The Judo Advantage: Controlling Movement with Modern Kinesiology. For All Grappling Styles

Foreword by Jim Bregman

The genius of Dr. Kano’s creation, judo, is fully unlocked and thoroughly analyzed in this exploration and explanation of controlling movement by Steve Scott. Seiryoku zenyo, which can be best translated as the best use of energy or maximum efficiency with a minimum of effort is one of Dr. Kano’s guiding principles. The other is jita kyoei, which is translated as mutual welfare and benefit. The word judo is often translated as the gentle way.

As a form of physical education and sport, judo provides an excellent vehicle for imparting in its practitioners a practical code of conduct and deportment that is crystallized in the phrase mutual welfare and benefit. As judo’s practitioners become more and more developed and trained in this more modern form of a martial art, they begin to have greater insight into the full meaning of maximum efficiency with a minimum of effort. In this excellent volume, Steve Scott provides both the coach and the student with useful insights into just why and how the gentle way functions as it does.

At the age of fifteen, I was awarded my shodan rank and competed in the regional tournament held by Shufu Judo Yudanshakai. I won my division and became the overall tournament champion by throwing the heavyweight champion for an ippon with uchi mata. Despite my larger and heavier opponent, the throw was effortless due to body mechanics and, philosophically, mushin or mindlessness. Mushin happens when the thrower is not consciously thinking and is mindless as the activity is occurring. This mindlessness is an automatic reflex developed by years of repetitive practice and diligence. These principles are included in this book.

The axiom that a much smaller man can defeat a bigger opponent is explained by body dynamics and movement control. Although I was successful as a fifteen-year-old defeating a much stronger and heavier opponent, I learned very quickly watching Anton Geesink (world and Olympic champion) train at the Kodokan and doing randori with him that the real principle at work in this case was the bigger they are, the harder they throw you. You will learn why this is true as you enjoy Steve’s insightful comments about how judo really functions.

I highly recommend that coaches and practitioners of judo read this volume because it will enhance and amplify your coaching and judo practice.

JIM BREGMAN

US and Pan American Games judo champion

First US judo athlete to win world and Olympic medals

Tenth dan

Foreword by Bruce Toups

In his new book on judo movement, Steve Scott has given a gift to all judoka. It is a tour de force regarding all the principles of judo. Unlike almost every other judo book, Steve does not try to tell you how he does, or thinks you should do, a particular throw, but rather discusses in depth what is required to do any throw. It is a fitting adjunct to Kyuzo Mifune’s classic book Canon of Judo. Further, Steve shows how these principles often translate into newaza (ground grappling) as well.

This book should be in everyone’s library. Why? First, it is a summary of everything a good judo teacher or coach should know as well as a reference text to help all of us remember the things we know but have forgotten to emphasize to our students in our lesson plans, because we are concentrating on a particular technique rather than its principles.

I am looking forward to adding this wonderful text to my collection. However, unlike most of the books I have, this one will be nearby for reference.

BRUCE TOUPS

US World Judo Team coach

Past director of development for US Judo

Seventh dan

Introduction

Judo is based on sound biomechanical principles. The more efficiently a person applies these principles, the more effectively that person will do judo. To do judo well, a person must know not only how to control his own body but also his opponent’s. This book examines how the human body moves and why judo works in controlling how it moves.

We will examine and analyze this from both a contemporary biomechanical point of view and from a more traditional point of view, with the goal of showing how both these ways of describing what judo is are compatible and make a lot of sense. The Japanese phrases, terms, and names you’ll encounter—in use since judo’s inception and familiar to all judo practitioners—explain much of what judo is and does. You just have to appreciate them and use them to explore the fullness and complexity of the art. For the most part, terms such as kuzushi, tsurikomi, and many others—terms we often use without giving them much thought—are based on sound biomechanical principles. Words do indeed have meaning and purpose and, for the most part, the Japanese names in judo translate into functional application. Typical examples are kuzushi, tsukuri, and kake. These well-known terms describe both a physical action and the theoretical concept behind that physical action. Kuzushi translates to breaking down and describes the action of breaking down an opponent’s balance and posture. Tsukuri translates to building or erecting something and describes the attacker’s action of building or forming his technique. Kake translates to suspend, hoist, or raise and describes how the attacker raises or suspends his opponent up off the mat in the actual execution of the attack. The meanings of the terms neatly describes the action involved.

Controlling how an opponent moves is vital to success in judo, as well as in any other combat sport. Judo is movement. A judo practitioner must be able to control how his own body moves but has the added burden of controlling how his opponent moves as well. Making your opponent move the way you want him to and controlling as much of what goes on in a judo match determine who wins and who loses. Make no mistake about it: judo is one of the toughest sports ever invented. Judo is also an effective method of developing fitness and health, useful for self-defense, and ideal for developing a sound character. But when it comes down to it, if you want to be good at judo, you have to know how to move an opponent and move him with a high ratio of success.

Controlling the movement of a partner in practice is different than controlling the body movement of an uncooperative and resisting opponent in a judo match. For a technical skill to be effective in a competitive situation, there has to be a reliable foundation for it. This foundation is the physical education aspect of judo. The biomechanical principles that are the foundation of how and why judo works in a sporting context are the same principles that govern judo as a method of study in physical education.

Throughout my coaching career, I’ve used the phrase control judo to describe how to effectively teach the functional movements necessary for success in judo. The basic idea is for the athlete (and the coach who prepares that athlete) to control as much of the action in a match as possible. In any conflict with another human being, you must control every aspect of that conflict, and you must leave nothing to chance. Whether in competition or self-defense, controlling an opponent is the ultimate goal.

While this book may appear to emphasize judo’s competitive aspect, the fact remains that judo is first and foremost a method of physical education. A major part of physical education is the teaching of good sportsmanship. Good sportsmanship is basically good ethics applied to a sport. These good ethics taught on the mat are what develop good character and a decent human being. Judo’s founder, Professor Jigoro Kano, placed primary emphasis on judo as physical education and secondary emphasis on judo as a sport.

That said, millions of people all over the world practice judo as a competitive sport. Judo’s expansion from Japan to the rest of the world has been mostly due to people pursuing judo as the exciting sport that it is. From a technical point of view, judo’s development has come largely from the coaches and athletes who compete in it. All of these people have pushed the envelope in search of improved technical skills to get the edge on opponents. Judo tests and pushes the boundaries of human movement. What allow those boundaries to be pushed are the sound biomechanical principles rooted in the physical education aspect of judo. Without its foundation in physical education, judo as a sport would not be the technically compelling activity it is today.

Judo was my first exposure to the world of martial arts. I was twelve. But along the way I developed keen interests in both jujitsu and sambo and am a firm believer in the concept of cross-training. Judo and similar combat sports are complex activities based on sound biomechanical principles and each art provides its own perspective that is worth exploring. But historically, judo is the root discipline of most of today’s combat grappling sports, and because of this, I will use judo as the primary sport when I explain the biomechanics of a technical skill or movement.

The principles of judo initially developed by Professor Jigoro Kano have stood the test of time because everything he did was based on sound biomechanical principles. Throughout this book you will see familiar judo terminology alongside terms used in kinesiology and biomechanics. This book is not an attempt to reinvent the wheel or even to make it rounder. Rather, this book simply attempts to explain why the wheel works. As mentioned, much of the Japanese terminology in judo most students tend to take for granted is based on fundamentally sound concepts. These concepts are considered old school but have stood the test of time because they continue to explain why and how the human body works most efficiently in the context of judo. Along the same lines, one of the most brilliant things Jigoro Kano did was to give a descriptive name to each of the different actions in judo. An example is shintai. Shintai is the term used to describe movement, most usually in a linear pattern. From that, we have the different footwork or movement patterns of ayumi ashi, or normal walking; tsugi ashi, or shuffling footwork; and taisabaki, or body movement in a circular pattern. Each of these movement patterns are part of the overall concept of shintai.

From my research, prior to Jigoro Kano and Kodokan judo, no hand-to-hand fighting art (such as the different feudal Japanese jujutsu schools) had specific names for specific movements based on their function. Professor Kano largely brought this method of describing things to the names he gave to the different throws, pins, strangles, and armlocks in Kodokan judo. For the most part, the name of a technique provides a description as to how that technique should optimally work. This pragmatic, simple, and logical concept of naming things has ensured that the biomechanical principles of Kano’s judo have stood the test of time with continued success. The Japanese language is considered to be the common language used to describe the techniques, theory, and concepts of judo much in the same way Latin is used in science and law. This has helped tremendously in the promulgation, teaching, and explaining of judo. If the Japanese terminology were no longer used, much of the analytical understanding and appreciation of judo would be lost. It is a good idea for any serious student of judo (or similar martial art) to learn and understand the Japanese names and phrases to better appreciate the underlying concept of a particular movement or technique. A person doesn’t have to speak or read Japanese fluently, but it does take an accurate understanding of the terms to better understand what a particular name or phrase really means. As noted, in most cases Professor Kano named things based on their function. One of this book’s main purposes is to explain what these names mean and how the principles they describe actually work.

Judo is kinesiology in action. Kinesiology is the study of the human body’s movement, and that describes judo very well. Knowing how to control an opponent’s body and then actually doing it defines success in judo. Movement and the control of movement are what keep judo practitioners up at night, and I am no different. I certainly am not an academic, but I do possess a fair amount of education, practical training, and experience in how to make a human body work and how to do so optimally under the stress of training and competition. It is safe to say that all books stand on the work of those who have come before them. This book too is based on the work of many authors, coaches, and technicians along with my own analysis. My purpose is to succinctly explain in one volume how and why judo works. But I highly recommended that you go out and study as many different sources as possible, especially the references listed in this book. I am writing from the perspective of a coach who has had a good amount of experience coaching at both the club level as well as at the international level, and who has been fortunate enough to have travelled to many places and met many people in my pursuit of judo, sambo, jujitsu, and submission grappling. The contents of this book are merely my sincere but limited contribution to the existing body of knowledge.

STEVE SCOTT

The key to effective judo is movement.

—James Bregman

Chapter 1

Judo as Kinesiology

Judo as Kinesiology—The Study of Human Movement within the Context of Judo

The two primary aspects of controlling an opponent and his movement are tactical and, most importantly, physical. Tactical applications need a sound biomechanical basis.

Contest rules are written with the biomechanical movements of judo in mind, while tactical considerations are based on whatever the current contest rules permit and do not permit. In a sporting context, coaches teach according to how the rules are written. This book’s focus is on the physical movements of judo and the biomechanical principles of how to control movement and why these principles work. The contest rules of judo have changed considerably over the years, but what doesn’t change is the fact that good judo is good judo, no matter what the rules are. A skillful technique that worked in 1964 still works today, and that’s because, while the rules may change, the way the human body works doesn’t change.

Impose Your Will on Your Opponent

There is a method to our madness. Judo is based on sound scientific methodology. Our task as coaches and serious students is to learn, understand, and apply as much of this methodology as possible and to teach it to our students in a way they will be able to understand and apply with a high rate of success. The reason controlling movement is fundamentally important is simple: in any form of sport combat, the primary goal is to impose your will on your opponent—in other words, to make your opponent fight your kind of fight. The only way to do this is to control your opponent and, in order to control your opponent, you must control how he moves.

The Primary Physical Purpose of Judo Is to Control Movement

In judo, or any combat sport for that matter, the opponent has the same goal as you. He wants to control you just as much as you want to control him. Like you, he’s fit, motivated, and skilled and has every intention of doing to you what you want to do to him. Success in judo depends on the optimal application of technical skill and the biomechanical forces underlying that skill. The goal is to throw, pin, choke, or armlock a resisting and motivated opponent. Fundamentally, the primary purpose of judo, sambo, and similar sports is to control movement. The better an athlete controls his movement and the movement of his opponent, the better the result will be for him. Good skill and all the factors that comprise it are based on controlling movement. With that in mind, this book describes some of the fundamental principles behind controlling movement coaches can use to prepare students and athletes for success in judo.

Judo Is the Practical Application of Kinesiology

Judo, in a very real sense, is the study of human movement, and this is a useful definition of kinesiology. This book is not meant to be a textbook on either kinesiology or biomechanics. However, since judo is based on sound biomechanical principles, the contents of this book will combine modern concepts of kinesiology and dynamics with many of Kodokan judo’s time-honored technical theories and practices to confirm that judo does indeed provide a unique and functional approach to physical education and sport. So then, let’s look at some basic definitions necessary to appreciating how to better control movement in judo.

Kinesiology: A basic definition of kinesiology is that it is the study of movement as well as the study and understanding of mechanics and anatomy relative to the movement of the human body. The word is Greek in origin and literally means movement study. One application of kinesiology that is relevant to our analysis is biomechanics.

Biomechanics: One basic definition relevant to our analysis and use of biomechanics is that it is the study of force and the effect force has on the human body in sport as well as in exercise. It is a subset of mechanics, which is the study of the effects of forces acting on objects. Specifically, our interest in how this relates to judo is in the study of rigid body mechanics, which explains the gross movements of a human body. This is further divided into the concept of statics, which is the mechanics of a body at rest and constant velocity, and dynamics, which is the concept of a body or object in accelerated motion. As coaches and serious students of judo, a college-level study of biomechanics or kinesiology is not necessary, but it is important for us to comprehend the basic