Problem with getting thrown

[Coach Mohrdieck]

Hello friends,
for quite some time I have a problem with getting thrown:
I'm starting to tense up before the throw and that makes it easy for my partner and my risk of a injury increases. During my Judo days, three years ago, I had to bad shoulder injuries cause of to much tension, which took a long time to heal. I'm working on Body Flow and the Ground engagement of The GTB alomst every other day for half a year.
I someone has similar experiences and now a hint I would be very thankful.
Thanks for your time,
Raimar

[Vbrown]

Body flow and GTB are great starts. Search the drills for areas where you feel anxiety or fear reactivity and work through those. This will help you take command of your own issues and structure.

Next, instead of thinking "strong" when in randori, think "heavy". If you think to yourself that you must be "strong", folks tend to get tense and makes it easy to control them. If you think of yourself as heavy, like a big bag of water, it is much more difficult.

Thirdly, Pick up a copy of IOUF. At least the first tape, but all 3 would be best. It's not just in how to throw, but how to not be thrown.

But first, you must get control over your fear reactions and your mental state when engaging with a competitor. Then you're ready for IOUF.


Hope it helps,

Vince

CST, A

[JasonE]

Taking a fall is probably the most important skill I learned early on, as knowing how to not tense up has saved me on a number of occasions.

Take some extra time to drill your falling skills solo, starting low, then from standing, and finally jumping into them. If you don't know how to go through a good progression, please post that.

When drilling your falls, focus on relaxation and exhalation, and perfect form. Work both sides, spending extra time on whichever side you have the most trouble with.

Work forward and backward rolls in as well, and side rolls too, if you know how. The dynamics of rolling will help you get more comfortable with moving into the ground. Working from your knees to your feet to jumping into them will help you progress.

In the end, it all comes down to confidence. If you know in your bones that you can take a fall without having to think about it, that your body will do what it needs to at the moment of truth... you won't tense up anymore, and those falls will feel GREAT!

I know being told to go back to your basics and drill them all over from scratch may sound insulting, but sometimes that's the only way to reprogram those fear-responses: by writing over the original neurological programming responsible for your current symptoms. Success in your drills will translate into success in taking falls during randori.

[anthonyantosh]

it's not the throw that hurts, its the landing. :wink:
i was able to overcome my fears by being thrown onto a crash pad. after 4 months i was able to conquer my fears.

[Ruairi Quinn]

The methods of ukemi popularised and standardised by judo / kano-ryu jujutsu are not really the same as those used by the older martial traditions it drew on. Older ryu-ha did not encourage systematisation of falling methods, preferring to let each student find their own natural way of protecting themselves. They only transmitted a few general principles and cautions as opposed to having standardised techinques to be learned by-rote.

As these traditions were more closely orientated towards outdoor fighting, they required ukemi would work on hard packed earth, frost, muddy fields, gravel and stone surfaces and so on. Also, it had to work while wearing weapons and possibly carrying gear / wearing armour.

As a result, the general principles for falling which do survive from older japanese martial arts are quite different from what we tend to see in modern gendai martial arts where the mats are always there to break your fall. They tend to involve bridging the hips up and falling on the feet where possible, keeping the sacrum and lower back off the ground at all costs. This protects this sensitive area from damage due to impacting the ground or landing on belt weapons etc. Also, the slapping of the mats upon landing we see in tournaments to signal a clean throw is eliminated.

I am not entirely sure which of Coach Sonnon's videos it is, but one of them has a demo of two ROSS practitioners throwing each other around on stage, and one of them is twisting in the air and landing cat-like on his feet from hip and shoulder throws. This is very similar to the kind of ukemi I am talking about above.

I made the transition from falling in an orthodox judo style to this alternative type of movement successfully and would argue that my ukemi is now functional in a way that it was previously not. I can fall on any surface with a greater degree of surety. Best of all, it's a kind of ukemi which is limited mainly by the degree of kinesthetic intelligence a practitioner can develop, not solely by what condition their body is in, and how much punishment it can soak up- I think it is skill based rather than attribute based. I have seen japanese in their sixties still acting as uke using these methods, and one amazing example in his early seventies who falls like he is twenty.

What I am getting at here is that while the general key to taking good ukemi may indeed be relaxation and a degree of confidence gleaned from many repetitions, form matters as well and its worth thinking critically about the nuts and bolts of your method of ukemi.

I don't mind surface scrapes or expect a totally smooth and seamless fall, but I do expect that whatever method of ukemi I employ to be functional on mats, off mats and generally on a variety of surfaces from concrete to gravel to uneven hillsides, and work when I am burdened down or wearing potential obstructions on my belt.

This article from judo coach Lafon discusses some of what I am getting at, although I don't agree with all of it : http://www.realfighting.com/0503/glafonframe.html

respectfully,

Ruairi

[circular]

You mention the demonstration Coach Sonnon and a student gave at the 10th Anniversary of the Russian Martial Art Movement given at the Bolshoy Theater. It was a major event to have an American, especially considering he was first American, give a demonstration of Russian Martial Art in Russia. We will confirm with our resources, but this documentary segment filmed by Russian TV appeared on either IOUF of Arthrokinetics.

This received special recognition award presented at the event from President Vladimir Putin himself.