Any Olympic Judo watchers here?

[PiedmontChun]

I was a bit surprised not to find some chatter here about the Summer Olympics. Do people who train Judo non-competitively like to watch competitive Judo? Anyone have any thoughts on the games this past week?

I've been interested in Judo and looking to start training it in near future, but my knowledge is minimal and understanding of the competitive side virtually non-existent. I watched the NBC coverage of the games this week and enjoyed it, though I had to google the terms used as well as the rules to have even a superficial understanding of what I was watching.

 

[Tez3]

I've watched every single match lol, I'm recovering from an op so am sat on my sofa watching the Olympics ( luckily I have 'pause' on the television!), the BBC have shown all of it so far, though it's online as well. We have a couple of very knowledgeable commentators, one Neil Adams is an Olympic Judo medalists and very good at explaining terms, rules etc. which makes a big difference to watching the bouts. It's been very enjoyable so far, I keep catching up with the other Olympic sports too though.

 

[Jeff_Beish]

While being out of the loop, so to speak, for many years and having not seen much Judo on TV I was surprised that Judo was shown a lot; however, I am not all that imposed wit the technique so far, with some exceptions. Then I found some 2016 videos of Grand Slam, Grand Prix, of whatever with many of he same faces and their techniques we very good. Maybe it's the air, water or because it's winter down there; they seem to not play the old Judo in my days at the Olympics. Yeah, my days ended in 1989 from 1952.

 

[Charlemagne]

I love it. I wished they showed it more often. In my view, Kayla Harrison has been the story of the Olympics the past two Summer Games.

 

[Flatfish]

It's been pretty much the only thing I have watched, great stuff. TKD starts next week. Read somewhere that they changed the sensitivity settings on the gear to require more power for a score...hopefully this will make for less slappy tappy comps (still no head punches though....sigh)

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I was a bit surprised not to find some chatter here about the Summer Olympics. Do people who train Judo non-competitively like to watch competitive Judo? Anyone have any thoughts on the games this past week?

I've been interested in Judo and looking to start training it in near future, but my knowledge is minimal and understanding of the competitive side virtually non-existent. I watched the NBC coverage of the games this week and enjoyed it, though I had to google the terms used as well as the rules to have even a superficial understanding of what I was watching.

I've watched a bit - too much work to watch as much as I'd like to have. It's not how I remember it, and certainly not like the training I experienced in the 80's. What you see now is the result of people being very good at stopping techniques, so there's very little actual throwing, and the ground fighting is all but gone. Even with all that, I love watching it. It's interesting to me to see how quickly some of the competitors can slip into a nearly non-existent opening in their opponent's balance. Impressive skill, even if the result sometimes looks less skilled than it actually is.

 

[Steve]

I haven't watched all of the matches but have managed to take in quite a few. Without streaming of be out of luck. It seems like 80% of the primetime coverage is women's beach volleyball.

 

[PiedmontChun]

I've watched a bit - too much work to watch as much as I'd like to have. It's not how I remember it, and certainly not like the training I experienced in the 80's. What you see now is the result of people being very good at stopping techniques, so there's very little actual throwing, and the ground fighting is all but gone. Even with all that, I love watching it. It's interesting to me to see how quickly some of the competitors can slip into a nearly non-existent opening in their opponent's balance. Impressive skill, even if the result sometimes looks less skilled than it actually is.

Basically, to my eyes, what made up 70% of the matches was constant grabbing each other's gis along with readjustment of footing to avoid sweeps, 25% scrambling to keep their back off the mat after taking a tumble, and maybe 5% legit throws. Not a criticism, just a tiny bit of disappointment maybe if I am honest as an outsider? I was really hoping to see some just flat out awesomely executed throws and they seemed super rare, although I discerned a couple really cool reversals where one quickly took a dominant position from a seemingly vulnerable spot. It made me wonder if the sport has evolved to that point where judoka's high level skills are just largely cancelled out by one another.

 

[Tez3]

Neil Adams was saying that that the rules have been adjusted so it's 50% standing and 50% groundwork, that's from previously 30% groundwork before. The rules seem odd such as not touching the legs, I'm assuming it's only at certain times though (one girl was disqualified for it) he was also saying some of the Judoka hadn't got used to rules changes, I get the impression that rule changes happen a lot.
What was good though was the number of people invited to take part from places like Afghanistan who while they didn't get beyond the first round still had the experience of being in the Olympics and top flight competition. Their skills were by no means shabby or lacking it was just that those of the Judoka they faced were on a much higher level.
I haven't done a lot of Judo but was very pleased to see techniques I did know lol. Sometimes it seems that 'keep it simple' did work very well. A couple of things did mar it though, a Georgian male who won silver was so upset at it that on the medal ceremony he kept his head down all the way through and wouldn't lift it even to get the medal he obviously despised, disrespectful. The other was the Egyptian man who when his Israeli opponent walked to shake his hand refused, turned away as he tried again and then refused to bow. It seems his being hauled up on a hearing for that.
The Mongolians were interesting, they apparently all learn wrestling before any thing else as it's a national sport and obsession, they brought some interesting moves to their matches, they were successful too.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Basically, to my eyes, what made up 70% of the matches was constant grabbing each other's gis along with readjustment of footing to avoid sweeps, 25% scrambling to keep their back off the mat after taking a tumble, and maybe 5% legit throws. Not a criticism, just a tiny bit of disappointment maybe if I am honest as an outsider? I was really hoping to see some just flat out awesomely executed throws and they seemed super rare, although I discerned a couple really cool reversals where one quickly took a dominant position from a seemingly vulnerable spot. It made me wonder if the sport has evolved to that point where judoka's high level skills are just largely cancelled out by one another.

Yes, that's about the percentage, though there's more to the "grabbing each other's gis". There's a lot of subtle fighting over balance going on, and the rules actually limit some of what they can do (or they get one of those penalties) to defend. But, yeah, I was hoping to see more throws, but that's what happens when the guy defending is as good as the guy attacking - he actually makes it REALLY hard to throw him unless you catch him while he's trying to throw you. One of the gold medal matches ended exactly that way, with one player going for a throw and ending up on his back from a counter-throw.

 

[Jeff_Beish]

Something happened on the way to old age for me; Judo was lost, at least in the Olympics. I actually looked up some old Yamashita and Okano shiai videos to see if Judo was just a dream. Back in the day we had some promotion and general team shiai, but mostly kohaku shiai. Now, that is contest. If we had stopped to adjust our Judogi or slapped one another for griping, even to wipe off blood, then sensei would have put us on the bench, or out in the wood shed.

 

[Flatfish]

So, I haven't watched Judo for years and have no base for comparison of how high-level Judo used to be at competitions. That being said of course it was a bit of a mixed bag with some matches being primarily grip fighting (which admittedly is not exactly too thrilling) but others with some awesome techniques. I guess I decided for myself I would relish in the latter instead of getting upset about the former.

One thing I did find a bit odd though is that there were relatively few competitors that had more than just one or two go to techniques. That was surprising. As was that even though someone might have attempted the same technique five times unsuccessfully he would then go on and score with the same tech on the next attempt. In my mind I would have thought their opponent would see it coming and counter it every time but apparently not.

Another thing I found interesting was that the relatively few times that a hold down was applied, the pinned person never seriously seemed to try to get out. They just kind of gave up. When I trained Judo back in the dark ages we trained getting out of holds a lot. Maybe at this high level folks get so good at pins that they don't even try?

 

[Jeff_Beish]

How about Colton Brown; 21 seconds is fast for teaching uchimata. One of the old school techniques. One of the real Judo throws in the 2016 Olympics. Congrats Colton.......