The Shintaro Higashi Show - Our Tokui Waza

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

Shintaro teaches many different Judo techniques in and out of class, but what is his favorite, or tokui waza? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss their tokui waza's, and provide a never-seen-before look into their Judo system. 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 Tokui Waza. Well, the lack of Tokui Waza. Yeah, we're going to talk about our Tokui Waza. Our Tokui Waza. And this was actually from a suggestion through Instagram. So Gary messaged me about this. So I thought this would be a fun topic.

So specifically he asked what our favorite moves and setups are and then why we chose them. Yeah. And like Shintaro just alluded to it a little bit, in the previous episode where we talked about how to pick a Tokui Waza, you briefly mentioned, if I remember correctly, you don't really have one. I don't really have one i don't really have one no yeah and this is the thing like sometimes the body type fits perfectly

right so if i'm fighting 100 plus or 100 kilos or something like that i'm generally the smaller side of the right eight uh the weight division you know i'm like five eight five nine on a good day five ten on tinder or whatever right like you go on there and then everyone's like 6'2, 6'3. And then obviously it makes sense for me to be very good at Ippon Senagi, Morote Senagi and stuff like that or Sode. Kind of like how Jorge Fonseca is very good at those carrying throws. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if I'm training in practice and everyone's sort of within, you know,

a very reasonable height difference, I can go over the back and then pull them down and go Uchimata or something. Right? So there's like a little bit of – you have to take into account body type and stuff and this is the thing uchimata i don't have leg mobility i don't like my mobility for my leg to go high like it's very limited i'm not a very flexible person so like if you're gonna make a move your tukui was like you want to have sort of the body type to support that right right you know what i mean yeah so like a lot of what i do it's sort of like uh what makes my judo kind of unique and special is that i kind of have a wide range of stuff that i do you know i see yeah wide range of stuff i do

and i fight positionally more than anything so like fighting in a place where people have a very very hard time throwing me and then fighting from dominant position and then attacking and attacking, shutting down their offense. Right. And if I do get outgripped, having a systemized method of attack. To get out of that. Yeah. So I'm not vulnerable because you can lock up 50-50 face-to-face with someone and you're vulnerable to their athleticism, to their favorite moves. I don't let the person get there.

Right. And then I do Tomonage, Ouchi, Osoro, Harai, Taya, Uchimata, Ippon, Sein get there. And then I do Tomonage, Ouchi, Osoro, Harai, Taya, Uchimata, Ippon, Seinagi, Soto. I do all those things. But none of those are spectacular in a way. In a way, it's an Uchimata where you can throw anybody

if he gets too hands-on. I see. You know what I mean? So I don't have a per se a Tokui Waza situation. But I can throw a lot of people with one of my moves you know what i mean i see that's very interesting so you in a way your positional fight like your grip fighting and positional fighting are your tookui waza yeah i wouldn't

even say grip fighting no because i'm not like if you look at it in context of like just straight up grip fighting with the best people in the world, I'm not the best gripper in the world. You know what I mean? Who would you say is, who would you say excels at grip fighting in the circuit right now? I don't know about right now, but, like, I would say somebody like Travis. I see, I see, I see. Because if I fight Travis, right, in which there's a video of it online, like, he'll always funnel me into where he wants to be grip fighting wise, which makes it difficult for me to be offensive.

You know, he imposes his position onto the other person. Yes. And he has everywhere you go, he funnels them right back into his gripping system. So in terms of pure grip fighting, like he's superior than me in that way. Right.

So it was very difficult to put my hands where i want to put my hands on you know like if we're locked up 50 50 me adjusting and doing this and that like right that i like that kind of stuff but like in purely a grip fighting perspective like travis is very good at that right you know so like i wouldn't even consider like grip fighting my special thing i see i'm not very yeah i'm not spectacular i'm better than the average person for sure. Or even most people who do judo, yeah. But it's not my specialty. It's almost like you're saying your tokue waza is like management, match management.

I was never, and this is the thing, it's kind of misleading for me to say any of this stuff too because what I'm really good at now, I wasn't good at when I was competing in my 20s, like hardcore competing. So what was your talk where was it then maybe we can talk about the evolution of your system i would say like being aggressive was like the thing right so like taking sort of an aggressive attacking judo where a lot of it wasn't systemized you know some systemization was there some patterns were there some things that i did very. But a lot of it was just like literally go in there, overwhelm them, and then try to bombard them with stuff, you know. But this was the problem, right? I didn't have a very good gas tank. So, like, I wasn't known for my endurance.

Actually, I was the opposite of that. I would get tired. You know what I mean? So, like, I was really good hot for, like, first two or three minutes. You know what I mean? So I was really good hot for like first two or three minutes. And I could put away a lot of like average judo dudes just by sheer just like overwhelming them with like speed and agility and just coming after and going after, right? And there's a guy, for instance, like Rick Hahn, who was a judo champ back in my age.

Oh, the UFC fighter, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. UFC fighter, Bellator champ. He had the most aggressive judo style where he would come out overwhelming, but he had a gas tank to support it. He would never get tired. But I didn't have that. I would get tired. You know what I mean?

So what did you do to compensate for that? I would lose in the fourth or fifth minute. Oh, yeah. I guess now maybe your strategy might have worked better because you have to just withstand for another minute. But back then, it was two minutes, which is pretty long. During my competitive career, it was a lot more primitive. I see. And I wish I had all this knowledge that I have now.

I see. And I wish I had all this knowledge that I have now. You know? You think it was because due to the influence of, like, American wrestling and maybe the Kokushikan system, like, culture? Probably, yeah. So, like, Kokushikan culture that's been passed down from Kokushikan University to my father to me, like, that definitely had a role in it. And then doing American wrestling, like, folk style wrestling on a collegiate level. And then, like, you know, just wear down your opponent, break your opponent. It's a mental game.

It's a psychological thing. Just like attack and attack and bombard your opponent with stuff. And then try to break them. Right? It was kind of the mentality that I had going into judo as well. And it worked pretty well until I got to the international stage. And people were bigger than me, stronger than me, better winded than me. And they knew more judo than me. and they had more reach and all this stuff.

And then I'm trying to go in there aggressively going in for Uchimata with my short-ass legs. For instance, like Lucas Kropalek was somebody I fought. He's a two-time Olympic gold medalist. He's like 6'4". Aggressively trying to put my hands on him doing Uchimata when he's six inches tall than me. Right, right, right.

It's going to be tough. You know what I mean? And I had a lot of gaps in my game during that time too because I didn't do any Nwaza. I hated Nwaza. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

So now, you know, like I'm not a Nwaza expert in any way, but I understand that Nwaza is a transitional game that will fit into the competitive judo world now, right? And that's something that I actively teach and I actively preach at the dojo. And you'll hear me talk about it all the time. So between fighting for position, having a lot of techniques, bailout techniques, different systems that work really well together, right? And managing my gas a lot better and not exerting too much or redlining myself before, and then working the Nwaza transition game

and actually just having pure Nwaza and confidence to take someone down to the ground and then shut down their offense. If someone goes and does a bad turn throw like a Kata Grim or a Sanagi and they're in bottom position now, I'm able to put an immense amount of pressure choking on more choking on more like the you know a lot of there was a pressure right so now they're much less inclined to like go for a bad turn throw because they're going to get punished every time they're down there you know so like that like has a big synergistic effect on you know your stand-up game

you know so like i have a much more well-rounded game and that that's just like you know i see yeah i don't have like uh and you know this is the thing right we're talking about body types yeah i am naturally very explosive that's like my one genetic gift okay i have big traps i got that from my dad my dad's's 84 years old. He is jacked. He's got some traps. I know. He's still got them. Yeah. So it's like that's genetic.

That's purely genetic. And I'm very explosive. I've always been a really good short distance sprinter. Yeah, yeah. Always. Without even trying. Right? But like long distance, can never run it.

Never do it. Right, right. So it's like being, you know, relatively coordinated and doing judo since I was three and being able to do the movements but do them very, very explosively, that takes you pretty far. So any technique that I do, I can do it in a fast, explosive way. That's partially why I was able to deadlift in the 500s and squat in the 400s and do all this stuff. A lot of it is genetic. 500s and squat in the 400s and do all the stuff like that's a lot of it is genetic you know and then so like the judo athletic type kind of fits in so like all the moves that i do are and i could do it with more explosiveness and they work but then it only got you so far and then you had to you had to you know address your weaknesses in your game and then

now you're going for more of a well-rounded player where you could yeah more adaptable i see competition there's no world where you know someone my size and frame should be fighting 220 internationally it's just there's no it just didn't make sense you know what i mean so when you fought 81 at nationals you know when we went together did you change your game a little then oh yeah definitely you know like yeah when i'm fighting hundreds a lot of it's like moving not letting pimp put two hands on like trying to move drop carry catch coach yoji moving shuffling you know letting them come forward and drop it underneath the Sanagi. That's the game, you know.

I do a little bit of that with my 81 kilo, you know, partners. But then a lot of it works well with me doing all this stuff and then throwing my hand over the top and now I have power handed judo. You see what I mean? Because I'm stronger than a lot of those guys that 81 at the domestic level yeah i could force a big hurray big osoto you know what i mean and they're not that much taller than me yeah right so you can do all those moves adds more depth to my game because when i'm fighting 220 for instance like uh you know i fought a knight yeah yeah number one in the world

there's not a match even if i worked out with him 100 times there's no way that i'm unable to like reach up grab his collar power grip and pull his head down it's just you know like just like yeah fonseca's not gonna be able to do that he's gonna go sleeve and then load right yeah so yeah it definitely changed my style you know fighting in a lower weight class but then you know i don't feel as strong as i usually do at that weight because i cut a lot of weight and i didn't cut weight the right way you know i did a little bit too last minute and i could diet down and be shredded you know at 178 but i wasn't uh-huh you know we had those uh chips the night before yeah that was a big mistake you made it though you made it yeah

yeah it's like there's a lot of that stuff going on in terms of my takui waza you know i would say like ochi uchimata those things you know work really well for me ochi i like these kinds of things is very low risk the way I do it. The likelihood of me getting countered is low, and it opens up a lot of other stuff. Moving ochi, moving ochi, slipping a leg in and then going for turn throws, stuff like that. You know what I mean?

I see. Fighting for position, and then they go for bad stuff from there, and then I can try to counter it. So it's like a huge contextual judo is sort of my spiel now. And I wish I had this when I was younger, but I kind of had to figure a lot of this stuff out myself. I see. I mean, it takes time.

I don't think – I mean, I guess you would have needed a coach that explained all of these to you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a more modern approach, I think think i watched like colton teach judo now sometimes on his instagram and i'm like wow i wish i had this colton type of coach not even colton but like all these guys who are showing their best judo on instagram we didn't have access to that yeah i that's actually a big thing i think every sport the level has been raised so much thanks to youtube and instagram yeah like i've got i've

gone back into golf lately and watch a lot of golf golf videos yeah i know it's a good recent thing because some of my college friends started playing so i was like okay i used to play let me get into it and then there's so much content you don't really need to pay for lessons really if you're reasonably like athletic i guess you know you have if you have the basics and then i i remember people talking about that with skateboarding and even now you're saying with judo yeah like you can learn a lot from from you too right like all these young aspiring athletes can pick their own tokui waza or shape their games around what you say right yeah that yeah that's uh it's a different world different world when you all you had was like a vhs tape that's right that's right and you know you try to figure

it out and then you have a coach that's like takui waza you gotta do it you gotta do it they spend you know forever drilling uchimata with no context just actually just doing the move just doing the move just just doing the move, just doing the move. Knowing how that piece of the puzzle, how it fits in with the rest of the puzzle. Yeah.

Having no clue. You know what I mean? And not even knowing like, oh shoot, like I've been drilling this thing a thousand times. I'm outgripped. I don't even know

that it's not there and still going for it. Right, right. You know, and then there was like the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it. The more you get countered, the more comfortable you're going to get or the better you're going, right. And then there was like the more you do it, the better you're going to get at it. The more you get countered, the more comfortable you're going to get

or the better you're going to get. And then like having sort of faith in that system, right, and then just doing it over and over and over with not much success. It's discouraging actually. It is discouraging, but then it works to a certain point to where it just gives you enough success to make you want to keep that path. You know what I mean? You go to nationals and you win the first match with a fucking massive Ippon, Uchimata, and then you win another one with another big one.

And you're like, you know what? I got this, you know? Yeah. And it has nothing to do with, you know, I mean, yes, it has something to do with you drilling the same thing every day. But are you really learning that move contextually i see the timing the surrounding things around it the setup uh the off balance but like how are you off balance it is it an attack in the reaction situation is he giving you this thing what is timing entry are you staggering your entry are you faking it are you using another move to set it up all those things like what is the hand position that's ideal for you to go for this stuff you know none

of those questions are really answered when you have this takui waza mindset of like hey just drill this move uh 10 000 times and then do a thousand throws and a thousand drills you know you miss everything that's around it's just like looking at one piece it's like looking at one tree in a forest you have no clue where you are you're just looking at the tree it's brown okay it's a brown tree it's got leaves on it that's it you don't know if you're in the gunk so you don't know if you're in colorado you're just like looking at this stupid tree trying to figure it out i see yeah i i guess I guess I kind of started that way we all did I first learned judo in Korea and

it's a very drill focus and everyone did hundreds of seoi nages and tai otoshis I mean the practice itself was pretty simple not a lot of instructions but like

yeah just a lot of like uchikomis and yeah yeah and then after that you just you just do randori that's old school weight man like here are the pieces this move that move this move that move drill it go try to put it together and then then if you're athletic enough, if you coordinate enough, you can teach yourself and stay safe, the cream is just going to rise to the top. That's how it's always been. And it works. It works if you have a room of 100 people. Some people are going to be able to hit Osoto consistently.

Some people are going to be able to bomb people. But for a majority of the people in the room, it doesn't work. And then it opens yourself up for many many different uh injuries and right it's just not the right way i think you know uh i just read something about like japan and like you know in between the 20-year period it was 130 judo related deaths in children because they weren't coached properly yeah some crazy i mean this we all knew right there's tons of children in Japan dying from poorly trained judo. Yeah, concussions.

And majority of it is like, this is how you do Osoto. Go try it. And then their friend freaking bombs them. And then they land on their head and then they die. You know, it's happened so many times. You know, they need to, yeah, we all need to do better when it comes to teaching judo and approaching you know this and even with this takui was a mindset you know it's like you know the sword that cuts any armor it's like this is the one thing that you're going to dedicate your life to

and you know i love the idea of it but you know in terms of practicality wise like i'm not a big i'm not bought into it i see you know it's like one haymaker thing yes you know if you understand the surrounding context of that this and that yeah but it's kind of misleading but you know way i think it it can be helpful because what i would um so when i first started out i mean obviously i start i'm korean i start in korea so i i would watch a lot of korean olympians do it and then you know most of them do sewinage and at that time wonhee lee was like hot so he yeah i looked at tayo. Yeah, he's so hot. Yeah, he was so hot with that. So I was like, okay, I want those to be my Tokui Waza.

And I drilled them a lot. And then eventually I had to figure out the context around it. So eventually they became my Tokui Waza. And then I could hit them. Those became my go-to moves, you regardless of that's the that was the right choice or not well yeah but think about your judo progression too like you associated yourself with being my favorite toku waza is drop senagi yeah yeah but like if you look at your judo now it's a much more well-rounded thing you have a right side judo system a left side judo system

that work and talk well to each other yeah right you go right versus right you lose position you go to the left and you have three or four different attacks combinations and they all work together you know so like this idea of like you do osoto 10 000 times a day kimura can throw anybody osoto gari yeah that's great what if the guy knows it and anticipates it and then defends it with everything they got that opens up society you fake osoto they pull that leg back that opens up ochi right it's like it's way beyond like just taking one thing and trying to force it you know and you too between your senagi you know kochi cut the hand you go left side senagi osoto drop senagi uchimata like grip fighting you have your one-handed tricks.

That's an amazing system. And that's so much better than you're just, oh, I do one thing, drop Enagi better. You want a robust system that you could go in and out of. And these are little subsystems too. You have your things. yeah right so yeah i guess in a way i yeah i kind of i there there's a system but not a tokui waza i guess that's what you're saying you you should build it you should try to build a system rather than work on a couple of throws yeah you could yeah pick that one move get good at it drill it and then try to build around it. That's one method.

And then it has like maito kui waza is, but that's still kind of misleading. Pick one throw that you could always count on and you could force. That's not really the right answer, right? But you could take that sort of approach with context in mind. Or you could reverse engineer that and say okay i'm going to be very very good at gripping systemized thing and whatever turn throws comes up because all turn throws have very similar mechanics you're pulling and you're turning yeah yeah pull turn harai pull turn tile pull turn uchimata pull turn drop underneath the senagi yeah i mean with the exception of like a

lat drop or like a back arch or whateverraage majority of these moves are very very similar right right right so like what's the distinguish you know if you can do a taiyo very very well you should be able to do a harai very well especially if you have the winning position and they work together you go taiyo they step around it you go uchimata you fake

uchimata they try to step around it you go block harai you fake harai they resist sasai and then you go right back to uchimata. You fake Uchimata, they try to step around it, you go block Harai. You fake Harai, they resist Sasai, and then you go right back to Uchimata. Right. So there's many different ways to look at it. And some people have a little bit more... It's like a spectrum, like all things.

Like your sexuality. That's right. Nice. You worked that in there. That's good, right? Yeah. So then. Oh, man. You can't say.

No, no. It is right. It is right. And then. But then. Okay. So then let's. I did want to ask.

So about these athletes with Tokui Waza. Like Inoue Kosei what do you think he did? do you think he latched onto Uchimata and then built a system around his Uchimata or it just happened that he's just so good at Uchimata so he just has to force the position into it

I know he goes Ouchi Uchimata goes back and forth and he does have a Seoi Nage but he is the king of Uchimata what happened there forth, back and forth, and he does have a Seoi Nage. But he is the king of Uchimata. What happened there? What do you think happened there? I'm sure his coaches forced that on him, and then he studied it and got very, very good at it. But then he also congruently built his systems around it too.

Parallel to getting a good Uchimata. For instance, he goes Uchimata, and it gets stuffed stuffed and then he'll back out and then go drop Sanagi. Yeah, yeah. You see him do that, you know? Mm-hmm. And then he has that one-step Uchimata

and sometimes he has that two-step Uchimata so he staggers the timing. Right, right. He's not just doing that one Uchimata where he just, like, pops off and goes.

He has many different types of Uchimata that he enters into. Right. Ken-Ken, one-leg, everything. Yeah. Yeah, like Soto Shouhei Ono. And sometimes they go Uchimata and Harai into. Right, ken-ken, one leg, everything. Yeah, like Soto Shouhei Ono. Sometimes they go Uchimata and Harai. I've seen him do that.

Uchimata, Harai, over the arm into a Harai Makikomi. I've seen him do that. So he does a lot of different stuff. I think it helps that everyone's worried about it. That way it opens up a lot of the other stuff. Other things, yeah.

But traditionally, Japan's always like that like you know coach will tell you you got your body types this you should do this yeah so it's like what kind of judo do you do and then you know katsugi kei is like lifting style which is like go underneath senagi ippon senagi sore you know going underneath the person or like getting good grips and then sticking your leg out and doing like uchimata harai tall man judo and then generally like people usually pick a style early on and they'll stick to it you know and then they'll pick one or two moves in within that style right like you can't be good at Seinagi and not have Kochi or Ochi. Right, right, right. So that's a general style, right?

And it's a pattern. It's a systemized thing that's already prepackaged. But like to go from a, you know, Morote person where you're trying to constantly go on to the person to also have a high dominant position. Or even like a Tomonage if you're a high dominant position person. Right? Hard to develop together. You know? Because it's hard to, you know, you need coaches that know how to put it together for you almost. Right? You have to reinvent the wheel and figure out the stuff as you go. That's going to be a tough gambit.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So this might have been covered in the last episode too so now that we've talked about uh your approach to tokui waza and and then we discussed mine a little bit and the other athletes so now for practicality like well how do you now for new students that come through the door now what do you recommend like what do you do to to kind of mold them like do you just let them experiment different things do you point out some techniques that they could do i'll give you an example man uh white belt was going with like a green belt yesterday yeah completely losing

position green belt has dominant position yeah hand over the back right verse right and then the white belt's kind of like just blasting away a Soto, blasting away Tayo. We're about shutting all of it down and countering him. Be nice about it, but it's like there's no way he's going to throw him. And I'm like, listen, man, you've got to stop going for these one-off throws. You have to try to fight out of this position because you're losing in position.

Stop attacking from losing position. So then that's sort of the message. You've got to fight back for better position 50 50 yeah go for stuff that's how you learn yeah you don't always just fight from dominant position sometimes you have to attack from losing position also right you have to do it with intent right you have to do it with intent you're trying it and then you're learning from it 50 50 i'm losing in position now i gooto, likelihood of me getting countered is pretty high

so if I fake Osoto, he's going to try to counter that real quick and then I'm going to get a reaction and while he's going for that quick turn, back step counter for the Osoto, I may try to you know, strip that hand or like create distance and then gain back position, now we're 50-50

right, now I might go for an osoto right right right right a little bit of a better chance of me succeeding osoto there right so like that's the kind of yeah and as opposed to like osoto's my favorite throw i'm just gonna go for it losing position going for it losing position going for it and can you get good at going for osoto from losing position yeah you can but like that's a long uphill battle. How many times are you going to get blasted back onto your head with a counter until you're just going to be like, screw this, I'm going to do something else?

Right. You know? So you emphasize more about the positional game. Always, always. Then throws kind of fit into that. Like, oh, once you get to that position, well, figure out how to get out of that position or like even like at least 250 50 and then pick um pick your favorite throw

in that within that context and drill it i guess i hate to use this analogy because it's so cliche and so like cringy but like it's like chess you know what i mean all the pieces right i have the same pieces as you do and they move in a certain way queen's pretty dominant and pawns do this pawns are the little attacks then you're setting up your moves but you have to like develop your pieces in a way where they have synergy with each other and then you have good positioning on the board then you start unloading your attacking systems right you don't just like launch a knight over here completely unprotected and then you bring out your queen over here and then see what it can do with direct attacks right because like unless you're playing with a really dumb person like these direct attacks not gonna work look my queen's attacking your pawn that's

unprotected they're gonna you know protect that pawn yeah now i can't take it. Take, take, right? Simple game. Simple tactics. You pin the knight and sacrifice some pawns. Yeah, this is the thing, right? So now you take your queen behind your knight, and then when you move your knight and attack something, there's a discovered attack because it opens up that lane in front of that queen and now that queen's attacking something now that knight is attacking something right you could set that structure up and then go yeah it's a discover attack uh uh you know oh this knight is

sitting right here let me put a bishop attacking it and skewering the thing you know or you pin it against the king so now they can't move that knight so all the squares that the knight was attacking earlier now you could put shit there i'll give you this that that analogy you say it was cliche but i don't so the part where people say judo or bjj is like a like chess or something that is cliche but the way you explain because i think a lot of people just say it because oh it's like a mental game more than the physical and you know their whole you know yeah master whatever yes but then uh the way you actually use chess because you're a chess player it makes more sense i don't want to know i'm not a chess player you're a chess player

or it's chess enthusiast my cousin my cousin eugene is a chess player. You're a chess player. What are you talking about? Or it's chess enthusiast? My cousin Eugene is a chess player, and he beats me 10 times out of 10. Yeah, that guy goes to tournaments and stuff. Yeah. But I see. I played in a tournament once. Yeah? I accidentally signed up for the kids division. I played a six-year-old and beat him, and then he started crying.

They let him play a six-year-old and beat him and then he started crying they let him that to play a six-year-old they let me play yeah they let me play a six-year-old it was like oh man good and then he went actually this is this he was playing and then like mocking me the whole time oh my god yeah i was like wow that's bad sportsmanship like i'll move pieces and then be like you sure you want to go there oh my god that's and even one time he laughed you're like you're like that's dumb oh i was like i was like all right now i'm gonna make my business to beat this kid and i was like right about it i beat him he runs to his father crying and then he like points over there at me and that like runs over looks at me and then you know i outweighed him by like 70 pounds but he didn't say anything he like walked up to me with the intent of

saying something but he didn't say anything he walked up to me and then turned around and walked away oh my god this chest torments get heated huh it was intense parents aren't like

I don't think they were allowed to watch something they weren't like in that don't think they were allowed to watch something. They weren't in that region. They were like, oh, we're in some cafeteria. Yeah, I see. It felt so good to beat them, though. After all the abuse you got, yeah. Yeah, just making fun of me and stuff. And then I lost an eight-year-old.

Did that kid taunt you at all? No. And then Eugene won the division. Oh, okay. He, too, signed up for the kids' division. That's funny. But he won all his games. Oh, my God.

Yeah, he won a trophy and everything. With a little trophy, a kid's trophy. I don't even know if it was a kid's division. Maybe it was like a basic beginner division or something. But it was all kids. I see. Well, they started myung now, you know. Everyone wants to be like Magnussen.

I'm like, yeah, Magnus Carlsen or something. But anyway. So Queen Waza, yeah, it's like, what are you good at in chess? I'm good at the queen. It doesn't work like that yeah i see you know that that that was a good analogy i don't think it was that cliche because it went deeper into it so yeah yeah man judo's like chess how yeah exactly chess and you just did i liked it i i never thought it that way yeah yeah is judo and chess is it like a turn tank tanking game or like

this judo right that's it's not right it's like simultaneously attacking like in that way it's not like chess you know but there's similarities. Right, right. There's comparisons that you can make. Uh-huh. Makes sense. Here. Osoto Sasai.

It's a fork. I don't know what a fork is. A fork is when you take out a piece and then it's attacking two pieces at once. Oh, okay.

So the person has to decide, oh, man, do I want to protect? Yeah, which piece to lose, kind of. Not necessarily lose, but which piece to protect or, you know, that kind of a thing. So like Osoto Sasai is a fork, right?

Right. But like you could bring out your piece completely unprotected and somebody could take it. But if you're in dominant position and then you don't know if Osoto Sasai is coming, you kind of have to guess. That's kind of like a judo fork. I like that. A judo fork i like that a judo fork yeah so i think that that is it like your tokui wada should be a judo fork like whatever moves it be it may be you should try to build up a system where yeah it's uh it's hard to anticipate yeah sometimes you play a certain opening sometimes you play black sometimes you have build up a system where it's hard to anticipate. Sometimes you play a certain opening.

Sometimes you play black. Sometimes you have Fikero, your bishop. You have all these different things. Ways to look at it. But this Tokugawa's idea, I'm not too crazy about it. It's nice to have that. Hey, I know this move better

than anybody and i know guys who have successfully done it skate kensuke you know he like trains in massachusetts he's like one of the best i'm telling you ochi yeah he'll throw anybody at everybody which i saw him fight like two divisions one time yeah in like a northeastern tournament uh peyote's cop and he literally beat like 11 guys with just one move that's the guy we hung out with right like in new york city yeah yeah he's left and it's like lapel and then you give him that sleeve like he'll fight right he'll catch that sleeve and he has it and don't go slip that leg and then 100 he'll bring it to you back wow yeah he's very good it's very good. Very good.

No one knows him. He doesn't compete at a high level because he doesn't compete anymore. I see. But, boy, is he good at OG. But that's not necessarily the way to view it, I guess. I guess he struck gold with that move. You know, everything kind of worked.

But, yeah. Yeah, he's the exception. Yeah. Some people would do that. Learn one thing and then get better at everybody. But I don't think it's a great use of your time. You know, especially if you're trying to learn judo. Yeah.

Majority of the people who do judo are hobbyists. You know, and that's fine. That's a good thing. You know, dedicate yourself to judo 100%. 100 you know the risk of injury goes really high and then you know in fact it'll take away from the quality of your your life right you know i'm a big big advocate for like do judo to make your life better you know use it as a tool to get in shape and have fun and meet new people and yeah i mean you're only going to meet dudes. Mostly dudes.

Mostly dudes, you know. If you want to meet women, go do dance. Yeah, you did ballet. It was the best time. Best time. That's right. But yeah. But anyway, so I think we covered it.

I think we, I'm glad we were able to cover the nuance and then the approach, the most efficient approach to developing your Tokui Waza in Judo. So yeah, anything else? No, man. That's it. That's it for my Tokui Waza, your Tokui Waza. Yeah, That's it. That's it for my Tokui Waza, your Tokui Waza.

Yeah, that's right. Well, thanks for listening, guys. Stay tuned for the next episode.