December 7, 2012

• Major Outer Reap

  The first technique that I learned when I joined the University of Sydney Judo Club is known as o soto gari, which, like many Asian martial arts techniques, has what I consider an almost rural simplicity to it: major outer reap.

   

  I'm not sure if this is normally the first technique that one learns, but it was the first one that I learned.  I've been doing Judo for about 8 weeks now, but we only really worked on o soto gari for the for the first two weeks.

  During the first few weeks, I was thrown relentlessly.  I suppose this might've been good, because I quickly learned how to fall properly (and how to try and not land on my head).  At about week 4, one of the brown belts took me aside and taught me the basics of preventing myself from getting thrown -- things like using a hip thrust to block, or how to use footwork to circle quickly with the direction of the throw to negate my opponent's leverage.  When I started getting the hang of the physics behind it, I really wondered why I never figured these things out sooner, because it seems so simple.

   

  My love-hate relationship with o soto gari comes from the fact that although it's simple, the initial offbalancing of my opponent is crucial to giving me a window of opportunity to use my leg to reap his.  The problem though is that, of the people who I do randori with, they are either significantly more experienced than I am (higher belt rankins) or heavier than me.  For people who are taking me seriously, more experienced opponents can see me attempting to offbalance them for the move to begin with.  For heavier opponents, it often means that their extra muscle allows them a bit of extra leeway to resist the technique and reverse it even if I start first.

  I learned the basics of the technique during the first week, and for the weeks of randori (sparring) after that, I'm certain I tried it at least five or six times per evening, with no success.  Actually, to put things in perspective-- I almost never have any success in throwing my opponents.

   

  The problem is that up until a couple of weeks ago, I've been trying to do the throws mechanically without really working on offbalancing the opponent first, and then using a throw that take advantage of that disturbance in their equilibrium.  I guess, if you want to make it really simple, I was treating throws as if they were throws in Street Fighter games:  you basically get close enough, and then push certain buttons, and regardless of what the opponent is doing, you'll be able to throw them.  That's how throws work in street fighter-- if you've closed the distance, if you gone from ranged to kicking to punching to elbows to clinch range, they're close enough for you to grab them, that's it.  Your character can throw, no matter what your opponent is doing.  It is very difficult to prevent a throw, and indeed, many characters have unblockable and uncounterable throws.  I treated throws as a carpenter's hammer-- a one size fits all sort of tool for all sorts of jobs.

  Throwing a punch in real life is, in many ways, similar to throwing a punch in the game.  You train jabs, crosses, hooks and uppers on pads, and largely, when your opponent is in front of you, you perform those techniques the same way, regardless of who your opponent is.  That's your basic toolkit.  Your opponent is either blocking, parrying, dodging, trapping, or eating the punch, but that doesn't change the way you actually throw the punch in the first place.

  In a way, punching and kicking is very "one-sided" in that you don't adjust it too much based on your opponent.

   

  And that's the kind of mentality that I took with me when I started judo.  I suppose what I expected was that I would learn a one-sided technique that I could just perform, regardless of my oponent-- because, you know, in Street Fighter, the dififcult part is getting that close.  But once you're that close, you can throw them, big or small, the same way!

   

  I don't know why I expected this to be true of the real world.  Two months after starting, I find that judo is, in my opinion, much more difficult to learn than kickboxing.  Kickboxing, you can hit pads, and you gradually increase power and technique.  But at the end of the day, you're still getting the same result whether you hit a pad or a body-- you're just learning to channel more devastation, but at the base of it all, a pure technique doesn't hit a pad much differently from how you would hit a body.

   

  In contrast, a throw requires that you pay attention to all sorts of things, which ultimately come down to where his centre of gravity is, where his weight is supported, and his momentum.  To compound this, it's also relevant how flexible, how powerful, and how agile the opponent is.  Then, there's also their body composition, and how tall they are.  I guess I just feel that, after over a decade of striking martial arts, whether you kick a light person or a heavy person, it doesn't change how I am delivering the kick.  With a throw however, I need to adapt the technique to the opponent.

   

  Since I started doing judo, I've been trying o soto gari at least a handful of times per opponent whenever we go through randori, which usually lasts about a half hour.  Pretty much all the time, I get countered for some reason for another.  I consider the counter to be pretty spectacular-- because the main counter for a shitty o sotto gari is basically to perform o soto gari!  That means that unlike rock paper scissors, you don't have to use a more appropriate technique-- this is one of those instances where, by a bit of  weight shifting, you can counter a rock by basiaclly smashing it to pieces with a sharper or bigger rock.  It usually ends with me looking up at the ceiling after taking a pretty heavy fall.

   

  But that all ended yesterday, when, for the first time, I managed to pull off a clean o soto gari on an opponent.  I fell to my knees while doing the technique, but as long as he was on his back, that's all that mattered.  To boot, it was one of the black belts, [Tack]!  It was a great feeling of acheivement.

   

  The technique caught him off guard I think because it was my last randori of the night, and I was visibly breathing heavy and starting to slow down.  My fingers were exhausted, maknig my grips much easier to break, and I'd taken a hit on my shin that All of my right handed techniques were easy to predict, and I didn't have enough surplus power to just muscle my way through the throws.  The technique that I used on him was a "left handed" technique because, frankly, my right handed throwing muscles were exhausted.  I heard the slap of the mat as he broke his fall and I knew that I'd finally done something right.  It only took two weeks.

   

  Actually, it's not true that I've never thrown anyone up until now-- I've just never managed to throw a brown or black belt before with proper technique.  Orange belts and green belts, I can sometimes get away with wazari-class throws by  driving my weight and power completely behind a technique (as in, not using much technique, but using brute strength).  The concept of "guard crushing" in kickboxing in many ways applies to judo techniques as well, where, even lacking proper position or leverage, you can sometimes apply overwealming force to simply overwealm any possible countermeasures.

  The throw that I pulled off against Tack was not one of these techniques.  It was important,not only because as a judoka, he's more experienced than I am, but because he's a bigger opponent, and for once, it felt like I wasn't using brute strength.  From that moment on, I had some sort of epiphany about the off balancing taht leads up to the throw, and I was able to employ it more consistently.  Against Tack, who was being careful but who wasn't going all out against me obviously, I managed to land two more throws.

  The really amazing thing was that I had the feeling that he would only "give me" throws when I was using proper technique.  As in, he would resist with the same amount of force that I was putting in, to basically neutralise my force-- but if I was using a throw with proper technique, he would concede the leverage advantage (and not take advantage of his superior size or strengh) and allow me to throw him.  Basically, he would always match my force, so that the only way I could ever throw him was by using proper technique. 

   

  I got the distinct feeling that whenver I tried to use brute force, he would instantly notice, and simply counter the shit out of me.  In most cases, he didn't even match my force, he just redirected it.

   

  I have often told people that fighting with someone reveals a lot about a person in ways that often cannot be expressed in words.  Thanks to Tack, and the experience I had yesterday, I feel like I've learned a bit more about this new vocabulary.  I feel that now, I'm a little bit more empowered to expressing myself and understanding others.

   

  Yes, I know, I shouldn't expect real life to be as easy as video games.

  • 12:40 am
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