Judo Randori Notes

Some notes from last night’s judo class, before I forget (as if I remember anything during randori anyway), to address my problems of entering when uke is bigger, heavier and sort of stiff arms me to keep me outside:

The main thing to do is work on motion, by going to the side, either dancing with uke in that direction, or circle pulling on the right hand. One thing I’m forgetting is that it’s not easy entering against a larger uke if you try charging directly in. My legs are shorter, also, so I can’t get a good attack on o-uchi-gari to begin any sort of combination (o-uchi-gari to seionage, to o-soto-gari, to tai o-toshi, etc.). As with aikido (if I only I can remember to try more basic aiki during randori), get off uke’s center before trying anything. The circle pulling is an important tactic, as you get off the line and then set up uke for some sort of entry. Similarly, hiza guruma gets you off the line and (hopefully) begins to unbalance uke for something else. I should also try uchi-mata, with a quick step off to the side.

There’s also the lapel grip seionage, where the bigger pull comes off uke’s lapel. In the case of the standard right-handed judo grip, the pull comes on tori’s right and the clipping arm is the left arm. Certainly, in the relatively un-ambidextrous world of judo, this sort of throw might be somewhat surprising. I need to practice this one.

Of course, this raises the question of how much technique differential is needed to make up for a given size/weight differential, as all the other white belts have several inches and a couple dozen pounds on me. I experienced the reverse of this situation a few times in the past couple of weeks when I randori-ed with one of the recently ex-juniors (an orange belt, about 14 years old, starting out senior class) and one of the women judoka (blue belt, where I outweighed her by 40 or so pounds and had a few inches of reach). I did well against both of them, with at least a couple clean throws and relative immunity to their attacks (the blue belt did get me on a quick sweep once).

2 Responses to “Judo Randori Notes”

  1. Shannon Says:

    I posted a comment (afer finding your blog on a Google search for Aikido). I see you are now doing Judo. (I’d KILL for a Judo dojo – Im addicted to it!). Do you still do Aikido? What did you think (when you trained in AIkido)?

    Shannon

  2. Cheng Says:

    I still do aikido, but I’m limited mainly to haphazardly scheduled morning classes because of schedule conflicts (the alarm goes off at 5AM, so evening classes that go from 7PM – 9PM, plus time to fold the hakama, plus a 20-30 minute drive, doesn’t really work). I’m doing more judo, mainly because the dojo is at most 10 minutes away, and class ends at 7:30PM.

    I have random recent aikido thoughts in reply to your comment at the original post.