Ippon Seoi Nage

With the baby due today this may be my last post for a little while. Even though the ringtone on my mobile is turned up loud I keep checking it to make sure I haven’t missed a call from my wife. When I’m home it’s even worse as every time I hear her wake up at night I assume she’s going in to labour so I’ve been kind of sleeping with one eye open for the last week or so. Still I’m not complaining as we men get off a hell of a lot lighter than our respective female partners.


Anyway I made it to Judo last night, albeit with my phone positioned at the side of the mats. On Monday I was informed that Brian Jacks was taking a class at Yoshin Ryu but with the club being almost an hour’s drive away and no real place to park my phone I decided against it. Missing out on training with one of your childhood idols sucks but something’s are more important.

So back to last night and following our warm up we went straight in to newaza randori. I managed to not be subbed by Jadon, which I was pleased with and even got him in my guard at one point. Although I was largely fighting him off and being defensive I was still pleased with this roll. After all if you can make it difficult for the other person to submit you you’re half way there.

We went on to practise Yoko-shiho-gatame and some of the escape from it. The below video providing some good examples although I don’t like the second to last one where you roll over on to your stomach and give up your back. I know from a Judo Shiai perspective this is fine but it’s not something I would chose to do.

The throw we focussed on was Ippon Seoi nage, another throw that’s never really suited me. We started off practising the entry in to the throw and progressed on to uchi-komi before finally getting the crash mats out and having a go at throwing everyone in the club. As I’ve stated before, I really like this way of training as throwing lots of different sized people continuously is better than sticking with the same partner who may be someone who is very light which could therefore hide any imperfections with your technique. Duncan pointed out that I was not leaving enough space between myself and uke, which is something I keep doing. I am making a conscious effort to leave a bit of space now, but I guess practice makes perfect.

The class finished up with plenty of randori. Rather frustratingly my attempts at Tai-otoshi were pretty poor despite last week’s class on nothing but this throw. Assuming I’m not able to train at the club for the next couple of weeks I’m going to practice my foot positioning for both Tai-otoshi and the seoi nage’s so that when I return I won’t be too rusty.

Tai Otoshi

Tai-otoshi (body drop) is a throw that is on the yellow belt syllabus. Does this mean it’s a throw that is only used by low kyu grades? Well from my own experience it’s a throw that I learnt for my yellow belt but rarely got any success out of when doing randori. I think the reason for this is that there is a lot more to this throw than meets the eye. This is possibly the reason why the BJA put this throw in so early in their syllabus as it takes years to learn properly so you might as well start learning it from the beginning of your Judo journey.


If there’s one person who is synonymous with Tai-otoshi then its Neil Adams. Tai-otoshi was his favourite throw and he used it throughout his career to great effect so I had to include an instructional video of the master himself. Last night at DJC we had Graeme playing the part of Neil Adams.




Graeme showed us many different entries and versions of Tai-otoshi but I ended up favouring the Brian Jacks version which involves tori stepping across with his left foot and planting it wide to ukes left leg before spinning and planting your right foot across ukes right foot. I’d love to be able to post a video to aid my description but unfortunately I cannot find a single example of Brian Jacks doing Tai-otoshi anywhere. The reason I favoured his version was that I was able to generate more power and more whip to the throw, if that makes sense.


Following last week’s lesson where we got lots of practice with our throws, last night’s lesson was very similar. Before we progressed on to randori we got the crash mats out and practiced throwing everyone else in the club. We each got two goes at this.

We finished up with 3 rounds of newaza and then tachiwaza randori. The highlights for me were a successful reversal from the turtle in to a Yoko-shiho-gatame, a couple of Juji-gatame’s and a san-gaku-jime. Standing up I had a really nice tussle with David, where we both managed successful throws without the need for stiff arming or using too much strength. With David being a lot lighter, younger and quicker than I am, doing randori against him forces me to improve my footwork to keep up with him. It’s challenging but something I enjoy and probably need

Morote-seoi-nage

There was no Graeme on Tuesday so, with Peter present but nursing a sore back, Duncan took the class.


As a warm up we were told to do some very light Newaza so I paired up with Jadon. However Duncan had to keep telling us both that we needed to go lighter and use no strength whatsoever as this was just a warm up. Now for me this posed a problem as Jadon is clearly a lot better than me at Newaza. Not using my size and strength advantage meant that he could do basically whatever he wanted and he made me look like a complete beginner as he dazzled with some funky guard passes and transitions in to dominant positions and then to rub salt in the wounds he even caught me in my favourite submission, San-gaku-jime, right at the end.

Continuing with our warm up, Duncan had us do Uchi-komi practising our entry in to a number of throwing possibilities.

It was similar to the one below

From this position a number of throws present themselves and Duncan had us practice first O-uchi-gari and then Morote-seoi-nage. Duncan’s way of doing O-uchi-gari was different to the version I have been shown in the past and indeed the one I often use to great success in randori. Duncan takes a wider reap of uke’s leg and sweeps it wide to his right, similar to the version you can see below.

The way I normally do it is more like a gake, which is a sort of hooking movement which when coupled with the hand movement forces uke to the floor. With Duncan’s version you can quite often make Uke fall down without even using your arms. Personally I liked Duncan’s version a lot and will practice it from now on.

Seoi-nage throws are not for me, seeing as I am 6ft 3 and have stiff knees. I think the only time I practice them is for gradings and then I quickly push them to one side and continue with throws that do suit me. That said, however, by the end of this session I was very comfortable with Morote-seoi-nage. We used this in combination with the O-uchi-gari, so Uke steps back and pushes forwards and then tori simply turns in and pulls uke on top and then over the top of them. With both Oli and Andrew not present there wasn’t anyone even remotely near my height but through perseverance I think I got quite good at it. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I have a habit of getting a little too close to uke, which has the effect of putting them back on balance, after the effort of putting them off balance. But once I got my distancing right my uke was soon flying over the top of me.

Duncan then added Ko -uchi-gari to this combination, so that tori firsts goes for the o-uchi-gari, tori steps back out of the way and pushes forward. Tori then turns in for Morote-seoi-nage but uke braces himself and leans backwards. Tori then slides his right leg behind uke’s for Ko-uchi-gari, following uke to the mat.

We got to practice this a number of times before we went on to do some randori with the caveat that we could only use the three throws we had just been shown. We were also told not to resist the throw as we wanted to get lots of throwing practice in.

To finish up we all took turns walking backwards up the mat with an uke whom we had to throw with Morote-seoi-nage. We probably did three of four rounds of this, throwing everyone else in the club before joining the lien and being thrown yourself. I think this is an excellent exercise as not only do you get to practise the throw on lots of different sized people you also have to perform the throw under pressure as the rest of the club are watching.

I had to thank Duncan after the class as I felt I really got a lot out of it. If I was able to train like this 3-4 times a week my Judo would improve immeasurably. But alas this is not likely to happen.

Hard Training - Yoshin Ryu

With DJC closed due to the half term I was determined to train at least once last week with Yoshin Ryu my preferred destination. Both Oli and Jadon were also looking for somewhere to train on Thursday so we all made the trip up to Coulsdon. I would have also liked to have trained elsewhere but with my wife in “nesting mode,” due to the impending arrival of our wee bairn, I have been kept busy painting and decorating nearly every room downstairs, although one of those rooms is to be our home cinema/TV room, so not all bad.


I have been hyping up Yoshin Ryu to Jadon for a while now, talking about how there are sometimes 30+ guys on the mat with at least half of those dan grades. Unfortunately there were only 10 people on the mat last week but if I thought that meant we were in for an easier session I was to be hugely mistaken.

Before we did any randori we did plenty of grip fighting, uchi-komi & throw for throw, all the time interspersed with sets of sit ups, press ups and squat thrusts. I must admit, doing Squat Thrusts at a club where Brian Jacks is the president always gives me an incentive to do them correctly and as fast as I can. It’s just a shame that they don’t have any parallel bars for some dips.

It wasn’t long before we were told to kneel up and rei for some Newaza randori and first up for me was a small orange belt. This was a nice warm up roll for me as I was able to move from Kesa to Mune to tate-shiho and get the odd submission. I mostly worked on my top game but did pull guard a couple of times to work on my sweeps and also get what was to be my only successful submission by san-gaku-jime.

My next couple of rolls were against the sensei’s where I got to practice being crushed, feeling helpless and tapping. One of the problems that Neil pointed out to me was that when I pulled guard against him I didn’t bring him in close enough to me, which then allowed him time and space to control my legs and pass my guard. I’m also, apparently, telegraphing my san-gaku-jime which allows them time to posture and move.

One thing I have noticed in general about my Newaza is that I tend to hunt for submissions, maybe a little too quickly. I probably need to work a little on “position before submission” as when my sub attempts are stuffed it often results in me being pinned.

Following a quick water break it was tachi-waza randori and first up for me was the orange belt that I had already done newaza with. I was quite surprised at how difficult I found throwing this guy and in fact he got the first throw on me, countering my uchi-mata with a ko-uchi-gari which left me on my arse. I upped the tempo a bit afterwards to try and force him in to a mistake and eventually managed an O-uchi-gari and then right at the end I faked a Tai-otoshi and got him with a Tani-otoshi.

With only a few of us present tonight we didn’t get the chance to sit out and watch others so I went straight in to my next two rounds without a break and both of these were against black belts. I did get close to throwing one of the sensei with an O-uchi-gari but I mainly got to work on my breakfalls.

Eventually matte was called and everyone looked extremely tired. However Sensei Neil decided we still had more to give so he made us pair up and take turns doing 10 second sprints on the spot followed by 10 uchi-komi Ippon-seoi-nage’s, both sides. We both had to do this twice before we finally kneeled up for the end of the class.

Young at Heart

I’ve had a spike in interest in my blog recently which I traced back to a recommendation from Jadon on the Reddit website. I’m not sure how I feel about being described as a middle aged man but I guess I am 40. Still with a VO2 score of 51, resting pulse rate of 58, body fat at 14%, the ability to bench 100kg for 8 reps, I’m not in bad shape for a guy my age. I’ve also just signed up for the JP Morgan run, which is a massive event held in Battersea park each year and open to people in the Finance and Banking world. The distance is fairly short at only 5.6km but I haven’t done much running since my London marathon training came to an end two years ago so I’m trying to get out once a week just to blow the cobwebs away. The race date is the 10^th July, so I have a couple of months to get in running shape however there is the small matter of baby number two being due on the 19^th June, which will no doubt interrupt my training somewhat. I could of course just wing it as, like I said earlier, 5.6km isn’t far but I’d like to get a fairly decent time of around 28 minutes.

Jadon joined us for Tuesday’s class and was partnered with me for most of the evening. Following the warm up Graeme got us practicing the foot movement for Ko-uchi-gari in to Harai-tsuri-komi-ashi and once we had got used to that we partnered up and completed the throw. Kuzushi and timing is paramount in order to successfully throw your uke with all throws but particularly with Harai-tsuri-komi-ashi and this throw definitely favours the taller person due to the lifting motion.

The entry is different on the vid above as he is attacking with O-uchi-gari but the result is the same

Graeme had been given a masterclass in Juji-gatame at Witley JC, which is his other main club, by visiting Coach Chris Doherty 5th dan. He was therefore eager to share Chris’s version of Juji-gatame with us. Essentially there is only one way to do Juji-gatame and that’s the right way, the way that gets your opponent to tap. There are however many slight variations which suit different body types, whether you are fat or thin, short or tall, flexible or not flexible etc. So in learning as many different ways as possible you can hopefully find the one that suits you best, stick to it and master it.

Anyway Chris Doherty’s version, done against Uke’s right arm has you sitting in the usual position with your right leg either over their body or tucked under. Your left leg over their head but tucked in tight so that their head is almost touching their right shoulder. Then your trap their arm and hold your gi with your right arm but you do this quite low down on their arm, around their elbow. Then as you lean back their arm slowly straightens and because it’s so tight it forces them to tap long before you are lying on the ground, well it did for Jadon and myself anyway.



A good few rounds of Newaza randori followed with one of us starting in the turtle position. Carrying on from my change in newaza attitude i.e. attacking more from the top position rather than pulling guard, I went on the attack. However passing Jadon’s guard is not easy and I found myself in his half guard trying to defend a collar choke that he was slowly applying. When I tried to defend the choke he looked for the sweep and when I defended the sweep the choke was back on. Pretty soon I had that feeling that I was going to pass out so I tapped. Starting again with me in turtle was a case of surviving as long as I could. He managed to get both hooks in and was looking for the choke. I knew he had no intention of trying to roll me over for a hold so I played defensive but was still looking for ways to get him off me. I was pleased that I had managed to stop him from subbing me until matte was called. I’d be really interested to see how Jadon gets on at Yoshin Ryu where they have some very good Newaza players who can crush me with ease. I hope I get the opportunity to train there in the next couple of weeks so I can take him with me.

San-gaku-jime in to Ashi-garami - Yoshin Ryu

I got myself back to Yoshin Ryu last Thursday for their randori night which turned out to be a pretty tough session. Unusually there were only 12 of us on the mats, 7 dan grades and 5 kyu, which is about half of what I would normally expect to see.


Tim got us warmed up and then went on to show us Waki-gatami from turtle, something I have been shown before at DJC. Following this he showed us a variation where we bail on the Waki-gatame and end up taking Uke’s back instead. We got to drill them a number of times before we were told to start Newaza randori with the partner we were already with. I just so happened to be with Mark, a green belt whom I have chatted to before on E-Judo. It was a tough roll with Mark managed to pin with me with a Kesa-gatame before I was then able to catch him with a San-gaku-jime. Unfortunately I was not able to finish him with this despite try to shift my angle, pull his arm across to my right, hold his arm straight, and pull down on my leg, all the usual things you’d try before giving up. As I was fresh at this point I held position for a little longer than normal before trying to secure a Juji-gatame but matte was called. My legs were now a little tired from holding the san-gaku for such a long time and the rolls got harder and harder from there on in. I had good tussles with a brown and black belt, both of whom were considerably smaller than me. I probably used a little too much strength with some of my techniques as I was determined not to be subbed or pinned, which of course tired me even more. I did catch the black belt in another San-gaku-jime and again I was not able to finish him but this time instead of spending too much time and effort trying to get it I progressed in to Ashi-garami (that’s triangle to Omoplata for my BJJ/MMA readers). I then spent a while trying to get him to tap from this position but nothing I did seemed to work and eventually he made enough of a gap that he managed to squirm out. I’m going to try and work on finishing from the Omoplata position and go back to the drawing board again with my San-gaku-jime as I should be subbing a lot more people than I do.

Ashi-garami or Omoplata

This is a pretty cool entry in to Ashi-garami but not sure if this would be legal in Judo.

My last rolls were against two of the sensei’s and by this time I was knackered and really couldn’t put up much of a fight, not that I would have fared much better had I been fresh. Sensei Tim passed my guard at will rendering my legs totally useless. I may as well have tired them both together for all the good they did me. However, as I’ve said before in the past, I don’t find it demoralising to be crushed by the sensei’s I actually find it inspiring and gives me something to aim for. Now it’s unlikely at my age that I’ll ever get any higher than 1st dan but I think Newaza is something that you can probably be good at for longer as there is little to no impact like there is with tachi-waza.



I only managed two and a half rounds of standing randori. My first opponent, a yellow belt, was so tired that he had to leave the mat halfway through the 3 minutes to be sick. Up to that point I was able to throw him a couple of times with O-uchi-gari and Uchi-mata.

I then followed this up with two tough rounds against dan grades one of whom was constantly fighting for grips with me, which really tired my arms out. This fight actually went on for about 10 minutes as the Sensei’s were busy seeing to someone who had gotten injured and forgot to call matte. We were therefore both very tired at the end.

O-soto's

We had a bit of an O-soto masterclass this evening practising both Otoshi & Gari. Myself and Andrew were able to get in to a good rhythm, going throw for throw and getting plenty of reps in. We got the crash mats out for the O-soto-gari as this is a big throw. I was quite pleased that I got Andrew airborne and hitting the ground hard and flat on his back even when I did a left sided version. Graeme then showed us a slight variation on the O-soto-otoshi where, instead of planting your leg you pretend that your reaping leg has a roller skate attached to it so that when you reap, you reap all the way back along the floor and end up on top of your uke in Kesa-gatame. Again this throw has quite a heavy landing so we practised on the crash mats.



Normally when I do randori against the cadets (under 16’s) I take it very easy and allow them to throw me without resisting too much. Last night I was encouraged by Duncan and Graeme to attack more and refine my technique against them without using any strength. I managed a text book Okuri-ashi-barai , something that I don’t think I’ve ever had success with before in randori. I was fortunate in that my opponent allowed me to bounce them across the mat, moving from side to side before I swept their legs and made them horizontal. I did of course cushion their fall, as this can be quite a heavy throw, so much so that Graeme calls this the oomph throw, which is the noise Uke makes when hitting the mat and all the air leaves their lungs.

Another nice throw I was able to execute was a Sasae-tsurkomi-ashi. Normally when I throw people with this they sort of stumble to the floor but tonight my opponent went airborne and landed flat on their back. I’m really enjoying my Judo at the moment and feel like I’m making small adjustments to throws that I already know which are making them just that little bit more effective.