Competition Training and Reflections on Judo (diary entry)

jamie03066
Jun 15, 2015
5 min read

30.03.13

Today’s clear objective was to prepare a judo black belt for two upcoming competitions. The first is a groundwork (newaza) tournament. The latter is a standard judo competiton. My client wanted to cover groundwork taken from my Brazilian jiu jitsu knowledge and some combat conditioning. The class was divided into three sections: technical, specific strength conditioning and specific cardiovascular conditioning.

The whole session began with a warm-up on the mat using ground movement drills. I began the technical section with a tactic I learnt in Brazilian jiu jitsu to use against judoka. You attack with a weak large outer reaping throw (osoto gari), which is an open invitation for a direct counter with the same technique. As you are thrown you use the momentum to pull your opponent into an arm-bar. We improvised with a resistance band to help reinforce this behaviour in solo training. To practice alone, grip the resistance band, perform a modified side break-fall and move the legs into the arm-bar position. This movement requires an above average amount of speed and timing. In a judo-match, where a good throw can end the bout with an perfect point (ippon), one can imagine that the person executing the arm-bar needs a strong degree of confidence too. Nevertheless, it is a crafty trap and worth considering for judo and gi matches.

Two weeks is too close for us to introduce any new techniques or specific tactics, so I focused the next two techniques on areas the client felt needed improving. He wished to look at a counter from the high mount. This is a particularly troublesome pin for many, as all the weight of your opponent is away from your hips and onto your chest, shoulders and head. The cover is a useful tactic at the beginning stage. This creates and maintains a degree of space and helps prevent the suffocation feeling that an opponent uses to panic you and set up you up for a submission. Your lungs are already being compressed by the pressure of the pin, so using a strong structure like the cover helps create a good air-pocket as you work on your counter. Even though your hips are far back from your pinning opponent, bridging and snaking (shrimping) are your foundation defences. Couple this with the use of the cover as a single unit and you can work to get under one of your opponent’s thigh or knee, creating leverage for more space.

Here it is crucial to snake and gain as much of a gap as possible. We looked at taking the half-guard from here, which is secured once you have one of your opponent’s legs trapped between two of yours. However, this is not enough. If you are not active enough, an opponent will continue to try to flatten you out here and submissions are quite common from this position. You are not in a strong position with the half-guard until you are on your side and have secured a single underhook. From here, we took the back position. Then we looked at half-guard from the back into a choke.

It is interesting how much judo’s rules have changed in recent years. There seems to be a greater concern for safety, a desire to make the sport more aesthetically-pleasing and, whether the judo authorities will admit it or not, a drive to distinguish the sport from Brazilian jiu jitsu. Newaza time has been reduced and the time you have to pin someone has been taken down by a third compared to when I first touched judo in 1984. More throws have been prohibited involving the legs, which are favourites in BJJ and submission fighting. On a side note, it will be a shame if it just ends up looking like a jacketed version of Freestyle or even Greco-Roman wrestling. There are enough traditional styles of jacket wrestling the world-over that focus entirely on throwing an opponent to the ground.

When I covered a guard-passing tactic, going through the closed-guard, I was told that when an opponent stands in guard the match is usually stopped and resumed from standing. This is totally different from BJJ and submission fighting, and I am concerned that will have a knock-on effect with future judoka’s guard-work. Having said that, we live in a time where cross-training is more prolific and I know that friendly arrangements between Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo clubs have been growing rapidly over the last decade, hopefully improving the fighters in each other’s sport.

The guard-pass involves controlling the lapels and a single sleeve, and getting to combat base, which is pretty much the standard BJJ stance. The knee is then pushed through the centre of the guard and one leg pinned. Your other leg is then taken over the trapped leg, so that you can move into side control (in judo its English name is commonly side four quarter hold.

After the technical side I devised the following strength routine inspired by and motivated towards improving ground techniques:

Pull-up superset*

3 x 3-10 reps of Gi pull-ups (pronated grip or cross-choke grip)

3 x 20 reps overhead press with resistance bands (active recovery)

Top game superset

3 x 5 reps of full body attack with 2 x kettlebells or dumbbells

3 x 20 reps roll to combat base and punch with resistance band (active recovery)

Guard game superset

3 x 5 reps guard defence with 2 x kettlebells

3 x 20 reps rows or cross-chokes with resistance band from guard

Knee-on-stomach (knee pin) superset

3 x 5 reps bentover rows with a knee pin using 2 x dumbbells

3 x 20 reps punching down from the knee pin position with resitance band

*Immediately after each set perform the resistance band set. No rest until the completion of all four supersets.

We then did a five minute high intensity cardiovascular routine using a tractor tyre. Training was more orientated towards the legs to balance the upper-body strength workout:

1 minute dead lift

1 minute elevated crawls

1 minute vertical sledgehammer swings

1 minute decline crawls

1 minute box jumps

Conversation was completley separate from the main areas of trianing today. We centred on the dubious ascent of self-help in modern martial arts. As if taking the place of religion and ancient philosophy, the self-help philosophies of modern-day gurus, often promoting pseudoscience and the cult of personality. I feel this, along with fad-dieting, are the last bastions of mysticism in martial arts practice and it appears that no sector of the industy or culture is impervious to its lure. These days putting on a black belt and listening to an Anthony Robbins lecture gives an individual an immediate licence to peddle psycho-babble, quackery and dubious claims about positive thinking. As martial arts teachers, coaches and instructors we are in positions of responsibility and it is important that we motivate our students. I am not opposed to self-help in principle. There is nothing wrong with having a guiding philosophy or to speak from experience and education outside the practice of martial arts, but we must always be wary of losing touch with reality and genuine needs of those who come to us for training.

Clubb Chimera

Competition Training and Reflections on Judo (diary entry)

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