The Shintaro Higashi Show - Randori

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Randori, free-style practice or sparring, is an extremely important part of Judo training, and yet many Judokas have difficulty maximizing their time during randori sessions. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is a high injury risk in randori. How can we best utilize our randori time while staying safe? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss how we should approach randori. 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 a little bit about randori very exciting story yeah yeah i'm going to try to break a lot of ideas and assumptions i'm going to break that today yeah okay yeah we got a lot of questions about this recently so a lot of people are worried about uh generally how to maximize your limited randori time you know we all use a lot of the hobbyists yeah only have a limited time and the other thing is so this is from one of our

patrons on the discord Ori he said he would love to hear our thoughts on how to best approach randori and how one should think about balancing a desire to successfully perform techniques while also performing and promoting mutual benefit and welfare in the dojo

yes and randori is like live rolling right wrestling they call it live hey yo let's go live in jiu-jitsu they call it hey let's roll right yeah in judo it's like you know sometimes you're like hey let's you don't say let's run dory. You know what I mean? Let's go for a round. Let's do a round. I guess you want to work out or let's throw it out. I don't know. What does that mean in Japanese? What literal meaning?

Run dory. Dory is take. Let me quickly Google. Damn, man. I should have Googled it really fast. Run dory. Literal meaning. All right.

Freestyle practice or sparring. Tori, obviously, is to take, right? Ron is a succession of attacks. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, we did it. We should have probably prepared for that. How embarrassing. I don't even know what the literal meaning meant.

Anyway, Rondori. It's a cool term. Like, hey, all right, guys, the literal meaning meant anyway Rondori it's a cool term like hey alright guys we're gonna do Rondori which means like we're gonna go live I always say that

let's go live cause I got that terminology from wrestling you know like live wrestling and then people wrestle hey let's wrestle

let's wrestle yeah that's another thing yeah you don't say like let's play let's wrestle jiu j wrestle? Yeah. That's another thing? Yeah. You don't say, like, let's play. Let's wrestle. Jiu-Jitsu guys always say, let's roll. It's really easy.

Yeah. And judo, you don't say, let's randori, but I guess you want to do a round. We call it rounds, right? Yeah. You know, let's get our rounds in. Yeah. So that's kind of okay to say. Yeah.

And round door is one of the unique features of, I guess, these grappling arts where you don't, because as opposed to striking arts, we can actually go almost full throttle. You can. You don't have to go full throttle. But this is the thing. It's like how much can you do live sparring in boxing every practice?

Yeah. Right? If you're boxing and then conditioning and then losing weight, jumping rope, hitting the pads, all this stuff, right? And at the end of the practice, you go in, do you spar hard every day? Most people don't because it's a cumulative thing taking the shots in the head. Yeah. But wrestling, judo, jujjitsu all the grappling arts you can go hard every day doesn't mean you should and we're going to get to that today we're really going to

talk about that and break down the sort of assumptions that people make about randori time because it's the thing that people think about randori the way people think about it it's not the right way for most people right and we're gonna break let's start with uh so this is a unique feature in grappling so let's first touch on what benefits we can get from doing randoi or live rolling or going live all that yeah what is why do we do it yeah okay so this is why do we need it right there's cooperative training and non-cooperative training cooperative is like hey we're drilling right you're letting me do stuff. Hey, I'm working my combinations.

Hey, you're letting me throw you so I could practice my throw mechanics. Yeah. And then there's the non-cooperative side where we have conflicting goals, where I'm trying to take you down and you're trying to take me down. And that's sort of the combative side of it, right? Right. So you could say non-cooperative, cooperative. You could also say comb combative. Right. And collaborative. Right. Because it's collaborative training where we're like both working together, give and take, give and take. And then, you know, if I'm trying to take you down and you're trying to take me down, I don't want you to take me down. You don't want me to take you down. That's more combative. Right. develop these skills during this cooperative training where we're trying out new stuff and trying to make the mechanics and make the shapes of the throws and you try it out on a sort of a

live setting right with the new stressors involved with different goals the person doesn't want you to do it and they have their own goals right so there's a lot more to manage it right and because it's a lot more to manage the risk is higher because it's much more dynamic yeah yeah you don't know what the other person is going to do so you're trying to like test your skill all this stuff and then sometimes a lot of the times what happens is hey me and you we do randori people get into this mindset of it's me versus you there's a clear winner. I win if I throw you, you win if you throw me. If I get taken down, I lose,

and then vice versa. So now, it's this thing, it's a competitive game. Yeah, yeah. Right? Like in a zero-sum way, there's one winner and one loser.

So if you approach it in that way, the goal is no longer skill acquisition. Right, right. So that's one way to think about it too, right? You're getting into it and then testing. So your competitive thing, right? You sharpen your competitive tool set, whether it's like the mentality of it

or actually winning in a match under certain rule sets. You know what I mean? Because you could be like a very well-rounded grappler and be like, oh, shoot a single, do this. Can you do this during the – but if you're wanting to enter in the competitive world, you have to play by a very finite rule set. Right? So if we're training for that rule set, then you have to train underneath those rules in training as well. So sometimes it's developing skill.

Sometimes it's working these positions sometimes it's me versus you i'm trying to hone in better yeah yeah the competition aspect of you know judo right so different randori sessions different goals it should be that way the problem arises when someone considers every Rondori round as a competition and then they're going hard every single round because their goal is to beat the other person. Right, right. And there's a huge issue there because if you're good at one throw and if it works for you all the time,

then that's the only thing that you're going to be doing. You're not going to try anything new because, oh, there's a risk of getting countered. I'm not good at Ochi, let's just say. I get countered when I go for Ochi. I'm not going to go for it because I know I could beat this guy with Osoro. Right. So with the goal of winning in mind,

I could beat everybody in practice by just going for Osoro, but I'm not developing any other skill. Right. Right? Which is going to lead to problems down the line. You see what I mean yeah yeah so then three i see three benefits you just pointed out or more like goals one is to one skill acquisition the other is kind of battle testing your skills that you already have and then the other is honing on your competitive

uh side yeah so let's kind of go over each of them and then how to best maximize our limited time on it yeah and then maybe we can like loop in some mutual benefit thing in it so so let's first skill acquisition um since it's Since it's uncooperative, I think that's actually a surprising point that you made, like how you can acquire skills in Randori. Usually people think of Uchikomis when they talk about skill acquisition. So how can one maximize their skill acquisition aspect of Randori?

For instance, if I want to refine Ouchi or Uchimata position, okay? Not the actual throw where I bomb you, Ouchi, or bomb me, Uchimata, like what we do in Nagakomi or whatever it is like this. But like getting good at finishing it. Understanding the main lines of defense. Understanding the main lines of finishes. Right. Yeah. So, okay. So now me and you, if we're doing straight up competitive on Dory, like let's throw down and, you know, see who wins five minute round.

How many times are we going to be in that position? Not very often. Right. But if we have the mentality of getting into that position, we almost start in that position. Right. And then we kind of semi live. of semi live you know I mean that's a very very skill acquisition oriented round so now you're in that position many many many times over so you're saying you're at you should ask if you want to use our endorse skill acquisition you should ask ask your partner to start in that position? Not necessarily because you can. So that's one way to look at it, right?

And then they do semi-live like, for instance, Jimmy Peugeot's team always does like, okay, so now we're going to do juji from the top. Start with the arm, wrist on wrist. Okay, ready, set, go. It's live. So now you're in that position, you know, 20, 30 times in a practice going live from that position. So you get really, really good at it. So someone misses a ipan senagi you get wrist on wrist you could almost you know that position better than the person knows how to defend it because you're

right you've acquired this so many times yeah so that's sort of the goal in that kind of a training but if you have a very very different skill level right so if i'm going with the lower belt and if i'm trying to do a new combination i'm like i could shut down all of his attacks and only look for these little combinations okay right so if you have that discrepancy you can do this because you could shut down defend shut down defend you know i was like, for instance, the other day, I was trying to do like a Kosoro. They step away. Tap Koichi into Deashi, right? And that's like a really tough combination to hit on someone good. Right, right, right.

Like, that's not really my go-to combination. So, like, me versus you, if we're doing Rondori, the likelihood of me hitting that is very low. Especially if I'm only looking for that. Because maybe you don't give me that reaction off that first initial thing. Maybe you don't really respect my kosoro. Okay? Yeah. So, like, it's very, very specific.

Yeah. Right? It's a specific combination with very, very specific reactions that happen because there's three techniques chained together. I go for one, you react. I go for another, you react. I go for another, you react. And then I hit it with the third attack.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. So it's very unlikely. But if I'm going and then I have to consider, you might do a drop technique. You might go for a tomonage and you have good attacks. So as soon as I react to any one of those threats,

oh, shoot. And then I try to like sprawl down and drop my hips. I can't do those things anymore. Yeah. But if I'm going with the green belt. Right belt right right that's a little bit weaker than me i could just physically pull his head down and then shut anything out zero offense from him right and the guy's thinking oh shit oh shit oh shit and then he's in full defense mode and then i could start pump faking pump faking cosoro cosoro and then tap koji. I could do this, right?

So I could repeat this thing on a lower belt, lower belt, lower belt. And then maybe I could do it on a brown belt. Maybe I could do it on someone stronger. And that's fully non-cooperative because it's in a full randori setting. But I have different goals that I'm working. So somebody who's listening might say, hey, I want to work drop senagi. Okay, I'm going to do drop Seinagi and Rundori. But this is what happens.

You're only going for drop Seinagi. Your opposition sees it coming now. Yeah. Right? So you have to do this mindfully and then be introspective after the round and say, hey, I tried it. Why didn't it work? And usually people think, I want to try this new move it's a direct attack and we all know direct attacks don't work that well right on someone who's good yeah so what's the contact context missing am i missing the finish yeah am

i missing being in good position because if you're in losing position, the likelihood of you throwing a higher belt is zero. Right? So this is where a lot of the frustration comes from. When you're doing these skill acquisition rounds, when you're a beginner going with a higher belt, it's the responsibility of the higher belt to give some position. Right, right. To not outgrip the person all the time. Let them have openings. And then, hey, what are you working on?

Right? So, like, if someone says Osorogari and then they're a yellow belt, I did this the other day. I'm working on Osorogari. Great. He's looking for Osorogari, but if I'm in dominant position, I shut it out the whole time. Right. It's zero fun for this guy. He's just going to get frustrated and he's going to quit.

You know? Yeah. So, every now and then, I'll give him an advantage. Right? If I'm 50-50 or if I'm in dominant position, he's looking for it, I'll be like, listen, don't go for a Soto here. He's not there. Fight for position first.

Fight for position first. We're grip fighting. Boom. He's got the position. I'm like, you got it. This is now you go. Right? And then he's going, he's going, he's going.

Obviously, it doesn't work direct attack. So, you go, okay, now, maybe throw some Sasai's in there because I'm anticipating your Soto. Right? So, it's like recognizing these cues. Fighting for position. Got it. Looking for a Soto. Hitting Sasai because he's giving me the reaction.

Head comes up and now he's hitting a Soto. Right? And then you could make that sort of combative training in a five-minute round. You could guide them to do that. So now all of a sudden, that's familiar, right? That's a great round for a yellow belt because they get a lot out of it. Are they ever going to beat me in a competitive setting in Rondori? Never. Never in a million years, right? Right, right. So like if that's their goal, they're going to gonna feel bad and then i'm working on osorogari they don't really even know what that looks like for them it's spamming osorogari

which we both know that never works right so it's the responsibility of the higher belt to know what the lower belt is working on and guiding them so that's why i always say you're a guide the person in front of you is a guide. You know, and I think I'm not explicit with explaining this to the higher belts at the dojo. You know, because you don't have time, you know, a lot of the time. Right, right. All right, Bowen, warm up.

You know, I'm checking Instagram. And texting me. And texting Peter. Where's your brother? Why isn't he here you know yeah so that's my yeah good yeah so yeah i think that skill acquisition part you can you can do it both ways right like the even if so higher belt will can grab a lower belt and then try to kind of put put him or herself into that particular situation they're trying to work on

and then on the other side you could the higher belt could let the lower belt work their thing so it's mutually beneficial it maximizes the time for skill acquisition and it's a very like balanced thing in the middle

there's a sweet spot. Right. Because if you're working on a Soto and if I take five breakfalls for you, it's stupid. Right. Every time you go in, I fall over. There's no context. Yeah. There's no context. It doesn't work. Right.

So there's just the right amount of resistance. Resistance. The right amount of guiding. Because if you're doing a five minute round and I'm talking to you the whole time, it's just like you're kind of like patronizing and mansplaining. You don't want that, right? So it's very short. It's very concise. It's teaching with your body in a way where it's like, oh, shit, that was good, right?

Not in a patronizing way. But this is only if you have a huge skill discrepancy and you're guiding the person. Right. You know what i mean now the yeah so now that's a good uh transition into holding your skills that you already have yeah so that usually probably happens more when the level of the two players two judokas are similar right so how do we how do you approach that like i'm just trying to hold my skills yeah so test them yeah there's always this interplay between risk and reward right yeah and then judo too it's like the intensity goes up the risk goes up yeah higher

their intensity the more the risk but more the. Because you've had rounds where it's like the guy's trying to take your head off and you're trying to take their head off. And it's going back and forth and back and forth and it's intense and you slam him. You catch him perfect. Bang, move. You know, he's anticipating something and shoot across tile. Boom, right? Boom, yeah. And then, you know, everyone in the dojo is like, oh, right?

Because they're like sitting aside. It's like a natural reaction. Obviously, you don't want to like encourage that kind of behavior right yeah but sometimes it's like naturally happens and it's like all right that's amazing now the intensity goes even higher now the risk goes yeah you know i mean and that if you do many of those you will be exposed to too much risk and you will get hurt. So you have to have rounds where it's like the intensity is reduced. Even when you're trying to battle test your skills.

Yes. So like, for instance, there's this guy, Leo Lopes. He's my friend. Good friend of mine forever. He's a Brazilian dude. Sometimes it'll work out. He owns a gym.

Yeah. He owns a judo school near my house too in Westchester oh yeah and then we'll do like a 20-30 minute Rondori round

whoa just you and him Leo you and him yeah but this is the thing we both know that we're not gonna

fucking finish these savage Osoros to the side I'll catch it right right and I'll get in there but I won't run it I won't finish it right

yeah if you know we get into Ura Nage position we'll lift but we won't slam it right right and i'll get in there but i won't run it i won't finish it right yeah if you know we get into uranage position we'll lift but we won't slam it right right and then sometimes we'll increase the speed in which we do things not necessarily the force applied yeah so it'll be like uh for instance like i have good dominant. And the goal isn't to slam him. But the goal is to outwork him with footwork. Right? Like, for instance, like, fake Uchimata, snap down Ochi. Right?

Quick. Ba-ba-ba-ba. Right? Without the intent of, like, slamming him. But just, like, to work the footwork and then make him, like, oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. And then eventually just snap him down and put his hands on the floor. So, like, that will preserve our our body you know what i mean and then i'll raise the speed high and then i'll do it so then i'm gassed now i'm tired i'm redlining myself yeah so i'm

doing a sprint right without the risk of him getting bombed so now when i'm tired i'm breathing heavy he could do the same thing back to me yeah and it's almost like this unspoken thing of like hey we're both not trying to kill each other right we're both trying to work our cardio we're both trying to work our footwork and then sometimes we'll get an over under position and then we'll try to lift and then we'll like push and pull you know because over under position where you're chest to chest it's a lot more dangerous hip to hip yeah right because your hips are much closer bigger throws happen so in that place will like be a little bit more like physically more stronger but

it won't be as fast and dynamic because we want to be right and it'll be more so like lifting if you lift the person we win right so it's like yeah now all of a sudden the rules are changing different position has different goals so you could do Rundori safely for 30 minutes. And then sometimes we're both really tired, and then we'll just sit back, and then we'll grip fight a little bit. And it's like this understanding of like, hey, this is what we're doing now. And then sometimes we'll put ourselves in bad positions. So that's like a really good round.

I get so much out of these rounds with him. I should do more of it. But we both have our schedules. We both have our time and old and all this stuff. But that's a very, very sharpening your skills kind of thing. Obviously, you don't want to just do that with everybody. Because you need the competitive element. You need high intensity rounds.

You need to go with people you've never gone with. Because doing Rondori with someone you've never met before grip fighting yeah winning position yeah making a catalog of all the different throws that they do that's a skill in itself i see right you go to a judo you know training camp and you go with some georgian dude you don't know if he's righty or lefty he might come out right but then he does all his throws to the left you don't know that left yeah right yeah he might be like righty righty righty righty righty and then he throws the arm over to the left side for georgian position it's like wow okay so he does traditional right and left side georgian holy how many times have you seen that never right you've never seen it i've never seen

it but there's people who have that. And then when you're exposed to that for the first time, you have to be able to make these adjustments on the fly. Yeah. You know, and this is the thing. I'm not good at dealing with that, right? I don't like Georgian left being in Georgian B to the left side. Yeah.

So my defense there is extremely weak. If someone could force that on me i'm gonna i'm gonna lose i'm gonna get taken down so how do i develop that skill do i just go with that one person over and over maybe right yeah or do i because that'll expose me to risk yeah yeah so now it's like all right someone who has good left-sided judo, asking them to do the Georgian position to the left and then staying in there and then doing a reduced intensity round will be very beneficial for me. So reduced intensity rounds are still beneficial for sharpening your skills. Yeah, if you have the goal in mind. So that's interesting about Rundori.

But I think we're missing a little bit about like what these guys are actually asking as beginners, you know? Yeah, so I guess for the beginner, well, we covered the two aspects. So I guess for the beginner, like, if you want to acquire new skills you can go with higher belt and then the higher belt has to guide the beginner and that kind of environment has to be fostered yeah and also if you want to

sharpen and you can on I guess as a beginner you probably should ask your sensei to see if you can go with another beginner with around similar level right like you do that a lot you try to mess people up especially the beginners just right for randoy and then for the purpose of intensity yeah would you even let people do it that let beginners go very rarely rarely. Sometimes I'll do yellow, yellow, but it's like controlled. I'm like, hey, man, reduce intensity 30%. Like I could kind of go into the theory of all this stuff all the time and go deep into it. But no one will really listen or get it, right?

So the quick and easy thing is like, you know, two yellow belts look at each other. They look at me and they go, sensei, can we throw down? And then it's like, all right. And then'll say like yo listen reduce intensity 30 don't finish anything don't slime each other okay yeah remember the goal skill acquisition you're not competing with each other you're trying your stuff okay like the guy in front of you is not you know you're he's not your enemy yeah you're not competing with him right yeah and then they're like okay and then generally it's safe and then when it escalates you know it's like i seen it at a muay thai gym my friend joe

does a great job like he sees uh he's overseeing sparring and when he sees someone escalating you know he'll do things like you know 20 to the head or 10 to the head 50 to the body and you know he like quantifies it you know and then if someone gives a little bit too extra, he's like, hey man, that's not 50% of the body, right? Or like if someone, you know, hits him in the face too hard, dude, that's not 10% to the head, you know? And then when he sees escalation in one of the rounds, he's like, hey, you, cool down.

Get off of Matt, you know? Or hey, take one round off, right? So he manages of matt you know or hey take one round off right so he manages it you know so it's kind of like that for me too when in the dojo two guys are throwing down and battling you know a lot of old senses would be like oh look at those guys you know they're working really hard i freaking love it but like that's the wrong mentality because the goal shouldn't be higher yeah risk is way too high so when i see that i'm like all right guys you know and i'll joke about it i'll be like dude you guys giving me like an ulcer look right now like you're stressing me out you can't there's too much stress for me to handle

like you know what gianni can you go with him instead or hey greg can you go with him instead yeah you know and i do this all the time and there's reason behind this uh you know what i mean nice yeah but the yellow belt's going or the lower belt's going with a higher belt that's a good guy good teacher yeah it's unparalleled right you know what i mean and it's like they know like for instance like i was working out with i'll give you one. I was working out. The under 13 champion from Portugal came. This girl, Luisa. Came. And they were on family vacation.

And then they obviously, like, you know, see my YouTube and stuff. And they're like, oh, I want to work out with Sensei Shintaro. And then they emailed. Their sensei emailed me and everything. I was like, sure, why not? You know, they come by and work out. She's 13 years old and tiny. Yeah. And then I did the Vendori with her? You know, they come by and work out. She's 13 years old and tiny. Yeah.

And then I did the Vendori with her. You know what I mean? Yeah. If I outgrip her and then defend her arm's length, she'd get nothing out of it. Yeah. Right. So we're working on gripping. Sometimes I'll outgrip her.

Sometimes I won't outgrip her. Right. When she goes and gets her grips and gets in position she starts attacking but i'm moving and defending not using my body weight but just like using movement yeah yeah right and then i'm guiding there because then there's late stage defense and early stage defense right right early stage defense is like dominant position pull the head down you can't do anything blocking with your arms late stage is letting the person in from can't do anything blocking with your arms late stage is letting the person in from good position and then defending with my legs and hips yeah

obviously that one i could do forever because i'm much heavier than her right right but it's doing defensive maneuvers early like mid-stage late stage and then get to the later stage defense is like getting her in an Ochi position. She's hopping me, trying to finish me. And I'm giving the reaction back to where I want her to drop underneath Sanagi because she's a Sanagi person. Yeah.

Right? And she's not doing it. Right? But for me to sit there and coach her while we're doing Rondon, she's like, do this, do that. That's also very patronizing. And it's a poor look.

People don't want that. You know? Right. So I'm like naturally giving her this opening and she's not taking it right yeah but i'm not telling her to do it i'm not talking to random andori and then eventually that's not the point of random yeah yeah and then eventually i give her that reaction and then she's like you know what i'm gonna go for bang oh drop sandag andate, and I let her throw me. She's happy. She's like, oh, shit. That felt really natural.

I'm not taking nine breakfalls for her. Because that's also not going to help her at all. So we're fighting in position. Sometimes she wins in position. Sometimes she doesn't win in position. And grip fighting is real. And because the maneuvers I'm doing to win position is not reaching over and grabbing her because I'm taller, right? It's putting the hand down.

She's actually putting the wrong hand on first, but with intent because she turns to the left also. And then putting my second hand on the collar. And as she's going for my sleeve hand, I'm moving my hand and then I'm attacking foot, right? Feet. I'm moving my hand and then I'm attacking foot. Yeah. Feet. So now like that's something that's like stimulus that's helping her because she's never might have never encountered exactly that.

Right. Right. Right. I'm letting her I'm defending some of her stuff. I'm like letting her in some of the stuff. And then I'm giving her the stimulus for certain openings that I'm giving her that I think that might be beneficial for her. And when she hits it, she gets the throw. Right. So it's a real live match for her.

Right? And then afterwards, I'm Chonger, hey, you should have this grip and system for this side, this grip and system for that side. Right? And then when we did another round later on, I was like, hey, you know, work on that. And now she was working her right side more.

Now she was working her left side more. And then I slammed her with a tai otoshi. No, but I had to get – yeah. So I get one of those in there and it's movement-based, right? I'm like shuffling and she follows and I throw the leg across and throw her. Yeah. And then – so now it feels like a competitive round. But there's goals that she has that she should do.

Right. And then I'm also giving her openings to see if she can meet and recognize those and exploit that. Yeah. So, you know, we did two rounds and it's an extremely beneficial thing, whether she knows it or not. She feels it though. Right. It's not like, oh, i want this grown man and he's like stiff-arming me or he's talking the whole time or he's taking nine breakfalls like it's a

very very fun useful thing with many many many goals right so that's a good randori when you have a skill discrepancy you know of knowledge and ability right because you can be the guide right yeah you know what i mean so that's an example of uh yeah that's a good balanced uh randori where both parties can benefit and you know despite the skill discrepancy i think that's what we're looking for even for a skill acquisition and uh you know skill honing yeah but now so that's for most of the renderers should be like but now I do want to touch on the competitive side

so sometimes you're preparing training for a competition and you just need that you just need to dial up the intensity a little to simulate the competition so how do you approach that uh effectively say i mean a lot of the times you need a coach in the room that can

sort of say hey you know who do you trust when randori with and then you have to have a list of people you trust it was a meme recently you know the guy uh ken jong the korean guy that was he's like yeah yeah looking at this like little piece of paper and then the meme uh was like it was like judo memes whatever it was it was like uh me looking at the list of people i trust doing randori with so yeah you have to be a very short list yes and then so you have to have a uh group of people that you trust to throw down with but going going into it, you already know what they do, right? And they already know what you do.

So there has to be some intent. There has to be something that breaks the pattern. Because you versus, let's just say, Clapper. Adam Clapper. You guys, if you

just did Hard Rendori week after after week if you compile all the footage it doesn't you guys could be doing the same round over and over and over and over again right i mean yeah there's a pattern definitely there's definitely a pattern so like you're doing randori now and then you're doing three months later it's gonna look very similar because you guys are go both going for same stuff all the time. So competitively now, you have to kind of like break through that and say, okay, here is someone that I know what they do and I need to strategize and execute those strategies

to see if I could overcome some of the stuff that they do. They're anticipating these moves. How do I break that pattern and then take advantage and exploit that? So going into it with exploiting what they do and the knowledge and then creating a strategy and executing it that's a good way to work on your competitive randori side

right yeah and then you know you talk to the guy and say hey how are you feeling today oh i feel great all right let's let's do a randori today okay we'll get one early when we're fresh right how about you know we'll do a couple warm-up rounds each and then we'll go second or third yeah yeah that signals to the guy like yo we're gonna throw down today right i have something for you you know yeah but then you have that same conversation it's like hey how you feeling today clap it's like oh you know my knees bother me my back's bothering me yeah all right well well, let's go light. Yeah. So now it's not a competitive Andori where it's like I have something for you.

You know what I mean? It's like just movement and the stuff that we were talking about earlier. I'm trying to work on these things. Let's just hone our skills here and there. Reduce intensity to like 60%, whatever it is. You know what I mean? Right, right. So that's one way to look at it. Another way is when you get a guest at the dojo.

Yeah. Most dangerous people in the world. Or you go to a training camp or something. Yes, because the room culture, the culture in the room, right? I know the culture in my dojo is safety first. Everyone knows safety. And then if there's someone in the room that's dangerous,

they know that I will protect them from them, right? Yeah. You you get off the mat like hey you know what you can't be here what do you what the hell are you doing right you know like they know that i'm gonna do this right so a lot of the times you go to a training camp or a guest comes in and you've never worked out with that person you have no clue what they do right right so they might do tanya otoshi all the time i do tanya otoshi off the top you never know what they're gonna do right so like protecting yourself and then trying to win that match yeah right because they're gonna go hard yeah there is no like why would they come yeah hey man let's like put each other in ochi position this is what i'm working on they don't give a shit about you yeah they've never met you before and in their mind they're thinking fight or flight this guy is

trying to slam me i'm in a different dojo i'm in a new dojo i'm in a training camp we're meeting for the first time it's almost always the case right obviously if you're wearing a yellow belt and i'm wearing a black belt it's different yeah yeah but if we're both black belts right and we're both in similar weight classes there's always going to be that competitive element because it's such an animalistic sport too yeah yeah right there's a side yeah yeah so now yeah when you're doing this you're refining that competitiveness in competition of i have to protect myself i have to get into good position i have to figure out what this person does like i said create a catalog of those that this person does okay how does he go right side does he go

left side whatever his attack patterns does he have a good og position can i counter any of this stuff does he attack from bad position does he have a bailout throw? Boom, boom, boom. Two minutes in. I know everything that this guy does. I'm going to knock crush him. And then you slam him once. And then now it's like I've achieved my thing.

Now let me reduce my exposure to the risk. And now let's coast. I've already won this match. Now I'm going to keep going because now they're going to get desperate and they're going to go for crazy stuff. Right? Yeah.

So now it's like protecting yourself, seeing other openings, maybe going for it, maybe not because the goal is to beat that person, right? Right, right, right. So now you're really working the competitive side. Intensity is high. Stress is up there. You know now you're really working the competitive side intensity is high stress is up there you know you're scared you know and sometimes like you get scared you someone puts their hands

on you and then immediately you feel yourself freezing happened to me before right oh shit how is this another human being this guy is probably 40 stronger than me i'm freaking scared right are you going to be able to be you know agile acrobatic and go for stuff no because you're scared you're gonna go into stiff up like defense mode yeah now you have no offense right so now there's a mental side of the ron dory's like how why did i freeze up why did i have this i'll tell you this man one time i was at a training camp and i fought this guy from georgia or something in practice yeah He was so freaking strong when he came out. Yeah.

I was shook. I was like, he threw this arm over so hard. Bang! Right? I was like, holy shit. And I got like nailed in the face. And without missing a beat, man, he like chopped at my knees to like take me down. And then I was like, wow, this guy has zero regard for my health

and safety he doesn't want to he doesn't give a shit he wants to hurt me yeah yeah yeah so now i'm like goal has shifted from like oh doing a front of front of the front door he had a training thing or like oh trying to hold my skill or whatever break a sweat or whatever the goal was i need to not get hurt yeah right that's you're in that fear mode yeah yeah and then it's like all right how much do i give back right i don't want to cower away so i have to like at least meet him somewhere okay so i'm gonna grip hard and punch my hand in and then come out here but my goal has shifted from strategically doing this or getting in geian position and then working Georgian.

I really want to get there. I want to do Georgian position with Georgian people who are good at Georgian A and Georgian B. Yeah. But if I'm there, this guy will hurt me most likely. Right. So staying away from it, being aggressive, not getting hurt. Right. But then I found myself not attacking at all.

Right. but then I found myself not attacking at all right so the round ends and it's like what did I get out of that round and then later on I fought him again the next day or something and then that was a little

bit more different of a story because now I'm gripping and then doing Ochi because I was like I didn't really attack I'm going to go with him again I'm not going to be as because now i've processed you know what other positions that he's powerful in just stay away from those and then try ochi try this try opening him up and then i was able to do more footwork stuff and then it was kind of a good beneficial round but like there's a lot that happened there and to understand it and be introspective enough is such a big part of your growth. You know, and I think that's overlooked.

Yeah. Because to the average person, it's like you were scared. I was scared. Yeah. Why wouldn't I be scared? This guy just tried to break my leg. You know? Yeah.

Right. But now also that sharpens you for competitions because when you're in that that situation you will be able to handle it better because you've done it before and you know people think about this and oh that's what I want to do I don't want to cower away because I want to be able to step up under those conditions under that stress but like if you break a leg man you're not doing judo anymore right you know so like

I think it's a little bit overrated because the majority of people doing this as a hobby it's supposed to be a sport that you do to enhance your life. Not take away from your life with a broken leg and now you can't feed your family. You know what I mean? So like there really is no need, you know, and a lot of it is ego based. Like I'm freaking tough. I'm not going to go with anyone.

It's like, no, man. The goal is skill acquisition. get good at judo and then eventually these things will come little by little you know what i mean yeah i see yeah so that's like my main approach always to this stuff and it took me a very very long time to figure out you know yeah me too i think you helped me a lot with that. I think we've talked about this when I first showed up to KBI. I kind of had that competitive mentality. Yeah. But now, yeah, that's the thing.

I think you just have to remember. I mean, of course, if you're a professional competitor, it's a different story. But for a lot of us who are hobbyists, it's better it's better to focus on the first two skill acquisition and then sharpening of your skills rather than the competitive side yeah but and then when you get better and then you're preparing for a competition maybe you can throw in some competitive side too that yeah not necessarily like yeah trying to injure each other if every round that you do if you do 10 lindori rounds they should all look a little bit different and have a different feel yes you could have a thing of the day right you can have that but you're not going to get the same yields from a green belt round versus a black belt round you're

just not right so you have to adjust your goals just what you're looking at working for that way yeah and you know what truthfully sometimes i'll go into the practice and then i'll do as many rounds as i can just for cardio, just to burn some fat. Yeah. Because I'm prone to carrying fat in the midsection. So it's like, all right, the goal is not like show off or teach or do whatever. I have a personal goal that supersedes everyone else's goals today. Every round, I'm going to make it a cardio-based thing.

I'm just going to run and move and then sweat and burn as many calories as i can you know and then like you know some big strong dude from the dojo's a black belt george is like let's go and i'm like it's not in line with what i want to do today my goal is george is gonna try to kill me you know what i mean so it's like no i'm gonna go with that guy not going with you i'm gonna go with him and then you know so like if you use it in that way man like you know that reaps you could reap a lot of benefits from that too because you develop cardio right right and then you have a couple of times during if cardio is your weakest thing doing randori as a means to train your Rondori cardio, that's the best way to train it, right? Yeah.

So that's a different goal than developing an Uchimata or winning a match. It's strengthening cardio. That could be your goal in Rondori as well. Most dudes that go into these gyms are like, I want to get in shape. So it's like,

why are you doing Osorigari as hard as you can then right it's not going to help you achieve any of the goals that you came in here to do yeah it actually might have some adverse effect if you're if you're 100 it'll have adverse yeah because people will increase intensely you're not burning that many calories and now you're going to get hurt and now you're going to be fatter than you were before because now you can't work out yeah so it's like uh no yeah so you really have to see like what your goals are and then whether or not every randori you do is in alignment with it and the real issue is you go from uchikomi fully cooperative

to doing randori 100 so there's a huge jump in intensity right there's nothing like sort of yeah and we always talk about progressive overload progression yeah in any like real learning sport look at dance ballet right yeah i mean i know most of you guys don't do ballet but it's like you don't just do you know double tours and jumps and stuff like this you ease into it throughout the course of the practice they don't even call it practice. You do your tendus, you do your plies, you bend your knees, you stretch,

you stretch, you do this, you do this. And then little by little it increases, increases, increases. All right,

now we're going to do combinations and then you're doing the dance combinations. At the very end, it's a 90-minute lead-up to this big spectacular thing at the end of it. But in judo,

it's like uchikomi combination, nagakomi, everything's cooperative all right go kick the shit out of each other boom yeah recipe for disaster so it's like i always say you hear me hey man it's the first few rounds ease into it first five rounds are two minute pieces you heard me say this too right first five rounds are two minutes yeah short keep it light they're short and light right there's no need to get competitive break a sweat, get into it, ease into it

30% max don't finish any throws and you also do after the cooperative practice you do positional you'll have people start in positional and then semi-randor

and then ease into randori. Yes. A lot of ways. A lot of ways to go about it. And, you know, people think randori, me versus you, throw down. That shouldn't be the case because it's just too dangerous. It's just the worst. You know, I hope this shed a little bit of light on my mentality

when it comes to doing randori. Yeah. If you guys have any questions i think we please reach out yeah i think we cover a lot yeah again this topic was just by you guys you know thanks for the suggestion keep them coming and hope this uh helped reach you guys with randori which is a big part of judo and other grappling arts um very important to get it right and i think that's it on my end anything else from you nope that's it thank you guys follow us on instagram judo shintaro nyc yeah and please support yeah and please support us on patreon if you can and thanks for listening and stay tuned for the next episode