# some interesting judo thoughts on preventing your opponent from pulling guard.



## TSDTexan (Jun 9, 2019)

https://www.bjjee.com/articles/thro...ll-guard-w-olympic-judo-medalist-ugo-legrand/

look for the embeded video on the page.

this approach is identical in the Okinawan karate that I have been exposed to.

what do you think?
@Tony Dismukes


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## Gerry Seymour (Jun 9, 2019)

I like it. It's consistent with what I know. I'll be interested in input from Tony, specifically because he has some Judo to go with his BJJ.


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## TSDTexan (Jun 9, 2019)

gpseymour said:


> I like it. It's consistent with what I know. I'll be interested in input from Tony, specifically because he has some Judo to go with his BJJ.



100% for sure.
my take is this:
Karate doesn't want to allow an opponent to just run their own agenda. Karate looks to counter and interrupt. Every technique legrand is showing here, is present in Te. and the timing to apply them is the same. 

It looks like here, Legrand is trying to avoid sacrifice level commitment to the throws. very atypical for a judoka but SOP for  karateka.

good stuff either way for either artist.


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## Gerry Seymour (Jun 9, 2019)

TSDTexan said:


> 100% for sure.
> my take is this:
> Karate doesn't want to allow an opponent to just run their own agenda. Karate looks to counter and interrupt. Every technique legrand is showing here, is present in Te. and the timing to apply them is the same.
> 
> ...


My experience with Judo - and a review of the current list of falls - suggests there's still a significant body of work besides sutemi waza (sacrifice techniques). Working against an equally-skilled Judoka, the sacrifice throws get used a lot because you're being countered at every step of the way, and it just takes that sacrifice of balance (even on throws that aren't traditionally sacrifice throws) to get the throw.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Jun 9, 2019)

In the throwing art, Many throws can be used to counter itself and upward lift (pull guard) is one of those throws.

When your opponent's foot kick on your chest, if you also use your foot to kick into his groin, since you are on top, you will have weight advantage.


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## TSDTexan (Jun 9, 2019)

gpseymour said:


> My experience with Judo - and a review of the current list of falls - suggests there's still a significant body of work besides sutemi waza (sacrifice techniques). Working against an equally-skilled Judoka, the sacrifice throws get used a lot because you're being countered at every step of the way, and it just takes that sacrifice of balance (even on throws that aren't traditionally sacrifice throws) to get the throw.



The baseline presumption in old Okinawan Te is your attacker was no to low skill or in the worst case scenario a medium skill attacker. Dealing with thugs, not professional unarmed fighters.

1The thought was an extremely high skill opponent would have not be the type of person to just go arround mugging people. 

The other given is that you weaken yourself by going and remaining in a prone position. prone on prone combat posture is a position of last resort, because you have surrendered the ability to retreat, and your now faced with the possibility of additional attackers.

A positional weaknesses magnitudes less powerful than remaining vertical. Even squatting or kneeling is a better position.

But you are (imo) correct, that two judoka of high skill have to escalate their output to the 110% to land their basics. Hence the increased value of sacrifice techniques. But I did read once that Kano wrote that sacrifice throws in most instances were not necessary to ippon.


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## dunc (Jun 10, 2019)

There is a saying in one of the old schools of jujutsu (that has a lot of suitemi) that goes along the lines of
"If you are entangled with your opponent, then the only way to throw them is to suddenly perform a sacrifice throw"

It's worth noting that the sacrifice throws from older styles are very damaging to your opponent & either end with you in top control (usually mount) or with a lot of space between you and your (damaged) opponent


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## TSDTexan (Jun 10, 2019)

dunc said:


> There is a saying in one of the old schools of jujutsu (that has a lot of suitemi) that goes along the lines of
> "If you are entangled with your opponent, then the only way to throw them is to suddenly perform a sacrifice throw"
> 
> It's worth noting that the sacrifice throws from older styles are very damaging to your opponent & either end with you in top control (usually mount) or with a lot of space between you and your (damaged) opponent



This is where the overlap between old jujitsu and old Te ends. Te shares the do it very quick aspect, but the Te approach is to stun with precision. Either using open hands to the throat or eyes, or elbows to the temple, jaw or carotid.

Atemi waza as judo would call it. Kano emphasized its importance as did other branches of jujitsu.

i think the philosophical difference between te and jujitsu is one prefers to go to ground fighting as quickly as possible, with the best or most dominant position taken.
The other seeks to stun and overwhelm, and send the opponent to the ground without deliberately turning it into a newaza fight. Where a higher skilled party might easily take the fight.

I am reminded of an old event that happened between Gichin Funakoshi and a judoka who challenged him. Gichin begged off, but the young judoka wouldn't let it go. The challenge match was eventually accepted along the road. The judoka closed in and just as he was getting his grips in, GF threw a hooked punch to the solar plexus with a frightening amout of power.

The judoka had his diaphragm bruised and it was spasming so bad that his breathing was interrupted for close to twenty minutes and he turned blue.

GF was very worried that he had killed the young man.

It was after this that GF started refusing all challenge matches, because he didn't want anyone to die at his own hands.

Much earlier in life, GF was tossed three times by Choki Motobu with a kotegoshi. Choki thought striking GF in front of GFs students would be doing too much harm to the honor and dignity of GF, and was beyond the lesson he wanted to teach him.

Interesting that a seasoned master level karateka could throw another master easier then a judoka could... and without the atemi waza.


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## Tony Dismukes (Jun 10, 2019)

TSDTexan said:


> Throw Your Opponent BEFORE They Can Pull Guard w/ Olympic Judo Medalist Ugo Legrand
> 
> look for the embeded video on the page.
> 
> ...


It's important to realize that the advice in the video is primarily relevant to a sport BJJ tournament setting. In a real fight pulling guard is rarely the best tactic, even for a BJJ expert. In a Judo match, pulling guard will get you penalized. The rules of sport BJJ are such that pulling guard is a viable option, especially against an opponent with superior takedown skills.  The video offers good advice for someone who has superior throwing skills and wants to get the points for a takedown before their opponent pulls guard.

I'd be surprised if Okinawan Karate traditionally taught any sort of tactic against guard pulling, since that would be a very unlikely real world attack. No one will ever try to mug you by jumping out of a dark alley and pulling guard. Did you mean that the approach of immediately looking for the throw upon making contact is the same?


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## dunc (Jun 10, 2019)

TSDTexan said:


> This is where the overlap between old jujitsu and old Te ends. Te shares the do it very quick aspect, but the Te approach is to stun with precision. Either using open hands to the throat or eyes, or elbows to the temple, jaw or carotid.
> 
> Atemi waza as judo would call it. Kano emphasized its importance as did other branches of jujitsu.
> 
> ...



Hi

I'm really referring to older styles of jujutsu (ie pre-Kano) which involve striking both before grappling range, during grappling and as part of throws/takedowns etc

Generally these have very little newaza, it's mostly studied as part of the suitemi (sacrifice throws) and these are really only done when you're tangled up and it's hard to get sufficient advantage to strike or throw another way

Hope this makes sense


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## TSDTexan (Jun 10, 2019)

Tony Dismukes said:


> It's important to realize that the advice in the video is primarily relevant to a sport BJJ tournament setting. In a real fight pulling guard is rarely the best tactic, even for a BJJ expert. In a Judo match, pulling guard will get you penalized. The rules of sport BJJ are such that pulling guard is a viable option, especially against an opponent with superior takedown skills.  The video offers good advice for someone who has superior throwing skills and wants to get the points for a takedown before their opponent pulls guard.
> 
> I'd be surprised if Okinawan Karate traditionally taught any sort of tactic against guard pulling, since that would be a very unlikely real world attack. No one will ever try to mug you by jumping out of a dark alley and pulling guard. Did you mean that the approach of immediately looking for the throw upon making contact is the same?





Tony Dismukes said:


> It's important to realize that the advice in the video is primarily relevant to a sport BJJ tournament setting. In a real fight pulling guard is rarely the best tactic, even for a BJJ expert. In a Judo match, pulling guard will get you penalized. The rules of sport BJJ are such that pulling guard is a viable option, especially against an opponent with superior takedown skills.  The video offers good advice for someone who has superior throwing skills and wants to get the points for a takedown before their opponent pulls guard.
> 
> I'd be surprised if Okinawan Karate traditionally taught any sort of tactic against guard pulling, since that would be a very unlikely real world attack. No one will ever try to mug you by jumping out of a dark alley and pulling guard. Did you mean that the approach of immediately looking for the throw upon making contact is the same?



Well, some Okinawan specifics in my class, were the use of harai goshi to counter a number of attacks (such as single leg takedown) and the specifics of how to setup and use harai goshi.
We were going over Nifanchin Nidan which uses harai goshi in the left wing of the form before heading back to the center before going into the right wing.
We were told it was prefered Instead of uchimata during the breakdown.

As for when Okinawan karate became aware of pulling guard I cant say... but it has been aware of it in our tradition back as far as Toyama. Note... i cannot speak for other branches/families of Okinawan karate. but Toyama studied under an enormous number of Te and tuite instructors in Okinawa, and abroad in Taiwan and China.

This class happened about two months before I came across this video.


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## dunc (Jun 11, 2019)

Several old styles of jujutsu have jumping guard techniques but I don't know of any that have pulling guard so I think the defences against guard pulling were not really studied. Probably this is because pulling guard isn't a very good strategy in the "old style" context

Same can be said for single & double leg take downs. This seems a little surprising to me as singles & doubles have value in self defence scenarios, but my guess is that they hated the idea of grappling without controlling at least your opponent's weapon hand


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## JP3 (Jun 13, 2019)

Our Tomiki aikido has, well I better say apparently has, much more emphasis on the striking/atemi-waza component than many other styles of the grappling arts, so much so that my instructor encouraged me to keep all my punch-kick (well, he didn't go for the kick stuff nearly as much as the hand/elbow stuff) touched-up enough in practice on my own to keep it live in the muscle memory catalog.  Since aikido's main thing is the movement... I can tell y'all that Tomiki has NO sacrifice throws in the curriculum, anywhere. That's from white belt up to nanadan, serious.  Which, I find odd, because of the very close connection between Kodokan Judo and Tomiki Aikido.

Maybe they assumed we'd figure it out, if we "were doing what we were supposed to be doing" and practicing both styles at the same time? I came up with a sacrifice kotegaeshi tthat's just plain murderous to a weapon hand, for instance. It takes effect of what is structurally a sumi-gaeshi, with a kote-gaeshi grip when a strike/grab is incoming, then just execute the sumi-gaeshi drop... wallah! It's mean, y'all. Be careful with it and make sure to let go of the uke the first couple of times -- if they resist the throw you are most likely going to break something, there's too much kinetic energy to do much else.


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## Gerry Seymour (Jun 14, 2019)

JP3 said:


> Our Tomiki aikido has, well I better say apparently has, much more emphasis on the striking/atemi-waza component than many other styles of the grappling arts, so much so that my instructor encouraged me to keep all my punch-kick (well, he didn't go for the kick stuff nearly as much as the hand/elbow stuff) touched-up enough in practice on my own to keep it live in the muscle memory catalog.  Since aikido's main thing is the movement... I can tell y'all that Tomiki has NO sacrifice throws in the curriculum, anywhere. That's from white belt up to nanadan, serious.  Which, I find odd, because of the very close connection between Kodokan Judo and Tomiki Aikido.
> 
> Maybe they assumed we'd figure it out, if we "were doing what we were supposed to be doing" and practicing both styles at the same time? I came up with a sacrifice kotegaeshi tthat's just plain murderous to a weapon hand, for instance. It takes effect of what is structurally a sumi-gaeshi, with a kote-gaeshi grip when a strike/grab is incoming, then just execute the sumi-gaeshi drop... wallah! It's mean, y'all. Be careful with it and make sure to let go of the uke the first couple of times -- if they resist the throw you are most likely going to break something, there's too much kinetic energy to do much else.


NGA has a few sacrifice throws (I've been looking at the Judo catalog, trying to align them, but haven't put enough time in it yet), but most folks don't practice them "properly" IMO - not actually using them in resistive situations, so never getting to actually sacrifice properly - so they are a bit odd in how most folks do them. This is part of why I'm looking back at Judo these days - that's where these throws likely came from (it's known to be one of the background arts for NGA), so it's the best place for me to get back to better execution of them.


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## Kung Fu Wang (Jun 15, 2019)

By using the Chinese wrestling sport rule, if your body touch on the ground first, you lose that round. Both pull guard and jump guard just give your opponent a free round winning. Also if you can throw your opponent and remain balance, you will get 2 points. If you lose balance (such as sacrifice throw), you will only get 1 point, sacrifice throw is also not encouraged.

The single leg balance training after you throw your opponent down may disappear in the future generation.


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## Gerry Seymour (Jun 15, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> By using the Chinese wrestling sport rule, if your body touch on the ground first, you lose that round. Both pull guard and jump guard just give your opponent a free round winning. Also if you can throw your opponent and remain balance, you will get 2 points. If you lose balance (such as sacrifice throw), you will only get 1 point, sacrifice throw is also not encouraged.
> 
> The single leg balance training after you throw your opponent down may disappear in the future generation.


I like that ruleset. I assume the "body hits first" doesn't prohibit using a sacrifice throw that includes dropping your own body to the mat (not just the knees).


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## JP3 (Jun 16, 2019)

Kung Fu Wang said:


> By using the Chinese wrestling sport rule, if your body touch on the ground first, you lose that round. Both pull guard and jump guard just give your opponent a free round winning. Also if you can throw your opponent and remain balance, you will get 2 points. If you lose balance (such as sacrifice throw), you will only get 1 point, sacrifice throw is also not encouraged.
> 
> The single leg balance training after you throw your opponent down may disappear in the future generation.


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