just wondering would you support changing judo groundwork rules to prevent players assuming the turtle position and 'giving their back' to their opponents. Also to prevent people lying on their belly , sprawled out, and just doing everything to resist being overturned. its not very martial a behaviour, now is it ? would you sign a petition to make this change eventually happen ?
it's a very "sport" behavior. Within the context of a tournament if you feel like you're losing on the ground you can always: -get back to guard and force a stand up -stand up in guard/any other position -roll onto your belly and force a stand up It's a terrible strategy to learn if you're doing judo for self defense as well, but within a tournament context it's a smart thing to do... unless, of course, your opponent knows how to take advantage of your exposed back and chokes you out
If you - lay down on the ground, even the best Judo master won't be able to throw you. - run like hell, even the boxing champ won't be able to hit you. - put the turtle shell on you back and tuck, even the lion won't be able to eat you. IMO, hide in my home under the bed is safter than all the above.
I personally think it would be as dumb as any of the other bans (No hands on the legs? No leg control, even as a pass? No gripping the belt for more than a few seconds? Are sambists really that scary?) However, at this point, I would see it as a drop in the bucket, so here's a suggestion. Count it as a point or partial point to sink both hooks, and stand them up, under the idea that it's possible to be slammed as in daki-age, and therefore dangerous. Alternatively, you could call it a partial point for a pin just like shiho-gatame, since even though your back is not on the ground, you have been unable to escape an "inferior" position, just like shiho-gatame. If there is a pin system in any competition, I think back control should be the last position to not count as a pin.
speaking of gripping the legs for a throw... this past weekend i went to a tournament and attempted/failed a kata guruma. Surprisingly enough i didn't get sprawled to death; I just got right back up. Maybe judokas should focus more on DEFENDING moves and strategies instead of just doing nothing during competition and banning them in the rules later. Just a random tangent... back to newaza, at the same tournament i was on the bottom in half guard (back partially off the ground). I put my back on the ground to adjust my position and got an ippon called on me... needless to say i was confused. Any help on this?
A lot of the rules are in place to prevent overly defensive behavior. Grabbing the belt is one of these. Bad ref. It should not have been called ippon because effectively you had control of one of their legs.
Not that I like the new rules but people really need to familiarise themselves with why the rules are in place, the rule on unconventional grips was put in place to prevent defensive gripping where someone would score a koka and then hold out their opponent till the end of the time limit with an odd grip. Samboists have only ever truly terrorised lower divisions in Judo, never been a threat the the larger stage and the IJF has amply demonstrated time and again it only cares about international competition. Leg grabs on the ground are still allowed. The reason leg grabs are banned is because they are used by people in bent over posture an used in drop attacks to prevent the opponent from scoring a throw, drop kata guruma being a major culprit here. If I was in an uncharitable mood in randori I could simply use this over and over again and never get thrown. My sensei hasn't competed for a long time as he's in his sixties now and he teaches a very Japanese approach to randori, while he disliked the rules he recognised why they had been brought in. Finally, these strategies work. International competitors are machines and when they use a tactic you can be damned sure it doesn't have an easy counter as some posts here suggest. Morote gari for example is not about scoring ippon, Rhadi Fergusson (2x Olympian with a notorious morote gari) will freely admit that the purpose of morote gari is to avoid doing Judo, it's to stall a match and not give you're opponent a chance to engage becuase you can drop to the floor after it.
I may have been wrong on the leg control. I was told that going to a leg-control position on the ground would get you stood up on the spot in BOTH judo and BJJ, although that may not have been accurate. As for the leg grab and really any bent over technique, it's more than possible to throw effectively from there. People all over the world build their throwing game from there. I'm one of them. It's far from a purely defensive position, and it's far from game-breakingly unthrowable. But if it's an effective tactic, why would it be banned except to prevent people from winning judo with something other than judo? Maybe to make for more throws for the spectators? If it were not an effective tactic, why would it be worried about at all? Instead of banning things that lead up to throws like morote gari and kata garuma, shouldn't judoka get better at sprawls, or grips? The reason double leg type techniques aren't common in judo and sambo, rules aside, is that they're both done in the jacket. Your choices are to enter from outside gripping range, or try to execute the technique while gripped. Both options lend themselves much better to the one recieving the technique than the one executing. It's not a game-destroying technique. I understand that there are pro judoka who are way beyond me who would disagree, but of course there are matching people from more open styles who wouldn't, so appeals to authority don't really work here. I understand there are reasons for these bans, I just don't think they're placed with the best intent. But then, I don't personally think "because it's not judo" is much of an excuse to ban something that was judo up until the point it was banned. It doesn't make sense chronologically.
That is far from accurate. Load of rubbish in fact. It is a very attacking position. But if the attack fails, it's very easy to transition into a very effective defensive position where it's very difficult for you opponent to throw of submit you. Perhaps you could give more information on the throwing competitions you are involved in to compare. Various points there and yes they are true. Judo is about throwing people. Yes you can win a competition by playing the rules and doing otherwise, but that's what Judo is about. Judo isn't flopping to the floor when your throw attempt fails. There’s also a matter of being non-combative or overly defensive. You get penalised for overly defensive posture and grips and not attacking. Let's use a striking analogy here. Being non-combative in a lot of striking competitions (eg. not striking, continuously backing away from opponent) will earn you penalties. It's the same sort of idea. Spectators also come into it. Overly defensive Judo is boring, boring, boring. You sort of contradict yourself here. First you say that Judoka could improve their grips, then you say legs throws such as morote gari either have to be done while gripped or start from outside range. Working the grips is as much about being able to break your opponent’s grips as it is about maintaining or improving your own. And guess what, everyone is working on it, so everyone is skilled. Sprawling is also of very questionable usefulness is Judo. Yes it’s a good skill to have, but it doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere or gain you any points. Your opponent is just going land on their front (no throw awarded) and turtle up. What is in fact happening is people are going for a throw such as morote gari or drop kata guruma for whatever reason aren’t able to complete the throw so they bail. And how they bail is go straight into the turtle position, no even waiting for you to sprawl. Chronologically? I would actually say these throws are a lot more modern and weren’t present, or at least not common in the past. Why they are more common now is because they take advantage of the competition rule set. It comes down a bit to what the definition of Judo is, and each persons may be different.
What do you Judo guys think about this simple rule? You will lose your round if any 2 points besides your feet touching the ground (before your opponent). This will definite discourage "pull guard", "jump guard", and "lay down on the ground and refuse to fight".
Under current rules, you will lose the fight immediately if you do this. There are quite a few valid techniques that this would also disallow. This will also remove dominancy of throws. In other words, any throw will do, rather than dominant throws being awarded an ippon, and lesser throws partial points. No, not really a solution.
That's not what he said. Quoting his post on judo forum here http://judoforum.com/index.php?showtopic=42072&st=120&start=120 You have to do them like that to remove the counter option for your opponent. What people saw as no-control was actually A CHOICE that I made. You can score an ippon with the risk of being thrown for ippon or score a yuko or nothing, with the option of not being thrown at all and being in newaza. ;-) This was a conscious decision.
Not that post, this post and thread which I feel is far more enlightening http://judoforum.com/index.php?showtopic=34677&hl=morote+gari Post no. 7 along with another post I can't find right now on grip fighting by Rhadi completely changed how I look at high level Judo. Rhadi has a ton of posts on morote gari and this video on it: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z-XYTbyBNg"]YouTube- The Effectiveness of Morote Gari[/ame] Note that he rarely uses the word "score", he talks several times about the utility of morote gari, not about scoring.
First and foremost, what Righty said. (Righty, out of curiosity how long have you been doing Judo and do you post on Judoforum? It's odd to see someone with this opinion even when they're a Judo person) Ratty, I'd add that you should read the post by Rhadi Ferguson I linked to above, Morote Gari is an effective tactic BUT it's not about scoring quality throws, it's a tactic to help stall out a match or get you're opponent Shido's for passivity because it can be used to prevent him launching attacks, I've seen it many times. Grip up and do the high level equivalent of stiff arming (Grip defensively (A three volume book in of itself Rhadi has a 6 hour DVD on I think), move backwards, launch fake ashi wazza) Then dive in for Morote Gari dropping as fast as possible. Rinse and Repeat till the opponent is Shido'd then disengage as much as possible without receiving a penalty. Don't believe me, look at the matches from Beijing 08, ignore the highlights, I watched them live online and this was how matches where won. The first Shido decided the match because the player behind on the score card had to attack and it was only then that the Ippons were scored IF that wasn't what decided the match. The numbers don't tell the full story but only 40% 0f matches being decided by Ippon or waza ari awasete ippon is a pretty sad state of affairs. http://ijudo.blogspot.com/2008/08/2008-olympic-judo-by-numbers.html
I'll admit to being a bit lost in the technical debate but I have to say that from my perspective the rule change is not good. My background is that I'm a blue belt in BJJ and a beginner in Judo but I trained in a bit of Judo before the rule change and have started back since moving to Oxford in Oct after the rule change. What I've noticed: Before the rule change- some wrestler and a few BJJ guys trained at the Judo club and the coach actually seemed to enjoy them using a whole variety of leg grabbing techniques during randori as it gave his pure-Judo students a chance to practice against something a bit different. The techniques also proved to be generally quite effective and although high level guys obviously did much better they still seemed to get a lot out of the training too. After the rule change- Just the other day during randori there was a BJJ guy there with pretty good wrestling ability. During randori he was doing very well, he caught a single leg and swept the support twice. The instructor and the black belt he was sparring with were both complimentary but then explained that the technique was now illegal. The black belt commented that prior to the rule change it had been one of his favourite techniques and that it was kinda silly that it was now removed. So from my experience the impact of the new rules in normal clubs is that it seems that there is now a reduced opportunity to cross train usefully with other grappling styles, judo practitioners are having to avoid techniques they previously used effectively and new practitioners are probably not going to be taught them or get a chance to practice them leading to judo practitioners having limited effectiveness with some very effective techniques that have been in judo since it was founded. Also, hasn't the gradual reduction of groundwork been justified under similar grounds as this new rule? And has the reduction of the importance of newaza really been of benefit to Judo as a whole martial art? I dunno and again I'm happy to admit my opinion is very much that of a novice but I don't think it's a positive step for judo. It's certainly not a positive step for any judo-ka that want to compete in non-judo tournaments.
I'm in a similar position to CKava and I agree with what he said. I get the impression that a lot of these rule changes are to try to make the sport more spectator friendly and are leading to the loss of useful and fun techniques and definitely making it less attractive to those who want to cross train. The rules on ne-waza in general frustrate me, I think they would be better allowing longer on the ground if progess was being made.
I guess you need to realise that Judo is the most widely practised Martial Art in the world and still growing, the idea that it's in desperate need of keeping up with BJJ is something pretty unique to the UK and America, hell the idea is a foreign one in Brazil itself! France, Russia, Japan and many Eastern block countries are fanatical about their Judo, France has over a million Judoka alone. The higher ups in the IJF no doubt look on BJJ and MMA as the current flavour of the decade as Karate, Kung Fu and Kickboxing have been in the past and their probably right to do so. What gradual reduction and what justification? When was the last alteration to the rules that govern newazza in Judo? When was it ever justified by anyone in a position of authority? Really? Can you not think of any groups of grapplers from backgrounds that have NO leg grabs that do pretty damn well in MMA competition? The rules are there to increase Judo being done and reduce the avoidance of combat by bending over. IF they work (Which they probably wont) I don't mind loosing out on initial attacks to the legs. It would come in exchange for the bent over posture and defensive gripping that have no place in MMA, self defence or Judo. It's just that the rules won't work. Besides, look at the successful Judoka in MMA and tell me what techniques from Judo they do use? It was never the morote gari and te guruma attacks anyway, it was the harai goshi's, the osottogari's and the ippon seionage's.
I think your being a tad defensive here. I haven't said anything about Judo not being popular. All I am saying is that in my experience the recent rule change does not seem to be of benefit for most Judo players. BJJ being the 'flavour of the decade' is irrelevant to the point that making useful techniques illegal to make matches more exciting is not beneficial to Judo as a martial art. Considering that BJJ is an off shoot from Judo it is also possible to see quite clearly that a range of useful groundwork techniques are now illegal and not trained extensively by most Judo players that too in my opinion is detrimental to Judo as a martial art. I would also add that in general it is wrestlers who are best at single/double leg take downs not BJJ folk. Correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that there has been a continual reduction in the amount of time permitted for newaza in tournaments and a reduction in the amount of techniques permitted and that as a result this has meant that many clubs spend less time focusing on that aspect? If this is wrong then I'm happy to be corrected but again this is the universal impression I have received from coaches and other Judo players some of whom have decades of experience. They have all without exception indicated that various rule changes have been to the detriment of Judo's ground game. So I'm inclined to believe them. From my own experience the two clubs I've seen do spend a significant amount of time on newaza however both coaches have indicated that such a focus was not that common in Judo clubs and I can see lots of comments across the internet from Judo players complaining about this. I strongly suspect that anyone who does well in elite MMA will have trained extensively at defending single and double leg takedowns and will have no aversion to using them. The Judo rule change happened about a year ago, right? So there should be no elite/high level Judo players who have done MMA who are not experienced with leg grabbing sweeps/takedowns. What other grappling systems outlaw leg grabs by the way? And I'm not being cheeky I am honestly curious as I can't think of any and I can't think of any MMA training I've ever seen that hasn't involved, at the very least, defending against leg grab takedowns. All I'm saying is that from the perspective of a beginner looking at two average clubs the rules seem to have had a restrictive effect on general Judo players and to have decreased the ability for cross training. Is there absolutely no way to change the rules to punish overly defensive players without removing a leg grab? I suspect that there is but I realise I'm not an elite level Judo-ka so maybe I am being naive. Yes but they were familiar with such techniques. You don't see Chuck Liddel or Crocop doing double leg takedowns very often but they have trained extensively to defend against them and I bet they know fine well how to use them. I sincerely doubt that the successful Judoka in MMA do not train against and with leg grabs. Whether they use them often in a match is a different issue. Overall Slindsay, I get the feeling that you think I'm disagreeing with this rule change because I am some sort of BJJ fan boy. That's not the case and if it was it also wouldn't account for why I've met so many Judo players are also not in favour of this rule change. I really like Judo and I'm enjoying training in it but it has it's limitations just like BJJ and all other styles.
As someone who has never practiced judo, I've never understood why things always seem to get banned instead of developed and better integrated. To get back to the OP's original question, why ban the turtle position? It's a legit position preferred by many in other arts, such as BJJ. I have nothing against judo, though as a BJJ'er I might be a little biased. Still, I don't see any reason to ban the position...there are plenty of ways to attack the turtle, and indeed there are many ways to sweep your opponent when in turtle yourself. Why not develop skill in these areas instead of simply ignoring the position altogether?
because, my friend, you do the turtle position out there on the mean streets and you will probably get killed . you wouldn't practice driving a sportscar with a blindfold. so why have the turtle position in judo ?
