The Shintaro Higashi Show - Osoto Gari

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Osoto Gari is an elusive throw, almost paradoxical, in the sense that it is oftentimes one of the first throws you learn as a Judoka, but it is one of the last throws you master due to its difficulty. In this episode, Shintaro and Peter go on a deep dive on Osoto Gari: why it looks easy yet so hard to master and how we can effectively master and integrate it into our game. 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 start talking a little bit about Osotogari, which is the first technique that you learn and the last technique that you master. I was about to say that too, yeah. Why is it that every school, every judo school teaches Osotogari first? It's not an easy throw, I feel like. I've always said, why do they do it first? It's the most dangerous and it's the one that takes the longest to work yeah yeah it's actually not an easy throw and

it's always so funny because hey this is how you do osotogari go try it and it never works and then they quit it's like judo like doesn't work doesn't work and then they're like all right you throw me with osoto. Very difficult to do. If you know what's coming. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So why is that?

You kind of do that too, right? Or do you not teach Ototowari first anymore? I teach it first just because it's so mechanically easily understood. Right. Because if you're like,

all right, two legs, we're bipeds we're all stomping around on two legs and you know we have weight distribution from leg to leg you know it's if i'm standing in front of you we both have weight distributed on two legs right right so it's like all right i'm pulling you onto one leg and i'm taking that leg out and then driving your head down very easily able to understand you know what i mean take one take one leg out load them up on one leg and take that out. Yeah. But the most important thing is the hand position, right?

You have to like pull the person onto that leg and keep them there and then reap the leg. But most people only see the leg, so they go leg first, right? So legs attack, but it's mostly a hand thing in the beginning. Hand's more important in the beginning, right? Yeah. And then this is the really difficult part it's because you have to keep your balance because you're going on one leg yeah yeah so it's like you're trying to create this one-legged person which is not easy to do in

the first place right right you're creating a one-legged person to throw that person while you're going on one leg so as opposed to four legs being rooted into the floor, there's only two legs between two people. Right, right. So there's so much like core stuff, stability stuff, all this stuff happening. And if you're standing upright, which most people are, if you lean back just a little bit,

the weight shifts back to the heel, now you can't throw them in the forward direction. Right. Right? Or the backwards direction for the person taking it yeah and it's like the more it's very very difficult to do so you have to find the right angle of lean right as you're going into it you want to keep the weight on the toes you have to stabilize through your knee your ankle your core while you're holding on to the guy and locking on to the person and then cut the leg and execute it right but like

if you're capable of doing this in a cooperative setting you understand the mechanics of it right the core concept is simple yeah yeah you understand it's like oh i see and then visually you could easily see oh he has one leg you take it out that's why i teach it you know but then let's try to do it in real life impossible especially if the person has their hips far away yeah all right by the way guys follow me on instagram judo shintaro nyc by the way you can see all the osotogari content on it yeah i've been doing a lot of reels which is is cool. Yeah. Another thing I noticed about Urosotogari is that you have to engage. So like you said, people only see the legs, reap.

So they don't really consider that the reap has to come from the core, your hip. Yeah. So they just kind of extend the leg without engaging the hip. Yeah. So you're almost folded in half. You can't generate power even with the right kuzushi.

Because it's a very specific angle that you're able to reap the leg back. Because if you're a little bit too far away and you're reaching your front leg forward, you're not able to reap it backwards. So the placement of your standing leg is very important. And when you place that leg close enough to reap it sometimes if you fall backwards it's gone so a lot of things has to be right right and then there's two types of osoto the reaping osoto

and the blocking osoto right and they both kind of go hand in hand sometimes you go to reap it the leg is too far you hook it block it and then you run him over that leg. You run on it, yeah. Right? So it's a little bit different. And then face pressure, upper body control, all that stuff matters, right? Cross body Osoto, all the different types, right? Right. So now all of a sudden you have to look at also the reactions and the main lines of defense.

How are they defending? If they're pulling the leg back, you switch to blocking Osoto. If they're leading in the opposite direction, you have to anticipate that, go Sosai. Or maybe go Sosai first and get a reaction towards Osorio and then go Osorio. Yeah.

So there's a lot of different contextual stuff that doesn't get taught. Most of the time, it's like people attack from 50-50 position. They drill just the entry. They drill the throw and they drill three-person Uchikami or moving Uchikami.

That's it. That's only like four small parts of it. You know what I mean? So what about like winning position, losing position, how to like hide your Osoto like in context with other stuff, right? Attack it over here,

go on Kosoro, then go on Osoto. Pulling the head down and then looking for a reaction, then go on Osoto, right? Are you in winning position? Does the person know how to counter or sort of with the backstep counter?

All of those things has to be taken into consideration in order for the throw to be effective. Right. And you have to keep your balance. It's a lot, a lot going on. Yeah. And then even like

when you're keeping your balance, it's not just standing upright and then balancing on one leg. It's standing upright and then leaning and then onto the person. So you're like throwing your weight onto that person also, and then you're throwing your weight to the ground with the person because it's a two-person situation. There's two entangled bodies, and then the goal is for you to get the person's back to the floor or the head to the floor whatever it is right so like there's some injury risk there big injury risk yeah especially when the knee is a hinge joint yeah it hinges only to one side of course like there's a little bit of rotation right tibial rotation and then the hips matter right where the knees are with the hinge

relative to where your ankles and stuff are but But, like, if you reap it in the wrong direction, your knee is a hinge joint, so it's going to, right? And it's very easy to tear your ACL. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, it's kind of a paradoxical throw in a way. Like, it's the first thing you learn, but it has so many things going on.

But I guess, in a way, so I saw statistics where the most popular throw in judo competitions is actually Osotogari. It's statistical, yeah. I saw it somewhere. I have to dig it up. Yeah.

But I was actually surprised. Like, oh, you would think like Seiyu Inagi or Uchimata will be more popular, but it's actually Osotogari. And I think that is due to the fact that like you mentioned it's the mechanically it's it's very simple um load load all the way onto one leg and take that out so let's kind of move on to how to how osutogari is used in competitions and randoi settings you know all the context you mentioned

so i guess right versus right that's like the most typical yeah uh setup you see or osotogari yeah so what are some of the settings you look setups you look for well i think the most important thing is head control you know know? Head control, yeah. Yeah, and then, you know, higher on the collar, closer to the head that you have the hand, the more control that you have. And this is the thing,

like the head doesn't weigh that much, right? But it's at the very end of the lever. You know what I mean? So like if you tip it away, right, and your body leans and shifts in the other direction, it's a lot of weight going in the wrong direction, especially against like your arms, you know? So you want to like win position and then pull the person's head towards the thing and then you want to make sure

that head is going in the direction of the throw yeah if they're able to tip their head a little bit away then they could shift their torso away now they have a lot of body weight going in the opposite direction and then if they plant the foot and then push into that direction with their legs now all of a sudden you have a whole situation where person's body's going away from the technique yeah yeah right so controlling the head's really important starting with winning position is important because the better your hand positioning is and right first right the more you can control the person's head right you know that's why it's harder to do a sort of guard from an underhook it doesn't mean you can't you can because you could you're still controlling the upper body to some point, right?

If you have the other person's shoulder hiked up, then you could still create that lean towards the throw. And then to go back to the thing you were saying about why it's so popular is because at the end of the day, if you hook and you forward lean and if you fall forward, you're not falling backwards. Obviously, because you're falling forward. So you're failing forward in a way where it's a little bit safer. That's why Osoto Otoshi is so popular. Safer in the sense of counterattacks? Yes, not for the other person's leg. Yeah.

Because I know Jiu-Jitsu had a common thing. They were teaching Osoto Otoshi, where they hooked the leg and then they dropped to the knees that's extremely dangerous and then yeah that should never be taught without the disclaimer hey this is actually pretty dangerous or very dangerous for beginner intermediates yeah yeah because you're hooking the leg and then throwing your body weight down right yeah like i know when i'm doing judo with someone that's a lower level and i hook the leg and then they're twisting and then it's going against their joint. Yeah. I know to release the leg.

But if I'm throwing my weight downward and then gravity takes over, there's no way for me to stop that. Right? Yeah. So, like, you have to teach that as a sort of a precaution, I think. You know, that's one of my biggest important things. You know? I would say if you, like, do you even need to teach also also dota separately like i feel like that's if you know also to gary that's like the natural fallback kind i mean there's a tipping

point right if they're past the tipping point and then you drop to the knees then you could take him down with you yeah if they're kind of upright and then you hook the leg and you can't break their balance to the back like to the tipping point and then you hook the leg and you can't break their balance to the back, like to the tipping point, and then you drop to your knees because they're completely standing, now they're going to just run you over like a dump truck. You know what I mean? So you mean like Osoto Otoshi where you plant the foot and then you hop with the… Not even, I'm talking about Osoto drop. Hook the leg and then drop into your knees.

Drop it, I see. Okay, okay. I guess not in the classical sense of osoto atoshi i see i see so that and then uh you know there's a lot of other setups too you know like you go inside trip and then they shift their weight to the outside and then you go yeah you know like you go for like uh yeah like a crossbody ochi osoto flicking combination sometimes you see like a uchimata into an Osoto or a fake Harai and then they lean back and they're giving you

that off balance so then you just throw your body over there hook the leg and then go right so there's lots of different ways to do it

you know right versus left because the leg is far away it's almost always a cross body Osoto the one that you block the knee and then drive through

yeah yeah and then you have to take into consideration the axis of their body if they're leaning towards you it's very difficult to do yeah so you kind of have to catch them upright and then control their face generally by pinning their chin to their shoulder and driving their head over their outside leg and then blocking so you're like running their head over their own leg right so it's like a push pull motion right and then you know you have a long lever so like body type really matters too because if i'm going against someone let's just say six two six three yeah which i do because i i'm a heavyweight right yeah their far leg i'm not able to reach it with my little ass legs my short hobbit

legs i'm five nine yeah great day So it's like, you know. So how do you force the issue then? I guess that kind of goes into the question I wanted to ask is now, like how do you clear the near hip, I guess, the inside hip. So a lot of it's like big ouchi, big uchimata, uchimata, uchimata, and they're anticipating the uchimata and they like hop and step. I see. Right? And then I could bring my leg closer to where then I could block the leg and go. I see, I see.

There's a video I just did recently against a right-right. I went Osoto on a really tall guy. He was like 6'3". Oh, okay, okay. Right versus right. Yeah, yeah. I see, I see. And that was like control on the head.

He's bent over. I hook it you know i stab step and then pull myself upper body good head control and then you know go for it it's on youtube so guys check it out yeah check it out guys um yeah and then uh so those are like the typical setups and I also wanted to talk to you about some more unorthodox, not even, like more like defensive Osoto setups. So for example, Ono Shohei, he does this thing where if his opponent gets the high grip, he gets the armpit grip with his left and then goes for the Osoto like it's pretty amazing because In the traditional Conventional sense he's in the losing position. Yeah, but he really It's amazing how he controls the head even in the losing position and force the Osoto. Things like that.

Let's kind of start with Ono's dunk under Osoto or whatever. So I don't know if you're throwing me a softball because you saw that video that I made about Ono's Osoto. No, no. Or if you're really asking. Everyone I saw, I know that video, but also is so yeah mesmerized by this so what he does when the hand comes over the top generally it's considered losing position he puts his hand into the armpit and then he pushes and then pulls his head back okay right and then he leans into that arm so what he's trying to do is make the person do sort of like

a hammer curl right and he puts pressure on that wrist to extend it okay when he gets that arm. So what he's trying to do is make the person do sort of like a hammer curl and then he puts pressure on that wrist to extend it. Okay? When he gets that arm extended, he goes sort of in the pec fly direction and he throws his body weight down,

hooks that Osoto and then goes upper body, upper body, goes high upper body, right? And then he dives his head forward. So he's finding that angle

where his opponent can't really suck him in. Yes, he's putting a lot of pressure on that bicep and then extending that front arm. And then he puts his chin over and then he makes the person go sort of at this weak angle of the arm. He hooks and then he generally takes a step step and then brings his body close and he's very very strong there he's tons of power tons of control and then he has the armpit grip and the collar so he has a lot of pulling power with both hands right a lot of the times you know sleeve and lapel it's not as taught right so there's a little bit more slack right so he's like really mastered this and it's not just that you know it's also

in context with like he puts pressure on the on the arm push pressure on the arm and then when the person sucks in and he'll go tomonage ah yeah so he has that threat he has a tomonage he does a big swinging backstep uchimata toward the far side right because he can't turn from where he is with that person's head right right way, right? So he'll do like a Sasai, fake Tomonage, back swinging Uchimata, and then he'll also put pressure, and then he'll blow through you with Osoto.

So he's got a lot of stuff. He's got a lot of weapons, which makes him so dangerous, you know? And he's super powerful. And when you get locked up, that's the most distressing thing about him. He's not... I'm sure he's a great gripper, right? But if you watch his up, that's the most distressing thing about him. He's not, I'm sure he's a great gripper, right? Yeah. But if you watch his fights, he's consistently getting outgripped,

and he has a lot of stuff from there. So it's the most demoralizing thing. You're fighting for position, fighting for position. You get it. And there's like nine things waiting for you there. Yeah. So it's like, you know, you're doomed if he outgrips you because he'll just throw you.

And then even if you outgrip him, he has like a couple of different traps set up for you. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And his Tomonage is not a bailout Tomonage. It's with intent to throw. He throws a lot of people. Somebody just did like 10 Tomonages

that he did on the international circuit. He does incredible. That's impressive. You know, and so when you're like up top and then you have winning position and they could anytime drop underneath you for a sacrifice throw and bring you to the ground in the waza, that's really unsettling. Yeah.

You know, so if you're thinking about that, Osoto opens up for him too. Right. You know, he's also primed for his weight guys. Like he's stronger than a lot of the guys in his weight class. He's a great athlete. You know, like all those things kind of play, you know, favorable for his style and his matchups, you know like all those things kind of play you know favorable for his style and his matchups you know yeah so it's not just that uh that he does something magical with this uh that losing also to got in the losing position i mean it's pretty magical

because a lot of people don't take that risk right right you know generally if i'm in losing position i'm not thinking about going to soto because it's so easy to get countered you know what I mean you have to have a lot of confidence in your ability to go for it and then understand how the person is going to counter I guess it works for him because he has so many other

things he can go so he has the options and he has the ability to fight out of that position to set up that Osoto and then he's very options and he has the ability to fight out of that position, right? To set up that Osoto. And then he's very good once he gets there. So there's a lot of different things working for him there that makes it very, very truly unique and special to him. It doesn't mean that you can't emulate it.

You can. But to emulate that at the super high level, very, very difficult. Right. I mean, if you're a black belt and you want to let a white know outgrip you and then you want to do that to a white belt i'm sure most of you guys are listening can even if you're like a green belt you probably can yeah you know what i mean but like to do it at a high level consistently when people are great throwers people are spectacular throws from there and it's considered a losing position it's like a losing gambit that makes you very very special i think you know that's why he's position, it's like a losing gambit, that makes you very, very special, I think. That's why he's the best it is.

Yeah. I try to work on that. I get into that position a lot because especially when I go with someone taller than me, I like to put my left arm against the armpit. So I've been trying to work on that position position more but I haven't been able to really But that that's probably why I got like you said last time I got to work on my two more and I get more and stuff Yeah, I mean mechanically if the person has your head down

Yeah, you want to be able to deadlift right if you could do it 500 pounds you could keep your head up, right? I mean given that your base is underneath obviously not just standing there because you open yourself up to inside trips and stuff so you posture up you take that grip and you have double appell and if you have a 300 pound bench press you know you extend it and now there's a lot of pressure and not only are you extended it you're leaning into the wrist into the bottom portion of his hand it's like when you're arm wrestling in a right side versus right side arm arm wrestling match you're trying to put pressure back into the other person's hand, right? And that's what you're doing. And then once you're in that position, you throw your body weight down into the weak

angle of the bicep and the pec, right? So there's a lot going on there. So you could definitely work on this and then try it. Maybe I'll make a video about it too. Yeah, a more in-depth video. Maybe I'll make a video about it too. Yeah, a more in-depth video. So another thing, this is kind of like I'm shamelessly plugging myself into, you know, my favorite Osutogari. To the left side.

So I basically stand right, but when things are not going well on the right, I would left also to guy with the Ippon Seoi Nage grip. Yeah, so I actually Saw that from this Chinese judoka who won bronze and Rio or something. Yeah, so that that's another thing that works really well. It's like an honor docks. Yeah position. That's like my one of my like a big part of my game yeah and especially if you could do it because you're not going to have the same coordination and balance to the left yeah so a lot of the times you're going for ippon senagi to the left a lot of guys develop a weak side ippon senagi yeah so developing that weak side ippon senagi hooking the leg and falling forward like that's a pretty easy transition to pick up.

You know what I mean? It doesn't require too much repetition, too much programming to be able to develop it. Of course, is it dangerous for your opponent's leg? Yes, because you're throwing your body down. But that's a good thing. Last time I saw you doing judo, you outgripped, going this way,

putting the wrong hand on, and then going Ippon Senagi Osorio, and then he steps then he steps out to defend those so then you go right back to the drop ipon senagi and then you go that's amazing high ipon senagi osoto drop ipon senagi like that if you can do something like that to the weak side you're light years ahead of most people you know but you also have to have your right side better than the weak side attack yeah yeah you're right like we wouldn't work without my right side threats yeah yeah yeah so there's another option if you guys want to check it out um also i do want to talk to you about the nogi yeah setup because for me it's i i've started doing a lot more nogi since I started focusing more on BJJ.

And one of the highest percentage throws is Osotogari with nogi. So I'll do like a Russian and then reach for the far arm and then go for Osoto. Yeah. And I see that a lot in UFC too, like off the cage and whatever. So what do you think about that? What are some of the things you've got to look for in the no-gi setting? I think commonly, like if you get an underhook, you fight for head position, right? Right.

So what you want to do is like bring the person's shoulder high if you have the underhook, and then you want to separate their opponent's head and their shoulder so you're wedging your head in between their head and shoulder that makes it difficult for them to lean back into the direction of the defense right yeah and because you have the arm hiked up and then you have your head wedged in there your arm and your head is propping all the person acting as a frame so once you have that you go for the wrist you go cross body hook those soto and then you drive it and then it's relatively safe because it's not like going over and then missing it and then person gets your back or wrap around your waist they can't wrap around your waist

because you have the underhook you have control from the bottom side right so like that i would highly recommend that you know if you can like pull the head down like in a more righty versus righty collar tie setting if you could like pin their forearm to your chest and then you could

pull the head down his head comes up you can kind of like clothesline into like a I see right and then you can kind of go Soto

but then you know you have to follow him down and then you gotta wrap it tight and then you have to like make sure he doesn't take the back end thing exit the back door kind of

and then do like a Ushiro Kesakutame you know escape because you don't want to just slam him person gets up and goes behind you so you have to know how to finish that properly and in order to finish that properly you have to land on the person yeah so like it's kind of hard to do it in practice because you're always should be cognizant of like right i don't want to land on my partner yeah yeah so it's like you have to there's like a delicate balance there of like actually training something that's going to be effective versus keeping your training partners because if you do that two or three times the person that did that too they're

not going to work out with you anymore yeah i'm not going to work out with someone if they did that to me you know so you think it so i usually go with the overhug you don't you don't recommend that you could go overhook yeah yeah so if you have a the overhook. You don't recommend that? You could go overhook, yeah. Yeah. So if you have a tight overhook and you could hike it up, but you have good head position, you could definitely do that. You could also do it from a front headlock. Ah, yeah.

Front headlock, yeah. I never thought about the head position in the overhook setup. How do you push it? I guess my head has to be close to my overhook arm and then push the head to the throwing direction? You can, but a lot of the times, if you're turning away from the person, you don't have your head wedged in there.

But because you have a tight overhook, you could press downward and then bring their whole shoulder and head region down. So it would be the equivalent of holding the collar and pulling their head down. So the Uchimata looks a little bit... Actually, I was just talking about Uchimata looks a little bit... The Osotogari... Actually, I was just talking about Uchimata.

Sorry. Huh? I was talking about Uchimata. I was... I made a mistake. I thought we were talking about Uchimata for a second. Wait, but I thought everything you said kind of applies to Osotogari in a way. I think it's hard to create cross body off balance with an overhook.

You can do it, yeah. Especially if they don't see the leg coming. If they're not used to it, I think it's going to be a little bit, you know, you could catch beginners with it, but catch somebody good with that, I think it's harder. So with overhook,

it's probably better to go to Haragoshi or something? Uchimata, I would say. Yeah, Uchimata, like back. Uchimata, I would say. Yeah, Uchimata, like backstep Uchimata or something like this. I see. You know? I see, I see. Maybe I should just go for the underhook then for Osotogari.

Yeah, I would go for the underhook a little bit more. Yeah. And then use the head to wedge. Yeah, wedge that head in there. I mean, I guess you could drive drive your with the overhook you could put forehead on the fort on the side of the temple and then i guess you could still do it i've done it but i can't say i like if it works well because you know yeah not all people are to experience on the feet i don't know why i confused uh uchimara and Osoto for a second. I'm confusing myself.

It happens. It happens. Yeah, I think we covered a lot, like the basic mechanics and then various competition applications, gi and no-gi, about Osotogari. Anything else you want to mention? No, man, that's it. Find us online.

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