Northern Wind

Sooo, some of you may have seen the recent fight between Ronda Rousey and Alexis Davis.  If you haven't, you can watch it in it's entirely below. Don't worry—it will only take 16 seconds. In the judo world, Ms. Rousey has served as something of an evangelist of the art (not so much in word as in deed), dominating her competition with trademark judo techniques, from hip throws to her bread-and-butter submission, juji gatame. Case in point: during this particular bought, she makes very quite use of ogoshi straight to kesa gatame to end it before she can even manage to break a sweat. Which is great. Hurray for judo, and all that. Here's the thing. This example actually troubles me a bit. As long as your interest in judo is solely sport-oriented, then never mind, you probably needn't concern yourself. But if you look at judo in any measure as a viable form of "self defense" you may be in for a rude awakening—or, get put to sleep as the case may be....

If uke refuses to move, load weight into his leg. Root it like a tree, then cut it down. If he moves, extend his step.  Clear the foot as if sweeping away the leaves.    Osoto gari & Kosoto gari You can reap his leg from the outside, with either a large or small reap. Ouchi gari & Kouchi gari You can also reap his leg from the inside, with either a large or small reap. . . . . . . . Osoto barai & Kouchi barai You can sweep his leg from the outside, with either a large or small sweep. Ouchi barai & Kouchi barai You can also sweep his leg from the inside, with either a large or small sweep. . . . . . . . The idea of treating a "gari" throw like a "barai" might be unusual in the judo world. But they're definitely worth exploring. It all depends on whether he has weight already on the leg, or if it's weightless. Learn to take advantage of both situations, this yin and yang. Then learn t...

Just thought I'd share this image I recently came across. I think it's kind of funny how everyone is working so close to each other and how one or two gentleman are wearing kimono and hakama. (Click to enlarge.)

I will be the first to admit that it's often a lot easier to refer to a technique or kata by it's corresponding number. "Number 3" is just easier and comfortable for an non-Japanese speaker to say than "Gyakugamae ate", and it's also a lot easier to remember. But if you have fallen into that habit, I would urge you to take some time and learn the Japanese terminology. Not only that, but do a little research on it, because frankly, the translations we've heard throughout our training are not always all that accurate. Take the judo throw seoi nage , for example. If you're like me, you've probably heard it translated as a "shoulder throw." But if you look it up, you'll find something a bit different. (FYI, the translation source I was most commonly is Denshi Jisho , supplemented by Google , Babylon and others like that.) 背負 It actually means something more along the lines of "to carry on one's back". No...

Occasionally, in judo, I get asked a question about a common problem. Essentially, a student it trying to throw their partner but can't get in. Maybe he feels like his partner is just too tall, or too big and strong. Fair enough. The same thing happens, actually, in aikido randori. Things are great when practicing a throw and we have a compliant uke, but when it comes to an uke who doesn't want to be thrown, he hit a wall. What happened? I want to throw, but I don't want to BE thrown... First of all, let me remove the aspect of sport or tournament judo from this discussion. Nothing against judo as a sport or those who participate in it, mind you; I love watching tournament judo, it's exciting stuff. It's just not why I myself study judo (and most of my peers, as well). In a match, I'm trying to score points, to win; the other guy is also trying to score points and win. I'm trying to keep from being thrown so I don't lose; so is the other guy. ...

Funny how our ideas and our approach to a given thing change and evolve over time. "Truth" seems to be more and more elusive: what I accepted as gospel one day, I can't help but doubt the next. Okay, maybe it's more like years than days, but still. If there's anything I've learned from budo that is absolutely permanent and unmovable is that nothing is really permanent and immovable. Just when I think I "understand" a thing, I find a new perspective (typically through the eyes of someone else). I almost want to go back to students I've taught and say, "Hey, remember that thing I taught you? Well, here's another way of thinking about it..." This time, I happen to be thinking of the concept of the stage of a throw in judo. I'm sure you've heard it: First, kuzushi —off-balance Then,  tsukuri —fitting in Finally, gake —the throw For a while now, I've been thinking of it in terms of a sort of math problem: 1 + 2 ...

One of the most profound additions to my aikido practice, in my humble opinion, has been the development in our system of what we commonly refer to as "chained series" or renraku waza . The concept isn't new, of course, but I don't know that many people practice it in aikido (help me out if I'm mistaken, I'd love to take a look at what others are doing). Basically, you would start off with uke either attacking or grabbing a wrist. Tori performs technique A, uke falls down (or submits). Then you do it again, but this time uke attempts to escape or counter technique A, so tori moves on to B, so on and so forth. Many of these chained series can get rather long, upwards of 9 or 10 even. When it comes right down to it, there are probably an infinite number of ways you can combine them, but the main idea is to practice flowing from one thing to another, to follow uke, to keep from getting attached to making a single technique work, by golly, blah, blah, blah...

Uchi mata, for me, has been an elusive throw to wrap my mind around. In my school, which has never been all that keen on competitive judo, never seemed all that interested in it (at least around me). But with the rest of the judo world, it seems to be quite a favorite. But with this, or any other technique, regardless of art, I'm not one to summarily disregard something without at least attempting to understand it better first. Which is one of the many reason why I love YouTube. I often get perplexed with a technique, be it aikido, judo or jodo—or rather, I suddenly realize I don't understand it as well as I thought I did! One of the first things I do is hit YouTube. I watch a lot of videos featuring that one thing. I try to simply observe, withholding any judgement. I don't really even try to analyze what's going on. In fact, I try to keep my mind as quiet as possible and just watch . Eventually, almost every time, somebody will do something that jumps out at m...

There's a section of our "walking kata" or tegatana no kata in aikido that I find very, very useful in judo. After stepping forward and back diagonally, the side to side, there's the part where you turn 90° by pre-turning your foot. It looks a little something like this: You step to your right first, then return to the start, then repeat the same action on your left side. Be sure, of course, to step with your hip still over your lead foot. In other words, don't put your foot over there, then move your hip over it. The two should move together. Here's how it applies to nage waza. First, I do the pre-turned step to my right (for example; you could start on either side). Uke will find that he's no longer facing me, so he'll turn as well in order to square back up again. As he's doing so, or just as he finishes, I make the same pre-turned step to my left . Doing just that creates such a wonderful kuzushi with all kinds of possibilities. Thi...

Friend and fellow judoka (and aikidoka) Scott Weaver had a pretty good idea a while back to try and use the old "envelope drill" in judo similar to the way we use the "walking kata" (tegatana no kata) in aikido. It could just be something we do as a part of our everyday class at the beginning of the ne waza half of the hour. If you're not familiar with it, take a moment and watch this: Our problem was, our little morning class didn't know the envelope drill. Soooo, we've been breaking it down into bite-size chunks and practicing those. It's actually opened a few doors to other little "sub drills" if you will that I think are kind of fun. Here's one we worked on this morning: Part 1 1) Begin as you would with the regular envelope drill: uke lying on his back and tori in kuzure kesa gatame . 2) Uke rolls toward tori, who then transitions into mune gatame . 3) Uke rolls away from tori, and tori transitions back to his own sid...

It wasn't long ago that a critical aspect of different sections of  junana hon kata , or randori no kata , finally dawned on me. I realized that, with the second section, or hiji waza , I was focusing on what I was doing to the arm or elbow, and with the third section,  tekubi waza , I was focusing on what I was doing to the wrist. Which would seem natural since that's what their names mean: "elbow techniques" and "wrist techniques". The epiphany, however, came when I finally realized that I'm not doing something to the arm or the wrist, but rather I'm using the arm and wrist as a means of affecting uke's center line. The first section, or atemi waza , deals with going after the center line directly. From there, we move outward to using the arm to affect the center line, and then move even further out to using the wrist the same way. This realization has, in turn, affected my perspective of the rest of not only aikido, but judo as well....

I'd like to work a little over the next several months on some kaeshi waza in judo. There's a series of 5 videos from Mike Swain that highlight a number of nice ones, plus several combination ideas. Below is the first:

I've never, ever been the kind of kid who liked to play video games. Still don't care for them, frankly. But somehow, some way, I've become absolutely hooked on a game called " Angry Birds " on my iPad. After a while, I began to pick up on certain common... I don't know, themes or approaches to the game. If you're not familiar with the premise, it's basically about flinging little birds through the air in an attempt to destroy all the little pigs. The challenge is, there are a lot of objects that stand in your way. You have a set number of birds to kill all the pigs on each level, so you have to use them very strategically. I know, what in the world does this have to do with budo (particularly aikido or judo), right? First of all, if you're not familiar with the game, take a look at this short how-to video to get a better idea: Right. Now—here's a few points on how to succeed at the game. Don't aim for the pigs, aim for making th...

I really want to look more at and practice a throw (and all its variations) called kuchiki daoshi . It's not one we've ever looked at much in our school, although I think in randori it can pop out spontaneously even without training! It starts around the 5:20 mark.

Again, sorry it's been a while since I've posted. Lots of things on my mind, naturally. Here's a few: To my recollection, it seems like I've always been told in aikido (I wonder if any of my teachers would say, What? I never told you that! ) to maintain ma'ai , to maintain a certain distance at all times. I've tried to follow that over the years, and really, it's worked pretty well. But lately, I've been thinking more and more about changing the distance. Specifically, about creating space, or creating a kind of vacuum that sort of sucks uke in, and about entering, or closing in. This goes hand in hand with my earlier thoughts on likening our movements to a wave: not just the crashing down part, but the drawing in, undercurrent part as well. That concept has, of course, overflowed into my judo work as well. I also noticed an interesting secondary throw to hiza guruma this morning. (Here's a lovely competition example of hiza for your own enjoy...

One of the greatest potential weaknesses of any martial art is the fact that it's hard to fight what you've never seen before. The Gracie family proved that quite effectively when they took every kind of fighter who signed up for the UFC and took them to the ground. Virtually no other style ever spent time on the ground, so the jiu-jitsu folks had a field day once they got down there. Aikido is like that. No ground game whatsoever. Our particular school or ryu or whatever has a supplementary system of very basic, self-defense ideas for aikidoka because our organization historically has also been involved with judo as well. It works pretty well against people without much training should things degrade to a ground fight. Against a trained grappler, however, you're more or less toast. But even in judo, which of course has a grappling component, has left out certain aspect of the ground game, namely in the interest of sport. There's no wrist locks, for instance, no ank...

There's always lots of little things to think about on any given throw or technique, and this is a nice one. In this video, Yamashita Sensei talks about o soto gari. He starts off emphasizing the idea of pointing the toe, which is a pretty common pointer, but it's one of the things I see people get lazy about far too often. The other interesting thing I think is worth noting starts around the 3:35 mark, where he talks about what the support foot is doing. It's true for a number of throw entries and worth the reminder.

Funny how I never stop finding things to talk about when it comes to hiza guruma. Today's piece of advice? Take notes, kids. Here it comes. Your job is NOT to STOP uke's leg or knee with your foot. But that's exactly what everyone tries to do, and that's where we get two guys kicking each other and beat-up shins and all kinds of frustration. Think about it: if his leg is coming forward and I'm trying to STOP it, that's force against force ! And that, my friends, definitely ain't judo, is it? Look at this picture: Where is tori's his foot? In FRONT of uke's knee? Nope, it's curved and cupping the FAR SIDE of uke's knee. After years of having people throw me by trying to stop or impede my forward step in uchi komi or a very acquiescent session of nage komi, I noticed my fall was a typical tobi ukemi—which is more of an otoshi type of fall. Where was the guruma, the turning ? Try this: instead of stopping uke's knee, reach ou...

There's nothing like an occasional class of randori to bring certain issues to light that would be good to work on. We did a little light randori in judo this morning, mostly just trading throws, rotating partners with every bell (which I believe lasts about 3 minutes). When we were done, I asked everybody what their thoughts were, what went well, what didn't go so well, etc. A handful of issues came up, which is natural, and it should prove amble fodder for future classes. One thing that I thought might be worth mentioning here was the problem of controlling escalating frustrations. We've all been there, where something isn't working, the guy's not going down, so we get stronger, faster and more desperate. So how can you deal with that in your practice? The temptation is usually to stop, to quit, to just go sit down until you cool off. Like you're punishing yourself. "How could I loose control like that? I know better than that!" are the kinds...

The "L" shape One of the principles or concepts I've heard about from time to time over the years is the "L" shape. Specifically, we're talking about making a movement starts in one direction, and then at a certain point, changes direction, usually 90 degrees or perpendicular to the first line. It's a wonderful principle, really, and while the reasoning behind it is simple enough, it still feels like magic when someone applies it to you. Uke feels energy going in a certain direction. Typically, he reacts by resisting, even just a little. A moment of tension is established. He can deal with that singular line of force or energy pretty well, his body structured is set to withstand it. But when that line suddenly changes at a right angle, uke isn't prepared or his structure isn't set to deal with that line so he's very weak. A simple concept, but hard to internalize! Kata gatame The first place I remember learning about had to do wit...