Written by Matt D’Aquino is a multiple Australian and Oceania Champion and a 2008 Beijing Judo Olympian. He has been studying Judo for over 23 years. He is a 3rd Degree Black belt in Judo and a Black Belt belt in BJJ. Matt has come out with a great new DVD set for BJJ players: Judo for BJJ.
Nearly every week I hop online a watch some of the international judo tournaments that are either on ippon.tv or on YouTube on general. I came across this video of Bang performing a really nice ‘switch’ in competition. I decided to do a breakdown of it simply because it is the sort of thing we need to think more about wen we are doing Judo.
I have 2 very good videos (if I do say so myself) of me demonstrating what you need to be doing at training in order to get a throw…and it all comes down to tricking your opponent into going the direction you want them to go.
Check out these 2 videos here: I know they go for a few minutes but it is worth it as these 2 videos of mine have revolutionised peoples tachiwaza game and how they approach their attacks in Randori.
Many judoka go for 1 off attacks and these rarely work (unless you are bigger or stronger than you opponent). But more often than not if your opponent sees a one off attack coming, they will counter you or avoid your throw completely.
Combinations and setups are everything!!!
When I am teaching at the club (or on my University of judo) I always say that we need to be like a a boxer- we need to throw combinations in order to finish our opponent and get a winning score.
In this video below we see bang do an incredible switch to score a waza ari and then end in a hold down. When I break it down you will that Bang attacks with a forwards throw first (uchimata) and then in the next exchange fakes the forwards technique and throws his opponent backwards.
Bang anticipated that his opponent would lean backwards to avoid the second Uchimata attempt and so he faked and went backwards…and this is what we need to do at training. We need to fake forwards if we want to throw backwards and fake backwards if we want to throw forwards.
This means tat you need to find and sequence throws together.
For example Osoto gari and Sasae tsuri komi ashi (and vice versa)
Harai goshi and tani otoshi (and vice versa)
Uchimata and ouchi gari (and vice versa)
Seoinage and kouchi gari (and vice versa)
Start sequencing your throws. Start faking in the opposite direction BEFORE you attack and I guarantee you will throw more people and you will finally enjoy the ‘chess match’ of Judo more than you ever have before.
