The Shintaro Higashi Show - Safe Judo Throws

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Judo with its high amplitude throws is known to be one of the more dangerous grappling arts out there. Are there any "safe" Judo throws then? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss this question in depth. 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!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk about safe judo throws. There aren't any. I'm kidding. Before we talk about safe judo throws, shout out to Levan and Jason. Again, thanks for your support. Today's episode of safe judo throws was actually a suggestion from one of our patrons, Ammon. I hope I'm saying that right but um he basically wanted to see wanted us to discuss like uh the spectrum of safe judo throws like there would be like kanibasami would be like extreme on unsafe and then well you kind of answer the question what's what would be the on the other side of the spectrum? But we'll see.

But like, for some, how to develop them, maybe some of the suggestions for novices and older people, you know, so that's what he wanted to hear. So let's dive into it. So, you know, on the side of like everyone getting injured with certain throws, right? We're talking Kani Basami. Obviously, it's illegal in judo.

Taniya Toshi. Yeah. Definitely on the side of the more dangerous. And Makekomi. Taniyotoshi and Makekomi account for so many of the Judo injuries that I've already seen in the past. And both those techniques are legal. And then

Kurei and Tsunagi was sort of one, but they banned that also. So I like it that the IJF is thinking about young people doing Judo and then protecting them. I like that idea. Even like Head Dive Uchimata is very dangerous. Not often that people get injured doing it, but when they do get injured with a head dive Uchimata, they break their neck. So it's much more severe. So all these techniques are dangerous, first and foremost.

But really what it comes down to, like on the other side, the safer side, is like the likelihood of someone going for it and then succeeding. Succeeding not in a way of actually cleanly throwing somebody, but succeeding in taking them down. For instance, Taniya Toshi, you could spam this thing and relatively knock the person down with relative success so people keep going for it.

Even when they shouldn't go for it. Yes, so then it makes it dangerous to just fall in the body right but something like the ashi barai which is very very timing oriented if you hit somebody with it cleanly they don't see it coming they don't know how to fall bang they could hit their head ahead of us right right but in the spectrum of judo of like everyone should know how to fall properly right there isn't that big of a size or a physicality difference in you versus your partner. And the likelihood of you timing this thing perfectly,

right? And the success rate of Daiashi in just general judo in the gym, right? Makes it more of a safer throw. I see. A lot of foot sweeps. Yeah. Daiashi Barai, Ko Uchigari, O Uchigari. Okay? Because you can't really spam

these things you can but like it's not gonna yeah the success rate is low if you just spam them success rate is low yes

success rate is low and then you're not throwing your body weight onto the person and also if you take into account the shape of your legs anything when you're

chopping the knees inward is very dangerous right like so if you do tanyatoshi kosorogake osorogari

right knees are going inward if you're goinganya toshi kosoro gake osorogari yeah right knees are going inward if you're going inside out ochigari kouchigari not as dangerous they actually you're bringing the legs inwards this way but you're not going by the knees you're attacking the feet and ankles right so it's less danger on the knee you see what i mean so we just say novices should learn these throws first? Because that's not really the case, right? No, I mean, everyone teaches Osorio first, which is like one of the hardest throws to actually execute.

And it's one of the most dangerous because you're chopping their leg inwards. You see what I mean? I've seen an ACL tear, you know, two years ago at the dojo with someone who went for a nasty Osorio. Oh, gosh, yeah. So I don't really suggest teaching osoto first right off the bat and that should be like a systematic thing across the board yeah you know but no one really listens everyone just kind of does what they want to do even me it's like so

easy like hey you know mechanically speaking it makes sense right yeah shift your opponent from both legs onto one leg and then you're going to take that leg out from underneath and slam him right also you use the whole body that it just kind of makes it more athletic and fun you know yes and it encompasses all the parts of like you keeping your balance while taking theirs right and there's leverage involved the balance and coordination and core stability and all this stuff and execution proper execution there's a lot of things going on that makes it a good teaching tool. For you to actually do it in practice, it takes a very long time.

Right, right. Right? And if you're spamming it, the likelihood of you taking someone down is very low. Right. Right?

And just the risks are much higher. Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of saying two different things here, but, you know, the success rate, you know?

Yeah, it's... Yeah, it's kind of a it's a subtle difference because tiny otoshi you can spam you and then because you're using your whole body success rate is relatively higher i guess yeah i think that yeah at the very least it's very it's very tempting very tempting very it's like an easy way out almost yeah and then when you're in a bad position you could use to escape that bad position you're about to get slammed right you're throwing your body onto the ground and just dragging them over this leg you know obviously when done properly

it's masterful yeah but no one does it properly in the gym you know i know you your old man judo series was very popular so did you you talk anything about safety things? Because I remember you also talked about how to slow the pace down with younger people, right? Yeah, slow them down. We talked a little bit about countering. Counter is a little bit safer, I guess. But judo is all dangerous because if you're countering someone and then you lose your balance and you land on top of the person, there's rib injuries. If the person puts their arm down, you land on top of them and then there are arm injuries.

There's just so many things that could potentially go wrong in like a fraction of a second because it's so dynamic and fast. At least with the foot sweeps, you're so far away. There's a distance. So the likelihood of you getting entangled and then landing in this like entanglement you know hard to the ground it's less like right right right so dashi is a good one for safety kind of you know of course you could miss it and go a little bit too high uh but if you teach it properly in a way where it's just timing oriented yeah you know you're not kicking the person and i think that might be maybe the safest i think yeah foot soup dashi

foot soup dashi coach yoji or right you know even ochi too it's it could be you know if a person's doing tanya toshi as you're entering ochi that could be dangerous kochi maki call me different from kochigari or kochigake right so you have to distinguish. I think actually Emin kind of mentioned that Koichi, Gari, Makekomi. Koichi, Makekomi variation, maybe that's safer. Do you agree with that? Potentially. I mean, I've never seen anyone get injured by Koichi, Makekomi. You know, knock on wood.

So I guess you could argue that. You know, that's kind of anecdotal. Yeah, Koichi, Makekomi definitely safer. Yeah. So it seems like a lot of foot sweeps like ashiwazas are safer yeah you know timing timing based ashiwaza safer heavy like physicality like full throw power throws right like throws that you could force yeah you know like a soto maki call me you could hook a soto just run yeah right or you could force. You know, like a Soto-Makikomi. You could hook a Soto, just run him. Right?

Or you could drop a Senagi and then just run your feet and then just physically run them into the ground, right? Those are physicality-based throws. Yes, there's certain aspects of timing. It's both. It's not either or. It's not mutually exclusive. Right, right. Right?

But like a pure foot sweep time. You know? Fighting for hand position, snapping down, Koji and then Deashi. Or Sasai, Koji, Deashi. Like that three shot, that Suzuki. Yeah, snapping down Koji and then Deashi. Or Sasai, Koji, Deashi. Like that three shot that Suzuki did in Japan. Like that is so clean. And if you know how to take a break fall, it's freaking safer.

That's a beautiful. Everyone should look that up, that combination. Sasai, Koji, Deashi by Suzuki. Yeah, oof. All Japan. It was like the most beautiful combination I've ever seen in judo. Will he be able to hit that exact combination? Unlikely, right?

Because there's a reactive component to each one of those pieces. Everything has to come together. Yeah, yeah. Everything has to come together perfect. So it's not something that I would chase, but it kind of shows the masterful abilities of Suzuki, you know? Keiji Suzuki. So moving on from the foot sweeps

like Ashio Azaz, then like how about more popular throws, I guess, more, your Ippon throws like Seoi Nage and Uchimata, your Haragoshi.

I think like turn throws, bigger turn throws that are more popular or even Urenage too right you can classify these throws like one legged throws and two legged throws

you know what I mean Osoragari you're on one leg Hawaii Goshi you're on one leg Uchimaru you're on one leg Sasai you're on one leg right versus like a Taiyatoshi you're on two feet

two legs Ogoshi you're on two feet Ippon Senagi you're on two feet so when you have two legs on the floor you're much more stable. So it's a little bit safer, obviously, for obvious reasons. You don't lose your balance and then fall onto the person.

You have two legs rooted. Taiyo is a little bit more dangerous because your leg is outstretched underneath your opponent. If they land on it, your knee, ankle, hip, one of those things can potentially hurt your knee. And you come in at an angle and then the person taking it, their knee can go go over your foot can get stuck yeah right so like a a general like clean ogoshi or

koshiguruma where you're just pulling and then dropping your hips underneath and lifting right with both your legs rooted to the ground that's a little bit safer i think uh but i don't even want to say it's safe because if you have somebody loaded up on your shoulder and you're about to throw them yeah kicking them trying to twist around and then you lose your balance forward and their head hits the floor you know there's a risk there right but i think because of the stability it's a little bit less dangerous so when you have two you know yeah to root it in your two feet yeah yeah i Yeah. I mean, I think maybe if you could do like a Kochi, Deashi, Ouchi, Ogoshi, Koshiguruma only

freaking judo. And that's making it a little bit systematic here, right? Yeah. Where you go Koshiguruma to the right side and Ogoshi to the left side. Right. You can go back and forth. It doesn't require you to re-grip around the waist.

Yeah, yeah. See? That could be a potentially super safe judo system that you could potentially use. right you can go back so it doesn't require you to re-grip around the waist yeah yeah see that could be a potentially super safe judo system that you could potentially use you know that could be my next youtube video actually yeah see yeah safe judo system like a brainstorming session yeah yeah so that is relatively a safe throw yeah well or system yeah a system. So now that you're thinking of making a video, maybe... So we try to classify which throws are safer and whatnot and put them on the spectrum. But ultimately, what can we do, though?

I mean, this is such a... Almost like a dead horse now. We're always talking about this. almost like a dead horse now like we're like always talking about this and we've talked about how bjj has an edge over judo in regards to safety yeah so but the reality is all of us love doing judo and we'd like to do it in a safe way so that we can do it longer with more people right so like how should we approach these throws though ultimately we have to do them i think it really does come down to my number one thing that i preach in judo it's positional advantages being in good position you know one

of my students competed in the novice division he sent me a video and you know he knows all the stuff but he was locked up 50 50, just ripping stuff and going for stuff. And they're scrambling and they're scrappy. And he thinks Sosoto's coming and he guessed right. And there's just so much stuff just going on at once. You know, it's just so risky. Too many variables. Too many variables.

You're at the mercy of the other person's athleticism. You know, so my number one thing is, like, you have to be able to throw someone with no effort, taking physicality out of the equation. Let's just say there's like Rina's 100 pounds at the dojo. She's 100 pounds, the yellow belt. If you can do judo with her and take her down safely with zero exertion, now you're getting somewhere. That's the idea. If you're getting somewhere. Right?

That's the idea. Yeah. If you can't do that, you suck. Yeah. You shouldn't be doing, you're not doing judo right. Right, right. I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't say that. It's kind of messed up.

But it's true, right? If you're reliant on physicality always, then it's always going to be dangerous. Yeah. Because there's never a guarantee that you're the strongest, fastest, most athletic person in the room. Right? So you want to be able to fight from good advantages

where the other person has no chance of throwing you. Right? Right. You're at arm's distance. You have the sleeve. You have two hands on.

They have maybe one hand on. They have no meaningful grips. They have no meaningful way of controlling your posture. Right? You're creating creating movement they're reacting and then you're breaking their posture and then you're leading into the place where you could nicely time something perfect yeah coachy whatever it is right and doing judo in that way is the most important thing i think to keep everyone safe right so you could do judo without even breaking a sweat, really. Right.

So it's almost like a dance. It's almost like a dance where you're leading the whole time. You know exactly where this person is going to be at all times. Right? And there's no surprises. Yeah. I think that's the key. Like, if you get surprised and taken down, you might get hurt, you know, because you're not ready for it.

Yeah. Or when you're locked up 50-50, you have to guess. You have to, what's coming, what's coming? Ochi coming? Osoto coming? I don't know what's going on. Is he going to go to the side? And then, you know, the more you do it

and the more you spend time in that position, the more you kind of have a feel for it, right? Most people just go for a terrible Osoto gari to try to force it, but it's very difficult to get unless they really master that technique, right? How to, the defense comes, how to adjust for it, how to feint it, how to do it with a sigh, all these things. So most people kind of guess right. But yeah, when you're in good position, there's no chance of you getting thrown at all.

That's where it's at, really. So you're not even trying to classify which throws are safe or not it's they're all they have all elements of danger yeah i mean i guess you know the ashi kochi oh she's a little bit safer right because there's a little bit more control you know obviously like drop oh she's a little bit different right even tatoshi it's like drop tile is a little bit that's always like you're slamming on your knees pretty hard you know drop tile like i've always thought it would be really dangerous and people are starting to do it with success i haven't seen anybody get severely injured from it but standing

tattoo but you know people go for it a lot less awesome right right you know there's gonna come a time when someone you know high profile breaks their leg hopefully not yeah so someone's gonna do it yeah and it's gonna show up on the internet sometime in the future and then people are gonna say hey all right you know oh it's only one time that someone injured you know but it's like how many people are actually going for it yeah it's not that common of a throw yet you know so right i don't know man it's very risky but in anyway so they're all every throw has an element of danger you know and but for sure and then the idea is to kind of manage your risk by reducing the number of variables and then the best way to do that is to walk in your grip fighting and then systemize it yeah so that you are in a good position.

You're kind of in control of the situation. Yes. I guess that's what you learn, I guess, throughout judo. Yeah, but, you know, no one focuses on it, and it's very difficult to teach. Yeah. And everyone's still teaching judo the same way that it's been taught. This is Osoto.

This is Taiyo. This is Harae. Go for it. Take each other down. They lock up 50-50, and they're just going. You know, so until we change this, really kind of, like, this is Taiyo, this is Hibari. Go for it. Take each other down. They lock up 50-50 and they're just going. So until we change this, really kind of like make this the norm, positional fighting is first and foremost. People talk about this in jiu-jitsu, right?

Control the leg first and positional first, then isolation of arm, whatever it is. Judo, it's a lot more difficult. You just don't have enough time to really establish control in here and there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I want to like be better at teaching it, I think.

How do you approach teaching that these days? I mean, positional advantage stuff, you know, like, alright, 50-50, we're going to start and we're going to try to gain position or cut the hand. Once you get position, you're going to hold it for five seconds, and then you're going to show feints and then snap them down. Right?

Okay, so. You do a lot of drills of those? Like, it's just going back and forth? I do a lot of these drills, yeah. You know what I mean? You have to, like, put it together for a kid that's going to be unbelievable to win championships, but that's not really the goal of my dojo either. Right, right.

You know what I mean? And then, you know, it's a hobby gym, as most gyms are. And maybe one day, you know, all this stuff will come together and there are going to be champions pumping out. But who knows? Maybe. I'm working on it, kind of.

You know, not really, but kind of. So do they worry about this a lot? I'm curious, it kind of you know not really but kind of so do they worry about this a lot I'm curious for my personal curiosity on the BJJ side do people worry about this a lot like the dangerous moves like submissions

you know it depends on the gym you know I did have somebody ask me at the gym today in Jiu Jitsu this morning like hey how come you don't throw everybody

someone just asked me that you know and I said to him like hey you know we're not doing like full-blown drills where people are taking break falls and taking falls consistently so if i throw somebody they could land on their shoulder they get injured yeah you know and if someone fears getting taken down hard by me they're not going to want to roll with me yeah right so that's why i try to like minimize the takedowns i let people work but i but I'll never really, like, take them down. I'm curious, though. Okay, what's the context around that question? Like, he or that person expected you to just bomb everyone, but you weren't?

No, he's just like, at the end of the class, can I ask you a question? I was like, sure. Okay. I didn't roll with him today either. He's like, why don't you just throw everybody? That's not what I'm here for. I'm here to learn and train Jiu-Jitsu.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm pulling guard and I want to work open guard stuff, you know? And if I can sweep them, I can work top stuff, right? I see. Yeah, so.

He leaves his ego out the door. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I get passes and stuff all the time, you know? Yeah. Little by little, I'm making, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I get passes and stuff all the time, you know. But little by little, I'm making, you know.

Yeah. Improvements. I'm pretty good at it. I'm learning. It's really fun to learn, man. Really fun to learn. Nice. It's the best.

So I guess it's... You gotta do it safely. You gotta do it safely. So I guess it's not as explicitly... I guess... I mean, we're talking about this because we don't really talk about this explicitly in judo either but

I guess it's a little bit of a different situation with BJJ I guess yeah yeah it's different man the positional advantage sticks a little bit better like if you pass someone's guard and you're pinning them you have all the time in the world pretty much yeah

judo like you could have like a person's collar and head yeah and they don't have yours it's gone yeah in a very short time it's gone yeah you know so i think it's very difficult to do and understand in judo it's just it's just a very tough sport i would say like to answer this guy's question, Iman. Emin. Deashi probably is the safer one, but I'm not saying it's safe. There's inherent danger in this sport.

Definitely. Ura Nagi is dangerous too. It's a scary throw, I think. Uchimata's dangerous. You can land on your shoulder. Everything's dangerous in judo man come on how about how about in wrestling like when you're going through the ranks today because I don't I wrestled in high school too and I don't remember this being like a big

point no well I think freestyle wrestling you could yeah wrap a head and then rip it and then the guy goes flying back exposure points right feet to back you know big throws rewarded great i guess folk style kind of removed that because of this yeah removes all of it so like you know take the person down riding them out you know so now it doesn't favor upper body throws because there's a risk if you miss it you, you give up your back, you get taken down, and you lose two points, right? So not a lot of guys are going for big throws unless they're down in points. Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? So a lot of guys are shooting in on the legs. It's a lot more – it's a lot safer. I mean, that's why it was changed, right? Yeah, so that's why the collegiate style is there, right? And then also there's potentially dangerous. Your shoulder is kind of crankiate style is there. And then also, there's potentially dangerous. Your shoulder's kind of cranked out a thing.

Ref will blow the whistle. Potentially dangerous. They do a restart. You know what I mean? If you lift him up, you're responsible. You can't slam him down and the guy gets injured.

Then you get DQ'd. So all these rules make it a little bit safer. High school and collegiate wrestling. I'm not talking about freestyle wrestling. I'm talking about wrestling in high school and college.

Although it is still dangerous. So I guess judo has that like you know there's some band techniques as we know and i know that's always a controversial contract controversial topic but yeah it's i mean it's a it's a hard balance i don't i'm not tough i don't you know think, man. I don't like it when people say, oh, they're ruining the sport, as if the IHF is actually trying to make judo fail. They're conspiring to make judo horrible. Why would they? They do the opposite of that.

They're like, yo, we want to be more spectator-friendly, safer, just like the best sport in the world. We want all these different eyeballs on it, and it shows. Judo Gallery has 1.2 million followers on Instagram now. Go follow Judo Gallery.

They have the best highlights now. And they finally did that right. It took them a long time, but they finally did it right. And then you've got to keep the young youth who are coming into the sport, you've got to keep those guys safe. They should ban dropseed nagis, tanyatoshis for certain age groups that make it across the board Jiu Jitsu's doing this now too

you know where's the criticism for that you know yeah I mean also it has yeah like getting the pace up

throughout the match I think Ki BJJ got that kind of criticism a lot like it was so boring to watch or something yeah 50-50 lockup they're not trying to give

points for that anymore yeah they're changing that you know good good yeah you know i yeah i remember like when when i was in college or high school trying to find judo videos man that was it was so hard it was like yeah so hard now it's like hd quality with all the different cuts and slow-mo. And like, my God. It's amazing, dude. It's great. Yeah, dude. Yeah. So much more accessible now. It's great.

They're doing a good job with this. Yeah. Anyway. So in conclusion, yeah, I mean, all judo throws, of course, they're on the spectrum, on the safety spectrum, but they can be dangerous. So the key is to focus on your position of play so that you remove as

many variables as possible. try to look at some of the rules that are being implemented as some good safety measures. I think, yeah. Anything else nope all right that's it all right thanks guys uh and we'll see you guys in the next episode