Tag: olympics

Tactical awareness: Throwing (or being thrown) from the floor

Ippons are perfectly scorable when Uke is on the floor. There’s this blurry line between the tachiwaza and newaza phase and you want to exploit it, and avoid being exploited.

Here’s Choi throwing Paischer for Gold in the 2008 Olympics:

This illustrates an important factor that referees must remember when scoring techniques: “It ain’t over ’till it’s over”. The whole, continuous motion must be kept in mind when deciding what score to give. In the above example, the referee team clearly felt that the attack continued from Uke dropping to the floor, resulting in the Ippon.

Before I continue, it is very important to point out now that the throw Choi used here is not going to be allowed come 2010! This thread on Judoforum.com has the information. Unfortunately, it isn’t 100% clear. For example, some of the techniques are not permitted when both players are clearly standing either. Also, fine line here: Will Ura-nage eventually be disallowed as well, due to it also involving picking a player up?

(Forgetting to consider the entirety of the throw can catch referees out for a different reason: A HUGE Kata guruma which has the “oooooooh” factor and the referee instinctively awards Ippon but… right at the end Tori loses control and Uke drops onto their side. Oops.)

Anyway, we have covered that throws in this phase are scorable. I saw a couple of great examples of this at the weekend, including one for the Gold medal.

Firstly, a player comes in for a failed Kata Guruma or leg grab of some description. They are down on one knee. Their opponent can take advantage of this (Uchi-mata especially!) for a good, sweeping, clean Ippon.

Secondly, this could be combined with a more tactical approach. Uke may feel they are ‘safe’ and will start to stand. This can also happen if both players have stumbled to the ground and stand up again. This is fine and the referee will not call Matte if both players are doing so of their own volition. Tori can take advantage of this lull and throw! Perfectly scorable and beautifully tactical.

So always be wary of these opportunities. If you are Uke in the above, you may want to turtle up and not move until Matte is called… just in case. ALWAYS be away of the tactical situation. Your opponent is unlikely to be letting you stand up because they like you and want to give you a nice slice of cake, are they?

Patrick Roux Interview

There is now an interview with Patrick Roux on the BJA web site.

It is good to see a common sense approach is coming in. Especially emphasising the importance of Uchikomi and correct Randori:

“…Randori, in France, is not a bull-fight, as it is in some other countries. Randori is more often used to develop a wide range of techniques. Between Athens and Beijing, the French women’s team changed the way it was doing randori and was rewarded with much greater success.”

Of particular interest was a reference to a throw at the 2008 Olympic games:

Another area, on which he wants to work, is tactical appreciation, for fighters to make an instantaneous decision under the physical and mental pressure of a competition. In Beijing, we had a perfect example of what he means in the final of the under 63 kgs category, when Lucie Decosse of France attacked the defending champion Ayumi Tanimoto, with ouchi-gari, driving the Japanese girl backwards. However, Tanimoto used the forward movement of Decosse to bring her off-balance and counter her perfectly with uchi-mata. For me, it was probably the technical highlight of the Games and demonstrated exactly what judo should be.

This is a counter which I like myself. And it shows why I am struggling with my Uchimata. Performing it as a primary attack doesn’t work too well for me, as clearly I am not generating sufficient Kuzushi. If Uke has effectively done that for me by way of an appropriate attack, it’s a decisive Ippon.

Getting there…