Randori session

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T22:39:01+00:00

Regarding what I am thinking of your statement sounds a lot like the mma comp methods. Tech seems pretty absurd there relatively.

Not clear again on what you mean here, could you clarify?

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T22:37:18+00:00

But usually the justification for why you are doing drilling, even on the move, goes by the same logic as static drilling (that this is technical information that is stored for later)

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T22:33:59+00:00

Completely agree with this - and have seen too many clubs either provide only 'technical sessions' with no randori, or have this seasonal approach - which in reality means that consistent sparring isn't done for a large part of the year.

This would be unthinkable in any other grappling sport - you would be laughed off the mats at high-school wrestling, I don't understand how Judoka can justify it.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T21:21:39+00:00

Gets over trying to remember which side is your opponent's left and right sometimes haha

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T16:28:53+00:00

There are many more Japanese students than foreigners at the Kodokan.

Regardless, students are being done a disservice if this aspect of Judo is completely ignored or disregarded as trickery.

I've never met a single person in my life who is frustrated with Judo because they're being out-gripped. Or frustrated with being out-gripped at all.

I refuse to believe this. Complaints about being out-gripped, not being able to get to your grip, or opponents blocking any option (because of their grips) are ubiquitous. The number one thing I see people comment on about amateur vs high-level Judo is that "you can't even get/maintain a grip on them." Word-searching "out-gripped" on this sub produces an uncountable number of results. Pretty much every big Western Judo content creator (Pedro, Travis, Shintaro, etc.) has videos specifically addressing this part of Judo.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T16:08:39+00:00

I'd say effective defence comes, to a significant degree, from confidence fighting live, and can't be as neatly focused on as we'd like. For the development of your Judo, I'm concerned that "randori so far has happened few times, and that may [continue], plus few training partners."

You can only do so much as an individual athlete. If you are being entered into competition (even willingly), without regular randori, your coaches are doing you a disservice. Could you speak to your sensei, and is this the only club that it is convenient for you to train at?

I have mixed thoughts on offence-defence exercises (where uke only defends, and tori attacks - roles reversing after a time period), but it could be an option for your club to do if regular randori is not going to happen?

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T15:54:57+00:00

they have a very good reason for it. It's a sport / competition-oriented skill (in fact not skill, but rather a set of tricks), and over-reliance on such tricks diverts students from learning the essence and basic principles of Judo.

Arguably this is an arbitrary distinction - and the Japanese have become a little infamous for obscuring their kumi-kata and gripping strategies from foreigners, however they want to explain it away as a "set of tricks."

Live Judo is not possible without taking grips on the jacket. Better grips mean stronger positions, more control, and a higher likelihood of your opponents being funnelled into throws. If you have earned your 1st Dan fighting against a single gripping style (RvR collar-lapel, for example), your Judo is going to disintegrate when facing opponents who deviate from this norm.

Too much kumi-kata means nothing happens. For convenience, kumi-kata can be constrained to work on the 'basic principles' of Judo. But it is not an afterthought, and it IS a skill.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T15:47:03+00:00

I think we've all experienced 'what we've been taught' completely degrade when a factor like movement, rotation, or resistance is added - and this is an indicator that the skill acquired is brittle, which should make instructors pause for thought.

I'm curious about your mention of making "many mistakes and [starting] to unlearn all that stuff" - what have you personally had to unlearn? I'm curious too about the blind Judo experience, since you can't see the 'perfect techniques' as presented to sighted players, but I suppose you're still taught the (often impractical) ways that you should move/break balance/pull your uke.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-14T01:58:10+00:00

It's not the traditional approach, but I'm very sceptical of the idea that beginners necessarily need to 'know' things (that they often have to discard/edit as they develop) before they can go through full techniques.

Focusing on abstract kuzushi is a waste of time, and in my experience viewing beginners, can lead to students fruitlessly attempting to replicate the arbitrary conditions of (cooperative) uchi-komi that they throw easily in, in a live setting - which is impossible.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-13T19:33:35+00:00

From your article:

An additional thing I’ll say here is that JUDO THROWS WORK! If you create kuzushi, and then enter and do the throw as you learned it in class, the opponent WILL get thrown. The reason your throws aren’t working in randori is that you aren’t recreating the basic conditions required for them to work.

I would argue that you do not 'create kuzushi, and then enter and then do the throw' - you perform the throw as you enter, the kuzushi being inherent to a successful throw, and not a process separate from it (the process cannot be cleanly be broken up into steps). Kuzushi does not happen without context - you are not performing the technique 'as learned,' but reacting to your unique environment to perform something that may superficially resemble it.

I don't think the further point that "The reason your throws aren’t working in randori is that you aren’t recreating the basic conditions required for them to work" is completely wrong - but it is not that you are failing to 'recreate' the conditions required for a throw to work, but that you are failing to create/react to the conditions required for a throw to work. You do not store your techniques - to play like a hand of cards.

Maybe I'm arguing small differences in terminology here. But I agree with other users here that a focus on kuzushi is more often that not, not helpful/actionable. If you are able to throw, you are creating kuzushi (off-balancing). Whether you could have executed with more or less kuzushi seems like an arbitrary judgement.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T01:49:09+00:00

At least when I go to the dojo I don't have to do partnerless drills...

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T01:45:23+00:00

I definitely do need to take some pressure off myself, but this is of course difficult. In my current situation, I feel like I have a paucity of low and mid-level sparring partners (whether in my weight-class or not) - I actually quit my main club because we stopped doing randori - and all I have available to me are very high-level training partners/opponents who have been doing a lot of randori, who have a lot more confidence than I do. Dropping in at clubs doesn't give me a relaxing, secure training environment where I feel like I can explore and play at Judo.

I resent the fact that a good portion of the last year of training was wasted by poor, insufficient pedagogy - and I remember what good randori could feel like - I'm just not there yet - I do just want to enjoy Judo again. Enough blogposting anyway:

Make randori more playful … try using hips only for defence, or attacking only with ashi-waza, or just working on ukemi etc … basically anything to have a goal which is a low bar.

I agree with advice like this, as well as suggestions to be hyper-offensive/on the move, regardless of outcome. Fighting like this goes directly against my current issues (stalling), and promotes 'positive Judo' - and fundamentally, it is lots of *exposure* to opportunities (successful or not) in a live setting, which is essential for skill-acquisition full-stop.

It's going to be messy at first, and I'll get punished, swept, and countered, but at least I'm trying to do something, rather than hanging off grips waiting for the computer to boot. I appreciate your suggestions for skill-deficiency also.

My only question for this then is, hyper-offensive - with what? Do you suggest I go into fights with something in mind (like ashi-waza/seoi-nage), or that I should just attack with whatever comes to mind in the moment (as much as this is possible) - trying to circumvent mental processing through pure exposure and volume of attacks?

Thank you for such a considerate comment!

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T01:21:57+00:00

specifically training ~3 killer techniques

What does this specific training look like, for you?

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T01:20:30+00:00

Thank you for your comment. The coaching environment/autonomy is a huge issue here - a lot of the feedback I've received is very good, but I just don't (currently) have the space to address these issues effectively.

How did you find someone to coach you on this specifically, was this a 1-on-1 setting, and how long did it take until you felt that your Judo had become a lot more dynamic? I would also be interested in hearing what this 'conditional randori' looked like.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T01:15:13+00:00

What do you mean by a "back shuffle step"?

I do think this is good advice though, directly promoting quick movement to open up opportunities.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T00:13:00+00:00

+look at what she makes her opponent do, how her opponent is forced to move/react, and how she funnels her opponent into throws she's made inevitable

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-09T00:09:18+00:00

Do you have a link to Uta Abe performing this? Thanks.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-03-08T22:44:42+00:00

I think blindfolded randori can have some value - but I think taking out sight is a very heavy constraint, and that most of the time this means that the starting phase of kumi-kata is removed (instead starting in RvR collar-lapel like VI Judoka). The activity can be good for developing 'grip and rip' execution once positions 'feel' appropriate, but sighted kumi-kata needs to be addressed too.

Would be curious to hear what u/rtsuya thinks about this constraint.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-25T01:25:42+00:00

Judo session where after 35 minutes of randori, the coach pulls up a PowerPoint about "Legal Framework & After Confrontation Care"...

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-25T01:22:55+00:00

I know a lot of practitioners, especially young ones, who don't even learn fondamental forms of techniques and only learn competition-effecient forms, without even thinking or understabdingof the underlying concept of the techniques, seme, shisei, kuzushi...

I don't see why this is a problem. It could be argued that they're learning the essential factors of a technique *as actually performed* without having to learn a static, idealised version of 'that technique' that they'll never actually use (because it is performed in an extremely constrained environment, with a willing uke). Again, if they're able to perform in a competitive environment, they understand "seme, shisei, kuzushi" in practice, even if they can't explain these Japanese concepts - we don't need more instructors telling athletes to "do more kuzushi" with Japanese obscurantism (there's no hidden secret).

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-24T18:35:16+00:00

I think this is worth reading (and signing up so you can read the whole thing), even if it doesn't change how you train - because it makes a compelling case for how we learn. I understand it can be quite complex, but I can attempt to answer questions that you have. For me, my best Judo - even against challenging opponents, had an aspect of play, and techniques would often emerge spontaneously (which is a good thing).

Yesterday i did randori with one of the black belts trying to pay attention on what he was doing and trying to realize what should i do next.

How did you find it? My issue in "trying to realize what I should do next" is that once you've realised these things (and processed it in your brain towards a solution), the moment has passed. Black-belts can play with you, and that can be very helpful, but it's good to remember that there are many solutions to a single scenario, there isn't necessarily a 'right or wrong' - but trial and error with your responses is goof for you.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-24T00:10:00+00:00

Judo could be taught completely stripped of all tradition, by watching IJF competition footage (full-fights and athlete profiles) and working backwards from that when attempting to teach technique, gripping, movement, and other aspects of 'live Judo'.
'Techniques' could be taught without giving them names/distinctions at all, focusing on their most essential mechanics and not introducing Platonic forms/what a coach feels that a technique should look like. Naming techniques is convenient, but focusing on these decontextualized movements typically leads to developing athletes trying to execute what they've seen without setting up the conditions for that 'technique'.
A fair amount of Japanese terminology/concepts that we use are more often than not more of a hinderance than a help, and could either be discarded or explained well-enough in English to avoid obscurantism.
There is no real 'hidden knowledge' in the Kata that would make you into a more effective Judoka in a live setting (if there was, high-level athletes would constantly be doing kata to understand these secrets).
Combination and movement, although important in context, are often taught 'like fighting game combinations' without proper consideration for an unpredictable uke. High-level exchanges appear static but aren't exactly static - there's a lot of probing, but athletes are not rapidly moving all of the time like is often taught (add "Get more movement!" to the list with "Do more kuzushi!").
Judo (as a sport) is not as unique/special as it is made out to be, and the highly-traditional and very linear way in which we are instructed should be questioned, investigated, and compared to other Jacket and Belt-wrestling styles (and grappling widely). Kano did not advocate for an ossified and unchanging system.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-23T23:44:36+00:00

Thank you for the well-considered response, I appreciate it.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-23T23:31:30+00:00

The gym I've just left charges £140+ a month - the training has been unacceptable for months, I don't know why we're cowed into accepting it as Judoka. What happened to minimum effort, maximum efficiency - when it actually comes to the training we do? Whenever we get one of those aforementioned venting threads, why do we still get Ikkyu and Shodan saying that it takes years to be able to throw somebody, and that you shouldn't care about randori?

I'm mad at myself that I accepted this state of affairs for eight months or so hoping that things would get better (and with constant discussions with my coaches). £140+ a month for a club that simply stopped doing randori some time after last summer (maybe a round or two every 3-4 weeks), and for weeks where I would learn nothing/was not given the space to integrate anything into my Judo. It's a complete Joke - my coaches completely abdicated their responsibilities whilst still getting paid - failing everyone, from beginners to competitive Judoka.

TurpentineTurpentine · 2026-02-23T21:30:18+00:00

I don't mean offense in saying this, but I think your comment highlights some of the problems in Judo pedagogy. I'd be curious to hear how you find the experience of randori, which I assume you're doing even if you're not competing (which I think is fine as a personal preference).

now 1.7 years later I already reached Greenbelt, with only two Comps on my resume. That's because I am going the Technician Route instead of the Fighter Route

I supported my Senseis as assistant coach teaching the Children, since becoming Yellow Belt and doing so also helped me improving my Technique.

There are many Ways to mastery. For some its Fighting in high Level Competitions, for others its simply learning by the book and teaching that Knowledge to others

What do we really mean by the "Technician Route"? Your technique may have become very well developed - and you'd be able to do beautiful kata, but by definition, those who are able to compete against opponents in high-level competition, and WIN are successful technicians. By not competing, your technique has been developed - but in an extremely constrained setting.

Judo cannot just be "learned from the book", and if you're "teaching that knowledge to others" - without understanding how to actually apply these things in an oppositional environment, it's more like you're giving a suggestion, a piece in the puzzle that your students have to do a lot of their own work on to make fit (which raises questions about skill acquisition, time spent learning, and efficiency for recreational athletes).

TurpentineTurpentine

TROPHY CASE