Judo Ron 66- Judo transition techniques

ZUIHITSU - RANDOM NOTES ABOUT JUDO BY RONALD DESORMEAUX

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Judo Ron 66 - Judo Transition Techniques

Regular training program

As we all know, judo, as conceived by the founder Jigoro Kano in 1882 is composed of a rational process in which the intelligent use of energy takes the foreground. It is complemented with a particular social behaviour demanding that we seek mutual benefits for both self and the society. Its third element consist in a physical training segment that demand that we strive to achieve the greatest results within the best of our abilities. This text will address some of the changes in attitude that can be encountered within the technical use of judo techniques. In our technical teaching program, we tried to introduce you to the principles of single techniques by making emphasis on the Kuzushi, Tsukuri and the Kake components. We further worked on developing the awareness for the capture of greater opportunities (Debana)for you to place your chosen technique more appropriately when the opponent is on the move. In the advanced class we introduced the realm of combination techniques whereby techniques are used in all directions, in combination or as supplement to others. We began Randori practices where you attempted to develop your techniques in a confrontational environment in which numerous forms of resistance were strategically employed. We also reviewed some fifteen tactical weapons at your disposal to survive your next combat encounters. A quick review of these attributes can be found in my book: The Discovery of Judo’s Arsenal: Shin Gi Tai

i. Just to refresh your memory of these fundamentals, I list them hereafter:

1. Performing good Ukemi for your safety and peace of mind 2. Adopting a good posture Shisei which permit the greatest freedom of action 3. Ability to move about speedily in Shintai 4. Understanding how and when to displace your body with Tai-Sabaki 5. Practicing different form of grips or Kumi-Kata 6. Identifying opportunities (Debana) to place the best Kuzushi 7. Filling and managing the distance between you and your partner with Tsukuri 8. Developing your senses so that you can read the others and act swiftly in Sen-no-Sen 9. Performing the chosen technique with speed and accuracy Kake 10. Keeping contact and following-up for both safety and new opportunity Sesshoku 11. Developing and imposing rhythm and harmony with the opponent Ju-Wa 12. Maximizing the use of abdominal energy and muscle power Hara-Gei 13. Exploding your inner strength with selected forms and proper Kiai 14. Developing the right attitude and keeping fortitude with better Kokoro 15. Remembering that in a confrontation, soft gets the better of hard, JUDO


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Esthetic or competitive environment

Our current training syllabus is meant to prepare the majority of you for an effective and esthetic judo performance. Responding to that objective, you will have noted that Tachi Waza or standing techniques have been emphasised as they are the premier techniques you will need to use to score the victorious Ippon. (Making sure you throw the opponent with a clean and

orthodox technique in order to ensure that the opponents fall clearly on their back with

sufficient force and speed). When practicing your Nage no Kata and Katame no Kata, you will not only confirm the need for Kuzushi, Tsukuri and Kake but also express the sporting spirit of caring for your opponent and responding to his or her submission signals. To round up your array of techniques, you learned an ensemble of Newaza or Katame Waza procedures that followed provisional approaches to attack and defend. You have learned techniques applicable to all sides and how to alternate your positions based upon distances and weight distribution. Some of the advanced students have been able to employ the standing tipping rolls and rear form of Sutemi or sacrifice movement to pull the opponent down and engage immediately into newaza. Most of the training drills used centered towards the segmentation of techniques, the deconstruction into key elements and their restoration into a whole for the ultimate use as Tokui Waza (favorites technique) to secure the Ippon. With the advent of new IJF competition rules to take effect during the period 2013-16, it is

important for those who intend to pursue a competitive career to give due consideration to the

maximum use of Sesshoku or follow-up procedures. Future contestants are likely to attempt to

score the Ippon without giving any advantages what so ever to their opponent thus limiting the

risks to counter or evade their devastating Tokui-waza. If you watch some of the international

judo contests, you will note the current tendency to complete the throws with rolls and

rotations sideways or backwards. You will also discover the abilities to diversified groundwork

techniques with an easy passage from hold downs to chokes and to arm locks.

For those of you anticipating participating in higher echelons competitions, you can no longer

continue to train one way and then a few weeks before the Shiai switch fighting styles for

competitive purposes. The transition time is too short to make the necessary mental and

physical adjustments. You can no longer consider stopping your technique after the successful

and beautiful Kake segment hoping that the opponent will make a clean Ukemi. Such high level

Shiai demand that you become capable of performing the whole group of techniques

associated with Tachi-Waza and Ne-waza simultaneously and that you are able to link them

with seamless transitional techniques as found in the Sutemi, Makikomi, Renraku and Hikkomi

groups.

It is the time to address your previous training regime and consider amalgamating all your skills

into a general strategy that will lead you to the Ippon making. This means being skillful at both

strong Tachi- waza and superior Ne-waza linked with transparent transitional techniques.


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Adding transitional techniques

As you seek to change or switch techniques, a process known as Henka Suru, you will need to

practice ways to escape, counter and evade the opponent’s attack and place yourself quickly in

a better position to launch a new offensive either standing or during ground work. The process

of joining the two phases rest with the application of transitional techniques also called

Hikkomi. Hikkomi comes from the verb Hikkikomu: to pull or to draw something from one

position to another. The Kodokan dictionary makes use of the word Hikkikomi Gaeshiii as the

action of pulling down the opponent via a sacrifice throw, or tipping roll. It describe the action

as follow: “When your opponent bends his body forward, reach over your shoulder to grip the

back of his belt with one hand, then, fall onto your back and pull him over you while flipping one

of your legs up into the area between his legs in order to throw him to his front or with a twist of

your body to throw him to either side”.

When I first addressed the action of Sesshoku, I mentioned the need to pursue your action and

ensure that you exercise full control of the fall. The gist of the action was to position your body

weight deeply under the opponent, increase the area of contact with the opponent’s body and

continue the Kake with a roll in a chosen direction. This is different to when you are call to

demonstrate techniques in the Kata style where Uke makes a clean Ukemi to terminate the

phase. Similarly on the Ne-Waza, when performed in Kata, the hold is only maintained to

demonstrate the potential escapes, the chokes are applied methodically and submission is

quick to be signaled. The arm locks and leg locks are exposed to the judges in such a manner as

to be observed for their potential effectiveness, there are no subtle manoeuvres.

In the actual judo contest, with Tachi-Waza, the opponent can twist, evade, turn in and out and

even change the falling trajectory through torque, spiral and rotation. While performing Ne-

Waza there are more entanglements, greater use of leg powers to displace the opponent in

desired positions and the chokes and arm locks are applied with greater intensity. As one can

see, the contest milieu is more fluid and quite different then the Kata training. Training for

either domain necessitates the right mental attitude and awareness (Zan Shin) and the

appropriate physical conditioning.


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What to choose

There are numerous standing techniques that can and are used as transitional techniques. In

the general Kodokan repertoire, we find:iii

The most popular being: Hikkomi Gaeshi, Tawara Gaeshi, Tomoe Nage, Yuko Tomoe Nage, Ura

Nage and Sumi Gaeshi.

The most obvious with development potentials are: Seoi Nage, Seoi Otoshi, Waki Otoshi, Obi

Otoshi, Uchi Mata, Yama Arashi, Harai Goshi Mawari komi, Tsuri Komi Goshi, Hane Goshi

Makomi, Koshi Guruma, Kouchi Gari Makomi, O Ouchi Gari Makomi, O Soto Gari Makomi, O

Soto Otoshi.

The most advanced forms are: Uki Waza, Soto Makikomi, Uchi Makikomi, Uki Waza, Yoko

Otoshi, Tani Otoshi, Yoko Guruma. Daki Wakare, Yoko Wakare.

Transitional techniques like all others must be understood by the judoka. Their principles and

raison d’Être must be well understood and they must be repeatedly practiced. You must master

as many as possible and develop an array of combinations that works for you. As you improve

your portfolio, you will need to modify the ways you perform Uchikomi training, as they are not

static but dynamic manoeuvres, therefore more Nage-Komi should be introduced in your

training regime to bring those techniques to perfection. You will need to practice the shifting

from one technique to another and use some technique to get the opponent off-balance and

then another technique to throw him or her down and yet another to secure the transition to

the ground work. Various combinations are suggested by Isao Inokuma and Nobuyuki Sato in

their book “Best Judo”iv. Their combinations cover the use of front, rear and side rolls to

complete the throws. When addressing the use of combination techniques for groundwork,

they warned that the Katame-waza techniques are done slower thus permitting you to map out

strategies to include holds, chokes and locks in a variety of combinations.

In his essay on Judo contest techniques, Eric Dominyv mentioned that tactics must vary with

the individual concerned, dependent upon the relative weights, heights, and speed. “One

general piece of advice, however, is that you should always try to dictate the speed at which a

contest is fought.” You must dominate the rhythm by keeping up the initiative at your

command. Katsuhiko Kashiwasaki stressed in his book on Attacking Judovi that judo does not

consist of isolated attacks and he goes on demonstrating the use of combinations and

complementarity techniques as a way to combine Tachi Waza and Ne Waza. He reinforced the

need for keeping the initiative when he said: You need the ability to draw out from your

opponent the type of movement you want him or her to make by setting up your technique

using a combination.”


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Skills training and drills

As mentioned earlier you must alter your training regime to include more transitional

techniques in your repertoire. Do not discard what you have already acquired, the new

transition techniques will not replace the older ones but will provide you with additional

opportunities to score the IPPON. When you begin their practice, you will note that the

opponent will not generally fall face up but will be imprisoned (wrapped around) in your rolling

action and will hit the ground with a different momentum (hazumi) and impetus (ikioi) because

you will have added your own weight, new skill and energy. Your own falling method will be

altered in that you will either roll partially unto your opponent or hit the ground in advance of

him. Care must be taken to protect players back, hips and head in the fall. Your limbs should be

tucked in as much as possible to protect them from over extension, entanglements or assuming

the impact of the force produced by the whole weight of the falling opponent.

You should not just develop new skills or training drills without an understanding of what needs

to occur. Your technique must be prepared with good Kuzushi of the opponent. You must first

establish the position to place him or her off balance. For transitional techniques, the whole

body must be place at work in a vortex condition with appropriate twist, rotational and rolling

action. The pull down or sideways traction must not be revealed before you have established a

good contact. For that surprise effect, use a small technique to prepare for a large movement.

Training regime

As part of your physical preparation you should consider continuing with the regular warm up

and calisthenics exercises, followed by individual and group preparatory exercises of light

jogging or walking, standing displacements using the body movements. You can follow with

various forms of progressive ukemi then introduce particular tumbling exercises such as

cartwheel practices and hand stands as well as tumbling or rolling exercises forward, to the

back and the sides. Three to five minutes of ground free style fighting should prepare you to

undertake the special introduction to your new transitional techniques.

First, determine your Tokui waza or favorite, rehearse its application from different angles and

then practice the most appropriate combination and envelopment tactics that you can

associate with it. After obtaining a certain maturity with the new technique, practice it in the

Nage Komi form using your curved line of movement after demanding different degree of

resistance from your partner. Repeat and test it using left and right sided and then, try to place

it randomly in a full Randori session.


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Ways to make your practice worth while

Do not depend entirely on your teacher to provide you with an all-encompassing technique. His

or her counsel should be taken seriously for they have the experience, but you have the major

responsibility to seek your improvement. It is your unique responsibilities to think, judge and

decide what to implement. To that effect, I am encouraging you to try to find the occasions and

the appropriate milieu to practice as often as possible and with different partners.

Practice doing the technique and making the opponent fall and you should also practice

receiving the fall. When working with a partner, decide together who shall attack first and who

will be thrown and alternate the roles keeping in mind the level of resistance desired. Try to

develop awareness of your body actions and about the wrapping procedures you will be using.

With each lesson ahead, you should try to remain positive and strive to get better at

performing the techniques of your choice. Set yourself immediate goals to learn from your

mistakes and to add more judo knowledge and skills. Seek all opportunities to remain flexible

and accomplish the techniques on the move. Try to explore and adopt a combination and a

transitional technique on a monthly basis. Practice…practice and when in doubt, seek answers

from those in the know.

Have a good session.

Ronald Désormeaux

Judo Teacher, University of Toronto, Hart House Dojo

March 2013

References

i Ronald Désormeaux, The Discovery of Judo’s Arsenal: Shin Gi Tai, limited edition 2008, ISBN 2-980669-8-8

ii T.Daigo, T Kawamura, Kodokan New Japanese-English Dictionary of judo, 2000, page 77

iii T. Daigo, Kodokan Judo Throwing Techniques, Kodansha international, Tokyo, 2005

iv I.Inokuma and N.Sato, Best Judo, Kodansha International, Tokyo,1986 page 154-177, 190-206

v Eric Dominy, Judo Contest Techniques and Tactics, Sphere Books ltd, London,1970, page 10

vi K. Kashiwasaki and H. Nakanishi, Attacking Judo, Ippon Books, Tokyo, 1995,

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Judo Ron 66- Judo transition techniques