The Shintaro Higashi Show - Seoi Nage

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Seoi Nage is probably the most iconic throw in Judo that even a person with no experience in Judo can recognize. How did it become so iconic? Is Seoi Nage for every Judoka? How can we utilize it more effectively? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter go in depth about this iconic throw. 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 Seinagi. Yeah, it's one of the most popular throws. Super popular, it's aesthetically pleasing. Exactly. You know, I think a lot of times when people think of Judo, a lot of times they think of Ippon Seinagi, you know? Yeah, they think about arm throws.

Yeah, launching the guy over your back, guy or girl, right? It's in Street Fighter fighter it's in every movie ever made yeah so if this is uh you know another edition uh edition of the uh judo throw episode so we're gonna dedicate the whole episode about seven i guess so let's get let's start with why you think what we think it's such a iconic throw in judo because it does wrestlers use it too the you know they call arm throws or various names but if you especially if you watch freestyle or greco-roman wrestling yeah they do this a lot but i mean it depends on where you're from you know what i mean if you're doing a russian style wrestling it's a lot more throws

right there's a lot more high amplitude throws because the United States has collegiate scholastic wrestling, folk style wrestling even, they call it, right? Sometimes we call it collegiate scholastic folk style wrestling, which is different from freestyling Greco-Roman wrestling. Those sports get more rewarded points for big throws, right? Big dynamic, right? So they're rewarded more for that. And collegiate wrestling, you don't get rewarded for that at all.

You get the same two points. Unless you put them to their back and you get back points. And their back points, yeah. So based on the rule set and how many points you get rewarded, it changes how the wrestling actually looks like. Right, right. Collegiate wrestling is a lot more control-based because, I think for insurance reasons too and safety reasons.

Yeah, definitely. Because you don't want a guy. Yeah, they modify it to be more safe yeah they don't want to go belly to belly suplex and then kick goes upside down and gets spiked

on their head they just don't want that right so they don't reward any points for it they have potentially dangers if you lift them you have to put them down safely

all this stuff discourages these kind of big throws right right even in collegiate wrestling they call Ippon Senagi the Jap wizard

yeah I know short for the Japanese Whizzer Whizzer yeah Yeah people used to say that You know No problem Yeah How racist does it sound

He's very good at wrestling He's a freshman In high school He's already pretty good And I was telling everyone With Ippon Senagi And they say Freshman sensation

Chintaro Higashi Jap Whizzer's everyone Ah Wait on that The local newspaper yeah that was like a real thing

in this way I was like wow that's that's messed up yeah the Japanese

like they call it the Jap Wizard yeah well I guess that's kind of I mean yeah you know

besides the whole racist name connotation to it connotation to it but you can already see that they called it

the Japanese Wizard because yeah probably from judo yeah potentially you know got attention to it but you can already see that they called it the Japanese wizard because yeah probably from judo yeah potentially you know wrestling definitely has been around longer

but you know you can never never deny like the influence that judo had on countries like Russia who has sambo which is a judo wrestling

hybrid sport yeah that's their national sport right right and a lot of these MMA fighters that come from Dagestan and Kyrgyzstan and Belarus,

those guys do more sambo than actual wrestling. Yeah, yeah. I shouldn't say Russia. Russia probably has a big wrestling program. I can't say more sambo than wrestling. I shouldn't say that, but definitely a geo-influence. Yeah, over there, it's a little fluid, too. They kind of do everything.

All right, so this is a bit about why the popularity behind Seirinage, you know, it's kind of iconic throw. And the arc of

the throw is, you know. Yeah, it is huge. It goes over, yeah. Yeah, you take the person.

If you guys never looked up Koga Highlights, K-O-G-A, go do Koga Highlights. It was the most spectacular

Seirinage. I mean, mostly Ippon Seirinage. And I'm saying Ippon Seirinage, Seirinage interchangeably. Koga Highlights, K-O-G-A. Goldu Koga Highlights, he was the most spectacular. Senagi, I mean, mostly Ippon Senagi. And I'm saying Ippon Senagi, Senagi interchangeably because they're very similar throws. They're both hand techniques. Yeah. There's three types of throws, right? Hand techniques, hip techniques, foot techniques. Right.

And then sacrifice techniques, but we don't want to disregard that for now, right? Yeah. All right, so not only is it popular, it seems like it is very, but also it's very effective in competition settings too. Like it's kind of, maybe that's why it's one of the most popular throws. Not only does it look good, but also it is effective. So what's the opinion is behind its effectiveness?

Well, so you're throwing your whole body into it, you know? So there's a lot of turning, like centripetal force, fast twitch, turning, ripping the technique. And then there's also a dropping component too. You could do it high or you could do a drop senagi. Or some people might say seoi otoshi, shoulder drop. That's almost almost Reddit goes crazy with this one it's almost as popular

as the uchimata versus hanagoshi argument yeah yeah you know seoi otoshi versus drop seiragi you know

it's just a different throw but we're all bundling the seoi nage thing you know I like to teach the kids to call it the backpack so you're putting on the backpack whether it's like you hold, I like to teach the kids to call it the backpack throw. You're putting on a backpack,

right? Whether it's like you hold the backpack like this or with one arm. It's a backpack throw. You can do it high. You can do it low.

When you're doing it low, you could run your feet. It literally means in Japanese like a piggyback throw, right? Yes. Seoi was like

put on the back, you know, so it's considered like a lifting throw. Yeah. And, you know? So it's considered like a lifting throw. Yeah. And, you know, you can put your legs into it. There's definitely a criticism of like, if you miss it, you give up your back, right?

Yes. But a lot of these judo throws, there's that learning curve, you know? Yes, you miss it, you go to your back, give up your back. But if it's done really explosively, you know, with the right timing, with the right movement, with the right execution, the right finish, it's very, very effective.

There's lots of ways to enter, lots of ways to finish, you know? So the combination of that, you know, like the, how you set it up, you know, in conjunction with a lot of different backwards techniques, right? So coaching, snap, moving, circling, cutting that angle, whipping them around your back. You go high Seinagi, then you go low Seinagi, you go Ippon Seinagi with one-handed. As you're losing, you go to the other side, like the weak side. I'll tell you this, man. I was fighting Ariel Zevi.

He was a European champ from Israel back in the day. He's a big, big, big dude. He would come out as a righty, and I would outgrip him as a righty, which is nuts, right? He's, like, so much bigger than me and stuff. And then he would be like, oh, no, I'm being outgripped.

And he'll switch to this, like, really weak inside left, and he'll, like, cower away. And he would do a drop left to Morote Sanagi. Oof. Yeah, and he caught me with that pretty good. And it was like, whoa, you know? He's tall, right-sided, high right hand, dominant, like, big turn throw.

I didn't expect that from him. And then he did like a very, you know. Sneaky left side. Sneaky drop left, you know, and it was so nice. It was so good, you know. So like a lot of different body types can do it. Yeah. Tall guys, short guys.

A lot of people think that, you know, seven nuggets is usually for shorter people. But heavyweight, you know, say, and I guess for usually for shorter people, but heavyweight, I guess, relatively speaking, they, they'll be shorter people between heavyweights, but still like,

even tall people go for it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even like in a way it was very good at it. You know, he goes like, hi,

he like, as he's coming out, he dropped and goes underneath. Yeah. And this is the beauty of saying, are you right? Like just to kind of go with the question that you asked why is so effective marote senai you have two hands on the

collar right and you're like pulling them towards you and then you're dropping underneath them and then using your hand to like run them right so you're creating momentum forward you're diving under their arms and their hips all balanced and then you're going to drive them in the direction that you they have momentum and then you get to use drive them in the direction that you, they have momentum. And then you get to use your legs to run it. Right. So it's a very effective throw. I hate,

you know, the spamming drop, San Agi sort of guys do that. They just drop and drop and drop and try to force penalties. Right. Like, Hey, other persons pass it. I said like,

she don't, she don't write, but it's an art to it. You know, there's reverse Korean San Agi. That was a whole thing. That's now banned's an art to it you know there's reverse korean sanagi that was a whole thing that's now banned sorry korea you know that was yeah there was some crazy variation on it but yeah i think that the versatility and then the fact that it's so it uses the whole body it it you can really put everything behind us if you want to get a throw in

that's a way to do it you have to use the whole body and then actually using the it is a hand throw but the finish comes from your legs so I guess you're using the biggest muscles in your body it's really amazing

based on the high low so think of it this way you got Marute Senagi with your two hands, Ippon Senagi, which uses one hand. You have the drop series. So you could do drop Marote, drop Ippon Senagi. Okay, and then you got the cousins of those guys, which is Sode.

You go Sode both ways. Right. So now you could enter Sode high to the left. You could go Ippon Senagi high to the weak side, left, right, brush, right. You could do the same techniques drop to the left. You can do the same techniques to the right. Right.

I know. You can do it off wrong side collar and sleeve, right. Which is like the traditional Sode grip. And you can do double sleeve. Right. Like there's just so many different combinations. It's like, you know, and then you mix it, match it with Kochi or what you did. You got like, you know, like 47 different techniques that are off as one, you know, dropping under the person sort of a situation.

You know, and you could drop high, drop low. You could play with their feet and the inside of the legs, coachy-oachy. Boy, does that, you know, really change the game, right? If you know how to use it properly. So, yeah, that leads to the next question. How do you learn to use it properly this is is it um i think it's one of the first throws like front throws you yeah learn as a judoka but i feel like there's it's not the easiest throw to learn as a beginner you know not as intuitive um So how do you teach it nowadays?

You know, how would you recommend people to try to learn it? Yeah. So I think the biggest mistake is like they show the shape of the move. Hey, facing each other upright, right versus right collar sleeve. You open the hand, you drop underneath,

and then you bend your knees and you throw over. I've never seen anyone throw anyone like that. Yeah. If you can't do that, you can't progress to the next stage, obviously. Right. But spending too much time doing a thousand what you call me, a thousand two-person what you call me, three-person what you call me, not going. There's sort of like a point of diminishing return. Exactly.

Right. You nailed it. Right. So I would say like contextually, like a lot of moving what you call me, but like in combination, contextual. Right. You nailed it. Right. So I would say like contextually, like a lot of moving, which you call me, but like in combination, contextual. Right. So it's like, how do you free up this right hand? How do you free up this left hand?

You know, if you guys want sort of visual how to on this, you could go to YouTube and type Seinagi Shintaro Higashi. There's tons of resources out there for free. There is a Seinagi, drop Seinagi tutorial that you could purchase on ChitoreHigashi.com. But honestly, man, it's $10. There's so much on YouTube for free. Just freaking watch that. You know what I mean?

So... He goes into... I watched that, and he goes into a lot of details about... So like bringing up the sleeve. What are the main resistance points that you're going to get when you're trying to do this throw? Yeah. You know, if they're hands high on the collar, then you can't turn the head. So you have to address that, right?

If they're pinning this elbow to your hip, then you can't turn in. So like you have to address that. How do you address it? You do these types of things, right? And generally, if you want to do those things and you're looking for those things, the other person knows you're looking for those things. So you have to do meaningful feints and threats to destabilize them i might try to do a sanai but i'm gonna go coachy and i kick the shit out of their leg right yeah how you know and then you free one arm and now you're able to drop underneath right so it's like playing that game of like hey destabilizing your

opponent's stance moving them meaningfully and then attacking their feet and then setting up the throw to where they don't see it coming. Yeah. And the last bit of it is just the execution of actually doing the throw, which most people spend way too much time doing. Right. And then once they get in, there's the finish. How do you finish it based on what reaction? If they scoot their hips to the outside, you have to run it in a different way.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And a lot of people just kind of drop and then do an ab curl and hope that they go over. That only works if the off balance was perfect and the timing was perfect. They're like hovering over you. They're about to chip over you anyway. You know, it isn't the right finish. You know what I mean?

Do you see guys doing that? Yes. Because timing was perfect. Now that's all they could do. But a lot of times timing isn't perfect. They see it coming, they try to defend it. That's when you need to know

how to drive forward and run it or switch to something else. Somebody just did this to the Worlds or something like this or the Grand Prix. You know,

someone dropped in Nippon Senai, literally lifted and then they stood up with the person and then dove forward and did it. Oh yeah,

I saw that throw. Beautiful. Super cool. You guys gotta go Judo Gallery on Instagram. It has like all, it's like their new IJF thing where they're taking clips from judotv.com, which is like

another great thing that they're doing, showcasing judo. You can watch individual matches of all the major tournaments. Super professionally done, you know? We talked about that episode, yeah? Yeah, so, yeah, that's sort of my tip. You know, you got to learn contextual drill, right?

You can't just learn the techniques. It's like boxing, right? You can't just learn a jab and cross and hook and uppercut. And now all of a sudden you're a boxer. How does it work with feints? How does it work with defensive maneuvers? How do you strengthen that? How do you make the person think you're going to go for something?

How do you manage distance, right? Yeah. Grip fighting is a piece on this, right? Because if you're doing Ippon Senagi, you have to have one hand on and then the other hand has to be free. You know, so how do you get to that position? There's many different ways to enter that

sort of Ippon Senagi precursor motions, you know, that are very requirements. You're going to learn all this stuff on my YouTube. The whole thing is my YouTube. Like, share, and subscribe. That's right. And the podcast too. Now let's go into a little more

I guess it might be more nuanced questions. I used to be a big Seoi Nage guy. I used to spam that thing. Left, right, right, left, everywhere. And I would do the drop style because I rely heavily on my speed. And now, my knees are giving out.

I can't do it as much anymore. So, you know, Shintaro knows that I've changed my style and whatnot, but I feel like this is a common question. And we talked about old guys, Judo, too. People who start late, they can't do it as much, the drop techniques. Any advice on this?

Should they look for another throw or is there something they can do? Is there something they can do to mitigate this issue? Yeah. I mean, standing Tsunagi, which is much harder to hit, you know, but everyone kind of puts it in their own head and they put limits on themselves by saying like, oh, I have to be really, really fast in order to do this. But majority of the time it has nothing to do with speed. You know, a lot of the times it has something to do with, if I'm turning to my left over

here, right, to right side Ippon Seidagi, they bring that right leg back and bring it forward and then pivot off of that. You know, so you're taking yourself one step back. Right. So having your right leg forward first and then pivoting, like it's sort of like, you know, split step Ippon Seidagi. Having that kind of a thing. Right.

Having the right setup for that. You know, having like that hand controlled and your hand beaten to the inside already and controlling

that inside space and then working it. You know, these kinds of things are very important, right? Because it kind of takes speed

out of the factor. You know? I mean, it doesn't take it out, but it just shortens the distance. Yeah, you don't need to be nearly as fast. Yeah, because it just shortens yeah you don't you don't need to be

nearly as fast yeah because it just shortens the distance of the throw you know so working on that they can potentially help you know

looking for a specific time like if you outgrip the person and then you have their sleeve and they're trying to cut that sleeve hair cut that sleeve hair like ripping it away

ripping it away and then on the third try like letting them rip the hand away right but now you have one hand on the collar so, like letting them rip the hand away. Right? So now you have one hand on the collar. So now you can go

throw it to the weak side, he calls it agi. As they're bringing that hand back to put their hand on the collar, you go right in, you know? So something like that, which is a little bit more nuanced timing-based sort of a thing. You know what I mean? Or even like getting really, really good at kochi-ochi.

So kochi-ochi, kochi-ochi, like dragging him forward, make it look like Tienagi, make it look like Tienagi. So you're throwing, you're spamming feint. Yeah, yeah. Right? And Takato, I just saw a video of him doing kochi out of little kid. Oh, just like for fun. Yeah, yeah.

But he's like moving this way, moving that way. Looks like Kosoro, looks like Tienagi, looks like Kosoro. Looks like Uchimata. What's coming? And then he just tips him over with a kochi, right? So it's kind of like that. The more feints you throw in for Sanagi, the more reactions you could get, the better for the back throws, ochi, kochi. And once you start spamming those and hitting people with it, now every time you make it look like you're going to go for Sanagi, they're less likely to react. And then maybe you

could do it once or twice in the round, which kind of preserves your knees a little bit. There's a big difference between doing senai, drop senai 10 times in a round versus me doing it once or twice. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I went to Kano Martial Arts Open, Matt. Oh, yeah. My other dojo. Our friend was there. The Rondorian you know, our friend was there, right? Yeah. The Rondorian. Drop Senagi was there, so I hit it once. Yeah.

The whole open mat, I hit Drop Senagi one time. You know what I mean? And so it was fine. Right. You were fine. Yeah. And my left knee is the one that's bothering me now, the one I can't close all the way.

Oh, yeah. So you could see in that video that my left knee extended away right so i'm not putting all my weight on my left knee i'm putting all my weight on my right you know and that's by design you know right so that so you're like it's a right-sided serenade and then you open up your left knee and then driving right yes yeah so it didn't compress my knee in the way that it normally would, you know? But it takes really, really good awareness and knowledge of the throws

to be able to protect your knees in the way that you know it hurts, right? So that takes a long time. It takes a really good teacher and a coach and you have an understanding of all the different types. That's a tough one to do, but, you know,

I'm freaking really great at this. Well, I can personally attest to this so I mean you know I used to be like that guy like you know Seoi Nage I'll try 10 times and then a couple of things that really helped was

one is you know setting it up really nicely so I only use it now as like a finisher like I'll go through my chain of all the throws and then i know that i can really finish the serenade because it's my tokui waza yeah so i'll like do it only at the end so i don't hit it as often another thing is the point about you you it's in one of your videos but opening up your hip so i used to rely on my speed and then just drop underneath

and then all my weight would be just like, boom, would go on my knees. It's a lot of impact. But then if you do the thing that Shintaro talks about where you drop but then immediately you shift your hips so that you can start running.

I found that it lessens the impact on your knees significantly. Yes, for sure. Yeah, because you're kind of like bouncing off the floor instead of like putting all your weight on your knees and then stopping. Yeah. The worst is this. When you drop into your knees like you just said, and the person's weight drops down on

top of that, that messes your knees, anyone's knees up, really. Especially if you can't compress your knees all the way in flexion, which my knees can't do that. So if I drop to both knees with my ankles flat and someone sprawls on me, I'm going to be messed up. So I very much so pick and choose when I enter. And I only enter with absolute certainty, just so I don't get caught in that sort of a situation.

Right, right, right. Most guys won't try to sprawl anyway. They try to sprawl outside and away. So you're not really trying to put all their weight on you. Right. Because then you're sort of underneath them and then you get potentially run over, right? Yeah, yeah. If you just sprawl straight along, you can still get thrown.

Yeah. And you know, you do something really good. Like you go right side versus left side. High lefty ponce nage, osorogari into a drop lefty ponce nage. What a freak combination that is that only I ever saw you do I saw how

yeah made that happen it was just yeah but it works and you know what it works because right versus left you're looking for that sleeve you're looking for that sleeve

yeah no one it's like a Ippon Senai Osoro hybrid that you go for right yeah sometimes you go

Ippon Senai first and then you switch Osoro and you're chopping at the knee and you go Ippon Senagi first and then you switch Osoro and you're chopping at the knee and, you know, pretty risky there, right? People get freaked out. And then you go back to the drop Senagi and run it. So, like, it's a very difficult thing to do, you know?

You do a really good job. I'm telling you, I've never seen anyone do it. Oh, wow, really? Yeah. And that's the beauty, right? A guy, you know, like, you can fucking do it so good and then somebody copies it, somebody copies it, and eventually it's out there, right? A guy, you know, like you can fucking do it so good. And then somebody copies it, somebody copies it. Eventually it's out there, right? It'll be perfected even more. Yeah.

Yeah. But I've never seen anyone actually do that specific combination, you know? So, you know, you should be proud of it, you know? Yeah. Maybe there's a PDU system on YouTube somewhere. Have I ever done that? No. We tried to do it, but I didn't have any no we tried to do it but I didn't

have any clue on how to describe it so we did a video on the one handed Tayotoshi but one of the Randori videos you explained that because I hit it on

someone oh there's another Peter Yu out there this is you know this? Oh, no, this is you. Oh, this is you. Yeah, someone posted a video of you doing... What are you doing, Lefty Ponce and Left Tayo? That's you. You posted that.

No, this is not me. What? Liberty Bell 2013, fight one. Oh, that was a long time ago. Did you go over to try? Is this you? I can't even tell, man. Sometimes.

There was another Peter Yu on YouTube. Really? He does judo, but it's not me. He's older than me. Yeah. Yeah, so that's a wonderful system, you know, and think of it this way, right? It's like the weak side Ippon Senai high.

Yeah. Weak side Osoto off of Ippon Senai, which not a lot of people do. You know, Fonseca does it pretty good, you know? But he does it all for Sode, right? Yeah, yeah. And then you go back to the drop left and you run it perfect.

You know exactly how to finish it, so. Yeah. That took a long time. I mean, you know, Shintaro showed me how to run it and that, it's a different feeling, like, because a lot of times you do kind of cheap by just, like, crunching down, but that's not what you want to do.

Dude, is this you? Let's see. What did you send me? I'm pretty sure it's that. Oh, that is me. Who's MFT you say? Who is that? I got pinned in this match.

Oh, it's Mike Toussaint. You know Mike Toussaint? Yeah. Yeah, he is a New Jersey Philly local guy that I used to train all the time together in college I got

over on the past here oh there's oh wow this is a good one you just threw somebody drops an eye

wait this one oh wait I what happened here there's a triangle of him here's this here's another one that you didn't it's got 64 views too dude Wait, I... What happened there? There's a triangle up there. Here's another one that you didn't... It's got 64 views too, dude.

I'm going to comment on it. Yeah, Peter. Sure. It was a long time ago. Back in the day. Oh, yeah. 2013. This is KBI Judo.

KBI Judo Superfights. Remember that? Oh, man. Yep. There's a whole production. You don't do that anymore? I haven't done that in a while. One-handed tatoshi. Yeah. Well,

yeah, I mean, there's some goodies on my old Seoi Nage videos on YouTube if you guys want to check it out. Not that it's any good. But, yeah. Anything else about Serenade? I'm going down the rabbit

oh there's a Peter Judo he's another Korean dude also oh interestingly enough he looks Korean he's a behavioral scientist interesting

yeah that's yeah I think that's a different Peter Yu different Peter Yu I'm not a behavioral scientist if you're Peter Yu you're pretty nerdy huh

kind of comes with the name I I guess. He's a judo guy? No, they're not even looking at judo. Anyway. No, it is judo. It's Pete Judo. He's a YouTuber, too.

Oh, I'm going to have to collaborate. All right. Anyway. Yeah, so thank you guys for listening. Very popular throw, Seimei Nage. to collaborate. All right. Anyway. Yeah. So thank you guys for listening. Very popular throw Seoi Nage.

Very versatile. Highly effective. You see, if you watch a lot of the highlights, a lot of them are Seoi Nages. I'm going to give

advice to the people who are listening. Yeah. Just doing Uchikomi and Nagakomi, it's not going to be enough for you to hit this

in Rondori there's a lot of nuance to this setting it up finishing it properly making it look like you're going for something else

you know so you just have to watch my yeah that's he does go in depth with all of this stuff so yeah please check it out

yep alright that's about it for today and we'll see you guys in the next episode