It was an interesting lesson on Tuesday as my partner for most of the class was Andrew who has only just begun his Judo journey. What was interesting was that a lot of what he was doing was how I used to do things a few years ago. For instance, in randori he only really tried Osoto-otoshi , the first throw most of us are shown, but he never stepped in far enough with his left leg and never unbalanced me enough to be successful with this throw. Instead I was able to simply stiffen my leg and make him slowly fall to the ground with an Osoto-otoshi of my own. I can see why this is one of the first throws they teach to beginners as it encourages the thrower to use movement and kuzushi. Done static it’s fairly simple, however the throw becomes a lot more complex when trying to throw someone who doesn’t want to be thrown and normally ends up with the thrower being countered with the same throw. In fact in all my time doing Judo I can’t remember ever successfully pulling off this throw as a direct attack. Any success I’ve had with it is usually as a counter or combination.
