Kaeshi Waza - Make Your Counters Count
If you do good kaeshi waza, counter techniques, your judo will improve. If you study counter techniques, your judo will improve exponentially. Consider these thoughts.:
A perfect waza can’t be countered.
The similarity between a good throw and a good counter is the seizing of opportunity.
Excellently applied counters should not rely on strength.
Counters teach us to do better wazas.
There is a concern regarding teaching counters to novice students.
Countering must be practiced.
Study Mifune’s Nage Ura no Kata.
If a technique were perfect, that would mean that it could not be countered, or it wouldn’t be perfect. However, very rarely is any technique perfectly done, and even the best techniques can be made to be imperfect; and that is what you must do to make a good counter. This is true of both standing techniques and holding techniques, from hold downs, to arm locks to chokes. The world of counter techniques for this is very large and might be a different blog. For now, tachi waza will be the focus.
You can use a couple of methods for making a throw vulnerable to your kaeshi waza:.
Control the force, thereby stopping the kuzushi to tsukuri action. For example, a direct front throw such as o-goshi or ippon seoinage can be hip checked. Then the throw might be countered to the rear with tani otoshi.
Join the force. Momentum can be redirected. A scooping lift on an incoming hip technique can give you ushiro goshi. Okuri ashi barai can be countered by tsubame gaeshi.
Uke’s force can be totally avoided. Don’t be there when they show up, and uchi mata becomes uchi mata sukashi. Or, an attacking hip can be slipped and your hip slipped in; thereby, o-goshi countered by uki goshi.
If you look deeply into kaeshi waza, you will see how important it is to thwart your opponent’s kuzushi. Sufficient kuzushi will almost always result in a successful throw. Even ugly throws work if it is in place. Once kuzushi begins to blend into tsukuri, the placing of the fulcrum point, the oncoming completion of the throw is almost inevitable. I’m never tired of saying that kuzushi is judo, and judo is kuzushi. Yet, speed and strength very, very often are what make throws work. I also never tire of saying that these aren’t judo throws, just because they happen in a judo venue. These, then, are what you should hope to conquer with counters.
Rule # 1 - Take Control of Uke’s Kuzushi.
Take away the off-balancing, or exploit the lack of it. In order to make a successful counter, you first have to take control.
Simple and moderate readjustments of your body weight and its position to the attack can throw off kuzushi. If you can anticipate it, you can use debana, i.e. move to a different place just before the kuzushi is attempted, strike first based on anticipation. (This is a frequently sought after kendo technique.) It doesn’t have to be a huge movement, and probably shouldn’t be.
Defend by creating a physical force against uke’s arm(s) or body. For instance, uke is attacking with uchi mata, and you force their collar hand’s (tsurite) arm to a non-functional place. Or, a hip technique is being started and you push that hip further through, creating a counter leverage against the initial kuzushi.
The good news inside all of this perhaps seemingly technical advice is that you can find a myriad of counter techniques already suggested for every throw. The bad news happens if you just do them and don’t understand them., Understanding them helps you to see the things you must do to perfect your own throws, and make them less vulnerable and more likely to succeed.
Rule # 1 - Take control of uke’s kuzushi. The good news here is that many opponents attack without creating good kuzushi, or often without any. The bad news is that they all too often succeed anyway.
Change Your Reflex
When beginners, it’s expected that an attack is met with an alarmed resistance. That method of defense becomes stiff arms, rigidity, and some sort of defensive posture. Those are the very things combination techniques are made for. Also, most advanced players just blast through that defense and throw the beginner anyway.
At the original North Star Judo, we had a thing called “Fred the Post”. A large, building support that was just at the edge of our mat area; so, we padded it and named it. Later, we hooked up a harness. Once you were in it, you became the perfect uchi komi partner. Tori could blast in with maximum pull and intention, and you could just stand there and smile, maybe even taunt uke, just for fun. “Is that all you’ve got?” “C’mon, try harder!”. One bonus thing that ukes got was an awareness that fast could be slow. You could feel the smallest part of the start of a throw. The first step in, that was once a speedy blur, now became in slo-mo. You could feel if there was kuzushi. Or not.
Sadly, too often, the instant fear reaction becomes a situation where the judoka is just happy to have avoided being thrown. Let’s say that two judoka are walking about in randori and one blasts in on a throw, the other resists and the throw fails. The survivor is happy the throw failed and they continue. Frequently, that survival is a period of time when there is a struggle between the players at the moment when tori is grunting at a struggle and uke is desperately resisting; in other words, a really ugly moment. In effect, uke allows tori to fail without paying for it. This throw effort could likely have been countered at the first initiative. Or, it could have provided opportunity for attack while tori #1 was recovering from the awkward failure. Take a break and watch randori sessions and you’ll see a frightful abundance of this. Look for the opportunities and say, “If I were in there, I could have…”
Counters are Proactive
You don’t have a Fred the Post and a harness. You do have randori. If you allow yourself to be thrown, you can study the throw, beginning to end. Take some falls to learn what the throw (and the thrower) is doing. Eliminate the beginner’s fear reflex.
“The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
Sun Tzu - The Art of War
Sun Tsu quotes are great, but you are advised to pick out the operable words therein. I believe in this case, we are concerned with “Opportunity”. You must learn what the opportunities are like, and the best way is to let them take place. Get thrown. Forget resistance and focus on what’s happening. See where the potential weaknesses are and where and how kaeshi waza can be made.
The need to be proactive is an important one. Early on, and in some cases forever, some judoka become counter bushwackers. They wait in the bushes and, rather than making their own throwing efforts, try to ambush their partners. If that’s done in a purely defensive way, it isn’t doing your judo any good. However, if you want to play some judo chess, then by all means do so. Create false opportunities for your adversary, set traps, then spring them. This is especially cool to do if you know what your opponent likes to do. Create an opportunity just for that situation. This is called having a strategy. All judo is reactive, and the better your good reflexes, the better your judo. Useful reflexes come best from training, from practice; otherwise, they aren’t functional, as in the case of reacting to a throwing attack with stiff arms.
Use Seiryoku Zenyo
There are only so many types of common judo throws. Most judo throws are like other judo throws. One counter might, therefore, suit several. There’s a maximum efficiency feeling to this idea. The attaining of maximum efficiency via the best use of ones efforts is one of the founding principles of judo. Shihan professor Jigoro Kano saw it as a judo exercise and a way of enhancing ones life personally and socially. Studying it as it applies to kaeshi waza is a good idea. Rather than only saying, “How can I counter this throw?” also ask “And to what throws can I apply this counter?”.
For more info on seiryoku zenyo, read what Kano had to say: http://kodokanjudoinstitute.org/en/doctrine/word/seiryoku-zenyo/
If you add these extras to your counter techniques, your kaeshi waza, they will likely help make your judo work.
P.S. I've taken liberties with italics. Never mind.
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