The Shintaro Higashi Show - Rethinking Judo Basics

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

In this solo episode, Shintaro dives deep into the core principles of judo instruction. Challenging traditional methods, Shintaro advocates for a fundamental shift in teaching judo, emphasizing the importance of context, positional understanding, and movement over static drills. Drawing comparisons with wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Shintaro shares insights on how to build a more effective and engaging learning environment for beginners. Whether you're a seasoned judoka or new to the mat, this episode offers a fresh perspective on mastering the basics. (00:00:00) Introduction to Judo Basics (00:01:20) Rethinking Traditional Teaching Methods (00:02:36) Comparisons with Wrestling and BJJ (00:04:53) Structuring Judo Teaching Sessions (00:10:33) How a Fundamental Judo Program Should Be Structured Judo Basics By Shintaro Higashi (BJJ Fanatics): https://bjjfanatics.com/products/judo-basics-shintaro-hagashi Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Any amount helps! 10% off Judotv.com with promo code: SHINTARO Buy one get one free www.clnwash.com with promo code: SHINTARO2024

right versus right easy collar sleeve no advantages let's gain a little bit of a hand position here this is winning this is losing this is winning this is losing fake turn throw tanya toshi angle step so that's like three or four different steps and now you could use all those things right to kind of start really creating angles by misdirecting and if they can't do something if a majority of class can't do something that's direct feedback and then you can kind of bring it in. Let's try something a little bit different. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today, I want to talk a little bit about judo basics. As you can see, today's a solo episode. It's just going to be me. Peter's kind of on another little vacation. He's living his best

hot boy summer. So it's just you and me, guys. All right. Anyway, I want to talk a little bit about judo basics. I was having a conversation with Brian Glick about basics in judo and how to approach it. And most people just kind of teach Osorigari right off the rip. And I've always been kind of opposed to the idea where you're teaching techniques independently and individually.

You teach an Osorigari outside trip, teach an Ochigari inside trip, you teach an arm throw Ippon Senagi, and now all of a sudden you're drilling it, you're drilling it, you learn a little bit of break falls, it's like, go try it. There is no way that that person, unless they're a super athlete, that can execute this right off the bat in a training session in a safe way. So I am so against this idea of teaching a couple of techniques, teaching some breakfalls and letting everyone sort of add it, even though it's the standard in which every single sensei has done it over the last decade and a half, two, three, four, five decades. done it over the last decade and a half, two, three, four, five decades. I think we really, really need to think the fundamentals, rethink the fundamentals in sort of the most pedagogically efficient way. My suggestion with this whole thing, and if you watch my YouTube channel, you probably already know, like I'm very much so about context of setting up the techniques, hand positioning, what's winning, what's losing, all this stuff. And so as opposed to showing one or two techniques and then doing that, I sort of think that, yes, you have to teach breakfalls. You have to teach one or two moves.

But majority of the first class is about understanding winning and losing position i was kind of thinking about this deep diving into like all right how do we kind of do this and i was trying to think what wrestling does brazilian jiu-jitsu does even ballet right because any sort of movement-based sport, sort of, which has like a learning and teaching component, right, it's been around for a long time, and then every single industry does it a little bit differently. So I remember when I was wrestling, you know, US wrestling has been around forever, and it's kind of been like, it's pretty complete, you know, so what they would do is teach you how to do a drop step, which is like a double leg,

the basic mechanics of shooting on somebody's leg. You will drill it a few times. But majority of the practice, what they're focusing on is stance and motion. So getting in a stance, moving in a stance, and then try to take the person out of position. So I go hand fighting, take the person out of their stance and out of their motion, and you're creating that motion. And then you're trying to shoot a couple of shots. So it's like stance in motion, everyone, hand fighting, set up your shots, and then shoot. Set up your shots and shoot. Stance in motion,

stance in motion, right? And then you learn some defensive maneuvers, which is like a sprawl. And then, you know, now all of a sudden you're kind of like chaining these things together. But what wrestling has in a learning setting, which is a luxury over judo, is when you wrestle in a high school, you have every single day you're training for two or three hours during that season. So you have a very, very concentrated amount of time where you kind of really deep dive and focus and then chain one day to another. And as opposed to like, if you're an average judo guy coming into a dojo, you're doing one or two hour sessions scattered over, you know, twice a week, once a week. I missed this week because my dog got sick, whatever. You know what I mean? So, okay. So that's wrestling. If you look at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and groundwork, they don't just teach the armbar mechanics or choking mechanics.

That would be the equivalent of just teaching on a Sotogari. They teach sort of, okay, you're inside closed guard, how to open closed guard. That's one thing. And then you put the knee cut and then you pass. And now you're in side control. Then you go for the underhook and you go for Jiu-Jitsu. So they're kind of teaching sort of a sequence,

how to get to a better position. And then they're teaching a technique to finish, a finishing technique, like an armbar, right? So at least it's a little bit better, you know? So the way I like to kind of structure a teaching session is, okay, you're 50-50. You roll the shoulders, gain hand position. You want to go directly into attack,

but you really can't. So you want to break their posture attack but you really can't so you want to break their posture by pulling their head down head comes up inside trip now all of a sudden there's a reaction i'm going for an osotogare so not only am i teaching one or two techniques i'm teaching sort of position getting to a better position setting up the move and then chaining two techniques together and any beginner could kind of do this, right? So I think truly that is a much better way. And then you can kind of just have many of these linear patterns.

For instance, like 50-50 right versus left, right versus right. Koichi cut the hand. Now you're in dominant position. He tries to return the hand to the collar i go drop sanagi okay or seotoshi so now it's like yes we talked about 50 50 position we talk about gaining position off a failed attack and then we're going for an action reaction based attack where the action is cutting the hand off the reaction is trying to put the hand back on

and then the throw itself the technique is seotoshi you know so if you look at it this way there's so many different components to train independently right that positional stuff the setting up the actual attack and then all of a sudden you have to show the defense and then how to overcome that defense whether it's anticipating that reaction and then attacking it or getting that reaction and then adjusting it you know so i think most people when they're teaching basics they teach the technique and then they teach maybe the uchikomi portion of the drilling portion but it's very static it's a static drilling portion which i think is very very not as useful as people think they're not a lot of good roi there on the time. And then they do some throws on the crash map.

But it's a very, very small segment of an overall picture, right? You have to understand like position, getting there, action, reaction, how to finish these techniques. Even like attacking inside trip, when you learn it from a moving position, whether you're moving one direction forward or whether you're moving back

and then catching that leg as it comes towards you, those are two different maneuvers. And when you're just doing the inside trip statically, you're not going to be able to develop this kind of a skill unless you're already a great athlete. You're just super coordinated. You're super balanced. You're just bigger and stronger than everyone. You have more reach. Now, all of a sudden, it doesn't matter. You know, and then you see those guys succeed in a room where it's not being taught properly. And then you sort of have like, oh, it works for that guy.

It should work for everybody else. That's really not a good metric, I think, you know, of a good teacher. You know, I think you really kind of have to think of the different ways things are taught and you got to kind of find the best approach and you know i think this is it you know what i mean so i think we really should kind of rethink a lot of the basics i just did a video on youtube if you guys already haven't been subscribed to my YouTube channel, please like and subscribe the videos. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, please do that as well. Yeah, I just did a video about creating angles as a concept. And it's like one step to the right, two steps to the left, one step to the left, two steps to the right. Back step, fake step, fake turn throw,

Taniyatoshi angle step. So that's like three or four different steps. And now you could use all those things, right? To kind of start really creating angles by misdirecting. You know, because there's like, oh, create an angle. You just step to the side and now you've created an angle. It doesn't really work like that because they're also gonna angle off and then face face you right so you got to like trick them in

order to get to the flank position how do you do that gain a reaction right how do you gain a reaction you fake a throw and then you angle off to one direction and then you could attack cross body assault or something like this so i made a video about this obviously you can't be doing all these maneuvers in losing position because you're going to get bombed. Even 50-50 position is risky. So you have to be in winning position to start creating these movements and angles. It's a very technical kind of podcast today. So I made a video.

It's super easy to understand. It's free. It's on YouTube. Go check it out. And I think that may be one of the best fundamental maneuvers. And then I was trying to teach it, right? And at first it's like, whoa, there's too many steps, but you break it down. And within a 45 minute class or an hour class, I was able to teach a majority of the beginners in the room, maybe like 70% of the

people in the room. and they all looked like international level athletes international level judoka and this is completely without any attacks being made so like with the absence of any technique i didn't show any osoto tai toshi harai just getting to some of these flank positions using angling and stats and feints and things like this they look like legitimate players and thenints and things like this they look like legitimate players and then when you get to a certain position like hey when you're here try an asura try an ouchi try a sasai and now all of a sudden the setups are so good that the actual attack itself is not as good but they have more shots at it and then little by little it's going

to start working, right? It's much more difficult to go static 50-50, person-resistant, trying to throw us aside. It just doesn't feel right. You know what I mean? So I think the basic fundamental program should be something like breakfalls first and foremost, right? But, you know, it's kind of hard to kind of teach breakfalls.

And like you hear these guys say, oh, break falls for six months for beginners. I'm kind of completely against that, you know, because beginners in the room should not be getting thrown, period. Therefore, not really that much of a need. You know what I mean? Obviously, a little bit of break falls go a long way, but it shouldn't be the bulk of the class. a little bit of breakfalls go a long way, but it shouldn't be the bulk of the class. The way I like to teach breakfalls now is sort of in passing

at the end of a class as part of the conditioning. Did you guys hear that? That's a big piece of information. In passing at the end of the class as part of their conditioning. All right, guys, everyone spread out. There's five minutes left.

We're doing breakfalls. We're going 20 in a row. Ichi, ni, san. They're falling down, breakfall. Falling down, breakfall. That's very tiring. That's partial conditioning, partial skill development, right?

Obviously, you have to like kind of gauge the room and see who's capable of this. And you want to make sure if you're doing side breakfalls, you're not running into each other. So you've got to have those safety measures in place, but it's not the bulk of it. Okay. So I do breakfalls at the very end. I give like a little two minute speech about breakfall. Like, all right, guys, talk to Chad, head doesn't touch. You don't want to land on your hand or your elbow because you hurt your shoulder. It's not whether

you're falling, but it's when you're falling and someone's landing on top of you or adding acceleration or adding force, that's when your shoulders are going to blow out, okay? So just relax your body. Always protect your head, all right? Sit, roll, slap, tuck the chin, okay? Everyone spread out, ready, set, go. You know, that kind of a thing. All right, beginners. Right versus right, easy. Collar sleeve, no advantages. Let's gain a little bit of a hand position here okay hand position here this is winning this is losing this is winning this is losing okay a lot of ways to get there most guys are not gonna let you just gain a dominant position but let's just gain position here so you feel the winning position why is it winning i could pull

his head down he can't pull my head down. I control the collar better than he controls my collar because I'm shucking this hand down. Okay. Now from here, we're going to take these three different types of steps and then you're going to go and mix it. Okay. One person goes for two minutes. Other person goes for two minutes. The goal is just to create an angle. No one go for throws. Other person goes for two minutes. The goal is just to create an angle. No one go for throws, okay? And then after that, all of a sudden,

you pepper in some throws. When I angle off here, I could go for a Sasai. When I angle off here, I could go for an Osoto. Don't chop at the knee. The legs, when you encounter your opponent's legs, they should just touch. Most of your movement happens up here, right? The throws happen with your hands.

So the legs just makes the shape and touches create movement touch the outside leg create movement touch for the society create movement snap down touch the inside of the leg with your ochi we're going to talk about finishes later okay guys we're going to do some nagakomi now lower belts only low impact throws inside trip tuck the chin relax your body and break fall okay so now all of a sudden they're able to make the steps and the shapes of the throws already they can create movement and do it with another partner and then during that time some people are very rigid and stiff so you could call those guys out and say hey relax your body stop trying to force a reaction. Just be as natural as possible.

Give the least amount of reaction you can. Like you're walking on the beach. If he pulls you, let him pull you. Just be relaxed so he could try his techniques out on you. Okay? So now all of a sudden, you have a Nage Komi portion. You're moving a lot. You have more shots. Okay, one person offensive for three shots okay one person offensive for three minutes other

person offensive for three minutes okay what happens when we fall inside trip they fall to the butt you pass this is yoko shigetame if they turn into you you could go for a juji and then you explain like in competition judo you'll keep them there but for overall grappling you need to learn an armbar from the side position. Let's do this juji from the side. So now all of a sudden, you have a transitional thing. It continues to the ground. You're moving the whole time. And the instruction is very limited.

It's two to three minute chunks. All right, guys, bring it in. Two to three minute chunks. Go do it. All right, guys, bring it in. Two to three minute chunks. Go do it. So you have a very good flow of the class, and they're always moving, always engaged.

And if they can't do something, if a majority of the class can't do something, that's direct feedback. And then you can kind of bring it in, let's try something a little bit different, right? So it really is sort of like a conversational learning style. And then at the very end, you do a little Nehwaza, you do a little conditioning, like I said, the Ukemi stuff. Now all of a sudden, you went for an hour

and you're constantly moving. So it's kind of like doing low-intensity interval training. Low-intensity? Low-intensity... Yeah, LIS cardio. Let me look up LIS cardio. What does that even look like?

LIS cardio. Let me look up LIS cardio. What does that even look like? LIS cardio. Low intensity, steady state. That's what I meant to say. Low intensity, steady state cardio. Yes. So I like to structure a beginner class that way. I think we really have to rethink the fundamentals of judo from a teaching perspective.

Because just teaching, you know, this is like a commercial gym we're talking about here, right? Commercial gym. You know, teaching the Gokyo, teaching Taiyo by itself, teaching Uchimata by itself, I think is very inefficient. You know, and I think you lose a lot of people because there's a big gap from when you learn those independent techniques to trying to do those techniques in a live setting. They just don't work because you have no understanding

of how to finish the throw. You don't understand how to enter the different types of entries, how to set those things up, misdirect them, make it look like you're going to go for something else. And these skills kind of happen from restricting the opponent's movement

and then the hand position and the creating the angles all this stuff you know all right thank you very much to our sponsors jason levon joe thank you very much you guys too can sponsor us through patreon judo tv.com discount coaching taro watch some great international judo and also higashibrand.com for all the coolest new merch we're gonna have belts on there soon we have gi shorts gi pants with pockets we have gis now gis higashi brand gis um please do go check it out all right back to me rambling about judo basics all right judo basics i sort of attempted to do some of this stuff on the judo basics judo fanatics video so you guys can kind of do it i really didn't want to just do ochi osoto tatoshi I talk a lot about position and then you gotta be able to teach right versus right

right versus left so that is that, if you have any questions leave it in the comments I'll do my best to respond I'm making more of an attempt now to be a little bit more connected to the community

so please leave it in the comments I will read it. Thank you very much for listening. Please make sure you follow the podcast. See you next week.