The Shintaro Higashi Show - Offense and Defense | The Shintaro Higashi Show | Ep. 271

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

In this episode, Shintaro and David explore innovative approaches to teaching Judo, focusing on contextual training, defense strategies, and the development of a pedagogical method that enhances practical application and adaptability.Chapters03:20 Contextual Judo: Understanding Techniques and Defenses06:16 Practical Application and Training Methodologies09:19 Refining Techniques and Teaching Strategies11:36 The Future of Judo Instruction and Community Engagement🚨 LIMITED-TIME OFFER: 40% OFF 🚨The All-in-One Instructional Bundle just got even better.Every major instructional. One complete system. Now at our biggest discount yet.Grab yours now at 40% off : https://higashibrand.com/products/all-instructionalsThis won’t last. Build your game today.🔥 Get 20% OFF FUJI Gear! 🔥Looking to level up your judo training with the best gear? FUJI Sports has you covered. Use my exclusive link to grab 20% OFF high-quality gis, belts, bags, and more.👉 https://www.fujisports.com/JUDOSHINTARO 👈No code needed – just click and save!Links:🇯🇵 Kokushi Budo Institute (The Dojo) Class Schedule in New York, NY 🗽: https://www.kokushibudo.com/schedule🇯🇵 Higashi Brand Merch & Instructionals: https://www.higashibrand.com📚 Shintari Higashi x BJJ Fanatics Judo Courses & Instructionals Collection: https://bjjfanatics.com/collections/shintaro-higashi/

The Shintaro Higashi show is sponsored by Judo TV, your premier destination for live and on-demand judo coverage. Never miss a throat. Higashi brand. Train hard, live strong, wear Higashi brand. Hakuin AI. Hakuin AI helps you measure, predict, and solve customer churn. Visit Hacuin AI and start your free churn on it today. Hello, guys.

Welcome back to the Shantorahashi show with David Kim. Here we talk about grappling, how to get better at it. judo, jiu-jitsu, you name it, we're going to talk about it. David, we have some very interesting things about judo teaching and learning. It's an epiphany that I recently had. I am waiting with bated breath. Yeah. Because we all need new ways and new perspectives.

And sometimes that's all it takes for somebody to have something click is to have a different perspective on, you know, a technique or how to do something. So what's your latest brainchild? So I think most people teach you to wrong, you know, and then... Of course. And then there's nothing, it's not against them, you know, and there was a time when all we did was traditional stuff. Teachers taught their students and the students became teachers and taught their students. And it's like sort of this massive lineage of just historical, traditional stuff. So none of it's wrong, you know, and I don't really want to like disparage those guys.

But, you know, times are different with the information now. And we know the traditional Uchikomi, Uchimada, Uchamara, like this. doesn't work as well sort of in like a practical sense because it doesn't take into account so many things. Like my number one thing was contextual judo with winning position equals better outcome for attacks. And the more you are in better position from grip fighting and winning position,

the better your attacks are, the more attacks you can make because more shots on goal, therefore you're training and then technique gets better over time. Yeah. As opposed to just focus in on the repetition of the initial entry, the initial execution on a non-resisting body.

I'm excited to be the guinea pig for this, by the way. Yeah. Because we have not talked about this ahead of time. I am the true guinea pig for this concept. So that's how I've been teaching, right? Right. And then so now all of a sudden, the level two layer is that. Level three layer will be like, all right, different types of entries.

You're mistiming the entry. It's a two-step, one step. These are the setups. You make it look like this. You faint. You do misdirections. You pretend like you. you're going to do Uchima, you go Ochi, you go Ochi, Uchimada.

Yeah, you big on that. Yeah, huge. Yeah. And then you throw combinations in there, and that's like, wow, you know, people's minds are blown when I teach these things at seminars, you know? Right? That's why my hair's back, man. Yeah, you know, blows your way.

Yeah, right. But there's this level four methodology now, and this is like completely new. Not completely new. Nothing's new. You know, everything is like, you know, you synergize information. It just gets packaged differently and repeated. You know, but this is my new thing. David.

All right. Layed on me. Yeah. So what I'm teaching Uchimata, right, I teach the defenses. For instance,

just using Uchimata an example, there's four major defenses for Uchimada, the main ones. Mm-hmm. Do you know them? The step out,

right, the hip check. Yeah. Well, I guess it depends on how upstream you want to go. Right? Like the shoulder post or something like that

to keep them turning. Like, does that count? Because that's not early. I mean, it doesn't count, but it kind of goes along with, like, just a hand defensive situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But those are the only things that come. But you're already, you know, majority of the way there, because a lot of people can't, right, describe. Because I'm wicked smart.

You're a smart guy, Boston guy, Harvard guy, you name it. You're the guy. I can only think of it. I can't actually do it. Did you hear those guys? David can never be thrown with Uchimana. That's a bull claim. Because I'll be down on the ground already.

No, no, no, no. So anyway, yes, hip check is number one. That's like the most common defense. And then you could ride it to the away side where you're kind of outstepping to the side. Right. Yeah. Which isn't the best one, but people do it. Yeah.

And then you could ride it to the onto the hip, okay? Yep. Or like you're kind of misstaggering the entry when they're trying to go underneath. And then you could secotia it. You could sidestep and try to counter it, you know? Yeah. The sidestep is the one I guess I'm really thinking of. Yeah.

So it's like there's four defenses. So it's like, all right, this is how traditionally, Uchamata's done, okay? And here are some ideas, backstep Uchimata, two step Uchimada, one step Uchimada. We all know this, you know, and we're not taking into account grip fighting yet. We will get to grip fighting, but here are the ways that you do Uchamara three or four ways. Let's train it, okay? Here's another way to defend it, you know?

So Uchumada guys bring it in. Hip check, bang. So you do Uchimato once, load him on the hip. Second Uchimata, you hip check it. Third Uchumata, you're going to anticipate that hip check and then you're going to go Ouchi. Yep. Okay, so that's like one cluster of the things that we're going to drill. Go drill it two to three minutes.

Guys bring it back in. Okay. So you do hip check once. The second time they're going to even blast it even harder. You sidestep it and then you use Sukashi it, right? So you let the leg go by and then you rotate it. So Uchumada wants hip check, Uchmada second, Sukashi. And the third one, you're going to anticipate that Sukashi where you side step and you're going to go tile instead.

Right. So now you drill that concept and then you go off and drill that. Okay, guys, bring it in. Now what we're going to do is sort of late stage defense where you're stepping off to the side, but the leg gets lifted and then you're in this Kenken hopping position, right? How do you finish that? Let's convert that into an Ochi driving to the strong side.

Right. Cut back. All right. So Uchumato wants, Uchumada ride it, Uchumada Ochi finish weak side or strong side. Yeah, I see where you're going with this. So you're kind of context richer, context rich. practice in a way because you're injecting more

and it almost gives people an incentive to do more scouting in their Randori in a way right? Like because like most people they don't know what to do they just keep doing the spamming the same thing over and over again. Yeah. And a lot of these guys defend the technique in one way, you know? So like

hip check, hip check, Sukashi is a great way to counter the Uchamada eventually because everyone knows the Sakashi where you're sidestepping and let go by. But if you're only looking for that and if you're letting that Uchimada come in, that you might get taken over, or you might, the guy might know it and mistime it, and then you're done, right?

So things like this. Or even just like letting it ride, letting it ride, and then stepping over and stretching it, we call it where you're stepping over the Uchimada, which is another counter. You know, so I teach that specifically, right? So it's like, you ride it once, ride it twice,

and then the guy goes in, it's like, you know, I almost threw him twice, and then they commit to it, and then you ride it and hook it and then step over. Yeah, yeah. So it's like now, yeah. Yeah, you've seen that before. Yeah, yeah, there's the highlights of it, you know.

Yeah. So now in the context of the training in an hour-long lesson, I'm teaching multiple types of Uchimada, but we're not so focused on the offense. We're also doing defensive. And then, right? So then there's like an offensive drill and a defensive drill. You know, so like we're alternating back and forth.

Yeah, kind of, yes. So it's like it's part of this package. And it requires the Uke to be fully there, fully, you know, you're not just standing there doing nothing. Yeah. You know, which is kind of like this term taking of like waiting for my turn, nonsense that no one gets good. So this is sort of like my new thing, and I've done

multiple lessons with Uchimada, San Agi, Osorogari, and yeah, I'm going to make videos about it, and hopefully maybe put it on Patreon. By the way, do you know I've had forgotten about having a Patreon this whole time? Come on, man. Yeah, man, it's really bad, dude, and

I want to publicly apologize. Maybe we'll do a separate episode just on that I've forgotten. And then I almost... A separate episode just for them. How about that? So, just for them.

And I almost, like, made a video like, hey, guys, I'm so sorry. I forgot about this. No one's paying anymore. Right. This guy sucks.

But this is, like, my new level four, level five sort of, uh, pedagogical system. Yeah. The right term for that, David?

So have you actually, um, are you still developing the idea? Or have you been, like, testing it out? How has it been doing it in the dojo, probably for about a month now.

And, And I didn't want to, like, just kind of put it together and show it on YouTube that doesn't look clean. You know, I'm like a stand-up comedian. You've got to try your material out multiple times and then refine it and then present it. So I'm in that phase of having done it multiple times now. I'm pretty confident with it and people can do it. But I think it's a very difficult thing to be able to teach, you know, if you're a teacher,

because you have to have a really good understanding of the different lines of offense and lines of defense. So if you have four different Uchimaz, let's just say, for instance, right, traditional, one step, two step, back step, which amount of there. Multiply by the four types of defenses. Then those things have to fit well. And now you throw on some things in there. I'm not a mathematician,

but David, you have a Harvard brain, you know, what is the combination, permutation? It's a lot. It's a lot to teach. It's millions. Yeah, because it's like a two-sided market. You got a page into Zutori and Ukei

at the same time, kind of, you know, and make it right for both of them. Yeah. And if you have a room full of people who are just kind of going too hard to all the time, like you're never going to be able to get them to do this drill. But if everyone is conditioned to be in the 30 to 50% range to where they could slow it down, talk to each other, not giving each other PhD, but it's a very healthy, constructive criticism sort of a work things out mentality.

In a course of an hour, you could be very, very proficient in this, you know? Well, I could see the value on the back end too because, you know, like we were talking at the beginning, as you're doing your Randori, you're going to be much better conditioned to recognize which situation you're in. You're going to be looking for those. And I think if you're working on your tumata, you know, you're not just focused on,

it gives you more ways to succeed in a way, right? Like, hey, I didn't throw him, but I recognize he's using a hip check. I recognize he's doing the side step. I recognized he's doing this. and I was able to kind of make the adjustment. I didn't make it fully, but I'm getting closer. Like it gives you a way to know,

am I getting closer to throwing this guy or not? Because a lot of times you have no idea. You're absolutely right, man, because you got a guy doing Uchamah and the guy, hip checks, and not only hip checks, he cuts the sleeve, and then it's like, it doesn't work, and then the guy says it felt like I ran into a brick wall. Yeah. And then I'm not going to do it anymore because whatever it is,

but it's like, you know, it's just like he timed the check pretty good. Yeah. He's just better than me. I don't know what, I don't know, what happened. He just didn't do it. It's like, you guys are the same weight. You know, he's too strong. He's not that physically much stronger. You guys probably bench around the same or do the technical thing, you know, and then you could address that now. He's just a better position. Like the other guy was in better position and you're just like, I can't, I can't do it.

So it's my new level up thing. I think I might put this instructional on Patreon. I'm not sure yet, you know. It's kind of like poison and antidote all at the same time. I hate to bring up the whole constraints, you know, approach, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you could ease, like, we're on the spectrum now, right? Like, you have not the autism spectrum. I'm just talking about the spectrum. Yeah, that's for sure. Now we're getting more, you know, very close to kind of a live situation with Uchimada and defenses.

Yeah. Right? And if you loosen it up a little bit, you're kind of playing a game, but you can only do Uchimata and you can only do, like, you know, you can only defend against Uchimada kind deal and then before you know it, you're, you know, at an open mat throwing somebody. And you're right, man, Uchimada. And the only defense you can do is hip check. Yeah.

So it's like you're trying to time the hip check, time the hip check. Yeah. So then you faint and he goes hip check and then they return their hips and then you go in Uchimada. So it's like now, you know, like you said, see constricted. What is the? Constraints led approach. Yeah, CLA. Yeah, you're constraining it.

But you get a lot of looks at it, right? Like if that's all you're doing, you get a lot of looks. And you're like, oh, yeah, it's not a brick wall. It's just, he's just hip-jacking me, you know, and I just didn't really recognize it for what it is because I'm just not thinking about anything. And I just go, I just see red, you know, that doesn't work good. So, yeah, guys, check out a Patreon, you know, we'll link it somewhere in the bio or whatever it is. You can go to shantara-hagashi.com. You have, you go to shantorahagashi.com, we have the Patreon linked and all this stuff.

I'm going to start putting stuff back there again. So, yeah, thank you very much, guys, for listening. And this is, what do you call this episode, level five, Judah? Maybe level six. I don't know. There's a lot of stuff that people do before they get this far, right? That's very true. Very true.

Okay, level four. All right, thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you again soon.