Martial Secrets: Judo


The Old Guys

Filed Under: Blog, Judo, Karate, Old men. by Kris Wilder — 4 Comments
March 1, 2011

You know what I like, I like the old guys, the old karate-ka, the old judo-ka. Nothing to prove, smile easily, and just all around pleasant.

Let me tell you this story to illustrate my point. I was at a tournament and the guy running the show was in his eighties, looked sixty and smiled easily. He made decisions easily, no drama if something happened that was out of the ordinary, well he just fixed it. He didn’t deal with it, he fixed it, a big difference in my book.

Then of course there was the other guy that glowered sternly at everybody with his best sensei eyes. This guy would do a Lee Majors imitation by lifting one eyebrow in the direction he looked and pause with that, “I am sizing you up, baby” look.

At the end of the day, the old guy went around and shook hands, thanked people for their participation, smiled a lot, smiled some more, and said, “Hope to see you next time.” The other guy, cornered me (I was just the guy in proximity) reached into the back pocket of his gi and pulled a photo out of his wallet.

“You know who that is?” “Uh, that is you right.” I guessed. “Yeah but, next to me, who’s that.” I looked for a moment at the bent picture, “I, gotta say, I don’t know.” His finger pointed to the picture again. “That is me, me and Joe Lewis.” To make this more awkward, we have seen each other around but never really spoken, he just bushwhacks me on the way out the door to show me his picture of him and Joe Lewis, like I said proximity.

One guy, with nothing to prove, the other guy still needed to add more to who he was.

I like the old guys, easy, smiling, nothing to prove.

And thanks for taking the time to read this little observational ramble, I know I feel better.

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The “One Page”

Filed Under: Blog, Complex, Judo, Neil Ohlenkamp, Yamashita by Kris Wilder — 7 Comments
November 16, 2010

I heard a guy talking about one of his professors at college who complained to the students that their papers where full of fluff. That the students spent too much effort in just filling the mandated pages.

The human mind loves complexity, but is complexity necessary? Nature builds diversity from a series of simple commands – in fact what appears to be complex is really just a compounding of simple commands.

As you may already know from reading other posts I am not the biggest fan of complexity, and especially in the martial arts. I am pretty sure that much of the martial arts is just machinations designed to titillate the mind much like a bright fishing lure to a tout.

Frankly, simplicity and efficiency go hand-in-hand (see nature once again) and I am not incline to back off from that position. Complexity breaks down and I don’t need a fragile martial arts technique, I need a simple, vigorous, dependable, go to technique.

Now here is a proof point in the world of martial arts. World famous judo champion Yamashita was famous for using O-soto gari one of the first learned and most basic throws of Judo to win:

  • 85 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 84 Olympic Games (Open) – Los Angles, CA, USA

  • 84 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 83 World Championships (+95kg) – Moscow, Russia

  • 83 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 82 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 81 World Championships (+95kg & Open) – Maastricht, Holland

  • 81 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 80 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 79 World Championships (+95kg) – Paris, France

  • 79 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 78 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

  • 77 All-Japan Championships – Tokyo, Japan

Thanks to Neil Ohlenkamp at http://judoinfo.com/yamashita.htm for the list of championships.

Simplicity, and efficiency, that is a great mantra. So here is your challenge until the new year, some 45 days. Choose a part of your art and dive down into that aspect and find the simple core.

______

And one last thing, please do me a favor…well two.


1st If you are not a follower of the Striking Post, go to the “Followers” link and become one in the lower right side of the blog. By becoming a Follower, you will know immediately when a new blog is posted.


2nd Send an e-mail to one of your martial arts friends and share the link. The Striking Post, has no commercials, and no adds. The value is in people like you that find the blog worth your time. — So share the love.

Your good words are the best endorsement, period.


Thanks and be well.

K+

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3 Principals

Filed Under: Blog, Descartes, Judo, Karate, Principals by Kris Wilder — 9 Comments
April 20, 2010




Thanks for your support. Many of you have already signed up. To continue to get notices regarding this this blog, you will need to sign-up under “Followers” in the lower right hand corner of this blog – it is easy to do and keeps you in the loop. – Kris+

I am a big fan of Rene Descartes, I have read much of his work (not all of it do I understand…yet) and his biography. Further I have written about him before. Descartes said something that really applies to the martial arts, and I paraphrase, “The best government has few rules and those rules are strictly enforced.” Wow that is some tight and deep thinking. And it absolutely applies to the martial arts; the best martial arts have few rules and those are strictly followed.” would be one way to put it. So here is the challenge to you. Find, three and no more than three guiding principals that guide your art. More than three is too much – if you get it to two that is good. However three is the number needed to create a pattern so three is the magic number.

Examples might be, “Defang the Snake” as the Pilipino arts might say, or Judo might say, “Create imbalance.” Aikido, “Keep the center.” And there are more for each of those and more for other arts. So as Descartes might ask, “What are your three guiding principals that you must have to execute your art and how are they rigidly enforced?”

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My Friend and his Phone Number

Filed Under: Blog, Judo, Karate, Martial Arts, YouTube by Kris Wilder — 4 Comments
March 9, 2010


Way back when I used to judge the importance of a friend by one simple test, did I know their phone number? Not stored in my phone, or written down, but in my head. This leads me to this simple statement. We don’t store information in ourselves anymore, and that is bad for martial arts skills. Yup, seen it on Youtube, did it once, seen it…sure, but can you do it?

Having run into this a couple of times while working some seminars it started to become a little more frequent in, say the last year, now I not getting all judgmental here, just observational. I think information is good, especially when it is transferred into wisdom. But just having information, just having seen it, just being familiar with it is not the same as ingraining it into your fiber.

Ask any person who ever wrestled, “Did you ever drill sprawls?” and the answer is going to be some form of, “Yes” follows by a grin, moan, or eye roll. But follow-up with the next question, “It worked for you right?” And the answer is, “Yes” again. They didn’t just look at the sprawl and say, “Ok, got it” coach made sure they worked it, over and over. Ask any judoka about uchikomi, ask a karateka about kihon ido. It is all the same.

So the question this, do you know the phone number of your best technique, or is it stored elsewhere.

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I Hired a Judo-Ka

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Judo, Martial Arts, Sport by Kris Wilder — 3 Comments
December 14, 2009

Several martial arts, such as Judo, are Olympi...Image via Wikipedia

Yup, I did. Years ago I had a business that was expanding into the next city, and I needed somebody to run the store. My business partner and I had talked about some of the options: placing an ad, looking for a referral, that kind of thing; however, none of those had really worked for us in the past. So I thought, what are we really looking for? We want quality, dedication and a can-do attitude, but we also needed somebody that could deal with a potentially contentious public, somebody that could hold their own in any situation. I then remembered this guy, Byron, a judo-ka. He wasn’t in my division so I never fought him, but because his matches were always earlier in the day than mine I had watched him fight quite a bit. I called another judo friend Bob, and began to describe Byron to him as he most likely would know him and at the time I didn’t know his name. Bob did, and through him I was able to get in contact with Byron. Turns out, he was looking for work and was interested. After an interview with me and my business partner, we hired him. The point of the story is, he turned out to be everything we had hoped he would be; not to mention he had a great sense of humor as well. The martial arts showed his character on the mat; he never displayed a victory dance, he always bowed, and got along with others in his division. People liked him and respected him as a judo competitor and those things invariably translate to the “real world” as well. In a nutshell, he had the job before he ever opened his mouth.

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Tradition and Bunny Hops

Filed Under: Blog, Human body, Judo, Karate, Martial Arts, Tradition by Kris Wilder — 8 Comments
November 10, 2009


Bunny hops – putting your hands behind your head and hopping around the dojo floor – is bad for your knees. And several other exercises that don’t come to mind right now are in the same category of “seemed like a good idea sixty years ago” and today we know are not. We know much more about physiology, the functions of the human body and its parts, than we did half a century ago. Further, we live longer than we used to which means that the practice of maintaining the body is even more important. I mean where are you going to live for the rest of your life? In that vein I took a look at some of the exercises that we have and might use in the warm-up before class, and I have quietly dropped some of them.

I am not bound by tradition when empirical evidence proves that an exercise I was taught is not getting the job done, and, in fact, may be causing injury. Now that is an easy thing to do; drop or change an exercise because of evidence that it doesn’t work. The question is, why is that so hard when it is an interpretation of a technique?

Look at it this way: I will drop an exercise like a hot potato if evidence proves that it might injure me. Why, then, will I not do the same when the evidence proves a self-defense technique might get me seriously hurt? Here is the question for you: is the hesitancy to drop a known interpretation that will get you hurt because of an allegiance to the instructor? The system you bought into? Or is it just a lack of really taking a look at what is being done? So, what do you say it is?

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