Looking for Advice on Biomechanics of Judo for my daughter's science project

Here's a little different question. My Grade 7 daughter is doing her science fair project on the "biomechanics of judo." I couldn't be prouder. I was wondering if any of you have had kids who did this, or if you have ideas? I thought breaking things down into the biomechanics related to: a) a choke; b) an armbar; and c) a pin would be interesting. Exploring how the body react to lack of oxygen to the brain, bending a joint in a way it is not supposed to go, and use of leverage, compression and gravity. Thoughts on methodology would be greatly appreciated, as well as your thoughts on key concepts that would make for an interesting display/demonstration. Thank you!

What about the fight science video on judo? It's on you tube I think.

Raj Venugopal wrote:Here's a little different question. My Grade 7 daughter is doing her science fair project on the "biomechanics of judo." I couldn't be prouder. I was wondering if any of you have had kids who did this, or if you have ideas? I thought breaking things down into the biomechanics related to: a) a choke; b) an armbar; and c) a pin would be interesting. Exploring how the body react to lack of oxygen to the brain, bending a joint in a way it is not supposed to go, and use of leverage, compression and gravity. Thoughts on methodology would be greatly appreciated, as well as your thoughts on key concepts that would make for an interesting display/demonstration. Thank you!

I would use the KISS approach ("Keep it simply simple"). Biomechanics of judo rapidly becomes rather complicated, unless you want to make the same mistakes as Kanô and assume that the human body is a stiff object (which it is not). There exists a basic article by Hayward Nishioka that should be understandable. Even though there are many errors in there it could still serve as the basis for stating some simple examples to a nonjudo audience and to meet the other requirements of the task.

I would avoid trying to cover something as "the throwing techniques of judo", but you might there exists a few scientific articles that cover just one technique, and you could always use such a single technique as an example.

You make a reference to how the body reacts to lack of oxygen to the brain. That is no longer biomechanics but physiology and neurology. You may wish to narrow down your topic. Both biomechanics and physiology/neurology are extensive topics. Apart from some very generic stuff this is not material that is commonly known in detail by the average judoka or instructor. Simply describing what exactly goes on in the body in response to --let's say-- hadaka-jime would take an entire article. Mind that extra space and time would be required to explain various standard medical/physiological/neurologica processes. For example, if I say that ensuing acidosis is perceived by the chemoreceptors, then that is clear to a physiologist or a physican, but a lay persons' audience would need additional explanations on what acidosis is and what chemoreceptors are and where they are located, etc. Thus: KISS !

Raj Venugopal wrote:Here's a little different question. My Grade 7 daughter is doing her science fair project on the "biomechanics of
judo." I couldn't be prouder. I was wondering if any of you have had kids who did this, or if you have ideas? I thought breaking things down into the biomechanics related to: a) a choke; b) an armbar; and c) a pinwould be interesting. Exploring how the body react to lack of oxygen tothe brain, bending a joint in a way it is not supposed to go, and use of leverage, compression and gravity. Thoughts on methodology would be greatly appreciated, as well as your thoughts on key concepts that wouldmake for an interesting display/demonstration. Thank you!

Fantastic project idea. My main suggestion would be to start with your target audience and work from there...

I think (hope) that at least a few students in your daughters year will have a genuine scientific interest in (and thus likely prior knowledge of) the subject of bio-mechanics and physiology. Though as C.K. said it's not feasible to have an exact explanation of every single aspect of a given technique, please, please do not simplify at the expense of technical accuracy or you will lose them- as well as the scientific integrity of the project.
(Also, for such students, I speak from personal experience as a student when I say that if you do throw in extra information that is beyond their current understanding, far from finding it off-putting they will likely relish the challenge.)

As well as this; the project is about Judo and the majority of students will probably be drawn by the exciting combative element thereof. This is where the practical demonstration/s will be very useful, the more dynamic and visually interesting the better. If you could requisition some mats and recruit some Judoka from your or your daughters club for demonstrations (accompanied by written, or spoken technical explanations) that could be hugely useful for this, as well as far more informative than diagrams on paper. And, since the audience will be her peers, this is all the more effective if your daughter is the one doing some of the demonstrating.
Also, a reasonably accurate skeletal model of a human arm may be useful for showing the way arm locks put strain on a joint; such models are expensive however there's a good chance that the biology or PE department of your daughters school will have one that they will let you borrow. You could of course simply use members of the audience as disposable uke however I doubt the OH&S people would be particularly happy about that.

And, don't neglect ukemi; a surprising amount of people seem to be interested in the rationale behind why we fall as we do so perhaps a section outlining this could be included?

Cichorei Kano wrote:Simply describing what exactly goes on in the body in response to --let's say-- hadaka-jime would take an entire article. Mind that extra space and time would be required to explain various standard medical/physiological/neurologica processes. For example, if I say that ensuing acidosis is perceived by the chemoreceptors, then that is clear to a physiologist or a physican, but a lay persons' audience would need additional explanations on what acidosis is and what chemoreceptors are and where they are located, etc.

For the pathologically curious amongst us, where would you suggest looking for such articles regarding Judo techniques?


Regards,

Q

Quicksilver wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:Simply describing what exactly goes on in the body in response to --let's say-- hadaka-jime would take an entire article. Mind that extra space and time would be required to explain various standard medical/physiological/neurologica processes. For example, if I say that ensuing acidosis is perceived by the chemoreceptors, then that is clear to a physiologist or a physican, but a lay persons' audience would need additional explanations on what acidosis is and what chemoreceptors are and where they are located, etc.

For the pathologically curious amongst us, where would you suggest looking for such articles regarding Judo techniques?


Regards,

Q

You need to consult a scientific data base such as PubMed, Harzing, Sportsdiscuss, or Google Scholar; PubMed and Google Scholar are freely available over the Internet; Harzing requires downloading software, and SportsDiscuss is available via academic libraries who pay for the subscription.

You type in a combination of key words such as 'judo' + 'biomechanics'. You select those that look relevant, and when you get the full article, look at their bibliography and you likely find some more. Some articles may be freely available over the Internet, but most will not. I think that a couple of Rodney Imamura's articles relevant here were published in open access journals.

Much of the biomechanical work regarding individual techniques is, however, not available in this way as it is contained in MSc academic theses worldwide, or exists in Japanese only.

I'd go for the choke - I also would be very interested in seeing the result

Cichorei Kano wrote:
You need to consult a scientific data base such as PubMed, Harzing, Sportsdiscuss, or Google Scholar; PubMed and Google Scholar are freely available over the Internet; Harzing requires downloading software, and SportsDiscuss is available via academic libraries who pay for the subscription.

You type in a combination of key words such as 'judo' + 'biomechanics'. You select those that look relevant, and when you get the full article, look at their bibliography and you likely find some more. Some articles may be freely available over the Internet, but most will not. I think that a couple of Rodney Imamura's articles relevant here were published in open access journals.

Much of the biomechanical work regarding individual techniques is, however, not available in this way as it is contained in MSc academic theses worldwide, or exists in Japanese only.

Thank you!

Personally I would focus on the mechanics of a throw, throws look very dynamic and will capture the imagination. It is easy to relate throws to levers and newtons laws, the whole class will understand these with ease meaning they have time to focus on the judo. You could also then lend argument to maximum efficiency and a smaller person being able to throw a smaller one.

There are many articles available on biomechanics in judo.

These are all great suggestions! I thought it may be better for demonstration purposes to stay away from throws and ukemi, just because of space reasons. Getting a skeleton would be very interesting for the demonstration. My daughter also thought of rigging up some kind of clear rubber pipe to demonstrate carotid artery constriction.... I'd love to see the ideas keep coming, and I will post updates on how it goes...

After some thought into this, she has decided to focus on the lever aspect of juji-gatame. She will explore how ude hishigi (ashi/juji/ude/hara/hiza) gatame are based on the leverage principle. The shimewaza and osaekomi principles appeared to be too complex to explain in scientific terms to other kids. Cheers guys!

Raj Venugopal wrote:After some thought into this, she has decided to focus on the lever aspect of juji-gatame. She will explore how ude hishigi (ashi/juji/ude/hara/hiza) gatame are based on the leverage principle. The shimewaza and osaekomi principles appeared to be too complex to explain in scientific terms to other kids. Cheers guys!

That is a wise decision, although osae-komi biomechanically is simple and in terms of physics boils down to pressure. Physiologically and anatomically there aren't secrets there either, but your choice is the best i in this context since the lever principle ude-hishigi is easy to vizualize and understand. In itself a skeleton will not optimally show the result since there are only bones there, and most of the pain/discomfort comes from muscles, tendons, sinew, nerves. However, you could apply some rubber structures to the skeleton to illustrate some basic muscular structures.

There is a book, most likely out of print now, that provides a pretty good biomechanical description of judo techniques. The Secrets of Judo, A Text for Instructors and Students bu Jiici Watanambe and linday avakian. Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc. Rutlant Vt. and Tokyo Japan. ISBN no 0-8048-0516-4. The edition I have was printed in 1984