The Shintaro Higashi Show - Newaza

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Newaza, or groundwork, is a controversial aspect of Judo, especially with the introduction of a new ruleset that favors big Ippon throws and the rise of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In this episode, Shintaro and Peter go in depth about Newaza. What is it? What sets it apart from the ground of other martial arts? 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 with peter yu today we're going to talk about nwaza what an interesting thing right nwaza gets so much love so much hate it's very polarizing uh-huh when it comes to the groundwork of judo right nwaza meaning groundwork yeah yep right you got tachiwaza standing moves nwaza lying down moves or ground moves right so what's the let's kind of start with the definition of it because maybe some people are not familiar with the actual groundwork of judo so what is the goal of groundwork in the groundwork so what happens when you get to the ground right so now you know the rules are always changing but now they define nirvana as knees and elbows touching the floor if a knee and elbow touches the floor it goes to nirvana right for one person or both i forgot one person

okay oh okay so if i do like a drop sanagi and i drop to my knees and i don't get it the guy could still pick me up from there and load me and throw me onto my head right that still counts yeah okay now like if i miss the drop sanagi and if i get my elbows to the floor now it's considered nirwaza oh the elbows have to that's how i understand it yeah i see yeah the rules are always changing right so once you get the nirwaza you can't really throw anymore from there uh i guess you could theoretically still pick them up and dump them but you're not going to get any points for it right you could choke them on bar them or you could turn them over to their back and pin them for 20 seconds right that's the rule right right so it's kind of interesting it's different definitely a different rule set than uh you know you would see in a lot of other

grappling martial arts what's uh interesting is that if there's no forward progression for five seconds it goes back up back up your feet yeah and it's kind of subjective like well they don't really define forward uh progression but if there's movement they'll just kind of let it go you know this these kind of rules are always changing right and then sometimes ah we should give them more time or oh we should do this or that oh let's change it to that but that's the general consensus like that hasn't changed if there's movement and if there's progression they will let it keep going right right yeah and then usually that progression just if someone looks if one person is trying to do something it's i think the ref usually lets it go right like let them let usually they'll let them go yeah yeah but i mean i've seen some crazy

egregious things like you know oh i like the person on bottom the guys in trouble okay so that could potentially happen you know right it's a way that's sort of uh there's a little bit of um subjectivity in the rules to for the ref to kind of influence the match or having a you know a certain ref go one direction or another can actually affect the outcome so it's not like a heavily favored thing you know people don't love it right right and then most people you know because judo is 80 on the feet 70 on the feet arguably depending on where you go where you train right i'm talking about like the international circuit right see what percentage of matches are you know on their feet versus on the ground and then how many people actually take the opportunity to go for it,

it's definitely skewed. There's a lot more standing than groundwork in judo. Obviously, we all know this. So a lot of international players and top-level players tend to focus more on the tachi wada portion. Of course they're going to do that. That just makes sense. In the match management perspective,

sometimes they don't even try to do much on the ground because they want us their specialties in tachihaza so they want to preserve energy right yeah and then you know the criticism of like why won't the guy go for this he has the back but it's like okay you know maybe they're you know down by a score they want to get a throw because they don't feel like they're going to be able to finish this person in a certain amount of time. There's a minute and a half left. If I tried to transition to the pin and the armbar, I could burn 20 seconds. That's 20 seconds that I need. I think I have a Taiyotoshi here or a Harai Goshi where I'm confident that I could counter him. Okay, I'm not going to

do anything. Look at the ref. The ref's like, all right, you're clearly not going for anything. Back up to your right so it is also part of the strategy you know it's not always the case where you have to capitalize on uh you know having the person's back right or having the person's you know being in half guard and you have to take out a leg and having their back on the floor which we like to call leg extraction position, right? Right, right. So that's what Nehwaza is, and then that's kind of like how Nehwaza is played out in the competition. So how about for practice? So you've been on, like, you run practice for a lot of hobbyists.

You've been involved in, like, high-level judo practices. you've been involved in like high level judo practices so how uh are there any differences in uh how they how two camps of you know practice approach nowaza like how do you approach it and yeah if you're strictly competition yeah right you should focus on really two positions right you know i mean uh the main one is transitions because that's where judo matches are. The nuwaza really shines in judo, right? The transitional aspect of it. Going for tomonage, going for juji, going for tomonage, going for the kanto choke, things of that nature. Person goes for sumigai, she's splitting the legs and passing and hitting.

So those quick hit the mat and go kind of things because that doesn't require a lot of setting up and time and full approach. It's like you hit the mat and go. You're anticipating going to the the ground and going that's one thing that you should always train right and i'm a big big believer that and if there's a lot of competitive athletes in the room we're doing judo competitively i would definitely focus on that right so that's one aspect of it right right and then you want to look at the major positions of judo. For instance, like the over-under pass is a big one, right? Somebody misses a tomonage or a sacrifice throw and then capitalizing from that. And then also, you know, attacking the turtle. Right. That's the most common position.

Right, right. You miss a throw, you go down, the opponent's on their stomach. Attacking from there is the biggest thing in judo, right? And of course, the rule sets really really matter here right because if you look at like greco roman or freestyle wrestling same as judo all they have to do is stall like flatten out not get turned and that's it ref says stop it's not working back up to your feet so judo freestyle and greco have something in common on the ground right the rule sets are very very similar in that way right of course wrestling and freestyle and greco have something in common on the ground right the rule sets are very very similar in that way

right of course wrestling and freestyling greco doesn't get the same criticisms for having that rule set that shapes the sport because you know judo is the martial arts not very martial artsy right yeah that's where the sport versus martial arts thing comes into play oh we'll talk about that later yeah and jujitsu you want to regard you want to put them back in between the legs and you want to face them you don't want to give up your back because if they put their feet in and the hooks in inside the legs they get points for that control in the back right right right right oh because each person on the bottom yes is incentivized to not let the hooks in and then to face their opponent right so that's what it looks

like if you're looking at collegiate wrestling the person on bottom gets points for standing up getting away right that is the most similar thing with like mma and fighting because if you get taken down and fighting and they're behind you you're gonna try to get back up to your feet and you know get out of there right so you know stand-ups and mat returns become a thing so that's how sort of the rule sets kind of shape how the nirwaza looks. I don't know if that was your original question, but I started. No, it's okay. So, yeah, the rules are definitely, especially if you want to focus on competition, you know, you have to focus on what will work best within the rule set, right?

Oh, that was your question, yes. So what does a practice nirwaza look like in my dojo yeah so when people are not really focused on competition yeah so i'm looking at the room if there's let's just say there's 20 people in the room right what percentage of the people are actually competing in judo in the sport of judo right maybe two or three right one percent you know five percent or ten percent whatever it is so those people have to do that that goes without saying right you know what i mean but the majority of the people in the room are there for self-defense right people who are supplementing their jiu-jitsu training people who want to meet new friends people who want to learn how to do self-defense how does this apply in the

real world right that's the bulk of the people in the class right therefore just doing transitions over under passes and then attacking the turtle where the person's stagnant and stationary not really what they are actually truly looking for right right right so that's why i'll take a little bit more of a variety approach where what do you guys want to learn today kind of thing of course i will never ask that because sometimes you know they request something and it's not to the standard of everybody in the room. Like this person wants to learn this, but no one in the room will understand that. This person wants to learn that.

Yeah, Barambolo. But it's like, okay, you know, not that Barambolo is too complex, right? It's like most people in the room wouldn't find that interesting. Right. For us, for us. So it's like, yeah, I'm not going to ask, you know, specifically. So it's like, what are the needs of the majority of the people in the room and what sort of fulfills all the things right for instance if i were to teach something like a bailout tomonage into a

juji from the bottom that's something that a jiu-jitsu person could get a lot of benefit from right self-defense i mean you could kind of argue that because you know oh you're on bottom position you're looking for juji right it's applicable to judo sport you're learning the mechanics and the basics of the armbar and the tomonage so like that kind of checks all the boxes right right and it's relatively safe also safety is another component where i pick the criteria for what i'm going to teach that day right so like that's kind of how i would approach teaching the nirwaza in the room right if that makes sense i see so well so it's kind of we're kind of moving to the next topic of like how judo nirwaza is different from other arts and whatnot other uh the groundwork from other arts but if you go to a bjj school they really focus on like all the different stages on the ground I guess like

different positions you know and then they go for their rounds are usually long you know on the ground and whatnot but it seems like even for hobbyists at your dojo you tend to focus on specific positions like quick quick attacks on the ground yeah uh so would you would you say my assessment is correct or do you still like try to teach people though like a longer there was a uh i guess i kind of like a little bit of flow yeah it's a little bit of both the long form there was where you're setting your grips and setting up things and reading them and then looking for things and trying to back step here and progressively improve position and incrementally hold those positions. Yeah. Right?

That stuff is great. But like I said, a good portion of the people in the room are there for self-defense. Right. Right. And then they're for judo. So it's like that quick sort of quick pass ball and pin control the head hold i you know for nuwaza like i asked my students to hold them for five seconds one two three four five and then transition and try to isolate and then work right let the person work out person escapes

what to do next right things like this so you don't have anyone squeezing and holding someone for you know 45 seconds in a practice no one's gonna get anything out of that right right right so i teach them fight off your back for five seconds five to ten seconds and then you know 45 seconds in a practice no one's gonna get anything out of that right right right so i teach them fight off your back for five seconds five to ten seconds and then you know work out of it or let the person out something of this nature right so that quick nuanza i think is beneficial for a lot of people i think it sort of hits that good balance yeah if we had like two hours of just dedicated nuanza five times a week then of course i'm gonna go a little bit more long form but because time is so limited right i do like sort of the quick direct misdirection and it was a sort of structure i see you know i wish i had a

little bit more time um because jujitsu sort of on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to judo and grappling and there was a time right the time restrictions they are none in jiu-jitsu right right start go yeah and it just whatever happens happens and it just keeps going and keeps happening right in that case it's like you could settle your grips lock them down prevent them from moving right right legs control the hips pass one leg half full guard to half guard climb up the body get on the arms you know control the head pass one leg half full guard to half guard climb up the body get on the arms you know control the head cross face yeah yeah keep them there secure it go to north south try to isolate a limb create like a neck arm fork situation all right and then

incrementally work because there is no time restriction right i see right and that's great that's great right yeah but usually in any sort of fighting right i think there's always going to be some kind of a time restriction so you're going to have to be able to jump into something really quick and explode into something really fast and of course you don't want to explode into an armbar without control i'm not saying that right right but you need that sort of quick situation and i think that is one of the biggest advantages of judo for the people who specialize in it and do it well right i see if you look at kanto yeah he has a tremendous new waza skill and skill set that's unlike anybody in the world right right right and i think that's something that we should judo people should really double down on focus

right and then there are people who do it yeah people who go for flying arm bars and yeah you know juji transitions and the kanto choke this and that and right but that's where judo really shines i see the quick explosive and you know get the position and then finish yeah exploding into a transitionary nuwaza attack with severe time restrictions right and that's that's the beauty of judo and i tell my students all this this all the time right and i think that kind of begs the question you know so i i'm sure there are like a lot of cultural reasons and then the popular bjj but seems like judokas in north america especially in america tend to criticize that aspect oh like you know they do yeah why don't we let the people you know let people work

more on the ground and i saw a lot of the criticism from the past olympics that just happened yeah um so what do you think about that criticism i guess you kind of addressed it but also since you spend a lot of time in japan how do they view there was out there and like that's a very those are two very good questions two very different questions yeah all right let's see judo in the united states right yeah in terms of population brazilian jiu-jitsu is a dominant grappling force right right actually not so much not so much i'm talking like recreationally not we're not talking about wrestling here. We're talking about judo, jiu-jitsu, martial arts grappling.

Okay? And if you look at martial arts grappling, you could argue like Xiao Zhao or Sambo or, you know, shoot wrestling and judo, BJJ. Like now we're looking at just grappling martial arts. And in terms of that population- population wise BJJ is the dominant one right so they get to create this narrative right Judo is like you know and of course it's easy to criticize

it and there's things about Judo that I don't agree with I think we should do a little bit more right but the people in Judo too have not really doubled down and then pushed forth like why judo is spectacular right right it's actually i don't think it's that spectacular truth but like why it can be spectacular uh-huh right there's not too many people who have done it in a big stage that's

exciting in a way where it's like and then taught in a way where it's like right right because i think the focus is on the touch was iaza i guess focuses on tachi waza of course you know it's like uh nirwaza for judo it's like a side dish you know what i mean it's like the potatoes on the side right you know you go to peter luger's you get a ribeye you're like man the steak is unbelievable no one's gonna sit there talking raving about the potatoes but that thing that's a that's a pretty accurate uh analogy because i think yeah it's on the side but that's why like you gotta get the basics down i guess like nothing fancy you don't want to when you go to a steakhouse you don't want a fancy potatoes you want like basic

good you know fundamental that's right fundamentally sound potatoes that's why you want fancy potatoes you go to a potato restaurant yeah exactly or vegan restaurant yeah exactly so so that's yeah so it's like a you know the the focus a lot of people miss the point of it i guess of judo newaza in a way yeah like what they're what they're trying to do with yes yeah yes so so now to answer the question with japan japan similarly they do focus a lot on their waza like kakushikan university is kind of known for their new ones but they do a lot of turnover stuff so right situational new waza joes okay leg extraction position uh your leg is trapped you have half guard you have the unhook the person's flat on the back you have to take your leg out and then

right on a time restricted thing you have 10 seconds to do it go stuff like this right sometimes like you have 30 seconds to do it go figure it out right and then you know attacking the turtle turn him over and pin him this is it go top bottom wrestling too it's like all right you know we're working top bottom now a lot of the times you do a drill three person drill top bottom out right i'm on top you're on bottom and then there's this person out timer goes we do it now you're out i'm on bottom next person comes on top timer goes and then we just rotate right bottom out okay switch the direction you know get in groups of three bottom out right so like that's something that i've seen you know

over and over and they get pretty good with it right you know i don't really do that so much at my dojo right that's probably a competition focused right more competition focused you know we're gonna do a competition and there's a month out then you know every single nirwaza every other nirwaza will be kind of like that right but there are things that i teach in the dojo for Nwaza that really, really influence the skill of my people. And one of those things is if you have a pin, you control it for five seconds, let them work out of it, transition into other things. I see. Yeah. That's one thing.

Right. And now once you get submitted, the Nwaza doesn't end. It's catch and release, right? Extend, don't hyper extend you get the arm bar ah mate stop you got it and then the person releases it and then lets the arm slide out so they work on the actual escape i see okay yeah so it's secured arm bar secured now okay you got it they get to release it the person's not cranking on it anymore so now they're learning to turn out of it move out of it in a safe way.

No waste of time. You already got it. No waste of time. And then the person's eventually going to let it go. And now a person's on the bottom gets to train as if they missed. They let the guy got away, whatever it is. Right, right. So now there's continuity in the Nwaza round.

Makes sense. There's no like reset starting reset starting and then no one knee wrestles in my dojo yeah yeah no knee wrestling pick a position yeah pick a position you know or if we're doing if there's not too many people in the room especially at the end of the evening when everyone has is tired and left then it's like all right we're doing tachi waza continue on the ground no forward progression for 10 seconds then you're back on your feet i see right right or if you could force a stalemate on the ground then back up to your feet keep things dynamic and all yeah keep things dynamic right and then you know because

the knee versus need that doesn't exist right and a lot of dojos do that still right right doesn't exist because the way to get advantage is to stand up and if i stand up you're gonna stand up right right okay you don't want to actually knee wrestle i guess no there is no knee wrestling in real life yeah it just never happens it's like why you would just stand up you're right yeah spending 30 seconds of shoving and pushing on our knees you know uh just for the sake of right and naturally just practice kind of shapes out like that for a lot of places yeah right so it's like a lot of the times it'll be what my personal preference right now is like not pick a position top or bottom but it's like hey can you start on my back time right boom so now i'm working to get out of the bad position the person's looking to finish and now if he finishes me choke ah okay now he lets me escape and now i get to work as if i escaped and that person works

as if the person got away right and now there's you're into the thing right right and then the round never stops because let's just say i get up i pass i pin i go for an armbar he taps okay now i just loosen it and the person has to work out of there so it just never stops you're just picking up point a and then the round continues sort of indefinitely right right and so you get three minutes of actual if i'm doing three minute rounds actual the whole time is just constantly yeah right position position position as opposed to like you could easily knee wrestle for 20 seconds. Push the person down, pin them for 20 seconds, right?

Person taps, and now you're back to knee wrestling again for 20 seconds. That's a minute gone out of three minutes. Waste of time. And I've done this for many years, and I've seen it many, many times. That's the best way to waste a lot of time. Good point, Good point. Good point. So now we're still on the topic of kind of Japan. So whenever people talk about, you know, judo,

and especially in the context of Japan, they all talk about Kosen Judo, how they are like. Yeah, I don't really know much about that. Okay. Maybe we'll just skip that then. Yeah. I mean, it's a Nwaza-based judo system. What I heard is that it's actually a rule set

for certain high schools or something. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a different type of competition. It's smart. Something like a rule set, yeah. It's smart because judo is dangerous, man. Right. Even in Japan, they had hundreds of kids that died from getting thrown a soda guy right you know when judo was in all the high

schools in the country they weren't enough qualified instructors and it's like they're reading a book watching a video and they're like go teach this and then this is how you're doing a soda and you get one athletic kid slamming a non-athletic kid they hit their head and now they're dead um right i see it's like of course they're gonna say you know what stand up is too dangerous let's just go to the ground and work position and do nuwaza i see because there's this fail safe the tap the mate the uh you know the submission situation it's like okay you're choking me i tap you let go all right 99 of the time in the room people will let go no one's cranking on your arm if you're in a dojo that is safety oriented and that's part of the culture in the room, people will let go. No one's cranking on your arm. If you're in a dojo that is safety-oriented and that's part of the culture,

no one's going to go ahead and just grab your arm and break it. Right. So it's like, tap. Okay. There's no uncontrolled impact. Yeah, there's no high impact. You're not getting kneed in the face, maybe, for certain people. But that's not part of the rules of the game. It's not part of the rules rules of the game

right it's not part of the goal of the game the goal is to restrict your movement and strangle you right i restrict your movement there's no impact when there's movement restriction right as opposed to someone lifting you up the floor and slamming you back down to the ground right right right there's a lot of impact there right yeah should do movement strangling you i'm getting strangled okay okay i can't breathe stop tap tap tap okay the person let's go that's it right that that's like the motivation behind like because for to protect the students uh during competition and stuff yeah yep yeah yep so that's and i love what the jujitsu did with the gi and the nogi you know heel hooks inherently have a little bit more danger to it because there's rotational

force, right? Right. And then if you're rotating one way, this is for beginners, I'm saying, right? Yeah, yeah. And then the person twists all the direction because they don't know which way to turn. Yeah. Now your knee's blown out. Right, right.

So they have a no-gi division, a gi division with different rule sets. I think that's brilliant. It's like freestyling Greco for wrestling. Mm-hmm. Right. Because judo had a little bit more of that you know i'd love to see judo like greco style the judo style now and a freestyle rule set of wrestling uh judo yeah have two separate divisions i think that would be so cool yeah and then the freestyle judo you could do long form like there's no stopping it and you can go for leg locks and then you could go for this and that you think you think they'll be as popular as the uh the current form probably not internationally now the europeans and those guys don't really like nirvana historically yeah the judo i don't think koreans really focus onaza either. No, they want to see people get bombed.

It's a necessary part of the game. It's a small part of the game. Right. So it's natural for people to shy away from it and double down on something good. Yeah. Not something good, but something that's the majority of the game. Right. So speaking of the different divisions in wrestling and whatnot so

you kind of mentioned it earlier but how about how groundwork is a part of wrestling uh but then they also get stood up you know but then people don't really mind that in a way like i guess in america especially judo gets a lot of flack for that uh yeah well why do you think there's a discrepancy between how people perceive wrestling and judo yeah the same same uh criticisms don't extend to judo because judo has the martial arts right tag on it right judo's tagged as a martial art and people have to understand there's sport judo and then martial arts judo right different yeah there martial art and people have to understand there's sport judo and then martial arts judo right different yeah right there's differences and now there's a freestyle judo

movement in the united states right and it was very very small but i think it's kind of gaining steam in like the midwest and stuff you know you hear a lot about it right so wrestling it's a sport first right it is a martial art i believe it to be yeah but it's not one of those martial arts where people sign up like i want to learn how to defend myself i'm going to go find a wrestling dojo and go right like that yeah right people who are like i want to learn martial art what kind of martial arts are there i heard judo is pretty good let me go find a judo school oh how come these guys are just you know trying to turn each other right right why won't they just punch them in the side of the head if the person's on the stomach like burying down yeah yeah it's like well you don't really punch in judo oh how do you defend yourself

then i thought this was a self-defense situation well you could use some of these techniques to for self-defense like but what if the guy starts throwing punches well you know so why are you trying to turn up well like there's a lot of yeah i guess like dissidence there right right right it just doesn't uh make sense for a lot of people who are walking in. You know, I want to learn martial arts. Judo is kind of cool. Is this good for self-defense? This is the best thing for self-defense.

How and why, right? Right. I think that's, yeah, that's a good point because it's not. And then there's these dumb statistical things that people always kind of hold on to is like 95 of ground mat fights go to end up in the ground like straight fights you end up on the ground whatever boxing ends up on the ground you knock the person that out like that person's going down to the ground of course they're gonna go to the ground everything there's gravity is always pulling people down right right so it's like yeah you know and you hear that so it's like

okay i guess uh you know if you want to fight somebody you know this and that so it's easy to criticize judo that way especially with the olympics yeah i talk about this all the time when you know you're a spectator sport yeah and you're under the governance of the ioc and these rule sets determine what the sport looks like. It kind of goes a little bit further away from martial arts. Martial is like warlike. In that context, judo is a sport. Yeah. Like strict rules and yeah.

Right. Yeah. That's good. All right. Well, so I think that we talked a lot about judo, the differences between other arts and what makes it special and stuff. So, you know, the quick explosiveness of Judo-Newaza

really sets it apart from the groundwork of BJJ. And it has its own merits. And, you know, I hope can now uh appreciate it better um anything else before we finish the episode nope that's it uh thank you very much for listening shout out to sanjay for always listening to every episode right that was a what a nice message that we got yeah i know like hey i listen to every episode i'm like oh man that right i appreciate your support sanjay yeah it's such a niche yeah podcast right right so judo yeah yeah it's like how many people actually do judo in the united states it's like we're catering to that yeah if you don't speak english you're not really listening to this podcast right yeah very niche you know i

know a lot of people who have reached out to me to try to give me advice is like branch off into martial arts talk more about self you know being this or that and you know self-improvement it's like man you know i'm kind of like talking more it's a very niche thing and thank you for listening yeah thank you for listening cool yeah as always yeah same here for me you know thanks for your support and uh stay tuned for the next episode