THOUGHTS ON TRAINING

On Kuzushi and Judogis    

"Mr. Iikubo was over 50 years old at the time, but he was still strong, and I used to work with him often. Although I practiced my technique industriously, I could never vie with him. I think it was about 1885 that I found, while practicing randori ( free practice ) with him, that the techniques I tried were extremely effective. Usually it had been him that threw me. Now, instead of being thrown, I was throwing him with increasing regularity. I could do this despite the fact that he was of the Kito-ryu school and was especially adept at throwing techniques. This apparently surprised him, and he was quite upset over it for quite a while. What I had done was quite unusual. But it was the result of my study of how to break the posture of the opponent. It was true that I had been studying the problem for quite some time, together with that of reading the opponent's motion. But it was here that I first tried to apply thoroughly the principle of breaking the opponent's posture before moving in for the throw. Afterward, at the Kodokan, I taught the principle as the happo-no-kuzushi ( breaking the opponent's posture in eight directions ) and the roppo-no-kuzushi (breaking an opponent's posture in six directions )." "I told Mr. Iikubo about this, explaining that the throw should be applied after one has broken the opponent's posture. Then he said to me: 'This is right. I am afraid I have nothing more to teach you.' …Soon afterward, I was initiated in the mystery of Kito-ryu jujutsu and received all his books and manuscripts of the school."
Dr. Jigaro Kano as quoted by Jiichi Watanabe in his book The Secrets of Judo

I know that many ko-ryu jujutsu practitioners must be saying to themselves 'Ah yes! The reinvention of the wheel.'. But it seems to me fair to say, no one before Kano-sensei emphasized to as great an extent the necessity of breaking the posture before throwing or articulated it in quite as systematic a way.

In classical jujutsu ( as in many forms of modern jujutsu and hapkido ) it was, indeed, not always necessary to break an opponent's balance in just this way. The joints were often manipulated in such a way that one's opponent freely gave up his balance due to the pain or danger to his joints, sometimes to extent of throwing himself in order to avoid injury, as we can easily witness in any modern aikido dojo today.

After having done the same throws in hapkido it was certainly quite noticeable that judoka ( judo players ) I trained with placed far greater emphasis on initially breaking their opponent's balance. This allowed much smaller players to be successful in throwing large opponents. Also the systematic instruction in breaking their opponent's balance rendered a higher general level in the club as opposed to what I had experienced in hapkido dojangs ( training hall ) where we would tend to have a few stars doing all the throws successfully ( with a generally high level of striking skill displayed by the student ).

When I was fortunate enough to briefly meet Thomas Hargrave, a member of the Takumakai Daito-ryu group, in the Butokuden dojo in Kyoto he had some interesting things to say on the subject as well. While practicing a particularly painful joint-lock he said "It doesn't matter how painful the technique is. If it doesn't break your opponent's balance it's not a technique." - Not an effective one anyway. His point was that while your opponent is still in control of his balance a counter is still possible regardless of the amount of pain he may be in.

Interestingly, if we look to Mixed Martial Arts competitions and the development of modern Brazilian jiujitsu we can also discern a clear preference for wrestling style takedowns over judo style throws. (Although it is certainly true that many top Brazilian practitioners have cross trained in judo and can perform these throws quite well.)

As famous judoka and wrestler, Gene LeBelle, once described, "Judo is wrestling with handles." The chief challenge being, by extension, 'What does one do when the handles ( i.e. - the thick judo uniform ) are removed?'

Many judo throws are simply far less viable when one doesn't have a judo uniform with which to make them work and so we have the movement among many NHB/MMA/jiujitsu practitioners away from the standing technique of judo and toward the technique of wrestlers whose techniques do not unduly rely upon seizing their opponent's clothing. I would also argue, in some instances, moving away from the beauty of dramatic throws towards techniques of seemingly greater utility and conservatism.

So, the question presents itself 'Should we adopt as more effective the standing technique of the wrestler to our practice when we get into grappling range and reject the technique of the judoka and traditional jujutsu from which it sprang?'. I think one needs to take a closer look at the issue before firming up such a conclusion. The techniques of wrestling are time tested and are of unquestionable value. When engaging in randori with judoka in the not too distant past I, myself, found I was scoring often with suplexes when they turned their hips too slowly to throw and with reverse lifts when they dipped their heads too low.

But why did I take refuge in these techniques? Because I couldn't match them on the jacket.

Also, looking back at the techniques I was scoring with, they are categorized as ura nage ( rear suplex ), tani otoshi ( valley drop ), tawara gaeshi ( reverse lift ), and obitori gaeshi ( belt grab reversal ). In other words, all of these techniques already exist in the formal judo repetoire. There was nothing there you won't see watching an old movie of judo great Kyuzo Mifune or on the mat at a competive judo competition.

So why don't judoka emphasize them more? Firstly, because of the nature of the scores for dramatic throws in competition and secondly, because other techniques are equally if not more effective when your opponent is wearing a uniform.

Brazilian jiujitsu practitioners have largely rejected practising entirely without the kimono (sic) because the range of techniques on the ground is far greater with the uniform on and in self defense situations people are most often clothed.

Now some may argue that the nature of the clothing being worn is often quite different from that of a judo dogi ( uniform ) or a jiujitsu kimono but it wouldn't take you long to become convinced that a jiujitsu man can effectively choke a man wearing a crewneck shirt. Ask one.

The same points hold true for grappling from a standing position. In a self defense situation against an opponent wearing clothes it is useful to know how to use them to one's advantage. A secondary reason that wrestling techniques may have seemed more effective in the octagon and Pride rings may be that wrestlers, knowing that they are involved in a match, come out in a crouched position and excel at fighting from that position. One of the first things that Rudimar Federico of the Chute Box group did was have his fighters learn to throw their Muay Thai techniques from a lower stance to avoid being taken down as easily.

In self defense situations sometimes one knows one is in a fight before it happens and other times one does not. Having techniques at one's disposal that one may use from an upright position, as traditional judo emphasizes, is highly desireable in those cases where action begins suddenly and/or unexpectedly.

The purpose of budo (the martial ways) is not sport. Martial sports are what we have invented to test our skills safely and to inspire us to perfect technique in environments devoid of the battlefield situations from which many of these techniques sprang. We should use these sports as a methods of improving ourselves. For some, these sports may well be a satisfying end in themselves but for others, who are seeking something more, they should be mindful of not allowing successful sporting applications to be the sole criteria with which they judge the techniques of an art. If the nature of the sports, their particular environment and their rules, change the way we practise we may find that there are important things being lost in exchange for greater 'ring' effectiveness.

 


ON RELAXATION AND STRIKING POWER


Our school’s approach to creating striking power is perhaps the most widely sought after element of our training and the one most widely admired by those many students who come to train with us from outside our system. There has been no shortage of practitioners from other systems who expressed a desire to acquire the punching speed and power that is so readily apparent in many of our intermediate and advanced practitioners. Oddly enough it is still quite a task to convince such practitioners to adopt our training methods despite their desire to possess the results such training confers. This is due primarily to the faulty concept that is shared by many non-practitioners and experienced players alike about the relationship between relaxation and striking power. In short, most practitioners in an effort to create maximal results perform techniques with a maximum degree of muscular tension and exert a maximal degree of effort.

On the surface this seems a sound enough concept on which to base one’s training; increase the degree to which your muscles exert themselves and increase one’s efforts, to produce greater striking power. Unfortunately training results do not bear out this hypothesis well.

When asked to strike a horizontally held striking target with a hammer fist even the novice is able to generate a certain degree of power, in fact, in some instances he able to create the same or even more power than an inappropriately trained practitioner. When asked to hit the target “as hard as they can” generally, although the degree of exertion is raised exponentially, the degree of impact felt by the target holder is raised not at all, very minimally, or in some instances, less than in the case of the first strike thrown. Yet if asked the practitioner will ‘feel’ he is hitting the target much harder.

The simple but hard to accept fact is that perception of power and the actual creation of it are two quite different matters.

Asking the same practitioner to raise his or her hand up as if brushing their hair back, thereby using only the necessary amount of force to raise one’s hand in a relaxed manner, and then asking them to loosely swing their arm down as if it were made of rubber, in the vast majority of cases, results in a much greater degree of impact power as perceived by the target holder while the practitioner exerts far less energy and thereby perceives the strike as being less powerful. Obviously the practitioner’s ‘feeling’ is less than accurate as it relates the power being produced by such strikes and yet the results are undeniable and the behaviour of the target is also readily perceived by the striker as well.
Such results are found not only in the world of striking inanimate objects for fun but can also be readily discerned in simple tasks such as hammering a nail into a piece of wood. The master carpenter rarely appears to be flailing away at a head of a nail with an unfocused barrage of energy but rather utilizes long, smooth swings, accelerating as he reaches the head of the nail to ensure proper contact and direction at the point of impact. His long easy swings quickly sink the nail all the way into the wood while most of us would still be employing our shorter, jerkier, impacts in greater number to achieve the same job. The carpenter however allows the weight of the hammer to do the work for him, letting it drop while adding only a little acceleration to its natural speed in order to achieve his efficiency. He trusts in the hammer rather than in the strength of his arm to achieve the task. It seems only fitting that we should take as a model for our ‘hammer fist’ the proper use of the real thing.

Relaxation is of course not the only element which contributes to power in striking. There is also rhythm, timing, speed, weight and focus. We need a good rhythm within our own body’s internal movement for it to move in a fluid and natural way. Joints and muscles must be employed in the right order and with the appropriate speed in relation to one another in order to be used to maximum effect. Rhythm provides us with the knowledge of the essence of that correct timing.

The timing between our setting of our bodies into motion, and the stopping of our bodies’ motion, in relation to the moment of a strike’s impact is of crucial importance and thus the reason we spend so much time on working the relationship between when we plant our feet and when we strike in everyday practise.

In our approach we look not so much at how fast a strike is thrown but at how much it accelerates to the point of impact. Stressing the increase in speed to the point of impact rather than how fast it is launched.

Speed, by itself, sometimes seems all that is necessary to create power and yet we have all watched what appears to be a blinding barrage of punches thrown in a professional boxing match which produced very little ill effects on the opponent. Weight commitment is a key component in the effectiveness of strikes and body position, posture and the movement of the striker all help to create this weight commitment.

Focus is also of paramount importance in the pin pointing and directing of one’s energies into a small, well chosen target. A blow thrown at a point of impact that is not carefully chosen stands a good chance of landing poorly or roughly on broader point of contact thereby reducing its impact power to some degree. Focus also allows us to choose more vulnerable targets and/or direct or energies on the most effective angles for gaining ‘purchase’ on said target.

But the importance of relaxation is probably the most difficult element for beginners to comprehend and put into practice. Tension in the shoulders when punching is probably the most difficult element to eliminate from one’s movement. Undo flexion, or snapping of the elbow joint is also a challenge for those new to striking.

Our approach to beginning training in throwing a straight right hand is to break one’s movement into three main steps which show the most efficient use of one’s energy; shift, turn and punch. Shifting to start the weight moving from back foot to front, turning to make good use of the centrifugal force involved in turning the torso and hips from our side stance and punching to get our arm moving last, properly supported by the movement of our bodies.

Using the analogy of a person whipping out a chain, if any of the links in said chain are, stuck, fused or immobile the chain will not move as well as it would have if all links were moving freely. In the same way if any of the muscles around our joints are flexed tightly it will interfere with the speed and ease with which we are able to move and also the degree with which our force is able to be conveyed, from link to link, up from the ground into the hand or foot.

In delivering a straight right hand we first get our bodies moving in a straight line, then employ circular movement by getting our upper bodies turning in a movement that is generated from the hips and lastly allow the acceleration which has been created by the prior two movements to flow through our loose, relaxed arm, moving through our fist and into the target.

If we were to describe the movement employed by the arm itself it should be like a rock on the end of a rubber band. The body creates the movement, our arm is like the rubber band allowing the force to flow through it unhindered and our fist is like the rock creating dead weight which has been hurled at the target.

It is an often observed phenomenon that big people tend to hit harder given the same level of skill and this is not one we would attempt to refute. However we might offer a differing reason for why this is true than the average fellow might hold to be true. Many would come to the logical conclusion that bigger athletes strike harder because they have stronger, more muscular limbs that create greater muscular power. We might argue however that the bigger skilled athlete strikes harder mostly because he has greater amount dead weight to launch into his strike and that the more relaxed and faster he gets that weight moving the heavier his strike will become.

If we look to the world of professional boxing and technicians who seemed to be very relaxed when striking we could think of athletes such as Mohammad Ali, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Leonard, Larry Holmes and George Foreman. Larry Holmes’ jab came out loose like a whip dictating the distance at which the fight would be fought, Joe Louis’ left hook was seemingly pure technique devoid of any apparent ‘muscling’ and later era Foreman appeared so relaxed and slow moving that he appeared an easy target for the younger up and comers. That is until they felt the end of one of those punches! He seemed to be moving very slowly but he was very relaxed and using pure acceleration. The ends of those fists, even in his later years, were not moving slowly at all.

The late, great Any Hug of K-1 kickboxing fame, who although not known for the looseness of his punching technique made up for it in the relaxed execution of his kicks, had this telling remark to offer in describing the role of relaxation and striking as it applied to a lackluster performance in the ring, “In preparing for this fight I had taken a lot of antibiotics due to an virus and this interfered with my performance this evening. I couldn’t relax enough in the ring to fight really well.”

Although obviously one cannot be relaxed all the time when one is fighting but it is one of the critical differences we can see in very experienced fighters and in fighters who seem to possess speed and power out of proportion with their apparent physical attributes. Also it is a critical that one be relaxed at the moment of striking in order to have the necessary speed to maximize the power in one’s strikes. Relaxation allows power to happen.


Matt Rogers