Thoughts on Kani Basami.

[TSDTexan]

in 1980 a judoka named Yasuhiro Yamashita was competing, and during the match his leg was broken by the technique Kani Basami. commonly called the scissor leg takedown, and originally called the crab pincer leg takedown.
Here is video of the match, at the time of the take down, and leg break.

As you can see, he has broken Yasuhiro's fibula because of a few things that have happened at the same moment:

- Yasuhiro just switched his weight to the leg closer to Endo, thus partially immobilizing it and resulting in the force of Endo's body accumulating in one point.

- Notice how his foot is rotated. He was probably preparing his Ouchi Gari, that's why it's rotated sideways.

- Endo brought his lower leg to the back of Yasuhiro's knee, thus a moment later the entire body weight was dropped on his calf, further pressurizing the fibula. Had Endo brought his lower leg to the back of Yasuhiro's ankle, he could have swept that leg to the front, preventing (probably) this accident.

This event pretty much ended Yamashita's judo career. It also pretty much was what led to this technique being banned by the International Judo federation sanctioning body.

But this specific technique wasn't ever meant for competition or combative sport. It was meant to harm.

Does that mean it shouldn't be taught?
If So by that logic, should we remove all dangerous and harmful techniques?

There are many good things that could be said for combative sports and mma.

But many traditional self defense arts, such as Karate, and Old Tang Soo Do, have very harmful, and cripplingly dangerous techniques. Such techniques dont belong in a ring or cage.

It is very easy to teach punches and kicks, and spar with them.

Most of what we would "loosely" call karate is of this variation.

The problem is it takes a lot longer, and really good supervision as well as a sound teaching methodology that ensures two goals.

1st: the goal of health.
2nd: the skill acquisition.

Karate (and maybe most other arts) is for making the body stronger. if the way you are training injures you or makes the body weaker, then you're doing something that isn't karate.

There is the old way, which presents the technique, and preserves the health of the practitioner.

Then there is assembly line, high speed teaching that works for a lot of lower level, and easy to acquire techniques.

Only one works for safely teaching dangerous techs.

Both have a place. Kani Basami should be taught in karate dojos, Judo Dojos, and even MMA gyms. As should other self defense techniques.

imho
Even a sportsman should have dangerous and even lethal techniques in his toolbox, even if he never has to use them.

But student and teachers only have a limited amount of time to train in class. In schools that are sport focused, Self defense curriculum is abbreviated, or even discarded altogether to stay with whatever way the winds are blowing, with regard to rule sets, and sanctioning organizations.

Skillsets can save your life in a real life fight. Rule sets cannot. This isn't intended to be a rant. But a wake up call.

It would seem that there are two extremes. A broken TMA that has no aliveness and resistance training, and an oversportified martial art that has some profound lack with self defense and how it applies itself.
In a manner, that exposes the practitioner, to severe injure or death when doing the sport versions in a real world no holds barred fight, and the other person cares nothing about rules, honor or sportsmanship.

 

[oftheherd1]

I was taught a technique similar to that in the Hapkido I studied. It was taught as a defense against an attack while sitting down cross legged. It will certainly mess up legs and/or knees. It can also be used for a person running towards you.

I don't do competitions so I don't have a comment on that.

 

[jobo]

in 1980 a judoka named Yasuhiro Yamashita was competing, and during the match his leg was broken by the technique Kani Basami. commonly called the scissor leg takedown, and originally called the crab pincer leg takedown.
Here is video of the match, at the time of the take down, and leg break.

As you can see, he has broken Yasuhiro's fibula because of a few things that have happened at the same moment:

- Yasuhiro just switched his weight to the leg closer to Endo, thus partially immobilizing it and resulting in the force of Endo's body accumulating in one point.

- Notice how his foot is rotated. He was probably preparing his Ouchi Gari, that's why it's rotated sideways.

- Endo brought his lower leg to the back of Yasuhiro's knee, thus a moment later the entire body weight was dropped on his calf, further pressurizing the fibula. Had Endo brought his lower leg to the back of Yasuhiro's ankle, he could have swept that leg to the front, preventing (probably) this accident.

This event pretty much ended Yamashita's judo career. It also pretty much was what led to this technique being banned by the International Judo federation sanctioning body.

But this specific technique wasn't ever meant for competition or combative sport. It was meant to harm.

Does that mean it shouldn't be taught?
If So by that logic, should we remove all dangerous and harmful techniques?

There are many good things that could be said for combative sports and mma.

But many traditional self defense arts, such as Karate, and Old Tang Soo Do, have very harmful, and cripplingly dangerous techniques. Such techniques dont belong in a ring or cage.

It is very easy to teach punches and kicks, and spar with them.

Most of what we would "loosely" call karate is of this variation.

The problem is it takes a lot longer, and really good supervision as well as a sound teaching methodology that ensures two goals.

1st: the goal of health.
2nd: the skill acquisition.

Karate (and maybe most other arts) is for making the body stronger. if the way you are training injures you or makes the body weaker, then you're doing something that isn't karate.

There is the old way, which presents the technique, and preserves the health of the practitioner.

Then there is assembly line, high speed teaching that works for a lot of lower level, and easy to acquire techniques.

Only one works for safely teaching dangerous techs.

Both have a place. Kani Basami should be taught in karate dojos, Judo Dojos, and even MMA gyms. As should other self defense techniques.

imho
Even a sportsman should have dangerous and even lethal techniques in his toolbox, even if he never has to use them.

But student and teachers only have a limited amount of time to train in class. In schools that are sport focused, Self defense curriculum is abbreviated, or even discarded altogether to stay with whatever way the winds are blowing, with regard to rule sets, and sanctioning organizations.

Skillsets can save your life in a real life fight. Rule sets cannot. This isn't intended to be a rant. But a wake up call.

It would seem that there are two extremes. A broken TMA that has no aliveness and resistance training, and an oversportified martial art that has some profound lack with self defense and how it applies itself.
In a manner, that exposes the practitioner, to severe injure or death when doing the sport versions in a real world no holds barred fight, and the other person cares nothing about rules, honor or sportsmanship.

I don't disagree with most of your points but.

You can't practise lethal or even very dangerous techniques, for the obvious reason, so when ever you use them for real, will be the first time you have ever used them,

TMa no longer emphasises strength as a prerequisite of being a good fighter, suggesting on here, as I have that you ought to get yourself in the gym and build some muscle, makes people, probably over weight weak people get quite angry that your saying the skills they have speiot 10, 000 hours getting are not sufficient on their own.

And , sportified as it maybe, Mma, is closer to real fighting than anything else and puts a good deal of store in building strength, you don't need to break someone's leg, if you can knock them over with a right hand

 

[Tony Dismukes]

But this specific technique wasn't ever meant for competition or combative sport. It was meant to harm.

Personally I find Kani Basami to be rather risky for most "street" application. I like it much better in the context of sportive competition.

Does that mean it shouldn't be taught?
If So by that logic, should we remove all dangerous and harmful techniques?

Nope. If you are training a martial art, I believe you should train the whole art, not just whatever moves are legal under current local competition rules.

This event pretty much ended Yamashita's judo career. It also pretty much was what led to this technique being banned by the International Judo federation sanctioning body.

What I haven't been able to discover is whether Kani Basami was responsible for a disproportionate number of injuries in Judo competition prior to this event. I believe Sombo still allows Kani Basami in competition and I don't hear about somboists getting crippled on a regular basis. I've used Kani Basami in sparring without issues (although admittedly I've careful with the application and don't apply it wildly).

There was some discussion over on the Reddit BJJ forum earlier this year when John Danaher (a highly regarded BJJ instructor) banned Tani Otoshi from sparring in his classes. I found this odd as I consider Tani Otoshi to be one of the safest Judo takedowns around. Turns out the reason was a bad tournament injury (similar to the video above) from an attempted Tani Otoshi. I watched the video and it seemed like a freak accident largely resulting from someone doing the technique incorrectly. Yamashita's opponent wasn't as bad in his application of Kani Basami, but it certainly lacked control compared to how I like to approach the technique.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

You can't practise lethal or even very dangerous techniques, for the obvious reason, so when ever you use them for real, will be the first time you have ever used them,

In general I agree with this point, but I don't think it really applies to Kani Basami. You can drill Kani Basami safely and can use it in sparring safely as long as you know what you're doing and don't go wild. It might be justifiable to ban it for competition on the grounds that competitors can sometimes get a bit sloppy and lack sufficient control to maintain safety.

 

[jobo]

In general I agree with this point, but I don't think it really applies to Kani Basami. You can drill Kani Basami safely and can use it in sparring safely as long as you know what you're doing and don't go wild. It might be justifiable to ban it for competition on the grounds that competitors can sometimes get a bit sloppy and lack sufficient control to maintain safety.

Yes but you can drill smashing your hand through someone's rib cage and pulling their heart out, Clearly if your a bit sloppy and actually do it, there could be problems

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Yes but you can drill smashing your hand through someone's rib cage and pulling their heart out, Clearly if your a bit sloppy and actually do it, there could be problems

Well, no, you can fantasize about punching through someone’s rib cage and pulling out their heart, you can pretend you are doing it, but you can’t actually do it because it’s not physically possible.

Kani Basami is a takedown. It’s not normally intended to injure the target. You can drill it with a partner and actually execute the takedown over and over. You can apply it during sparring and actually take down your opponent. I’ve done it myself although it’s not one of my best techniques.

 

[LastGasp]

But this specific technique wasn't ever meant for competition or combative sport. It was meant to harm.

Does that mean it shouldn't be taught?
If So by that logic, should we remove all dangerous and harmful techniques?

My feeling is that by that standard, you'd virtually have to ban MA altogether. A single punch can kill someone. It's largely luck of the draw, even considering the skill of the 'user'. In the example given, I think the severity of the injury was largely down to bad luck.

What I haven't been able to discover is whether Kani Basami was responsible for a disproportionate number of injuries in Judo competition prior to this event. I believe Sombo still allows Kani Basami in competition and I don't hear about somboists getting crippled on a regular basis. I've used Kani Basami in sparring without issues (although admittedly I've careful with the application and don't apply it wildly).

This seems to me to be the way to judge about whether or not to ban a particular technique from competition. If a lot of people were suffering severe injuries compared to how many times the technique was used, there might be a case to ban it from use. But in a street fight, I'd want as many techniques available to me as I could remember and effectively apply. Breaking someone's leg, however badly, is still better for them than if I stuck a knife through their heart (and certainly better than if they tried to stick a knife through mine!), and just as guaranteed to finish the confrontation.
I'd also want to learn the technique if it was traditionally a part of the discipline I studied, for perhaps a lesser reason to maintain it.

 

[Hanzou]

Its a great takedown, and a wonderful counter against someone who has caught your leg. Also a great opener for some leg locks.

You just have to train it very carefully, because you can really damage someone's legs with it.

 

[wab25]

I believe Sanshou has a very similar technique that a guy named Cung Le got famous for using. This is just me, but I feel that the technique got banned from Judo more because of who was hurt, as opposed to who all was hurt.

(and in my humble opinion, the technique that hurt him looked pretty sloppy... he did not enter in any where close to where he should have for that throw)

Edit: this is too much fun not to add...