off balance him away from his base.

This is how I do it. And that's a much easier idea to show the concept of Kazushi because you're using your lats and your back. So it's a lot bigger of a muscle to pull their head down and step backwards. A lot easier to off balance. You see how he's off balance. He's trying to regain his balance and then that's when you're going for a throw. So that's a lot

more intuitive for someone to understand the concept because she's like, how can I off balance someone with my rear delt and my anterior delt, right? What if the person's leaning back? There's none of those things that can sort of question the method, right?

Because look, dominant, I can pull his head down. Can you pull my head down? No, I pull his head down using my lats, right? Oh, shoot. Then his head comes up and now there's my attack, right? See how this opens up? I'm using kuzushi to create an opening. So you're taking away variables for them

so that it's easier to understand. You always say it better than I do. But that's why we do this together, I guess. Yes, yes, yes. So that's a good way. Yeah. Yeah, I did notice that, you you know that I kind of so when

you know especially jujitsu people when they ask me about throws I actually I follow your method I teach them

the grips too and then it's they pick it up a lot faster because it's there's fewer variables and they

they can understand the concept a lot faster yeah sometimes it's actually just better to be like, hey, this is how you do a Thai, go try it. And it never works. Yeah.

And then you can kind of be the gatekeeper of the difference. Why does it work? Oh, like a sacrilegious method. Yeah, then it's like, oh, because they're stiff part of me. They're not letting me get in. Why can't you get in? And there's usually two factors, right? Your hips are too far away, their they're stiff on me. They're not letting me get in. Why can't you get in? You know? Yeah.

Right? And there's usually two factors, right? Your hips are too far away. Their hips are too far away. A lot of distance to cover. So distance is a factor, right? His arms are in between, like, locked out, stiff on position. This is a very strong barrier. That's a hand position thing. Yeah.

So how about if you win position, you encroach, okay? Yeah. So how about if you win position, you encroach, okay? Yeah. You pull their head down and then you go Taiyo, then it's a lot easier. You don't have to give them that information right up front. Yeah. That's a lot.

That's very complicated. Yeah. So Socratic method. Yeah. Yeah. This is how you do Taiyo, buddy. Go try it. You know? Ask yourself why it didn't work.

Why it doesn't work. And you know, when you ask somebody why, everyone tries to find sort of the singularity, the one reason why. Yeah. And it generally is based on the other person's trait. The guy's too strong. He's too big. Right?

He's too fast. He's just too big of an athlete. He just knows more than me. Right. But it's generally not the case. It's like too big of an athlete. He just knows more than me. But it's generally not the case. It's like three or four different factors that are a lot more technical. And sometimes it's like they think, oh, it's not going to work

and they kind of defeat themselves beforehand. And sometimes that's that too. Yeah. So, that's what I would do. Yeah, it's a very interesting thing, Kazushi, you know,

how do you gain Kazushi? So that's how you teach Kazushi. So let's kind of move on. I don't need a teacher, really. Yeah. Or, yeah, and then let's go on to the other side. Like, how do you practice that?

Like, you don't really do that, for example, in Uchikomi. I mean, I guess you kind of do that, but you do the motion, not the actual idea behind it. So is it for, should we just do more moving Uchikomis or should we just do more Randori? Yeah, it's embedded, you know? And it's so easy for when you're doing Randori

and something doesn't work for the coach to say, hey, you're not pulling enough or hey hey, there's not enough kizushi. But those kind of advice are rarely ever useful. Oh, I'm not pulling it off. It's never as simple as that, right? There's sort of the whole of judo, and there's the sort of

small pieces of it. So like I said, it's like the tactical aspect versus the strategical aspect. It's like a little sort of micro and macro. You know, you have to kind of look at this lens, right? So you're kind of always training this. And the number one thing that I do say all the time that'll help people is the hands go first, not their legs. Hands go first.

hands go first so if I'm doing tai otoshi if my legs go and turn and my hand behind me it's very difficult to pull them from that position because they're upright if I go koshi grimoire or headlock throw and if I just turn my body without all bouncing forward

he's going to wrap around my waist and dump me over my back but if my hands go first and I'm driving him forward and then I see the Kazushi and I can thread that moment, that's good. So hands go first, hands go first. Right. And then usually when you're off balancing someone, you know,

if they're resisting backwards, you get off balance in the opposite direction. Right. So when you're doing throws, focus on your toes. Your weight is on your heel. You're going to go backwards. Right. And majority of the throw you're going to need to go forward, right? Because you need to engage your core

and throw them over or even OG, you have to go forward. Yeah. Most throws, 99, 90% of throws. So hands go first. Weight on your toes.

Weight on your toes. Those are two things that'll help a lot. If you just say those two things, it'll help. It's more complicated, like I said, because there's a lot of push-pull, circling, attacking the feet, off-balancing in a way where you're like gaining position, off-balance, gaining position, off-balance, attack.

But those two are sort of the lowest hanging fruits. It's sort of like things you could say to coach someone to learn these things, right? It's not like, hey, Kazushi the person. Hey, pull more. That stuff is not useful. Yeah, because it's actually harder to follow if you just say pull more, push more,

because there's so much missing information there. And then beginners will get frustrated because they're just like, what does that even mean? I try to push. I can't even push. I can't even pull. Exactly. Yeah.

So it's like sort of an esoteric solution in the most simplified way. Yeah. That just is absolutely useless to most people. Yeah. And then what, but if you just give specific things like, oh, hands first, or weight on the toes, that's easy enough to understand and then actually do it right away. And those are easy things to identify as a coach as well.

Because most of the time you hear these coaches like, go for the cross grip. It's like, why? I hear these crazy advice that I hear on the sidelines. Why are you giving that advice? How about this one? Don't cross your feet. It's like, you can cross your feet if there's reason to do it.-huh how about don't cross your feet it's like

you can cross your feet if there's reason to do it like what do you mean don't cross your feet it's very rare that the person's standing upright and losing position standing and crisscrossing their feet over and over like that's very rare right who does that nobody but people make these mistakes right their legs go first or their weights on their heels that's very common right and if we're talking in context of kizushi those are the two biggest things that and if your hands don't go first it's not sufficiently off balance because you need your hands the kinetic chain yeah right floor core hands extremities i'm locked with my hands on this person okay there's no way that i could force this person forward or backwards if i don't use my

hands yeah they say uh don't use your arms they say like in boxing right punch from your legs you know and it makes sense right because the kinetic chain comes from the floor and then you transfer it onto your hands right yeah but you have to use your arms right of course what you're trying to say is don't just punch using your arms only yeah okay same thing in judo right you're not just using your arms you're gonna throw your whole body into it right but the hands go first that's what i always say even though it's a little misleading right because you're throwing your body you're pushing off with the ground yeah kinetic chains the same analogy in boxing as it is in judo. Right, right. In a lot of different sports. So you got to

connect the chain and that's how you become strong. That's how you feel strong. Yeah. So you use your kinetic chain to take their balance while you keep yours. Yeah.

And if you're going to lose your balance and fall, fall forward into the technique. Always fall forward. That should be a t-shirt. Next much drop. Yeah. On shintariguys.com.

Yeah. I think, yeah, it is interesting always because when we try to talk about these concepts like Kazushi or, you know, a certain type of throws with you it's not really all about

because a lot of times when people ask about these things they want one liner like you do this and you'll be able to throw this person you gotta pull more it's like okay buddy yeah that's very helpful and

I think it's, and also just explaining away, like you said, like giving a dissertation on how to do kuzushi is not helpful either for students. So all these details are, you know, irrelevant even.

They don't, a lot of times people will get it. So the best thing is to give very actionable things, low-hanging fruits, to get them going. And then they have to figure out what that is for themselves, I think. That's the key. So the job as the teacher,

you should be just setting them off with the right course, I guess. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. Cool. Anything else we missed about kuzushi? You know, it's good to understand this in nohaza too, right? It's the person's in their guard, close guard. You kuzushi

and then they need to keep their base. What are they going to do? They're going to use their hands to get a base. And if they're upright, they have a very good base. You Kazushi them all thousand forward when they pulse their hand to keep their base, because they need a wider base, you could attack

that arm because now that arm is extended. You use Kazushi as a means to pull their arms away from their body and then do multiple attacks, right? And then same thing, like you're going for a triangle, right? And the person's upright and fighting the legs off and keeping good posture. You change

the angle, try to knock them off their base, which is Kazushi's off balance on them. And then you can return to a Jiu-Jitsu or try to cinch a Sakaguchi. You're playing the game between Kazushi attack, Kazushi attack, Kazushi attack, and then stand up, same thing, right? Position, off balance, attack, Kazushi attack, Kazushi attack, and then stand up, same thing, right?

Position, off balance, attack, fake turn throw, pull the head down, Kazushi, attack, attack, right? Force newaza, who knows, whatever, right? So you're constantly messing with the person's balance, and you can only do that when you have good position. Because if you're even position, they can do the exact same back to you, right? It's just not a great place to be in. And that's the entire premise of this whole thing that I'm always preaching about, like

being in a better position. Because if I'm in great position, you're going to have a hard time off balancing. Right. Right. Yeah. Makes sense. So yeah, it applies to Nevaaza too. If you're trying to sweep or like apply chokes and whatever attacks sweeps

it works in dating too right you want to throw some liners in there to off balance that a little bit you don't have to get too comfortable you know you want to sort of yeah I mean you know I was actually about I was going to make that joke do you remember at my wedding

my friend said the officiant he talked about Kazushi he actually yeah I think I remember that yeah because yeah my good friend from college

he officiated our wedding my wedding and then he talked about Kazushi because he went to talk to you guys that's right he did such a great job and oh I do remember that

actually yeah he said good kizushi always leads to bukkake ah you dirty dog no the point was that it's a great power you know so there's a thing he was saying like if once you learn how to do kizushi in a relationship in a in a in that sense yeah that once you master it that's a great power and you have to be very careful you know when to use it you still talk to that guy of course yeah what a winner that guy is huh he's he's great yeah he's what a stud he's a very he's a stud he's a stud yeah I felt a little bit

like bad about myself like what do you do for a living I was like you know why what about you oh you know

I worked in tech took an exit you know I worked at twitter you heard of twitter yeah I heard of twitter right

he's great no man he's a he's a stud he's a stud such a good speaker and yeah oh stud. Such a good speaker. And yeah. Oh, yeah.

That was a good speech. Yeah. Kazushi though. Kazushi. Yeah. That should be the title of this thing. Kazushi leads to. Don't say it.

Very inappropriate. Yeah. I got to stop saying stuff like that. It's okay. That's your edge. I can never say you know you know

I'm so uptight with these things yeah well you you lose canon so we gotta we balance each other out yes

all right well thanks for listening guys hope you you know you hope this this is helpful in

when you try to develop an idea of what kudushi is it's very hard to develop an idea of what Kudushi is. It's very hard to learn. But once you learn, I mean, your Judo or Jujutsu will make leaps of improvement. It's very central. So, all right. Well, thanks for listening.

And we'll see you guys in the next episode.