Judo Magic – Mind Control

October, 2023

Somewhere herein I need to think about what I call “judo magic”. You might perhaps want to think of it as “misdirection”. Magicians nowadays distinguish between “misdirection” and “direction”.  The latter term might be best for describing what this judo magic is about. The idea is to direct uke to take an action which they don’t realize is the underlying thing that makes the throw work.*

It works on the same principle as Renraku Waza, combinations, but this is much more subtle.  The idea is to get uke to respond to an action that is really a set-up, not the true threat.  Sometimes, these don’t seem very subtle. Even then, they are.

One I really like consists of a very small but sharp action of my hands (almost just a wrist twist), torso and head turning toward uke’s right front corner, as I started a step around.  This got a small but strong moment of resistance that I used to then do o-soto-gari to uke’s rear right corner. I can’t really call that harai to o-soto. It resulted in uke having an automatic response to the opposite direction.

Important note: sometimes a subtlety is so subtle that it isn’t noticed at all, and it can be used without follow-up just to see and feel what uke will do. It’s a freebee.  This “free trial” is a very important thing to try, appreciate and remember.

Some are not so subtle. The late Rene Capo (two-time Olympian) used to enjoy doing a scary hip twitch to the front, then a nidan ko-soto to the rear. It was a “not-so-subtle subtlety. It worked embarrassingly well (I recall). Sometimes, he’d reverse it and take me to the front. It was a common pre-attack maneuver that many competitors were doing in that era, and it seemed to work really well until folks started to train against it. It still would work.

When I was just starting out, Gokyu days, I did a very unsubtle move that worked 90% of the time. I’d tighten up my fists and strongly push uke backwards with a couple of serious steps. When I felt the resistance, I’d relax my arms completely and spin around into morote seoinage.  It was really, really simple, and almost to the point of being “dumb”.  As time went on, I thought for some reason that nobody would fall for it. I stopped doing it, as I was in search of sexier things. Not long ago, I tried it again, and it worked even better. A special note: if you do this, be sure to move forward from your center of mass, not your shoulders, and don’t make your arms more rigid than minimally necessary.  Without getting too esoteric about it, it was so blatant that it really was subtle.  It worked with the combination of the initial power and then the total relaxing, and if you study (try) some go no kata, you’ll appreciate this even more. This same basic “push and reverse” idea works in all direction; although the “push uke back, then release to the front is maybe the easiest. You can test them all.

I cannot say for certain about this, as it is only a speculation. I always wondered what Kyuzo Mifune was doing with his extreme head-bobbing action prior to yoko wakari. It looks very odd and creates an almost predictable action. I wonder if this causes uke to resist being drawn downward and forward, setting up for the kuzushi for the throw.

This is all strategy and not tactics. So often I’ve seen opportunity in my rearview mirror. The chance happens, and moments or maybe hours later, I replay the chance. If only I could have taken advantage!  Well, I learned how to create that chance, then forgot about it, and then I relearned it.

Judo action is not analyzed during attack, but responded to. We play against uke’s reflex responses. As we play, we hope to analyze the ongoing situation and strategize. It is the reflex part we are going to direct.

I’m going to take this opportunity to get metaphysical. In judo, there is a place I call “The void”.  Again, a physically involved study of go no kata will really help you understand this, but that can be a bonus and you don’t have to physically do it. I push you, and you push back. I suddenly stop being there.  In the moment you respond, I have simply become nothing. Within that void, I create my movement and let it happen. It is as if time stands still and I move within it. Perhaps it is only in my imagination. 

One time when my Japanese friend Kazuo Hirayama was in town doing a seminar for my students, he was talking about directing ki.  Kazuo sensei is now eighth dan master in Shorinji Kempo.  He was endeavoring to get us to try to create ki via contact movement with our partners, and it was not really happening very much. Nobody seemed to be getting it. He stopped us and said, “You try too hard. Now, just pretend.” I swear, some of us started thinking it was happening. Very Yoda-like. So, if you want to seek out the void, just pretend.

Let’s get back to reality. I push. You push back. I don’t force anything, but I go to the place where the throw happens, and uke shows up.  I join his force with my pull and turn, in the correct tsurikomi architecture.  A miracle happens, because the throw works effortlessly. I’m thinking to myself, “Wow! I wish I could do that all the time.”

It is what a magician does when utilizing direction control. It can be a very complicated subject, but for simplicity let’s say a magician directs your attention to something that will gain your attention. Maybe it’s done with just a look, or it could be a large motion of a hand putting an object on the table, and many more methods. (In fact, I’ve published a book on the subject and currently write an ongoing article on it for an international magic magazine.) The magician directs your attention, you respond, and during that moment a secret and unsuspected and unnoticed activity happens.  In judo, I push you and you respond. I have directed you into making a reflex action. It’s a trick. You might know the name of the resulting throw, but you very likely won’t know the directional secret move that made you respond and contribute to it.

If you add all this to making your judo work, you will get magical results.

 

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*I am a professional magician, too, so I know about these things. In fact, I’ve published a book on the subject of misdirection and currently write an ongoing article on it for an international magic magazine. The similarity between performance magic and judo is very strong.

                                                   

 

Hane Goshi Backwards

This September’s blog is about improving hane goshi while using that information to improve all front throws.  This should hopefully be a benefit to both those who are struggling with hane and those who are good with it. Successful front throws and this hane goshi all have the same essentials in common. Hane makes a good example for us because for many it’s a challenging throw. These photo illustrations show the throw at the point just before uke is about to be taken around and down, at the apex of the kake. What is cool about this is that we can see what the elements had to be to lead up to this final moment.

We almost always explain throws beginning with a look at kuzushi, then tsukuri, and finally kake. In this study, we are going to use the kake to look backwards in time to see what had to take place in order to make it happen.

I can speak about this example because it is me doing the throw. Let’s look at the things without which this throw won’t happen. Let us study it backwards.

1.       Tori’s relative body position, shown by the downward pointing orange arrows, is such that the knee is forward of the toes, the chest is forward of the knees, and the head is forward of the chest.

Notice that the girl in the background is not applying these positions to her failing ippon seoinage efforts. It is universal. 

2.       Tori’s left heel is off the ground, and the power of the throw that is coming from the left leg is driven up from the ball of the foot, not a flat foot.  A flat foot tends to drive the power backward rather than upward and forward. The orange ball under the left heels is where the action is.

3.       If you look at uke’s judogi at the collar to my left hand’s pocket grip, the two blue dots on the curved link, you will see that there is continual pull, as indicated by how taught the jacket is between the hands. Very importantly, the right hand has not stopped its driving around force and lapsed into inactivity or stayed behind the rest of the throw.

4.       The blue wedge? It indicates that my hips are “open” rather than “closed”. Not to be vulgar, but I’ve found the best example of this is to think of a dog and a fire hydrant. This creates a lifting shelf of my leg, which uke is resting upon and will in a split second be rotated off. Notice that tori’s upper body and lifting leg are almost a single piece and are parallel to the mat. The leg action is not stopped and uke is rotated over. It continues with enough follow-through that uke will land with his feet forward of his head, completing a circular path.

     Tori’s head is not way down, head diving into the tatami. Tori will not be doing a front roll fall to complete the kake. The point we are at is such that, had the photographer been a tiny bit late, there would not be a picture of the throw.

This is a hip throw, not a leg throw.  And for many, that’s the rub, for two reasons. The hip throw is uki goshi, not o-goshi. Since many people do a variation of o-goshi for uki goshi, this can be a problem. Uki goshi uses a shallow hip, with a “T” fitting, not a half bun variation of o-goshi. Hence, the lifting leg goes up at the wrong angle and there is no way uke can be put on a shelf. If you can’t do a proper uke goshi, it is unlikely you will ever get a decent hane goshi. That’s just part one of the concern.

The added part is that hane goshi is uke goshi with a leg assist. Your hip is the only fulcrum point. The kuzushi and body fitting all go to a point where uke is off balance to the front and has begun to be taken up via the hip action. The leg now comes up to blast the throw into full action and rotation.

At least, that’s what is happening in the picture.

When I was first learning judo, my sensei Paul Sheehan had learned his judo at the San Diego Judo Club under the instruction of Al Holtman (circa 1958) while in the navy. He was frequently on laundry duty, and he would lift the laundry bags from the floor to a conveyor, lifting them with his leg hane goshi style. He came away from the navy with a very powerful hane goshi leg.

By the time Paul was head instructor at the Mankato State College Judo Club, the method he passed on was all about the leg lift. I could never get that to happen, and I suspect that a large percentage of judoka first learning hane encounter the same problem, not because of Paul, but because that’s what the throw feels like when done to them. Plus, that’s what it looks like; but that is an illusion.

We tend to see the big action in the throws we want to learn before we see the smaller and more essential actions. All throws where the leg takes a visually big action confuse us in this way. Big arm actions create the same misdirection.

It is critical to ask before the big action, “What is going on to make that big action work?”  Because hane goshi is a complex throw, this question is essential to learning it with minimal angst. This also teaches us that there are universal common elements we must apply in order to make all judo throws work.  In this case, it is interesting and useful that we can work backwards from the kake of a throw to see the things that are in place before the kake could be successful.

I hope this will give you insights into your hane goshi, as well as your overall throwing endeavors and help make your judo work.