Body basics

The discussion on suri ashi led me to think about other body basics.

The new person turns up at the dojo and wants to 'get into it'. We must teach ukemi so that we can teach throws, and we can begin on holds and escapes on the ground.

What about things like stepping, posture, centre of gravity, core, body alignment, and so on? These are fundamentals for good technique but having a beginner practicing walking, turning and height changing for the first few months would send them out the door. Not having any feel for judo, they may not even 'get' these fundamentals, having few points of reference.

Should body basics be taught from the beginning, after two years, four years or relearnt as a yudansha? What do you think? How do you address it?

DougNZ wrote:The discussion on suri ashi led me to think about other body basics.

The new person turns up at the dojo and wants to 'get into it'.  We must teach ukemi so that we can teach throws, and we can begin on holds and escapes on the ground.

What about things like stepping, posture, centre of gravity, core, body alignment, and so on?  These are fundamentals for good technique but having a beginner practicing walking, turning and height changing for the first few months would send them out the door.  Not having any feel for judo, they may not even 'get' these fundamentals, having few points of reference.  

Should body basics be taught from the beginning, after two years, four years or relearnt as a yudansha?  What do you think?  How do you address it?

What I do is combine kihon with linked drills to judo techniques. These can be not full versions of the throw or katame waza for those who are not falling fully. Drills from knees, come to mind. Show the "body basic" and then give an example.

I don't drill people incessantly, but use my imagination to come up with ways to show them how important, then some simple way for them to experience that. Most people will buy into that.

Thanks, Ben. So what you are saying is that you like to teach these body basics from day one?

I've been working with a group of my guys who have been training 1-3 years and they are getting body alignment, etc pretty well. Interestingly, the ones with closer to 3 years experience got it best. In contrast, I have couple of new guys and I think their heads are so full of basic techniques that trying to sort out the subtleties would be a bit much.