What are your take-down tips?

[Punchy]

What makes someone an expert I think in joint locks and throws is not because they've done them 10,000 times and now they can do them at will.
It's because they've done them 10,000 times and now they recognize where there is the prime opportunity to execute the technique.
As Tony stated, the worst thing to do is to attack them while they are balanced.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

As long as you can borrow your opponent's force, your opponent's structure won't matter.

- You push. Your opponent resists.
- You borrow his resistance force, change your push into pull.

His structure always matters. If you borrow enough force, you can change his structure. If you can't change his struture, he'll still be standing when you try to throw.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This makes sense. I believe I do not cause enough surprise, and I also do not time it well enough—my opponents are too structured when I attempt to throw.

Some of that is "feel". You have to feel when there's an opportunity, since you can't always recognize it visually (too close, too chaotic). Watch a high-level Judo competition, and you'll see a lot of techniques that start, but stop very quickly - they are feeling the resistance that would stymie the technique, so they don't continue. Then, suddenly, one of them feels just that little bit of shift beyond stable structure (and at that level, it's almost always a very small bit), and BOOM.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Over rotate and then single leg.

Much better than simply dangling in shame.

 

[spidersam]

What makes someone an expert I think in joint locks and throws is not because they've done them 10,000 times and now they can do them at will.
It's because they've done them 10,000 times and now they recognize where there is the prime opportunity to execute the technique.
As Tony stated, the worst thing to do is to attack them while they are balanced.

Funny, and accurate!

 

[Buka]

As has been said, you don't take a man down when he is on balance, you take him down when he is off balance. Getting him off balance is key. Lots of ways, but in general -

Move the ears off the line of the hips.
Restrict at least one leg.
Move the hips.

No particular order is necessary.

As they jokingly call it around here - Whap, splat, li dat.