Leg or hip uchi mata against taller and/or heavier guys?

Would you guys recommend the leg or hip version of uchi mata against taller and/or heavier guys? In Hitoshi Sugai's book on Uchi mata, he recommends the hip version, but Yamashita liked the leg version because found it easier to start with ouchi gari to make his bigger opponents start to lift their leg and then he finished with uchi mata. What do you think?

johnny5 wrote:Would you guys recommend the leg or hip version of uchi mata against taller and/or heavier guys? In Hitoshi Sugai's book on Uchi mata, he recommends the hip version, but Yamashita liked the leg version because found it easier to start with ouchi gari to make his bigger opponents start to lift their leg and then he finished with uchi mata. What do you think?

My experience of trying to use Uchi Mata against taller (and I mean much taller) judoka is that there are better throws to use. That also depends on body proportion and size of both judoka (uke and tori). Long legs/short torso, stuff like that. The difficulty I always had was that you have to get uke shaped correctly for Uchi mata, and that involves getting some sort of chest/upper body contact. Against a much taller opponent (and possibly stronger/longer armed), that can be difficult, and "carrying" throws might work better (that's the classic advice anyway).

Resorting to the "leg" Uchi Mata, especially by attacking with Ouchi Gari first, is one way to "break uke down" and get him shaped up for Uchi Mata, or using his subsequent reaction(s) to (attempt) to throw him. The problem with taller guys is that getting closer is harder because they have more limb length to hold you off, and also their body reaction time is longer to movement. So some sort of compound attack scheme is probably in order, at least in my experience. If he is very tall relative to you, then you may not be able to get any chest contact.

Carrying throws (Seoi Nage, Tai Otoshi, Tsurikomi Goshi, etc) have the same issues, but are generally more stable for uke, as you have both feet on the ground.

You might recall that Y. Yamashita isn't/wasn't exactly a small man to begin with. His Ouchi Gari was outstanding, as well. So if you want to use Ouchi Gari with Uchi Mata, you had better make sure your Ouchi Gari and the combination with Uchi Mata is sound, regardless.

Are you able to perform Uchi Mata well on static uke? Can you readily decide for yourself in such a situation if you are going to do "leg" or "hip" Uchi Mata ? If not,I'd say you need to keep working on that sort of thing. Then you have to move on to simple dynamic movement, more complex movement, and then compound movement and attack. Same for Ouchi Gari...

Taller is different than heavier. A taller person may be able to lift their leg higher than you can so they can escape when you are attacking the leg with uchimata. On the other hand, if you can't lift a heavier person, then attacking the leg makes more sense. Of course there are exceptions to every rule and there are so many other factors involved (posture, movement, flexibility, combinations, reactions, etc.) that either type of attack may work against any individual.

Awesome answers guys. Thanks.

I finally had some success with "hip uchi mata" yesterday. Felt awesome, effortless and a couple of guys just went flying.

Is it correct that you're not supposed to load uke's full weight completely on your back with uchi mata? Because if he's heavy, just having his whole weight on my back standing on ONE leg is hard enough. What do you say?

johnny5 wrote:I finally had some success with "hip uchi mata" yesterday. Felt awesome, effortless and a couple of guys just went flying.

Is it correct that you're not supposed to load uke's full weight completely on your back with uchi mata? Because if he's heavy, just having his whole weight on my back standing on ONE leg is hard enough. What do you say?

If you load them on your back and throw from there, it's not really a "hip throw" is it, or even Uchi Mata. More like Seoi Nage on one leg while lifting the other.

I'd say no, you don't want to load all uke weight on your back, although I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Supporting uke weight should be a very fleeting thing when throwing anyway with whatever throw.

Thanks Ben. I think I'm understanding this better, in particular as I just practise more Judo. And no, I'm not loading them on back - that's probably badly explained by me. He's just on my hip and really just on ONE of my hips, so my reaping leg goes straight up the middle. I think I've finally got the basics of the technique down. (Time to work on ouchi gari and other throws as well...)

"Supporting uke weight should be a very fleeting thing when throwing anyway with whatever throw."

Yeah, I'm starting to understand that. His center of gravity sort of rolls over my hip and reaping leg.

I pulled of this type of uchimata against a much taller and heavier guy tonight and he went flying like nothing. Felt awesome

johnny5 wrote:Thanks Ben. I think I'm understanding this better, in particular as I just practise more Judo. And no, I'm not loading them on back - that's probably badly explained by me. He's just on my hip and really just on ONE of my hips, so my reaping leg goes straight up the middle. I think I've finally got the basics of the technique down. (Time to work on ouchi gari and other throws as well...)

"Supporting uke weight should be a very fleeting thing when throwing anyway with whatever throw."

Yeah, I'm starting to understand that. His center of gravity sort of rolls over my hip and reaping leg.

I pulled of this type of uchimata against a much taller and heavier guy tonight and he went flying like nothing. Felt awesome

Good, glad to hear things are starting to work for you. Yeah, that sounds like a good description of what it feels like, too.

You will have to get the more "leg" Uchi Mata down too, especially using it with Ouchi Gari.