Young Guy Judo Vs Old Fellow Judo

I wrote this about judo, but it applies just as well to every other budo I’ve seen.

I watched the young guns at judo going at it like they were hammering each other on an anvil. They were working hard fighting each other strong and fast, with all the strength and speed they have. Young guys really work at their judo. The referee called out “Hajime!” and they grabbed each other, started attacking, doing everything they could to throw each other. In no time they were panting from the effort. I was getting tired just from watching them. They were really working hard to throw each other.

It took a while, but eventually even the strength and stamina of youth wear out, and the guys on the mat needed break. Granted, they lasted at least twice as long as I would have trying to work that hard, but they still wore themselves out. After the young guys bowed off the mat and headed for a water break, the referee turned to Harold and I and invited us to take their places. Harold and I are a couple of middle-aged guys who’ve been doing judo for a while.

The referee yelled “Hajime!” Harold took a step forward, held out his hands in invitation, tilted his head and smiled at me. This was pure “old fellow judo.” Harold didn’t want to attack hard and give me any energy I could use against him. He also didn’t want to work like those young guys had been doing. Neither one of us has that kind of stamina anymore. Besides, one of the maxim’s of Judo is “Maximum efficiency, minimum effort” and Harold understands that.  I keep trying to get my ego to understand it too, so I stepped forward a little, held out my hands to make my sleeves easy to grab, and smiled back.

We stood there smiling at each other for a moment, then we gingerly reached out for each other without committing any energy that could be used against us. As we moved around the dojo it felt a lot more like a dance than a fight. As you become more skilled you become less eager to throw energy at your partner because he’s more than happy to accept it and do something with it.  We moved with a complete awareness of this, so instead of the fast, sudden movements of the young guys, we old fellows moved slowly and smoothly.

The young guys put a lot of effort into it out there, pushing and pulling on their partner, working to make a technique happen. Harold held my dogi lightly and we moved gently around the dojo looking for opportunities to work our partner’s movement.  I’ve learned from being thrown far too many times that if I push hard into someone, or pull on them, an experienced partner is just as likely to get out of the way of my push and toss me over onto the mats as not.

Harold and I were trying to feel what was happening and what the other was doing. Neither one of us was trying to make our partner do something. We were moving around the dojo. Our goal is to feel what our partner is doing and help them do more of it. We moved around the room, our feet sliding across the mats, never stepping.  A nice, big, John Wayne type step is an invitation to be thrown with everything from a simple and subtle foot sweep to a great big, literally over-the-top seioinage throw. Harold and I studied each other. He has a dropping seioinage that he likes, and I’m working on a interesting ouchigari. We’ll both take a nice footsweep though if it’s available.

So we moved around the mat, occasionally making little attacks, going after foot sweeps when our partner’s structure felt a little bit off or trying to add some energy to their movement to destabilize them and create an opportunity for some other technique. The young guys are constantly trying to do a technique to their partner. They are working hard to do some judo. Old fellows know better than to rush. We’re patient and we wait for it to happen.

Good judo techniques aren’t forced. You can’t make them happen.  If you’re making something happen, you’re not doing judo.  It’s that old “maximum efficiency minimum effort” thing. Don’t make something happen.  It’s more like letting something unfold naturally. If you’re trying to force your will on the situation, it’s not great judo. Oh, you might be able to force a technique to happen, but that’s not very high level judo. The best judoka don’t have an intention of what’s going to happen. They let their partner decide how they will be thrown. There are lots of ways of describing what is happening. You flow with partner’s energy or match their intent or blend with them.  The young guys try to do judo.  They push on uke and pull on him and try to make him react or just force their way to a place where a technique can be done. The old fellows just let it happen.

Old fellows don’t work too hard. The best techniques sneak up on the person being thrown and suddenly the floor is slapping them between the shoulders. A foot sweep happens when uke is moving and their partner adds some energy to their foot and changes its direction so that instead of settling on the ground and supporting his weight, uke’s foot ends up over on the other side of their body while their weight continues down to the ground in the original direction. There are lots of ways to get to this technique. When I was learning this, (yeah, I really was a young guy once) I would jerk on my partner’s arm trying to yank them forward to I could sweep their foot. Now I just wait for the weight shift and add a little energy to the foot and draw gently on their arm in the direction they are already moving. At least that’s what I try to do. Harold feels for a forward weight shift, draws on the arm that’s moving forward, drops and turns underneath the arm and does a neat drop seioinage. No fighting with your partner, no strength opposing strength.

To me, the finest judo techniques are de ashi harai and uki otoshi. Neither one can be forced. You have to use what your partner is already doing and just guide their inertia. This video is a beautiful example. Uke tries to drive in to do ouchigari. Instead of resisting the force, his partner works with it, slips out of the way and guides the energy from uke in a spiral so uke goes from standing upright to horizontal facing up and falling to the floor. This is not a technique where the person executing it adds a lot power or puts a lot of effort into what is happening. On the contrary, you have to get out of your own way. It’s pure old fellow judo.

It’s funny. Old fellows can keep at it in randori for quite a while. They don’t waste a lot of energy pushing and pulling at their partner. They are just there, quietly, calmly, patiently moving around the room with their partner, not fighting them, no trying to make anything happen.  The young guys keep pounding away at you, working hard at their judo expending incredible amounts of energy. The old fellows are there, relaxed and happy, gently moving around the dojo deflecting all that excess energy and throwing their partner from time to time when they are able to guide some of that exuberant energy in a way their partner doesn’t want but can’t prevent. It’s kind of amazing, but old fellows are so much more efficient than young guys that we can stay out and do a 5 minute randori session with people 25 or 30 years younger than we are, and not be any more out of breath than the young guys.  

It only looks like we’re keeping up with the young guys though. Old fellows aren’t really keeping up with them. Old fellows just flow along on the current of energy being thrown out by the young guys without resisting it, so the old fellows are using a fraction of the energy the young guys are expending. It can be interesting watching a someone more than 60 years old playing with a college student and realizing that while the college student has youth, speed, strength and stamina in their favor, the old fellpw is the one who going easy on his partner, as he smiles through the randori, and gently tosses the young guy to the ground.

It’s that old seiryoku zenyou, maximum efficiency minimum effort. Old fellows just don’t have as much energy as the young guys do, but what we have, we use a lot more efficiently.  Old fellows aren’t there for a short stint. They’ve been around a while and plan to to be around for a lot longer. They have to make what they’ve got last for the long haul. There are lots of people to do randori with, and we want to play with them all. Old fellows really enjoy practice. They aren’t working at, they are playing with it, in the best sense of the word. They are playing with the techniques and timing to see what works and what they can do. Old fellas have been thrown by everyone, so they don’t mind getting thrown when they make a mistake, and they are thrilled when a younger student figures out a lesson and applies it to them, even when that means taking a big fall. It’s fun to see others make progress. After a while, all that ego that used to scream that we have to throw everyone goes away and we can simply enjoy the randori, whether we are the ones doing the throwing, or the ones being thrown.

Young guys work at it and need to throw everyone. Old fellas play with whatever they get, and even when they are thrown, they’re smiling.

The Most Essential Principles In Budo: Timing

Previously I wrote about structure and spacing. Closely related and entwined with spacing is timing. Timing is the subtle ingredient that makes spacing and structure appear to work like magic. If you have great structure and good control of the spacing, you’re doing well and you can be quite effective. To be great though, you need to master timing..

Timing is what makes that incredible technique from Shinkage Ryu and other styles where the tachi cuts through the cutting sword of her opponent and into the opponent’s head while driving the opponent’s sword off the target into ineffective space.  Too early and the opponent simply evades and counterattacks.  Too late and the opponent’s sword will slice right through you.  There is a fraction of a second window in which to make this work.  The same is true of the stop strike in Shinto Muso Ryu.  Too early and the opponent easily evades.  Too late and the cut will take off your arm before your attack can have any effect.  

The stop strike is at 0:16

An entire class of techniques that requires perfect timing is Judo foot sweeps like de ashi harai.  When done correctly, uke doesn’t even notice the technique. They just notice the floor disappears from under their feet and then reappears between their shoulder blades.

This technique, like the sword techniques, is deceptively simple.  You merely sweep uke’s foot to the side while they are walking. The trick lies in the fact that the foot has to be swept after uke has transferred weight onto the foot but before the foot touches the ground.  Timing here is everything.  Too soon and there is no weight on the foot so sweeping has little effect. Too late and the foot is on the ground and solid, making the sweep impossible.

Timing is so important we don’t often talk about it.  We just practice things that require it without really focusing on how to see it.  Good timing is something I’m still developing in my practice, so this is definitely a work in progress.  For me, the first step in learning to understand and apply timing is recognizing that there are common elements that make certain moments optimal for action, and these common elements hold true whether it is an armed or unarmed art, whether you are at grappling distance, empty hand striking distance, lond weapons distance or even tangled with your opponent rolling on the floor.

A moment is optimal when an opponent is committed but not fully supported.  In swordwork, this would be the moment when your partner has begun to execute a cut and is so far into it that they can’t pull it back.  They have committed the sword and their body to the attack.  If you merely evade, they will finish and their body will return to a stable condition as both feet settle back on the ground and the sword stops moving.  In grappling an example happens every time someone takes a step.  Every step involves transferring your weight forward onto a foot that then touches the ground.  You have to transfer the weight before the foot is on the ground though. This creates an instant when your weight is committed but not supported.  If something happens in that instant, you can’t pull it back or move it further forward easily or smoothly.

It is this instant when you’re vulnerable. Understanding and recognizing this moment in your partner makes good timing possible. If you don’t understand this, good timing is just good luck.  Learning to recognize and exploit moments when you partner or opponent is vulnerable takes practice. There are least two ways to recognize when that moment exists.

The first way is to learn to see it.  Watch people move.  Start by watching their feet, and then see if you can understand what their feet are doing from watching their hips, and then try to understand where their feet are while only watching their chests, then their shoulders, then their heads.   Eventually you’ll be able to see the subtle shift in the body that occurs as the feet are moving and the weight is transferred to the unstable, moving foot.  That’s the moment to do something.

The other way to learn to recognize that movement is through touch.  To quote the great Judo coach Obi Wan Kenobi, “your eyes can deceive you.” Just as bad, your eyes are also slow.  If you are at touching distance, you need to sense what is happening faster than your eyes can tell you. You need to be able to feel it. I have spent, and continue to spend, a great deal of time walking around the dojo with my eyes closed and lightly touching my partner’s arm or shoulder or lapel. We walk around and I practice maintaining the connection and moving with my partner while tracking exactly where their feet are. Occasionally I reach out with my foot and lightly push my partner’s foot while it’s in the air. That’s if I sense things correctly.  If I don’t I’m pushing on foot that’s on the ground and stable, or I’m pushing on a foot that isn’t committed yet and floats away from me (often into a smooth counterattack). We walk around with me refining my ability to sense my partners movement and occasionally pushing on her feet while she makes sure I don’t walk into anything. Then we trade roles and I walk around with my eyes open while she practices catching my feet at just the right moment.

It amazes new students that I can walk around with my eyes close and slide their feet out from under them. No peeking and no secret powers. From my hand on their sleeve or collar I can feel where their feet are. It’s not a secret power though. It’s nothing more than learning to use your sense of touch more fully. Students learn the basics of this skill remarkably quickly.  Within 10 minutes most students start to sense the foot movements, and to their surprise they can feel their partner’s moving foot even with their eyes closed. Feeling the right moment to catch the moving foot though, that takes a lot more practice.  I’ll let you know how much when I can do it every time.

Lately, I’ve started trying to understand my partner’s movement when my ability to touch is extended through a weapon. I’m sure it is possible, and I can feel some of it, but I’m right back at the beginning of the learning curve with this. Our weapons are crossed and I can feel the strength and energy my partner puts into the sword or the staff. Just like when I was a beginning Judo student though, I still can’t interpret what I’m feeling. I want to fall back on my eyes. So here I am, once again a beginner slowly trying to figure things out, and probably overthinking things to a remarkable degree.

Timing is simple. Attack when your opponent isn’t stable or can’t move to defend themselves.  At striking and weapons ranges, this might include stealing a few inches of ma’ai so that you can attack faster than they can respond. When grappling it can be feeling that moment when their movement is committed but not yet supported. Rolling on the ground requires at least as acute a sense of balance and commitment as standing.  

Simple doesn’t mean easy though. Simple means “not complicated.” Easy is something I’ve never encountered in the dojo. I keep working at the timing. I’m collecting bruises right now as I work on training myself to not move too soon when someone attacks with a weapon. I stand there watching the sword come up and down and at me and wait and wait and move at the last possible moment when they can’t change the direction of the attack and can’t even stop it.  That’s the goal anyway. Often what happens is my lizard brain shrieks and I move too soon.  Or the lizard brain forgets to say anything and I get clocked in the head while watching the sword come in.

If I manage the timing properly, my movements can look almost lazy because my partner can’t do anything about it. I can move slow and smooth like I should.  Good timing means never having to rush because there is nothing your partner can do about it at that moment.  Timing lets you make the very most of your structural strength and flexibility and to use that spacing you control to the greatest advantage.

It’s simple, but not easy. The right time is when your partner is committed to one direction and unable to stop. Add some energy at that moment. Move their foot a few inches. Add a little energy in the direction they are already going. Done at the right time, this is devastating even as it looks like you haven’t done anything.  Great timing is not the art of doing something at the right moment. Great timing is the art of already being there.