Katatejime from ukigatame

Here's a fun-looking tidbit that I stumbled upon.  Since we start our choking instruction with katatejime from ukigatame, this looks like it would fit right in. Maybe a class on attacking either this or katagatame from ukigatame.



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Practical Unarmed Combat - by Feldenkrais

Highly recommended classic tome on unarmed combatives - from the POV of one technique - hadakajime. As you can see from the above pic, Feldenkrais shows hadakajime from A-to-Z,  inside-out, upside-down, and backwards!

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The art of the collar choke

My judo instructor when I was coming up through the ranks was uncanny with his choking techniques.  He seemed to be able to set a choke from any conceivable position.  Those chokes usually appeared from nowhere.  There's even a great story about him being thrown in a tournament but choking the guy out on the way down, such that he won because the thrower was judged to not have control of the throw (since he was unconscious)!

Some of my students have recently asked me how I got so uncanny good at chokes.  They make me want to laugh because my skill really is very modest. But seriously, my choking skills really have come together lately, and I've started getting these crazy, eye-crossing chokes in randori a lot lately.

So, I thought I'd give out one tip that I think is mine to give.  I say I think, because I don't ever remember being taught this lesson, though I don't delude myself into thinking I'v invented something here.

Do not attempt to grab the collar in any old place and by main force wrench it around uke's neck. 

Place your hand directly on the artery, then gather the collar into your hand.

This way, you will get much better positioning of the choking hand, and the collar will serve to anchor you hand to the artery.

Perhaps another way of thinking about this is - all collar chokes begin as katatejime - set the one hand properly, anchor it in place, then add the second hand in when you get the chance.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

The 76th down block

One of the maxims in karate (good karate that is) is that there is no wasted motion.  We do not chamber punches to look good, rather there is some reason for doing so.  Something that robs the opponent of their momentum and gives you an advantage.  For instance, the chambering motion for a downward block (gedanbarai) can be interpreted as an offbalance and drag-by that places you behind the opponent in position for a choke (ushirojime)  or drag-down (ushiroate).  In aikido parlance we call this type of motion release#4 or release#2. 

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One of the really cool things about this interpretation of the gedanbarai chamber is that it makes karate kata a constant reminder of your priorities when attacked - your first thought should not only be to slip out of the way, but also to get behind the attacker.  That is one thing that the gedanbarai chamber does for you and it is one reason that it is repeated so very often in the kataset.

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I don't know if this particular kuzushi and drag-by is one of the oyo in Rick Clarks intriguing book, 75 Down Blocks.  I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet.  But this 76th down block is what we worked on today in both  karate and aikido.

[Photo courtesy of Marius]

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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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Helpful handful; judo chokes

Between yellow and green belt in judo we start to integrate choking techniques into our game for most adults.  Following is a handful of helpful hints for making the most out of this set of techniques.

• Safety - Technical blood chokes (unlike crushing strangles) are generally considered safe, but for an additional measure of safety, we try to follow these guidelines... Don't practice chokes on children under 13 or people with history of heart or cardiovascular problems.  When practicing chokes on people over 50 years of age, position the choke but don't clamp down on it (uke tap before tori clamps it).  Try to refrain from choking on both sides of the neck during one practice, and try to refrain from practicing chokes in every class.  If you don't want chokes done on you, let your instructor and your partners know ahead of time.
• Target - The carotid sinus (the target of most choking attempts) is located at the corner of the jaw slightly above the level of the Adam's apple, underneath the SCM muscle that runs from your ear to your collarbone.  Depending on the position of uke's head, you may have to push this band of muscle out of the way to get to the artery underneath.
• Position then anchor - On most chokes, you position the choking surface of your hand or forearm directly on one carotid sinus, then grab whatever is at hand to anchor your hand there.  Go in that order - position then anchor.  Don't grab a handful of collar and then try to find the right position because you will nearly always end up out of position and have to use much more force over a longer period of time.
• One artery is sufficient - Because you are pressing the carotid sinus to cause a reflex knockout, you don't have to clamp both carotids to get an effect.  In fact, pushing into a carotid sinus can cause a much faster, much lower-force knockout than squeezing both carotids.  The carotids are not the only arteries carrying blood to the head, so you can't cut off all bloodflow anyway.
• Position, choke, armbar - Having a controlling position is usually pre-requisite to making an effective choking attempt.  It is almost impossible to choke uke when you are between his legs because he is controlling your hips.  When uke begins using his hands to resist a choking attempt, he often gets himself into an armbar.  So, the flow of groundwork often goes from position to choke to armbar.

For goodness sake, have some sense and don't practice this stuff without an experienced instructor on hand!

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Stiff-arms and chokes

I don't have one single take-away point from last night's class.

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We worked on breaking down the opponent's stiff-arms and slipping into a throw.  We worked on breaking the stiffarms with a windshield wiper and with an arm drop and we wound up getting into seoinage, ogoshi, hizaguruma, ashiguruma, and koshiguruma.

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On the ground we worked on hadakajime, katahajime, three classic forms of jujijime, and sodeguruma jime. Maybe it's because of all the chokes that I still can't think of a take-away point...

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Dojime - keep this in mind

In my syllabus I refer to the BJJ guard as the Japanese Judo technique, dojime. In our BJJ-inspired descent into ever more technical guard-work it can be easy to forget about the sheer, gruesome, bone-rending vice that is the original intent of dojime.

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Make no mistake. This technique creates enough mechanical advantage to squeeze the oatmeal out of both ends of the victim, pushing rib bones and organs along for the ride. As such, dojime is illegal in randori and competition and you guys had better not try to play this thing at my dojo. But as a reminder of the intent and potential of this technique, while we practice the technical "guardwork," we call it dojime instead of "the guard." Whenever you hear me refer to the guard as dojime, stick a mental Post-It in your brain so you can remember that then the grits hit the fan, you might want to crush the ever-lovin' snot out of your enemy.

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Following are a couple of demonstrations of dojime (the body strangle) and a fundamental way to break dojime.

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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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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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Effective choke

What do y'all think of this choke? It seems to me like it took an awful long time for the ref to stop the match after the girl was obviouslly knocked out or at least not making any effort to defend or fight.  But upon second watching, she sets the choke at about 0:12, the girl appears to be knocked out sometime before 0:30 and the match is stopped sometime arouond 0:47.  Still...

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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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Ezekiel - or sode guruma jime

This is one of my favorite choking techniques. Extremely versatile. I like to put it into play from a side position with my legs around him - as if mounted on him but facing his side. The BJJ name is Ezekiel, while the judo name is sode guruma jime.

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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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The best RNC video ever!

This guy definitely gets extra points for style and humor...


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Hadakajime - the rear naked choke

Now that we have a new judo yellow belt, we are about to get into (among other things) hadaka jime - the rear naked choke. Here's some good video to study up on between classes. First, a general demonstration of a handful of variations...

And now, Kashiwazaki demonstrating one of the coolest, smoothest entries I've seen. It starts out looking pretty mundane - even to the point of tori seeming dull and inexperienced, but it's a trick, and even seeing it the second time I thought it was really fine!

And here is a link to the best RNC tutorial I've seen anywhere on the net. This is Stephan Kesting demonstrating Rear Naked Choke finishing for Aesopian's BJJ blog. Enjoy.

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The safety of judo chokes

A student asked me the other day about the safety of practicing choking techniques in judo and brazilian jiu-jitsu. I was actually taken by surprise, having become comfortable with the practice years ago. But it really was a good question. My answer was basically that:

• Choking is safe because the way we do it in judo is a temporary occlusion of carotid(s) instead of compression of the windpipe (which we call a strangle). Blood chokes are considered safer than air chokes.
• Choking is safe because we emphasize to the student to tap before they pass out or get hurt. It doesn't take but a couple of repetitions before folks are familiar enough with chokes to (usually) know when to tap. We also emphasize that folks let go when the opponent is tapping. Because of these two rules choking very rarely goes far enough to even cause unconsciousness.
• Choking is safe, at least so far as I know, because I know of no instance in my practice or in the history of judo, when someone died as a result of being choked.

Despite the apparent safety of the practice, some coaches consider it prudent to enforce a few more rules...

• Make sure of the ground rules with people you are going to be rolling with. We don't do strangles (air chokes) and neck cranks, but some clubs do.
• Some coaches don't let kids younger than about teen age practice chokes because they are not considered responsible enough to play safely.
• I've heard some coaches say that they don't allow chokes to be done on men over about 50 years old because of the potential for carotid plaque injuries.
• I was also warned early on in my judo career that people who have known heart issues, who are taking cardioactive drugs, or who are known to be taking recreational drugs should not be choked because they might have higher risk of not recovering spontaneously.

References from JudoInfo...

• How safe is choking in judo? by E.K. Koiwai
• The Safety of Judo Chokes by Leonard I. Lapinsohm M.D.
• Emergency Care for Chokeholds by John Boulay
• Deaths allegedly caused by shoke-holds (shimewaza) by E.K. Koiwai

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?

Disentangling a crotchlock

Here's you judo and BJJ guys out there a lovely lesson on how to disentangle your leg when the opponent has a crotchlock set good and deep.  This can be an exceptionally annoying problem, so watch carefully and the instructor will present an exceptionally simple solution.  You'll still have to practice it a good bit because simple doesn't necessarily mean easy.  He also presents several interesting adjuncts or variants, including a nice keylock and one of my favorite chokes, sodegurumajime.

How to teach children aikido

So, how do you go about teaching kids aikido? The common view, at least in the judo world, is that you shouldn't teach young kids chokes or joint locking techniques because of the potential risk to growth plates in their long bones. Some jiujitsu teachers are able to work these techniques in relative safety with kids but I think if I were to teach a class of kids aikido, here's some of what I'd do to avoid chokes, joint locks, and etc...

• Mobility games
• Ukemi - lots and lots of ukemi
• Walking kata
• Evasion drills with partners
• Brush-off and escape
• Wrist releases
• Aikido atemiwaza (shomenate, aigamaeate, etc...)
• Suwariwaza and kokyudosa (kneeling knock-down games)
• Positional newaza basics
• Cool ki tricks (mind games, concentration, etc…)
• Talk about how to deal with interpersonal conflict
• Situational self defense
• Competition of some sort - not sure how I'd do this because all the competitive aikido randori systems I've seen are awful.

So, there's still a lot of aikido and pre-aikido that we could do. Much of the pre-aikido stuff is identical to the pre-judo stuff we do in kiddie judo. You know, the more I think about kiddie aiki the more fun it sounds...

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.

How to teach judo to kids

Yesterday I got an email question from someone interested in teaching kids judo. It read, in part…

Every time I see you talk [on your blog] about class with [children], it seems to be positional wrestling, etc. … So more ne-waza and less tachi-waza for the kids?

I absolutely do emphasize positional newaza with kids. Holds, escapes, turnovers, transitions, etc… No chokes or jointlocking submissions. Positional newaza is safer and more fun for kids and more within the realm of the possible with regards to their motor skills development. Each class, we tend to work on ukemi, perhaps one low-skill low-impact takedown, then positional newaza and motor skills stuff, then some fun form of a randori-like activity.

To see examples of my class structure and the way I teach kids, check out this thread of articles.

Mokuren Interview: 'Judo' Gene LeBell

I am pleased to present the latest in our series of interviews with great martial artists here at Mokuren Dojo. Today we had the opportunity to talk to grappling legend, Gene Lebell. From his website: “In a 50+ year career of high falls and fist fights, ‘Judo’ Gene LeBell has crashed cars, jumped motorcycles, wrestled bears, incited riots and fought some of the toughest men in the world. He was an AAU National Judo Champion and a Professional Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion at a time when wrestling was more about survival than show business… He was there during the "Golden Years" of martial arts growth in the U.S.”

Patrick Parker: Hey, I love that patch you are wearing on your left sleeve in the picture above. It’s hard to see in this picture, but if it's the patch I'm thinking of, it is a cartoon of a guy in a lion’s mouth with the caption, “When in doubt, Choke him out!” A few years back my judo teacher gave me one of those patches and I loved it!

Your bio on your webpage says that at age 20 you had 14 years of hardcore training behind you, including some grappling with Ed "Strangler" Lewis, who is credited with inventing the sleeper hold. Is that where you got your fabulous rear choke?

Gene Lebell: The 1st time I learned it, yes it was from Ed Lewis. Since then there have been many variations in the world, from which I have learned to do it from the sides, the front, etc. They are in my Encyclopedia of Grappling, Finishing Holds for those who want to learn them.

Patrick Parker: Who do you think were the greatest judo teachers you ever got to learn from?

Gene Lebell: In the U.S. Shig Tashma, Larry Coughran, Kenneth Kinyuki, Fuji Nazawa (who just died 2 days ago), and of course I learned a lot from training in Japan (Ishikawa), most are listed and pictured in "The Godfather of Grappling" book.

Patrick Parker: You mentioned your Godfather of Grappling and Encyclopedia of Grappling books... What do you think is the role of books in training? Since you've got to lay hands on a real guy to learn to grapple, how much of what kinds of things do you think folks can learn from a book or a website? What is the best way to learn something when you don't have face-to-face access to an expert?

Gene Lebell: Of course it is always better to work with an expert, but how often can you do that or afford it. As an alternative you use students of the experts, then videos or books. And there is no substitute for getting on the mat and experimenting and trying things to see what works for you and what doesn't.

Patrick Parker: It seems that judo is not as popular in America as it is in other countries, and amateur wrestling is only popular in certain regions of the United States. What do you figure is behind this regional popularity? What do you think we would have to do to grow judo and amateur wrestling in the United States?

Gene Lebell: Publicity. For example - Newspapers have results from horses, basketball, tennis, golf, but not the martial arts results. The people that are not good competitors become politicians, but they need to push the martial arts more. Every tournament and event should be publicized somewhere.

Patrick Parker: You've had so much experience in judo, wrestling, boxing, and jujitsu. Which of these arts seems to you to be the best way to start young children (like ages 6-8)?

Gene Lebell: I would say tumbling, gymnastics. Then if they fall off their bike they have less of a chance of getting hurt because they know how to move through the air. Then Judo and grappling involve all the skills from tumbling. Everyone should have background in boxing, judo, and wrestling.

Patrick Parker: There's been some hoopla in the news and on the blogsites lately about getting young kids involved in serious MMA competitions - do you figure that is a good thing or a bad thing?

Gene Lebell: It is a good thing if they are having fun. Less injuries occur on the mat than on a skateboard in the middle of the street.

Patrick Parker: Does it seem to you like our American society is predominantly becoming tougher and more Spartan/Bloodsport or are we becoming softer by pampering ourselves with excessive rules lawyering in contact sports?

Gene Lebell: As a whole - softer. Kids are not allowed to learn to defend themselves in the school yard. Everyone cries for a lawyer when they look at each other wrong. Men that can defend themselves and their families seem to be disappearing. That is why the MMA is a great thing and popular. It reminds men what men are and women what they are missing out on.

Patrick Parker: Folks call you the toughest man alive. Where do you think that toughness comes from? Is it more of a mental attitude or some physical skills you've learned or an inborn trait?

Gene Lebell: It isn't how you play the game, it's the final score that counts. A hundred years from now nobody knows how you won, only if you did or didn't. What I call a 2nd is the 1st loser. Toughness is mental and physical. You must be fanatical to put in the necessary amount of work to succeed.


Thank you so much, Gene, for sharing your thoughts with my readers and me. There is so much great info here that I’m sure they will appreciate. I know that I, for one, can hardly wait to lay hands on your two books that you mentioned.

For more info on the Legendary Judo Gene LeBell,

or to buy copies of his books,

check out his websites,

www.GeneLeBell.com and www.ValleyMartialArts.com