A plethora of o soto garis

This morning in Judo, we only had three people, two black belts and an experienced brown belt. I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to focus on o soto gari, and we ended up spending the whole class on it.

Bascially, we looked at every entry I could think of: the standard approach, where uke is stepping forward; with uke stepping back; where tori steps away from the leg he wants; using your leg to drive back and create a large "wave" or tsurikomi action; when uke's locking you out in jigotai; and even did a few on the left side. (I'm sure there's more we could've covered given the time). We practiced them in uchi komi fashion, loading four times and throwing on the fifth, and each one of us did that with two partners. We had some pretty good discussions about it, too.

It's a basic throw, but it's such a good throw. It often seems like, when all else fails, you can usually always snag an o soto gari, so it's nice to be able to hit it from virtually every angle. Good class.