The Shintaro Higashi Show - Micro Judo

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

All the techniques in Judo, and other sports for that matter, have small details that are super important for their successful execution. Shintaro calls these details "Micro Judo." Unfortunately, these details are neither easily learned or taught, and experts learn them after years of practice. Can we learn Micro Judo more quickly in a more deliberate way? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss Micro Judo, and how we should think of them, learn and teach them. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shinto Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today, we're going to talk about something that has never been talked about in judo, ever in the history of judo, ever. Which is? Micro judo. I just came up with that word, by the way. See, yeah. So he literally just told me I have no idea what that is about. So why don't you take it away? What is micro judo? It is micro judo is one of those things that everyone sort of does

subconsciously and it's like the tiniest of tiniest things that people focus on that's very important at the highest levels but you never see the beginner intermediates do okay it's the thing that people ask like what should my pinky be doing and i'm like don't focus on that focus on making the shape of the technique first. Don't even focus on what the thing is doing. But micro judo is the very last thing, but it's also the very first thing. You know what I mean?

So it's like beginners sometimes focus on these minor details. Yeah. But then they ultimately become the difference maker when you're at the highest level. I think a lot of people develop this stuff naturally because none of this is explicitly taught. I see all the high level

guys doing it. And even my guys also do it. So what are some of these things? You mentioned the pinky, but I think you were just trying to make a point. Well, actually, really. Yeah.

For instance, like when you're grabbing the sleeve. Yeah. Right? You do sort of a pulsating motion with your hands to grip more of the sleeve. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just get more material. Yeah.

So it's not open or closed. Yeah. Right? get more material. Yeah. So it's not open or closed. Yeah. Right?

And then you hear people saying like, oh, you want to grab with the bottom three fingers. Yeah. Yeah.

Pinky, ring, and middle finger, right? Yeah. And then the finger, the forefinger is sort of just

kind of hanging out. Yeah. Kind of. It's kind of true, right? Yeah. So when you grab the sleeve, where do you grab the sleeve?

Low or middle depending on intent of what you're willing to do you slide it down or up okay yeah now let's look for the sake of like taking the opponent's hand off you want to be closer down to the sleeve so you could maximally separate your chest and their head okay how can they do that if there's too much slack inside the sleeve? Right, right. Right? There needs to be no slack between their wrist

and the gi. It needs to be tight. Yeah. Right? Think about like if there's a handcuff that's loose and then you slam your hand on it, it hurts the hand.

Yeah. But if there's contact already, then you could put more force on the actual handcuff, the chain. Yeah. So you're kind of adjusting where the tension

is created. So how do I do that with one hand? You know what I mean? Because you can't just like, hold on one second, let me adjust my grip, grab the wrist, and then adjust. You can't do this, right? So naturally, you have to kind of adjust your hand. So when you're grabbing the side of the sleeve,

you pull the pinky and then you claw the ring finger and then you claw that back and now you have the middle finger and you claw that back, right? And now there's more gi bunched up underneath your fingers. And then you reach with

your pinky, ring finger, middle finger, and it's this pulsating motion to pull more. Yeah. Oh, sorry. To pull more of the sleeve into your hand. Okay. So like grab the bottom of your shirt.

And you grab the bottom of your shirt, you can pull, right? And then you use your thumb also, right? To kind of gather and then collect more and more of the material. Like if you're grabbing a towel and you're bunching up the material with one hand, you're doing this in judo. It's a micro movement. I've been like, while you're talking about this, I've been trying to imagine myself doing judo.

And I guess I do do that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember. I'm grabbing my pants right now. Yeah, right? You got to engage in the palm of your thumb and all this stuff, and you can collect it.

Yeah. Okay. Now, let's just say it's in the middle of the sleeve, like right by your elbow. Yeah. And now all of a sudden you're doing it, you're pulling it to the side, and now there's tension on the top side, so there's maximal torque pushing down.

You can put your weight on that arm. Yeah. Okay. Now, if you want to go for something like Sasai, because your hand is on top, if you lift it it the other person's arm is underneath your arm okay right which is much more likely for you to be off balance okay so you want to tuck your hands underneath the gi right so now you're lifting from underneath so the opponent's hand, arm, is above your knuckles. Right. But now, much more lift. For, right?

And then adjusting. Yeah. So they, for the size, so it's like, how do you adjust? Yeah. Right? Pulling the sleeve to the side, right? Hand goes to the side, collecting the material down, and then driving your hand underneath the arm, right?

And if I want to create downward force, I would turn the hand back out and then press down. underneath the arm, right? And if I want to create downward force, I would turn the hand back out and then press down. Right, right, right. So that's like sort of micro judo. Very, very minor details. Yeah. If you can't stand on one leg to do susai, then none of this stuff matters anyway.

Right, right. You know? And these things people will naturally adjust by themselves, kind of. But could it be explicitly taught to give you a lead or give you an advantage i guess but i think you're right like if you teach people these things too early then they'll probably be overwhelmed and kind of lose a big picture yes so i never really do you know yeah i'm always like fluency over accuracy, as they say. Right. Oh, I see. In teaching English.

Yeah. Oh, I see. And these things fix themselves. They usually always do. And then you can fix them later on. Right. You can blast them through combinations. I'm like, hey, listen, when you go for Sode, this is how you drive the numbers underneath.

And then usually that blows people's minds. You know? Yeah. Like, wow, I never even thought of it that way. Yeah. Like, I see what you don minds, you know? Yeah. Like, wow, I never even thought of it that way. Yeah. Like, I see what you don't, you know? Wise master. Yeah.

And even getting that sleeve hand. Yeah. Playing with range, things like this. How do you, like, reach out and grab that sleeve so fast? Right. You know what I mean? That's micro judo. You know what I mean?

So, yeah. Do you, how do you teach that? Like the grip fighting, like how to reach for it and things like that. You just have to have them show the big stuff and then basic grip fighting sequence and then have people just do a lot of grip fighting? That helps. But the way I do that, right, for if you're trying to reach out and grab a sleeve or something, if the sleeve is hanging by the hand and the arm is moving, right, it's hard

to like reach out and grab it perfectly hanging off a wrist, okay? So what you're trying to do is slap the person's hand or the wrist. Slap the wrist, slap the wrist, slap the wrist, and then you make contact with it, which is a little bit easier, and then as soon as it makes contact, then you grab it. Oh.

You're not trying to coordinate the grip. You try to coordinate the slap and then catch. Right? Slap, catch. And then you make those adjustments with the little fingers, right? The pulsating fingers. Yeah. Right? And now you can anchor downwards by turning your wrist over.

Right? Or bring the hand underneath if you're going to go for Saturday. Those kinds of things. That's micro judo. You know what I mean? And once you have that, you're twitching to make him think that you're going to go for something. Twitching to show,

hey, I might go over here to show these feints. Right. Feints are like micro judos too, I guess. It's like, I know you show feints, like you teach people feints sometimes, but when you're a beginner it's hard to get the concept

yes and it could be a much bigger feint or a smaller feint yeah I use dodgeball because it's so intuitive you know you can quickly twitch and pull that ball on back and that's like a short feint

or you can pretend to throw and keep the ball. That's a longer fake. Right, right. And you alternate it. And then you nail them in the face. That's also micro judo. And I guess you could even go further after that and

talk about different positions, like right versus right, right versus left. There's a lot of micro judo there too. Yeah, because what your sleeve hand is doing is very different from right versus right, right versus left. Yeah. Right versus right, the person's lapel hand is right there. So it's like it's right in front of you. Okay. So it's like, it's right in front of you.

Okay. Right versus left, because we're fighting lapel-lapel with our sleeve hand back. Yeah. It's much longer of a distance, you see? It's longer. You want to catch the outside from the inside like this. So you're like looping your hand back around, you know, because you want to maximally get the sleeve. Right.

Right. Because if you're on the outside, like of my hand, it's very difficult for me to rotate my hand inwards. You see what I mean? Yeah. Right. Because if you're on the outside of my hand, it's very difficult for me to rotate my hand inwards. You see what I mean? Yeah. Because if we're keeping our arms outward, our palms always face inside. Right. Okay. So outside is kind of better.

Almost. Not better. But like in terms of getting the sleeve first. Yeah. You know what I mean? Everyone's like, inside position, inside position. Yes, inside position. But with the sleeve control right versus left.

That's my code. Does anyone ever really think about this? I do. You know? A lot of the champions do. Yeah. And then we know there's lapel hand study. Yeah.

Right? And then adjusting your lapels. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right versus right, very different. If they're holding on to the lapel and you adjust the gi, that hand goes down. Down, yeah. With the gi, right? The hand's not sliding down the gi.

The gi is sliding down. Mm-hmm. Right? Yep, yep. When you're going with a very, very strong person, you want to bring their hand down. Sometimes you physically can't take their hand off the gi because they're so physically strong.

They got like gorilla hands. Yeah. In that case, you're putting downward pressure and you're just moving the whole gi. Now their hand's lower. And then when they try to bite up on the gi, that's when you pulse their hand down. That biting up the gi is also micro judo, I guess.

Yeah. Like adjusting. Like a lot of beginners, yeah, if you do the gi adjustment, beginners may not recognize that their grip is now weaker. Yes. Yeah. So then you got to adjust.

Yeah, and you can bite up the gi. But if there's downward tension, you can't because inadvertently your hand goes down, right? Yeah. So whenever there is no tension, you're feeling it, you're feeling it, right? Yeah. There's no downward tension. And then you go up. You snap, you fake, and then you quickly bite up, right? And you're like ratcheting it it right yeah there's no downward tension and then you snap you fake and then you

you quickly bite off right and you're like ratcheting it up ratcheting it up right right that's micro judo

yeah it's very very nuanced I love it I think that's why it's more fun to watch judo matches when you are doing it

because you kind of recognize all these things that you know the pros are doing yep there's a lot of things you can kind of recognize all these things that the pros are doing. There's a lot of things. You can kind of see like, oh, the grip fighting sequence is pretty fascinating.

You know, everybody sees the cherry blossom as a whole. Yeah. But some of us see the petals fall to the floor. Ha ha ha. Wise words, wise words. That's right. You just come up with that?

Yes. Just came up with that. And then the pretty girl that's sitting over there. See? I recognize that. I knew that. You know what I mean? I want to go over there.

Yeah. Forget judo. That's right. That's so funny. So micro judo, it's a whole idea. It's a whole concept. And the reason why I bring it up is because I'm kind of thinking about like, oh, maybe I'll make a video about it.

Just straight micro movements. Really boring for the majority of the people. It's going to be the most niche thing ever done on YouTube probably. Well, on YouTube they say you got to carve out your niche. Way too niche. Even for judo. It's going gonna get 8 views that's it

well we'll see well I think I think people will find it interesting yeah please let me know if you guys are interested in a video about micro judo

yeah right now there's Morote Senagi we're gonna put out a 15 minute Uchimata video that can help you greatly that's what's next

on my shintarohigashi.com and then I think after that we're going to try to do this micro judo video which is very very interesting i think it could definitely help you know and uh when you could automate some of these movements yeah then it really is how i think that's the key how do you automate automate these movements i gotta keep doing it i guess you ever see this one what What? Right versus left.

Yeah. Opponent already has a lapel. I want to get my lapel, but the lapel is sitting flat on their chest. Uh-huh. Usually, you dig your thumb in and then pull the lapel towards you, and then you grip. Right, right, right. But because of the way we're standing opposite, the lapel is too far. Yeah. So you see guys turn their hand over, reach their index finger out, clip the inside, fold it over, and then put their thumb inside, and then they grip.

Oh. You ever see that? No, never noticed. All the time. Oh. You ever see that? No, never noticed. I guess you peel it. You peel off the gi off the skin a little, and then you just grab. Okay. Yeah, I see it all the time. Getting the second hand on.

Wow. Finger. Right? Forefinger. Ah. It's like, it's such a micro movement dude

I see it all the time right first left international judo nice Japanese always do it they don't really teach

maybe like they like watch other people do it and then just kind of start doing them I think everyone already does it everyone does it

but I've never heard anyone teach it before yeah and I've heard the best coaches in the world tell me like no man this is how you go get the lapel yeah does it everyone does it but not i've never heard anyone teach him before yeah and i've heard the best coaches in the world tell me like no man this is how you grab you go get the lapel yeah you just go like this and you go like that right uh like no man it's not what everyone's doing even everybody in your room is doing it this way right not the first initiative i'm not talking

about that you're not reaching out with your forefinger before any contact is made. Range has been established. Person likes inside position. They put their hand on, and they're okay with you getting the outside position. And those things have already been established. There's sort of an understanding. We both like two-handed judo, so there's not real threat of a left-side, one-handed thing. It's kind of like a left side one-handed thing right right it's kind of like a certain

opening in chess right queen's gambit or something queen's gambit and queen's gambit accepted right queen's gambit rejected it's like that hand in okay accepted i'm gonna go outside cool and then you're gonna reach your finger out pull the thumb right and then it's like okay we're established here let's work let's fight for sleep now so i see and then we're like kind of going like this see it all the time literally all the time because it's like from the first interaction for for the first few interactions they kind of established that you don't do certain things yeah i can go for these micro adjustments. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see it.

You see it all the time. Yeah, guys try to like pay attention to this micro judo stuff when you guys watch highlights and whatnot, you know? Yeah. Does it really give you

an advantage? Maybe. You know, it really matters later down the line. But it's not something to focus on too early around your career and it gets confusing, right? But, you know,

if I make a video about this stuff, you kind of do it on your own, too, right? You kind of, like, think of how, the way you grip a gi, the way you, you know what I mean? Right? Like, how do you, yeah, bunch up the material properly, right? Like, look at it. Like, I just did it, right?

Look how tight this is, you know? And you kind of keep going, right? With the, look, and now you up the material properly. Right? Like, look at it. Like, I just did it, right? Look how tight this is. You know? And you kind of keep going, right? With the, look, and now you have the whole thing. The whole shirt. The shirt. You can slam someone with that T-shirt. You made a video about that.

I did. Yeah. During the pandemic. T-shirt judo, guys. I know. Bring those back, man. Silly video during the pandemic. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, this was very interesting. bring those back man silly videos from the pandemic cool yeah this was very interesting

I actually had no idea what you were going to talk about yeah you're always coming up with these things always anything else? no that's it, there's a video coming in the meantime please go to shintorohigashi.com I got shirts videos, all that stuff.

Cool. Check it out, guys. Yeah. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. And as always, thanks for your support. And we'll see you guys in the next episode.