You Suck at Armbars and You Don't Know any Chokes

If you don't know anything about a person your best prediction is the average. For example, if the average woman in America is 5 foot, 4 inches tall and you are asked to predict the height of the next person to come through the door, it would be pretty stupid of you to say 7 feet  or 4 feet, 1 inch. Your best guess is 5'4" and you probably won't be too far off.

This brings us to you. Yes, I'm talking to you. I have no idea who you are. Who ARE you, anyway?

Since I don't know anything about you, I am going to predict that you are like most people and your armbars suck. They suck in some specific ways.

First, you don't lock the arm against your body.
Look at the end of this video where Ronda has Autumn in an armbar. That's the position you want to be in. (Yes, it isn't the greatest video because the referee keeps walking in the way. You should have paid the $9.99 to see it on fight TV. Cheapskate. )

Second, getting your body into the position is easier if you start by locking the arm against your body, rotating toward her head to break the arm away and then back to a 90 degree angle from your opponent. You should do this, but you don't.

Third, you don't know enough ways to get into an armbar. Okay, I will admit that video was from an MMA match and the punching her in the head to get the arm free is not allowed in judo, although I can certainly empathize with the impulse.  However, I see so many people who only have a single way of getting into juji gatame. They do the same roll over move that Jimmy Pedro, Jr. does and that's it. There's nothing wrong with that move at all. It's great. Uchimata is great, too, but I don't recommend it as the only throw anyone ever does in their life. You can do juji gatame from seoi toshi, tomoe nage, on people coming in trying to pin you when you are on your back, when your partner is on her hands and knees you can do it turning towards her hips, towards her head or throwing yourself backward. (Keep your head tucked like in ukemi so you don't knock yourself silly and look like a moron.) Variety is a good thing. Try your armbars different ways.

Fourth, you don't know any armbars besides juji gatame. Right behind juji gatame I think the technique I scored the most with was ude garame.  For those of you who don't know any Japanese, juji gatame is sometimes referred to as a cross-body arm lock or a straight arm lock while ude garame is sometimes called a bent arm lock. This picture shows ude garame as a combination from a pin. Personally, I did it a lot from kesa gatame (another pin), where I armbarred the person with my leg.

Okay, and don't even get me started on chokes because you don't know any except that stupid sankaku which some people call a triangle choke. But that's a whole 'nother story. You know so few chokes we're doing a whole day at the West Coast Judo Training Center on December 11 on nothing but chokes. It's called

Masters of Submission - chokes, chokes and more chokes --
because certain people who are younger than me always wanted to be He-Man in Masters of the Universe cartoons when they were children and other people always wanted to be She-Ra Princess of Power. I wanted to call it the Great American Choke-Out but certain young people did not listen to me. Power of Grayskull my @$$!

Anyway, learn some chokes, damn it! Come down on December 11 and learn to choke people's lights out. Incredibly, this is actually legal in California.

Learn some more arm bars while you're at it. Ones that don't suck.

Variety in techniques and positions is good! That goes for your sex life, too.  Unless you are under 18 years old in which case I order you to unread that last sentence. Or one of my daughters. In which case, you should join a convent. Preferably one named after St. Jude.

Ronda Teaches O Soto Gari

As part of my continuing effort to get other people to do my work for me, I have today Ronda teaching o soto gari. She _says_ not wearing a gi makes it easier to emphasize placement of her right foot, how her leg is lifted and lifting the elbows. HA! The truth is that she is not wearing her gi in these pictures because she had just cleaned out her car, an annual event, so when she got to judo there was no gi in her trunk for the first time in several months.

By the way, for those of you who don't know Japanese, o soto gari in English is Major Outer Reap. As Ronda said yesterday, it is a basic throw but no matter how good you think you are at it, it's worth practicing and getting better because it really is a move that can score at all levels from the novice tournaments to the Olympics.

Step 1: She steps TO THE SIDE with her right foot. Not straight back. Note Ronda is doing this left-handed. If you were doing right o soto you would be stepping to the other side with your left foot.

Step 2: She had me take the next picture from the other side because she really wanted to emphasize that your elbows should be UP. You are stepping into the person and pulling yourself into her.

Step 3: Notice where she is in this picture. Her hips are actually PAST Crystal's. That's really important. You don't want to be reaching for the other person in o soto gari. That's a good way to get countered. Ronda said,

"Pretend you're running to kick a soccer ball. You want to get your momentum going. You're not going to run bent over with your butt sticking out."

How NOT to do o soto gari

Step 4: Pick your leg UP ! This has got to be one of the most frustrating things for all judo instructors. No matter how many times you say this, you'll still see students many time each practice trying to throw someone with the left leg planted on the ground.

See how Ronda's leg is up in the air there? That's how it is supposed to be.  Also, she normally would have kept her arms bent and followed the opponent to the mat, but this is a demonstration and not a contest so she was going easy.

I was supposed to include a picture at the end of Crystal looking like Ronda had killed her but I did not because
a) She didn't really look all that dead.
b) Her butt looked HUGE in that picture and I was sure she would not appreciate it. Her butt is not actually huge it just looked huge in the picture. Not that I have been checking out people's butts at practice or anything. I think I'll just stop typing now before I get into trouble.

How NOT to do a Judo Camp

Today, I was talking to Bill Caldwell, from San Shi Dojo in Vista, CA about the camp that California Judo, Inc. sponsors every year between Christmas and New Year's Day. We got on the subject of what we hate in clinics and camps and it turned out to be the same thing - those sessions you attend where the person shows 1,487 different moves and you get to practice fifteen of them two times each. At the end of the day, there isn't a single thing you can do, but you leave thinking,

"Wow, Sensei Joe-Bob sure knows a lot of judo."

I've been to camps and clinics where the person before me taught a bunch of extremely advanced moves and then it was my turn and I would teach a throw, a pin and an armbar. I've heard (some) people mutter afterward,

"She isn't very good is she? How did she ever manage to win the world championships?"

That always amuses me. Here is an important point that I believe about judo camps and clinics - the purpose is not to show off but to show judo.

As Bill said, what he wants in a camp is,
"Less talking, less showing, more doing."

Judo skill isn't a disease. You don't catch it by hanging out next to someone good. You get it by practicing over and over. No one wins with 396 different techniques. If you're amazing, you might have a few dozen. If you're a normal person, you have, at most, a dozen techniques you score with regularly. More likely, you can count them on one hand.

The awesome Serge Boussyou at Mayo Quanchi once gave me this really good advice  - don't just tell people what NOT to do, you need to tell them what to do, also.

My suggestion would be, when you go to a camp, if the clinician shows six techniques, pick one or two that seem like they would work for you and practice those over and over. In picking those two, consider what you already do. If you have a killer uchimata and the person shows an entry into uchimata, or a combination from uchimata or a set-up to uchimata, do that, it fits into your arsenal. If you are just beginning judo, do whatever looks cool to you. You don't have an arsenal yet. Still, pick one or two techniques and try to get those down at least well enough that you can practice back at your own club.

It's always a good idea when you go to a camp to have a teammate with you. At a camp, do randori with people from other clubs but drills with people from your club. That way, you get practice against people who don't know your techniques (from the randori) but when you get home and want to work on the new techniques, you and your teammate can put your heads together, and hopefully, remember what you learned.

It's funny, a few weeks ago, I was giving almost this exact talk about how, if you don't want to end up irrelevant what you need to do is focus not on impressing your audience but informing them. It was to a group of statisticians (and I bet all of you who clicked on that previous link are now disappointed.)

How to Do MMA on Your Big Dog: Sneakerdoodle Zebra Judo

Men Coaching Women

{That's Jimmy - this blog is kind of about him -- >}

When I was talking to Jim Pedro, Sr. today about Kayla Harrison having won in Abu Dhabbi (congratulations, Kayla), it occurred to me that he has coached three women to world medals (Kayla Harrison, Ronda Rousey and Barbara Fest) out of the eleven medalists this country has had. (The other eight were Mary Lewis, Darlene Anaya, Eve Aronoff, AnnMaria (Burns) De Mars, Margie Castro, Lynn Roethke, Liliko Ogasawara and Christine Pennick).



Rusty Kanokogi, who was a HUGE proponent of women's competition, and the first Olympic coach for a women's judo team, had a healthy dose of skepticism for men coaching elite women players. I understood her position, while I did not always agree with her.  In general, she did not believe that male coaches would be as supportive of female athletes or as empathetic or understanding as a female coach. If you knew Rusty, you know that she didn't mean empathetic in the "Oh my poor baby" way, but as far as understanding, for example, that women are naturally a higher percentage body fat, that women are more flexible, making some techniques easier, etc. She also thought (correctly in my opinion) that female coaches were more understanding of the sexual harassment and general disrespect that women had to tolerate just to get on the mat.

So.... I got to wondering what was it about Jimmy that made him a good coach for women. Not only has he had success lately but he used to have a terrific women's team back in the 1970s, not exactly a heyday of enlightenment for women's judo (in fact, I don't think there's EVER been a heyday of enlightenment for women's judo). It is NOT that he had women working out with the men, although he did do that. Jim was certainly not the first or only person in the country to have women training with men in his dojo. I would agree with him that is a necessary condition for women in the U.S. to be a successful competitors. There just aren't enough tough women in any single area to limit your training to other women.

What I noticed about Jim today, and Ronda has mentioned it before as well, is that he treats the women the same as he does his male players, and he does it very un-self-consciously. For example, today he was talking about the other players in Kayla's division, each one she had to fight, what each player's strengths and weaknesses were. He used to do the same thing with Ronda. For both of them, he would talk a lot about their potential, their physical strength, their work ethic.

{That's me. AnnMaria - this blog is by me -- >}

Many (not all) other male coaches have a noticeable difference in the way they talk about their male and female players. Even coaches who are coaching elite female players, when I ask them about the competition will say, 

"I don't follow women's judo. All of the women in Mary's division do s--- judo."

If you don't have respect for women's judo, you aren't going to do what Jimmy does and scout the opponents in detail. You aren't going to focus on how your player matches up against her competitors and you aren't going to study your own player's judo in detail because you are limited by your own prejudice against women's judo.

While nothing is a guarantee, it seems to me that having a sincere respect for women's judo as a sport and your player as an athlete is related to greater success internationally. 

I've noticed that in Europe, and yes, in Japan, too, there is more respect, both among male athletes and male coaches, for women who win international competitions and I suspect the greater success of their women's teams is no coincidence.

More Things I Know about Judo (for those of you too tired to read)

Well, yesterday I posted some things I knew about judo but, when I gave it some deep thought, I discovered there were even more things I knew about judo. Amazing, huh?

Some of you have commented that you would like to read my blog but you are too tired after working all day and going to judo practice in the evening.

Just for you, I have prepared today's podcast so you can learn about judo and still rest your precious little eyes.

Things I Know about Judo

If you did not attend the clinic at San Fernando Dojo this week you missed the opportunity to learn about judo (see cool but unrelated video of San Fernando sensei Richie Endow doing hane goshi here). Clinicians included yours truly, Dr. Jacob Flores, Ronda Rousey, Kyle Taketa from Gardena Dojo, Dave Honda and Vanessa Cualquim from South Bay Judo and Naynay (Amelia) Fulgentes from Mojica Judo. The last four, including the young lady from Mojica whose name I am sure I completely butchered in spelling (sorry) just came back from the Junior World Championships. They, along with Ronda, provided the youthful good looks and athleticism quota of the room, while I held up my end by providing the quota of snarky comments.

As a public service, I am including here some of the profound points I made.

Judo has enough rules, you don’t need to make up your own. When someone says about a person who is not doing anything illegal, “That's Not Judo. I'm Fine With Losing If That's What You Have To Do To Win”, then yes, he/she is going to lose more often than someone willing to do any legal technique. If you refuse to do matwork because you would rather win by a spectacular throw than 'grubbing around down there on the mat' then be prepared to lose occasionally on the mat. If you don't practice grip-fighting because, "I prefer to be able to throw you from whatever grip you get," then you are just being arrogant. If you refuse to practice transition from standing to matwork because, as one coach told me, "It's just bad sportsmanship to jump on a guy when he is down", then you are going to lose to people who are better at transition than you. I want to emphasize that I am NOT talking about cheating. I have never, ever been one of those people to say if the referee doesn't see you do it, it's not illegal. Deliberately breaking a rule is cheating. Fighting tactically - for example, doing low risk attacks when you are ahead by a waza ari and there is a minute left, stalling when you are ahead by a waza ari and there are ten seconds left, those are tactics. Following your opponent to the mat to an armbar is just good judo. Making up these "My judo is better than you" rules about gripping, combinations, transition or whatever makes no more sense than deciding you won't do o soto gari because only forward throws like uchimata are "real judo".


If you can’t beat someone at her own game then you play a different game. If your opponent is stronger than you on the mat, try to play standing up as much as possible. If he or she is stronger than you standing, go to the mat. If your opponent is better than you at grip-fighting, try to get the first grip and attack immediately before she can control your grip or take off your grip.

You play people, not principles. While going to the mat is generally a bad idea with 20 seconds left on the clock when you are behind, since it is usually more likely to get a yuko or higher score while standing, if you are much better than your opponent in matwork, it's wise to go to the mat. Similarly, it is usually a good strategy to go to the mat when you are ahead and eat up the clock - unless your opponent is  much better than you in matwork. The same is true of techniques. If your best throw is seoi nage but your opponent's only really good move is a tani otoshi counter to seoi nage, then, duh, do o soto gari or something else.

I'm surprised I would have to explain this, but, then it occurred to me that people don't emerge from the womb knowing judo and they have to learn these basic ideas at some point. For relatively new judo players, those who just haven't been paying attention and some of you who are a little too in love with your own ideas sometimes, the above explanations were necessary. You're welcome.

Since I know that you are just crushed at the missed opportunity to hear me talk, in my continual effort to meet all of your needs and desires, check back tomorrow for an actual pod cast of me talking about matwork drills and some other random stuff.