Udegatame the pressing armbar

A great testimonial and a couple of nice variations on our first armbar - udegatame. Check this out!


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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Ukigatame - the floating hold

In judo we tend to practice in phases. For instance, we might practice some gripfighting sequences to move from a free-movement phase into a clench phase.  Or (more often) we might allow the partner to take his grip and we practice throwing with tori remaining standing. Or we might start on the ground and practice some newaza.  It's fairly rare in this sort of class to practice the entire range of skills from grip to clench to throw to groundwork.  There are a couple of benefits to practicing with this separation of phases:

• Safety - It's harder to practice standing judo while others are rolling around doing newaza.  People fall on top of other people or trip over them. 
• Concentration - This type of practice also lets us to concentrate our time and effort on specific phases of combat (free-motion, clench, newaza, etc...)

But this type of practice in separated phases mostly fails to address the transition from one phase to the next. We try to minimize this problem by having most all nagekomi (throwing practice) techniques end in ukigatame (the floating hold, A.K.A. knee-on-belly) and many of our groundwork exercises begin in ukigatame. Thus, ukigatame is the transition between standing judo and newaza.  And as we saw in a previous post, since ukigatame is a core element of several aikido holds, ukigatame also represents one of the links or transition states between aikido and judo.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Gift horses in randori

Excellent judo this this morning.  We did randori with the explicit goal of getting the other guy on the ground and moving toward udegarame (americana).  Our one take-away point for the day is...

• When you are attempting udegarame, the other guy can defend by pulling his arm back to his center (attack with wakigatame) or by rolling his center to face his bound arm (take his back and do hadakajime).

Or, stated more generally... You can't be so obsessively single-minded about your tokuiwaza (udegarame) that you look a gift horse (wakigatame, hadakajime) in the mouth.

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Corrolaries to the position-choke-armbar rule

Photo courtesy of Anthony Goto

A quick thought about defending chokes and armbars...

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If you buy into the idea that I presented some time back, that the action in newaza randori often tends to flow from position to choke to armbar, then a couple of ideas follow:

• One of the best ways to avoid getting caught in armbars is to avoid using your arms to fight against chokes.
• If you're not going to use your arms to fight chokes, then you will have to reposition your body to prevent the choke.

And now we're back to another idea that I presented a while back... position before submission.

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Not only does position lead to choke then to armbar, but positional dominance also helps to shut down the choke, breaking that position-choke-armbar cycle.

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Mobility and positional dominance are the mother and father of groundwork skills. 

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮

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Dreaming of wakigatame

My Latin teacher in high school told us that you never really know a language until you start dreaming in that language. Last night I dreamt that I was at some sort of martial arts seminar and the instructor kept building up to this super-mysterious technique. This amazing thing from historical European martial arts. Finally, when he showed the technique, it was a standing wakigatame falling with the guy into a side control (similar to the last example on the video above).

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I wonder if that means that I've mastered the "language" of martial arts, or just of wakigatame. Or perhaps it just means that I ate something unusual before bed last night...

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Osaekomi recap

Photo courtesy of Guillaume

This past month has been osaekomi month, during which I have placed more of an emphasis on writing about the locks, pins, and holds that appear in aikido and judo.  Following is a convenient list for you to check out the osaekomi articles from this past month.

• October is osaekomi month
• An osaekomi is an inconvenient thing
• Kansetsu in osaekomi
• Who's controlling who?
• Hold, but don't cling
• Osaekomi with knee on shoulder
• Just bridging doesn't cut it
• Don't drop uke's arm
• A video of the locks in Junana

Or you may just want to peruse all the articles on osaekomi in my archives.
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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Junana locks and pins

Osaekomi month is drawing to an end here at Mokuren Dojo.  For the past month we have emphasized the pins and locks and holds of aikido and judo both in our classes and here on the blog.  I'll have a recap of all the articles I've written here in a couple of days, but till then, here is a video featuring a few of my students playing with some of the locks and pins associated with techniques #6, 7, 8, and 12 of Junana hon kata.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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Kansetsu in osaekomi

Photo courtesy of Invunche

In judo and aikido, when an osaekomi (pinning technique) makes use of kansetsu (joint manipulation), it isn't the explicit purpose of the kansetsu to break the joint. The point of the kansetsu is to take all the slack out of the joint, thus limiting the range of motion of the rest of the body, making it that much harder for uke to escape the pin or continue the attack.

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Try this. Take a relaxed slow stroll across the room. Now stroll back but hold one elbow flexed as far as it will go and see if your gait is as relaxed or natural as before. Now walk across the room again with your arms moving naturally but your chin lifted as far from your sternum as you can get it. What does that do to the motion of the rest of your joints.

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Point is, your body is made to work as a loose, flexible whole. By binding any major joint, you limit the motion of all other joints. Thus, without stretching a joint remotely close to the breaking point, you can bind one and restrict them all, thus making your osaekomi safer and more effective. Or as Tolkien would have said it...

One joint to rule them all,

One joint to find them.

One joint to bring them all,

And in the darkness, bind them.

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282
____________
Suggested great books on aikido, judo, and strategy.
____________
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Hizagatame - knee armbar

This is one of my favorite armbars - hizagatame - the knee armlock.  It is very versatile, and in this video you see the instructor demonstrate a lot of wildly divergent variations - some of which we call different things.  Here's to the BJJ guys that say judo doesn't have the omoplata...

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Patrick Parker, is a Christian, husband, father, judo and aikido teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282
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Position - choke - armbar

I think most everyone involved in grappling has probably heard the axiom, Position before Submission, suggesting that you pretty much have to achieve a stable, dominant position before you can have much success with a submission. But have you ever thought about it this way - Position leads to Choke leads to Armbar.

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Think about it - you get a dominant position and attack the guy's neck and he begins resisting and struggling, trying to negate the choke. In this situation not only does the choke distract him from the armbar, but he tends to push or pull his arms into awkward positions. Thus position-choke-armbar is a general recipe as to how grappling encounters seem to go.

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Perhaps the most fundamental example of this recipe might be the following: achieve tateshiho (the mount) and attack jujijime (cross choke). From here uke begins picking and pulling at your hands to counter the choke and you turn 90 degrees and lay back into jujigatame (the cross armbar). Following is a video in which they are not attacking the neck explicitly but you can see where the choke fits into this sequence.

Can you give me 1-2 more combinations that seem to fit this profile - position then choke then armbar?

Helpful handful: ukigatame

I had an email call for some discussion on ukigatame, the 'floating hold' in judo, also known as the knee-on-belly or knee-on-chest position in jiujitsu. Following is a quickie vid I put together of several good examples of the position in practice. A handful of helpful things to look for include:

• Tori is getting a knee or shin against uke's torso pretty soon after he lands. The purpose of this position is to limit uke's movement and slow him down as tori transitions to newaza. Thus ukigatame is a great intermediate position between throwing and ground grappling.
• Make sure you don't pounce on your partner's ribs - it's very easy to crush ribs under your knee. In fact, I tell my students to deliberately put the shin across uke's ab muscles, avoiding the floating ribs that are such a tempting target.
• Notice when tori puts his feet on the ground and knee(s) against uke, if tori's posture is not just right it is easy to pull him over into a forward roll. To stop this, tori puts a knee or shin against uke and rocks his hips forward, putting weight onto uke and floating vertically over him. If uke pulls on the arms or shoudlers, tori rocks more hip weight forward into him.
• As uke moves, tori floats on him, out-riggering his free leg for balance and leverage. Tori is not trying to crush uke into submission here, but is floating...riding on top of uke until he can find a good time to drop into a better position or submission technique.
• Notice how easy it is to transition to munegatame or tateshihogatame or (if uke is rolling) to the rear position with legs around. Jujigatame is also blatantly obvious here.

Fundamental judo and magical aikido

Judo with Todd

• ROM, ukemi
• footsweep to control with emphasis on bumping uke to get his front foot floating and then reaching out and touching his foot to see if he is really floating or not.
• deashibarai uchikomi early and late
• deashibarai uchikomi - 2 of any variation on one side and one on the other.  This really develops the feel of randori because of the type of synchronization
• osotogari - four variations that allow tori to throw uke right-sided no matter what foot uke is moving or what direction.

Aikido with Todd

• tegatana, slightly faster than normal with emphasis on keeping a dynamic tension between floating and weightedness.  This tends to draw you upright into a perfect shizentai (natural posture) 
• releases with emphasis on #6 and 8 as ways to get into the #2 and #4 positions by following when uke does something wrong.  That sort of makes the kata 4 repetitions of a pure release form followed by four in which you have to synch and follow along with uke until you can find the place to turn into the position from the pure release form.
• chain #3, including near and far wakigatame and near and far kotegaeshi
• ichikata section B, techniques 1-3 (oshitaoshi and tenkai kotehineri) with emphasis on using ki bumps to diffuse uke's strength so you can walk around it, breaking down his posture.  This stuff is pure magic, amazing how tori can move around uke's strength.  Great example of how inappropriate  strength destroys uke.

ABG 2008 - Session 9

• Rokukata knife-using set, including iriminage, release 7, kotemawashi, and the long-far iriminage.  We also played wakigatame from an over-hand forearm grab.  The main point was that grabbing a guy who has a knife to try to control him is stupid and gets you killed.  Better options that we explored included brush-off to outside ma-ai, kuzushi to slow him down, and crazyman.
• stab-twice knife randori
• grab&go knife randori
• So, the lesson of the night, is don't engage with the knife guy if you can at all help it.  We worked on a couple of tactics that help with this.  Tomorrow we'll get into how these ideas fit with Sankata and Rokukata knife defenses.
• The real lesson of the night is that you can never tell who has a knife and even if you could you wouldn't want to under-estimate the potential of the unarmed guy, so you need to work to make your aiki robust so that it doesn't matter if they have a knife or not.
  

ABG 2008 – Session 3

Tegatana no kata with emphasis on small steps. We also brought up the possibility of doing the turns with a post right in front of you, similar to the bagua practice of pole-walking.

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Hanasu #1-4 with tori brushing off of uke’s face strike instead of uke grabbing the wrist. Hanasu #5-8 with very light touch, working on following the French curve and making #5 and #6 reversible into each other.

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Chain #4 – particularly the left-right loop and the hineri-gaeshi loop with emphasis on disengaging and brushing off of the thing that is not working.

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YK#1 into kotemawashi oshitaoshi with emphasis on finding the right angle between oshitaoshi and wakigatame.

Training log

Judo with Todd

• Groundwork mobility cycle all the way through, touching on the shoulder push turnover, push back to base, meatgrinder entry, scrubbing someone off your back, shoulder spike knee lift turnover, and quarter nelson. A preview/review of a lot of the groundwork fundamentals.
• Three entries into ukigoshi - step through on a backstep, pull uke around into it, or step back into uke. By the end of this session, Todd was getting good floats, which is important because ukigoshi is not just a great throw, but the basis of many of the advanced hipthrows, including haraigoshi, hanegoshi, and uchimata.

Aikido with Todd, Kel, Erin

• Tegatana with emphasis on the forward and backward turns
• practiced these forward and backward turns as evasions with partners
• Releases #1 and 3 as events that might happen as you are evading and brushing off
• the 2 udegarame from the knife sets of Sankata and Rokukata - how to maintin the overall strategy of evasion and brush-off but still get this technique sometimes
• tekubiosae and brushoff

What should our judo green belts know

Our Judo green belts at Mokuren Dojo should know...

• All previous material with improving proficiency

• 4-5 more throws from the first two kyo of the gokyonowaza, perhaps including some tewaza (such as seoinage) and koshiwaza (such as ukigoshi)

• 1-2 more holds or control positions and 1-2 productive escape actions for each hold

• 2-3 chokes or armbars from each control position

Most students take 25-30 mat hours beyond their previous rank to feel comfortable with this material.  at least 1/3 to 1/2 of those mat hours should be spent on randori.

What should our Judo yellow belts know?

By the time you (adult judo students) get your yellow belt (first rank beyond white) at Mokuren Dojo, you should know the following…

• 4-5 standing techniques (throws) from the first kyo of the gokyonowaza - probably mostly small ashiwaza.  Deashibarai almost certainly has to be one of these.

• Ukemi skills  sufficient to practice the above safely

• 1-2 holds or control positions (including ukigatame) and how to transition from standing techniques through ukigatame into newaza

• 1-2 productive escape actions for each hold

• 2-3 techniques (chokes, armbars) that can be done from that control position

When I say you should “know” this material, I don’t mean that you have to be the ultimate master at all of it, but you should be able to at least mimic the motions of about 80% of it (4/5 techniques) with coaching and a compliant partner.
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Most students take 25-30 mat hours to get to a sufficient level of proficiency at this material so that they are able to play with it without feeling embarrassed about their performance, but remember, a few extra hours practice is not something to be ashamed of and a few less hours of practice is not something to be proud of.
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At least 1/3 to 1/2 of those mat hours should have been spent in randori, or free play.

Training log

Judo with Todd - ROM, ukemi, footsweep to control, deashibarai, kosotogari, ukigatame, ground mobility cycle

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Aikido with Kel, Todd, Jesse, and Justin - ROM, ukemi, tegatana, evasion&brush-off, release#1, shomenate, suwari oshitaoshi, tekubiosae

Magical kotegaeshi night

Aiki with Kel and Whit

• ROM
• tegatana with emphasis on balls of feet and the 'washing the mirror' exercise
• we worked 'washing the mirror' into a sort of general-purpose evasion and offbalance program using attacking partners
• gyakugamaeate
• chain#3 including wakigatame, kotegaeshi, and gyakugamaeate
• variations on kotegaeshi with emphasis on taking the slack out of the arm without crushing the arm, striking to induce a vibration in uke, then following the vibration. (the magic kotegaeshi)  We also played with siilar mechanics in the suwari munetsuki kotegaeshi from sankata.
• We ended up tying it all together with kotegaeshi from owaza, using the 'washing the mirror' idea, getting in synch, and throwing on the step
  

Floating throws again

Aikido with Kel

• ROM, ukemi
• Tegatana with emphasis on hip-width steps
• Hanasu with emphasis on synching and moving with uke – particularly on #2 and #4
• Preview of floating throws – kotetaoshi, maeotoshi, sumiotoshi (& variants), hikitaoshi. I let Kel do most of the reps of these things so he could get the feel of the motion and so I could do some ukemi.
• Review of Kel’s rank material – elbow techniques – oshitaoshi, udegaeshi, hikitaoshi, udehineri (& variants), wakigatame (& variants)