Kan iemand die Judo kent me hier doorheen leiden en uitleggen wat er gebeurt. Bij voorkeur met een voice-over / play-by-play
Kan iemand die Judo kent me hier doorheen leiden en uitleggen wat er gebeurt. Bij voorkeur met een voice-over / play-by-play
22/07/2018
3 Comments
Zorst
Let me guess… you saw that on the Joe Rogan experience. A friend showed me the link where they talked about it and it really bugged me how little they knew about it.
It’s Kyuzo Mifune (the left guy of the picture in the sidebar on this sub), arguably the best Judo technician who ever lived. He was 73 years old at the time and the video is called “the essence of Judo”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_axscGYFvgI
here you have a english subtitled version. Very interesting, amazing technique.
Geschichtenerzaehler
-Part 1- (because of 10000 letter limit)
I can try to describe what I see, but that will surely not be complete or always 100% correct.
As other pointed out, Mifune is *not* 90 years old here, but in his 70’s. Still his movements are absolutely remarkable. His style reflects his expertise, which is minimalistic in many key details, which *will* be missed, by those not knowing them. Other like Tokio Hirano for example Mifune doesn’t try to exaggerate certain movements for didactic purposes. That’s why some people might think: Well that’s what we do, too. It’s not.
So what happens here? This is not 100% all out fighting. It is highly economic Judo and the guys Mifune partners up with go along with that. Could some brutally muscle through a throw against him if they really tried? Very likely, but that wouldn’t be Judo then. On the other hand, those who never met a truly skilled Judo gramps on the mat, cannot really assess how hard it is to even unbalance those guys. It’s like they are not there when you attack, you just cannot get the angle right, most force applied against them seems to evaporate in wasted efforts.
One must also know that it is kind of taboo throwing your older instructor in Japan. This surely is another reason why those guys hold back.
—-
At the beginning (0:08) we see Mifune applying Sumi Otoshi against a bigger westener. It’s sometimes said Mifune invented that technique, which is not really accurate, but he surely was a master of it. I still struggle to fully understand the technique, but it entails catching uke amidst a movement limit. Mifune must have felt that uke couldn’t retreat his right foot at this very moment and deeply lowered his own center of mass towards the back corner of uke. Uke cannot take a step as he his weighted down too much and falls. If he doesn’t want to crash brutally into the mat he has no choice but to flip over.
At 0:14 his new parter attempts to throw, but it is not a well executed attempt. Anyway, we see for the first time a hint of Mifune circling out against the throw.
There is some footage missing here
At 0:24 his partner tries something that looks like Harai Goshi or O Guruma, but his positioning is off. Mifune stands a bit too far with a lateral offset to the wrong side, his center of mass also too low. He is not in danger.
At 0:26 his partner tries to attack yet again with Hane Goshi. I cannot say if this failed because Mifune did something (bad angle) or because this partner decided not force the technique with full force. The attack wasn’t 100% clean, but might have sort of succeeded if he had thrown everything into it. Impossible to tell for sure though.
That Kata Guruma at 0:36 makes me scratch my head. I was always surprised how Mifune approached this technique, even as a younger, much buffer man (there’s some pre war footage of his doing this throw). I cannot tell how he does it, because it is looks mechanically very different from how I learned it. He somehow manages to make uke go up onto his shoulders, while I make uke fall onto my shoulders while I am lower, which seems mechanically more effective. It is possible though he uses a simple, yet not so nice trick: Pushing upwards with his arm against uke’s crotch with his lower arm and thus makes him float on his toes…
At 0:41 the tall dude tries Harai Goshi, but Mifune has lowered his center of mass way too deep for the throw to succeed.
During the next 20 seconds we see the tall guy attempt a few throws, but he never gets proper control and also never manages to position himself and Mifune well enough to fully succeed. Mifune adjusts his position just when his partner turns in a little back, a little to the off side and lowers his center of mass or pulls out of a grip. Sometimes Mifune clings to his partner’s hips at belt level with his offside arm to stabilize his defensive position it seems.
At 1:02 we see Sumi Otoshi again.
The same game as before continues, but this time the tall guy speeds up and takes bigger steps, to no avail. At 1:13 he receives the bill for this, as he tries to move past Mifune’s left side and creates a perfect opening for O Guruma, a technique Mifune invented to throw bigger guys. Notice the absolute expert execution, which entails a super fluid Mawari Komi (spin turn) entry.
For a few seconds Mifune stiff arms in a bent over posture here. This is very unlike of a great Judo expert like him, but I assume he does this to set up his next technique: It creates space for a sweet Tomoe Nage at 1:23. For this technique he drops his own body fully on the ground under center of mass of his partner, puts up one leg as support and rolls back over his rounded back. Older senseis love doing sacrifice throws and when they do them they are often sure fire techniques. This is all technique, no strength. Pure Judo.
His next partner, 7 dan Honbe, moves very well with great posture and tries to remain well centered. Notice though how has to take little jumps to stay properly aligned towards Mifune to maintain this. Mifune puts some subtle pressure on here. At 1:44 Honbe makes an attack, but his grips are not good enough to keep Mifune under control who spins out like a cogwheel in relation to his partners turns and thus gets out of the grips. Honbe loses his ballance and falls.
The ground work part starting at 1:48 is a bit strange. At the beginning Mifune lies on the ground in a very passive, vulnerable position, but works his way out under his partner. This is about demonstrating economic and creative ground work. I don’t want to go into details here, but you can see how Mifune takes backmount for example.
(Part 2 in another post)
Geschichtenerzaehler
-Part 2- (because of 10000 letter limit)
Let’s continue at 3:35 a younger black belt partners up with Mifune for Kakari Geiko. That is not all out randori/sparring again, but more compareable to flow rolling in BJJ. It is about free, dynamic movements without enforcing things. At 3:39, his partner tries to throw with a left sided Ippon Seoi Nage. Mifune kind of surfs the back of his partner with and arm clinging to his off side and thus neutralizes the throw with little effort.
After that we see a few more failed attempts to attack by his partner, which all lack sufficent unbalancing and thus fail right away. At 3:59 Mifune throws his partner spectacularly. The subtitles say it’s Harai Goshi, but I disagree… it looks more like O Guruma again. Anyway, his partners attempt to move out past his left side without aligning himself has opened him up for the attack.
At about 4:12 the young black belt starts to fall into a lateral back and forth side step pattern. Mifune synchronizes with him at first, but then leads his partner into a somewhat wider step towards his left, which is enough for an asynchronity as he takes only a small step with his right foot to follow him and thus can easily sweep uke off his feet with Okuri Ashi Harai. This is “invisible Judo” in its purest form. Most beginners just kick their partner in the ankle without further effect when they try this type of technique.
They move about a bit more and we can see an interesting piece of grip work. Mifune lets’go of his partners sleeve (4:24), tests this grip on his lapel and then decides to go for a solid, upper outer ~~lapel~~ sleeve grip, very close to the shoulder. After that he moves laterally with his partner who goes along, but then Mifune switches directions again and his partner ends up in a very unbalanced state and completely open to his right. Mifune makes use of the grip he took and throws with Hane Goshi.
A wee bit later, Mifune engages de Grille, a tall heavy weight from France in the same kind of exercise. De Grille tries to throw with a left sided Ippon Seoi Nage, but Mifune swings his entire weight lightly to the off side and thus renders the throw impossible.
I think de Grille has a few good attempts here. If he really wanted to throw, he might have succeeded in one or two cases. Keep in mind though this is not a fight. On the other hand Mifune shows expertly how to perform evasive movements and grips with very little effort. Even if de Grille really tried to, he would have a hard time to do it cleanly.
At 5:06 we see Mifune’s O Guruma again, when his partner tries to move past his flank. Thing of beauty.
We see more shift out movements from Mifune after that. Imagine you wanted to carry a heavy bag on your back. But it slides off to the side. It becomes very difficult to manage the mass. That’s what he show cases here.
At 5:44 Mifune catches his partner in a moment of limited movement ability again: Sumi Otoshi. You can feel it coming as Mifune sort of feels out his partner in the seconds beforehand.
I cannot express in words how difficult this technique is and to perform it with this precision.
Dan Palmer receives the same treatment as de Grille.
At 6:27 Mifune starts to lean forward into his partner again. Soon enough Palmer stands back with both feet close together, leaning forward himself to withstand Mifune’s leaning. Mifune drops his own body to the ground below his partner center of mass and pulls him over his body: Yoko Wakare.
In the next half minute or so, Mifune teches an impromptu clinic on
proper posture and effective, centered movement while he neutralizes every throwing attempt by Palmer.
At 6:55 Palmer finally makes the same mistake as the other guys, trying to pass without re-alginment on Mifune’s right side, but he’s more careful in his steps than the other guys. Mifune places his foot at the outer side of his knee and draws Palmer out into Hiza Guruma. The timing was perfect. Usually Hiza Guruma demands way more complex motions with the attacking leg.
At 7:11 we can see Hiza Guruma applied again. I wish we had super HD 48 fps version of this footage, for I’d love to see the tiny details of Mifunes’s foot’s action here. I bet he does not just hold it there, but being a super efficient minimalist we have zero chance to see what he actually does in this blurry clip. Same goes for the hand action which is essential for a good Hiza Guruma as well.
The footage starts to repeat here… whoever re-cut this did a really bad job.
I hope this helps. I found it quite interesting going all over this.