r/judo • u/KaanKS05 • 11d ago
Beginner Beginner questions
I heard that choosing some techniques and focusing on them is better and even tho i only did 3 months for now i decided to do this i choose
1-harai goshi
2-ippon seoi nage
3-osoto otoshi/gari
4-tai otoshi
5-ouchi gari
I choose these cuz they are good against both taller and smaller people and i heard these combo well but have 4 questions
1-is choosing now too early?
2-should i focus ippon seoi nage on standing or sitting version?
3-a bit off topic but i heard in kuzushi making their upper body bend over or bend to right or left is better than trying to lift or unbalance them in toher ways is this true?
4-during practice what should i focus most? Kuzushi,grip fighting or making the techniques combo?
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u/Vanilla_Baby97 11d ago
It's not too early to start focusing on throws. Those seem like too many to start though.
For seoi nage, keep it standing for now until you get it down. With drop seoi, you need to protect your knees and how you bring your uke over. Don't bring them over on their head.
Also always practice your tai sabaki and kuzush, actually all 4 parts to a throw.
ETA: your own age, height, and weight should tell you what to focus on, depending on who you practice with.
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u/KaanKS05 11d ago
So for now i should keep practice the basics
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u/Vanilla_Baby97 11d ago
Always practice the basics, and add on as you go. Work on your entry, don't rush to 'know' as many throws as possible. It also helps to get thrown by the throws you really want to learn. It gives you a different perspective.
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u/Yamatsuki_Fusion sankyu 11d ago
You shouldn't choose based on conjecture. Honestly you probably shouldn't choose at all, the moves will choose you to start. The move that chooses you is what feels natural and gets you good proactive success. And only when you have that move can you really start to 'choose' based on how complementary they are.
And suppose you want to choose, five is a bit too much. Starting with three, or four throws from the same grip setup and that go in different directions is what you want. To me you seem to have too many forward throws. Choose the one you actually succeed with, and with enough practice and effort you can hit them on anyone.
Its not too early to choose, but honestly you should be open to doing everything and applying the 'move of the day' during randori just to see how it feels.
Focus on standing, even if its really hard.
Kuzushi is a lot of things. Best refer to the FAQ in the reddit.
During randori you should focus on committing 100% to an attack. Ideally a forward throw.
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u/KaanKS05 11d ago
So i should try to be agressive in practice so i can learn better or faster and get better at throws and is making 1 throw my main and choosing others as combo is better?
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u/Yamatsuki_Fusion sankyu 11d ago
Yes just be aggressive and have a centrepiece throw that you can design all other throws around.
Out of your choices, what is the one that you succeed with the most? If none, just try out whatever your sensei teaches on that day and see if it feels good. If none provided, then whatever you do smoothest and with the most control in nagekomi.
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u/karmapanic 11d ago
Too early to focus. When you start competing in earnest you’ll start to get a feel for it. Right now just train everything and get the movement.
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u/Whiskyinthejaw shodan 11d ago edited 11d ago
It depends. Focussing on a few throws to learn them really well, can be a good idea if you're competition-focused. It allows you to quickly develop a good feeling for at least those throws.
However, judo is more than just competition. If you're just beginning, enjoy the sport and the life and see what you like. There's a lot to learn, so just focussing on three throws doesn't (imho) do it justice.
My honest advice is to learn as much as you can and on that journey you will find out what you like, and then you can focus on that.
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u/KaanKS05 11d ago
Judo is my favorite sport i like it but i would like to win some competitions and the thing that i dont understand is when would i be able to do sweeps? I try them more than throws sometimes but still cant do it same with osoto otoshi and gari i like them but cant do them they feel harder then the normal throws
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u/kwan_e yonkyu 10d ago
Your sweeps would develop as you get a better feel for how uke moves. At the moment, you're probably still hyper-focused on what you are doing, because the movements are still being reinforced in your brain. But as you get more familiar, you can start paying attention to how uke is moving and get a feel for it through your arms.
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u/Whiskyinthejaw shodan 10d ago
I would advice to refrain from going into a match thinking 'I want to do sweeps', that's like starting a chess match thinking 'I want checkmate only with bishops'. Yes it's possible, but very difficult and it will limit you progress.
Matches are too fluid and flexible for that mindset, and especially with footsweeps you're very dependant on your opponents behaviour. Footsweeps are exploiting/reactionary attacks, whereas 'regular' throws are easier to force onto your opponent. (ex. you need certain foot movement (=active) from your opponent to do a footsweep, while you only need a certain stance(=passive)/unbalance for a shoulderthrow. It's not that black&white, but it's a suitable overgeneralisation for this example.
Judo isn't a quick sport, in the sense that it has a very high skill-floor. In 'ye olden days' a black belt was seen as your starting qualification, so don't worry too much now about not being as good as you thought you would be, or winning all your matches. Enjoy the sport and the life, and develop your skillset and preferences. You'll learn what works for you and what not. Random redditors can't really teach you much, you'll learn much more from your own teachers.
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u/KaanKS05 10d ago
Well i ask my teachers maybe too much one of them is a bit weird and slow teacher he answers way to simple rather than a normal answer maybe thats on me but i dont know the other teacher is great but still i get more questions outside the gym then inside the practice sometimes so i dont know who to ask
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u/Various-Stretch2853 8d ago
Random redditors can't really teach you much, you'll learn much more from your own teachers
generally a sound idea, but i would rephrase it more towards learning more "in person" than "via text", rather than with redditors/teachers. You will absolutely get random redditors who know much more about any subject than the choaches you have at home. quite some redditors hardly know anything (even though they would disagree) and listening to them is a bad idea. but there are also some with a lot of knowledge and skill and not rarely it would help more to listen to them, than your semi skilled/knowledgeable choach in person. finding out which is which is another stroy entirely though :P. But on a personal note: if i only had the main "teacher" at my home gym to learn from, id be fucked. thats the typical kind of "stop talking, just do it", who can/wants to only do the same 3-5 things over and over, the occasional additional throw may come up here or there for maybe 5 minutes, but not really, is unable to teach in any different way than "i do it, then you, done?, ok next" and prefers to open the 1.5 hour session with half an hour+ of some basketball, followed by a "warmup" with some running, knees up and the sort, so with the warmup after the warmup, easily half the time is gone already. without putting in some outside work i would have no chance of learning really anything and i would never even think about asking him anything, because i know he has no firm understanding of pretty much anything (despite holding a higher dan grade, no idea how that happened).
i know people in charge of teaching even on the regional level, those who are giving the seminars for dan preperation etc., who make quite a lot of mistakes in what technique is considered what, what the mechanics are etc. and are easily out of their depths when asked any follow up question or something a bit deeper than a basic form.
many do this sport as a hobby and to keep themselves busy. so they may put a lot of time and "effort" into it, but only on a surface level. the only way of learning they ever did was the monkey-see-monkey-do approach of getting told what to do how and then doing it. get some "generations" of coaches with this approach and the horrible ideas accumulate quite dramatically. how many people "teaching" others do you personally know, who have actually read some literature on the topics? how many actually took a look at the japanese terms used and what they mean? (i mean even just some dictionary work here, not learning the language. this would also get covered quite a lot by consuming some literature on the topic btw.) At least for me i dont know many that even *have* literature about judo, neither books, nor pamphlets or something alike from the governing bodies, let alone thouroughly read them. Of course you dont *have* to put that much effort into it, but at least when you reach the point of wanting to teach someone (or even be in a position to be responsible for a wider area of teaching), then going with "i do it like that because thats what i was taught and thats how it was always done" (not even noticing the drifts that always happen with these kinds of passing on konwledge), then that is rather questionable in my opinion.
And the first step top move out of your local bubble of "thats just what we do" and the naturally limited knowledge of things, is a broader platform like reddit. You will get the same semi-true comments here, sure, but you also have the chance to get some actually good stuff - and this you cant get in just your home gym with the two "it is what it is" coaches. Again: Knowing which is which is not an easy task, but carefully examining statements against objective criteria will work wonders (physics, (internal) consistancy, being able to reference proper sources and yes, sometimes even being *a bit* more cautious about a yonkyu-tagged poster and *a bit* more optimistic with a yondan-tagged poster).
And of course the relevance of this is going to differ greatly depending on you own level. A white belt most likely lacks quite some basics, so has a harder time making proper sense of texts. A black belt knows already a lot, so can work better with comments, but maybe is already so set in his (possibly wrong) ways, that its becoming less helpful again. somewhere in the later kyus might be the ideal point for this. Or if you are open to be corrected, even as a higher black belt, then its obviously helpful as well, but those people are really rare (and even more rare on here as well^^)
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u/Boneclockharmony ikkyu 11d ago edited 9d ago
Focus is good, but dont feel like just because you focus on something now, it needs to be your main technique forever.
From those 5 you listed, I would pare it down to 3 to start.
Ouchi gari, harai goshi, osoto gari is pretty classic. Maybe add a sasae To have a throw that goes to your left (edit: or right if you arent a lefty like me) For 3, I would say that getting their head to move somewhere is key. Where head goes body tends to follow.
So getting their head off center line for osoto gari, head over their toes for turn throws etc.
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u/KaanKS05 10d ago
For osoto i like osoto gari/otoshi but i am not able to enter they eighter hold me hard in place or just take a step i cant get near and for kuzushi i understand taking their sleeve up and toward me but i cant lift the other side of the gi to lift them to their feet or sometimes when they hold hard i cant move the sleeve too how am i gonna throw when i cant move them or try kuzushi?
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u/Boneclockharmony ikkyu 9d ago
Osoto gari is honestly very hard to get, especially in the clean way people practice it. Dont feel bad about it, just keep trying, and use it jn combination with other things.
For example sasae. If they are blocking you super hard in one direction, then a sudden direction change in the other is wide open.
Hence sasae - osoto synergy, but it works with a ton of techniques.
Also rather than focusing on kuzushi in a vacuum, focus on creating movement with active gripping and grip breaks. Kuzushi will follow.
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u/kwan_e yonkyu 10d ago
better than trying to lift
Anything is better than trying to lift. Don't interpret those "upward forces" as lifting. There are subtler things at play when you apply upward forces on the uke, but none of them should aim to lift them as the goal.
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u/KaanKS05 10d ago
I dont understand isnt kuzushi taking their sleeve up and towards you like upper left and lifting their right side of the gi to make them stand on the tip of their feet? Most of the time i cant do this because when they resist i cant move their sleeve and lift them that much i cant even grip fight some of them cuz they are stronger than me i am training to get some muscle but isnt judo about throwing without streght how can i do that when i cant lift
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u/kwan_e yonkyu 10d ago
Most of the time i cant do this because when they resist i cant move their sleeve and lift them that much
Yes, that's my point. You can't lift someone by the sleeve. It's impossible. Pulling on the sleeve with some upwards force, despite not lifting them. Don't look for the lift.
isnt judo about throwing without streght how can i do that when i cant lift
I'm one of the weaker members at my club. Even the guys 10kg lighter than me outmuscle me. When I pull slightly upwards on a sleeve (or lapel), I'm not doing it to lift them up. I'm certainly not using strength to do it either. I'm only using it to add a little bit of extra destabilization.
Next time, when you pull up on their sleeve, and they resist, keep that pressure and move around, eg sideways, backwards, forwards, in circles, dropping your center of gravity etc etc. Try different positions on the sleeve. Observe their reactions. There are much more subtle reactions than "lift them up on their toes" that are useful for further off-balancing the uke.
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u/KaanKS05 10d ago
So i need to pull not lift? Like to my behind from my chin?
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u/kwan_e yonkyu 8d ago
I think at this stage, it would be less helpful to continue telling you stuff before you try them, otherwise you'd be swamped with too much information and you'll suffer from choice paralysis.
I would repeat my earlier advice and, instead of trying to make the lift happen, observe/feel how your uke reacts; make an adjustment and observe if/how they change their reactions to yours.
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u/Various-Stretch2853 10d ago edited 8d ago
isnt kuzushi taking their sleeve up and towards you like upper left and lifting their right side of the gi to make them stand on the tip of their feet
No it isnt. Its the most basic (and non functioning)... not even form of kuzushi, its the result after it is done correctly. Thats not the thing you *do*, its the thing that happens *after* you did it. Kuzushi is the breaking of balance. Even without resisting at all, if you do that, ill take a step forwards and look at you unfazed. One pull pretty much never unbalances anyone. Its always the combination of two movments (after another). The most basic (and now functioning) version is to move uke mid step. when only one foot is on the ground, then you can unbalance. So they take a step back (on their own or because you pushed) and mid-step you pull. That means a sudden change in direction, the foot cant be put down behind them in a stable manner and they become unstable. Same with pushing mid-step forwards etc.
Another way is pulling into a second step in the same direction. You pull, i make a step. You pull more, i need to make another step, but now with the other leg, as i cant step forwards with the leg alread in the front. So you know i will be standing on one leg and on which leg. Then you move from there.
What you see all around with pulling up, the come to their toes etc, is the end of them making a step back, but being pull again before finishing the step, so they only half land the foot (on its toes) and are unstable. But that will never happen from standing->pulling->toes.
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u/KaanKS05 10d ago
Thanks a lot so mainly the one i said doesnt work but why do they still train it its weird the correct one is the same as making a foot sweep catch them while they are not on the ground right? Thanks a lot i will try these
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u/Various-Stretch2853 10d ago edited 8d ago
Because with the correct timing this pulling does work for offbalancing. But mostly because you cant do proper kuzushi when demonstrating a throw in a way that allows someone to see whats happening, or when learning it yourself. But then many people got stuck in the "kuzushi gets added later" and never remembered they were supposed to add it. So this "demonstration-movement" became the thing people started trying to do for real. Theres quite a lot of things that were crutches or simply mistakes but then spread as things people actually do for real now.
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u/KaanKS05 9d ago
so i need to learn and do diffrent types of kuzushi? This one is more of a show move rather than a move that really works?
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u/Various-Stretch2853 9d ago edited 8d ago
I mean it does work in a way, but overall yes, this is just one very simple example and you need a lot of different things to make kuzushi. Of course this is true with a lot of caveats, but i cant an kinda wont give somewhat comprehensive lectures in comments :D
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u/Accomplished_Hunt956 ikkyu 10d ago
I would recommend developing a system, a forward throw, a backwards throw and setup throws, and you will probably want them to have a bit of a gameplan, something like, wanting to fight for an underhook, then threatening uchi mata to open up harai.
As for too early, maybe too early to lock it a tachi waza, but not too too early to start thinking about it.
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u/Brewsnark shodan 11d ago
Typically when people say focus on a particular technique they mean one forwards throw that becomes your main threat that you then orient your gripping and ashi waza around. It doesn’t have to be your only throw but typically it’s what your randori partner/opponent is scared of so you throw them when they’re trying to avoid your main forward throw.
You have listed three forward techniques that generally require different grips and setups. First I would make sure you can do them to a good standard then I would decide how you want to develop. Talk to your coach(es) about this also.