Basic Throws

[Fubo]

I think it's hard to say who has more grip fighting. Admittedly, I don't know much about SC, but Judo has had so many influences from so many different countries that makes the categorization of grip fighting very difficult. We are fortunate in our school to have high caliber Judoka from many different countries, and each exposes different elements in their grip fighting game.

[CaliG]

I'm not sure about 80% the same. Judo has more chokes, sacrifice throws, gripfighting, and groundwork than SC. The sacrifice throws alone open up a lot of defensive, use-your-opponents-force-against-them opportunities. The groundwork is there as well if someone wants to develop it. Also SC has some a whole slew of jibengong that isn't found in judo. Not sure about sambo.

I was referring to just the throws on the videos.

By the way, how did China do in judo during the games?

[Formosa Neijia]

Dave, judo has more chokes, sacrifice throws, and groundwork (since SC does none of those, really).

but SC has WAY more gripfighting techniques than judo. the baoding 3 keys, si beng tong are predominantly grip fighting techniques.

If that's the case, then how do SC people feel about that? Is there too much grip fighting? I ask because there's a fairly large and vocal group within judo that feel gripfighting has taken over some of the higher level matches. Sometimes opponents pend so much time gripfighting that they don't get to many throws.

I like the "kuaijiao" ideas of gripping then immediately throwing, BTW.

For grip stuff, I think the sambo guys have it over all of us. They have figured out all sorts of unorthodox grips that allow the throws to be pulled off even on over-defensive opponents. And some of the grips are actually better than traditional grips IMO for certain throws.

Dave C.

[Formosa Neijia]

I'm not sure about 80% the same. Judo has more chokes, sacrifice throws, gripfighting, and groundwork than SC. The sacrifice throws alone open up a lot of defensive, use-your-opponents-force-against-them opportunities. The groundwork is there as well if someone wants to develop it. Also SC has some a whole slew of jibengong that isn't found in judo. Not sure about sambo.

I was referring to just the throws on the videos.

By the way, how did China do in judo during the games?

China got three gold and one bronze.

The Taiwan ....ahem...."team" didn't do too well. It only had two women. One of which almost made it to the bronze medal match. I'm not sure what happened with the fielding of so few athletes. It looks like few Taiwan judo athletes compete in international competition, making them ineligible for the Olympics. Sucks.

Dave C.

[nianfong]

Dave, judo has more chokes, sacrifice throws, and groundwork (since SC does none of those, really).

but SC has WAY more gripfighting techniques than judo. the baoding 3 keys, si beng tong are predominantly grip fighting techniques.

If that's the case, then how do SC people feel about that? Is there too much grip fighting? I ask because there's a fairly large and vocal group within judo that feel gripfighting has taken over some of the higher level matches. Sometimes opponents pend so much time gripfighting that they don't get to many throws.

I like the "kuaijiao" ideas of gripping then immediately throwing, BTW.

For grip stuff, I think the sambo guys have it over all of us. They have figured out all sorts of unorthodox grips that allow the throws to be pulled off even on over-defensive opponents. And some of the grips are actually better than traditional grips IMO for certain throws.

Dave C.

dave,
sparring in SC has always been dominated by grip fighting. my teacher always tells me, in high level matches, the first person to get the grip gets the throw. There is a saying that goes something like "願被摔,不輸把"--we'd rather be thrown than losing the grip fight. That's how it's been for a long long time. Grip fighting is basically how you also learn how to deal with punches, SC style.

judo is coming to the realization late in the game. in fact most schools don't know shit about grip fighting--at least in the US.

-Fong

[Formosa Neijia]

dave,
sparring in SC has always been dominated by grip fighting. my teacher always tells me, in high level matches, the first person to get the grip gets the throw. There is a saying that goes something like "願被摔,不輸把"--we'd rather be thrown than losing the grip fight. That's how it's been for a long long time. Grip fighting is basically how you also learn how to deal with punches, SC style.

judo is coming to the realization late in the game. in fact most schools don't know shit about grip fighting--at least in the US.

-Fong

That's very interesting. This must be a Japanese thing. In judo, they're pushing now to have gripfighting reduced after the last Olympics. The Japanese want the emphasis to be on big throws, not grappling for grips. Many schools in the US may not know much about it but some like Rhadi Ferguson and Jimmy Pedro do. They're former Olympians. All the best grip fighters are European and Russian. Ferguson and Pedro want the US to be more competitive but they're fighting an uphill battle against the Japanese-influenced judo schools.

Dave C.

[Brady]

Pedro's students are annoying . . . I've beaten two on stalling warnings alone because they ran away whenever the grip was anywhere near 50/50. I like grip fighting, my favorite time to go for a throw is when the opponent is going for his second hand grip . . . weakest moment IMO.

[ashe]

AS has already been said, gi work is its own art. It's got more subtleties to it than I realized. It also allows a very technical game as compared to non-gi work.

to me (in my experience SO FAR), adding the gi makes some of the techniques so much easier it's almost like cheating (say like a triangle choke from the guard).

[Fubo]

judo is coming to the realization late in the game. in fact most schools don't know shit about grip fighting--at least in the US.

-Fong

As a blanket statement I just don't agree with this - I suppose with SC historically being much older then Judo it makes sense as Judo is relatively much younger, but the US schools I've trained at place a great amount of focus on grip fighting. Another thing to acknowledge is that there are other international players training in US schools, so unlike say Cuba where you might find that the vast majority of people training are Cubans, in the US it's not uncommon to have people from all over with big stylistic differences. I suppose if you go to some po-dunk little town in the middle of now where the quality of grip fighting and Judo can vary drastically, although I known some amazing international players who train in some strange little places around the mid-west, but in most major cities you'll usually find a good amount of people from different countries teaching their goods.

[nianfong]

it's a matter of perspective. there are a huge variety of techniques that SC uses for grip fighting, many of which have names. judo doesn't have names for the grip techniques. The grips themselves have names of course, but not the techniques to get there.

my teacher also verifies that the judo grip techniques from his knowledge from taiwan are nowhere near as sophisticated as that of SC. And my coach who rolled in SJ state judo, and kay hill as well. Talented judoka will know how to get grips and defend against grips, but I don't think it's officially in the curriculum. and certainly it's not to the extent as it is in SC.

-Fong

[CaliG]

Speaking of grips here's the classic Russian 2 on 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEt2_dyD ... re=related

[Fubo]

I agree that it's a matter of perspective. I also agree that the names are maybe not as standardized in the same way they probably are in SC, but I wouldn't say they aren't in the system. The thing I like about Judo is that it's always evolving and different people/cultures add to it - One of the guys at my dojo is on the SJ state team, we have a lot of national and international champions and a few ex-olympians from around the globe at our school, and have a lot of out of town national team that visit us and they all have very specific grip fighting methods from there respective countries - I'm not trying to brag or anything (nothing to brag about really, just lucky to get to workout with high caliber people), just trying to say that from my experience Judo does have very involved organized grip fighting methods that differ from place to place. Just saying that what is or is not Judo in terms of grip fighting is a distinction thats hard to make because so many different "breeds" of Judo have developed and are still acknowledged as Judo.

In terms of traditionally documented written categories, in the same sense as how the Judo's "Gokyo No Waza" or Traditional 40 throws are recorded,I think it's hard to do a back to back comparison with SC, because today's Judo encompasses more then what is traditionally documented as a part of the orthodox curriculum.

Craig

[nianfong]

judo is like boxing in this way--there is no standard form or grip fighting techniques because every practitioner does it their own way.
SC, however standardizes this with forms and specific techniques. each style of SC may have variation in names of grip-fighting techniques/throws, but within a style, there is a standard name. and more importantly, all the accumulated knowledge of grip fighting techniques are recorded in the forms.

[Fubo]

I don't think it's as simple as that. There are standardized forms such as cross grip, 2 one 1, power grip, pistol grip etc... the individual variations in technique and strategy come out of those standardized forms (not solo forms in the CMA sense, but forms none the less).

[CaliG]

I think everyone's right.

That is some good judoka have figured out ways of dealing with grips which has sometimes been passed on from coach to student but I haven't seen anything like some of the SC grip exercises that Fong showed me a little bit of done in a systematic set in judo.

As mentioned before it almost seems like the more Japanese it is the more they use traditional grips, not on the competition level though.

My Russian judo coach said that basically when the Russians learned judo from the Japanese they basically said, "Fuck this, this is too hard." (His words.) They decided if they were going to put all the effort they needed to pull off a throw they wanted to be sure they got it. So instead of relying on speed and timing as the Japanese were known for doing they started using techniques from the Soviet national styles as as well other Asian forms of wrestling for gripping and controlling their opponents so when they went for the throw there was no way the guy wasn't going to go down.

Since then their influence has spread throughout Europe and the world, but I think the US might be a little behind compared to some other countries, afterall we have a lot of different sports here and right now BJJ is the hot ticket item for grapplers. Hopefully this will change though because I think we have a lot of good coaches in the States but not as many players compared with BJJ.