Ricebale wrote:When I read such a well articulated arguement that I can't intellectually contend I image how this dude would think of the high brow principles concerning no use of power to comolete a throw:
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At the very least I'm sure his training partners would have loved the invention if the crash mat
As with most things in jûdô I do not just wonder or speculate but actually pursue them to the best of my abilities and if exceeding those abilities, it's clear I have to increase those abilities first. As unfortunately I never had the pleasure to train under Kimura Masahiko myself, the best I could do was read everything he wrote or published, watch every footage that exists about him, studied what his students documented in writing, audiovisually or practically, and I talked to three people who met Kimura in competition. Of those three two also trained with him, one a couple of times at the Kôdôkan, the other one at Takushoku Dai. And my own newaza-sensei was a sparring partner of Kimura; there is a video posted on YouTube on Kôsen jûdô where you can see the two at work; his name is Kurimura-sensei. My other sensei who was at the same club and worked with him regularly was Hirano-sensei. Of the two people who met Kurimura in shiai, only the name of Ôsawa-sensei will ring a bell here; he met him twice in shiai. The other person was a gentleman in his 90s, whom I talked to, I think in 2006, who met Kimura also twice in shiai.
Hirano literally told me that he thought Kimura was physically about 5 times as strong as he. And Hirano though small and very technical was hardly weak. In fact he was very strong, which you would especially feel in newaza. When people talk about Hirano, it is always about tachi-waza, but I assure you that Hirano's newaza was first class. That is no surprise, both him and Kimura were students of Ushijima. Ôsawa's account was very similar. He said to me that he met Kimura for the first time at the Kôdôkan, when he did not know him yet but everyone else did and whispered 'look Kimura, there Kimura ..." when he came in. He said Kimura then when to stand leaning with one shoulder to the wall from the corner of his eye watching everything that was going on, on the tatami. He then finally walked on to the tatami. Ôsawa added then that what he recalls most was Kimura's incredible physical strength, but he said that despite that Kimura did not succeed in throwing him very often. I obviously wasn't there myself in those days so I have no way to verify this, but it is credible since Ôsawa himself was a phenomenal fighter though much lighter than Kimura. Ôsawa then met Kimura twice in the All Japan Championships, and yes, he lost twice. The elderly gentleman who no one would know here anyway had long quit jûdô when I talked to him. He too had fought Kimura twice, and had twice lost.
I also would have loved to talk to Ishikawa-sensei about Kimura, but unfortunately I never had an opportunity to meet Ishikawa-sensei in person.
In other words, there is consensus everywhere that Kimura was incredibly strong. However, no one pointed out to me that this was the result of, or that this would imply that Kimura would also during train need to throw his partners as hard as possible into the tatami. Even if he did, this would be somewhat irrelevant since when Kimura was still doing shiai he was like everyone still in his shiai years likely full of testosterone, but in terms of technique still far from reaching his zenith.
I also have never said that either I do not use any power to complete a throw, nor that anyone should. What I have said is that myself and virtually any respected sensei in Japan at a certain level and age do not need to throw their opponent full force in the tatami or actually throw him at all in order to know if their action was successful. I used to be notorious for throwing people hard, and when I used to do competition I was testosterone-gungho like and obsessed like most jûdôka at that age by nothing else but ego and winning and proving I was the best. That all you have and can acquire at that age. You don't obtain Mifune-like skills at age 16, you have to start at the beginning.
Of all world-elite fighters I have fought not a single one has ever thrown me onto a crashmat, nor did most use their force to bury me into the tatami. At training I regularly fought -95 kg and even +95 kg world elite fights. If you want to mention someone phenomenally strong, then surely Van De Walle would be a valid example. What was phenomenal about him was his explosive force and how he could go from zero to everything in a fraction of a second, but that force was used either to lift me, to break my kumi-kata and balance, to counter gravity, or to launch the throw. He never used that force to throw me down as hard as possible or fell intentionally on me. None of the heavy-weights I fought came close in terms of explosive force, although they might have had more static power. They were much slower, and they used a combination of superior weight and power to drag me down, yes. What that means is that I as -78 kg fighter I could be leaning totally forward for seoi-nage or harai-goshi and they would then totally un-jûdô like use their advantage to fall in the opposite direction without any kuzushi or jûdô whatsoever. In any case they knew they could do that and didn't need a crash mat for that and neither did I. Why not because if you know how to do ukemi that makes little difference; what makes a difference and was a problem is the unhealthy forces on your spine or back from this anti-judo. Judo would be to break the balance first backwards, or catch someone off guard and then throw back wards. You cannot throw someone with jûdô who is leaning forward and keeps reacting forward, backward. You can if you are heavy and strong enough but it isn't jûdô and whatever it might be, there isn't a place or need for crashmats in that equation either.
Like anyone with a lot of competitive experience of course I know what to do if I really want to hurt someone and cause rib fractures or make sure that they need to call and ambulance, but that kind of behavior does not belong in a dôjô, and even if that would be my purpose, there wouldn't be a need for crashmats either.
I use a plethora of techniques in randori and when I competed these also included, for example morote-gari and ura-nage. Now explain to me why, when doing randori, and I succeed in lifting you completely of the ground and up in the air, why would I also need to throw you down full force ? To prove to myself that I was in full control ? To prove it to you you ? Or because I would only master the first part of the throw (tsukuri, kuzushi, the first part of its kake), but not its ending ? Not very credible.
In my experience I think the only elite fighters I'v met that did these more unpleasant things were usually -65kg fighters. I avoided training with them. Maybe it was because I was 2 weightclasses heavier that they thought I would be using a lot of force so that they felt a need to anticipate that or what ? But they almost never attempted proper throws, but always the "take-down" kind of nonsense, so I found practice with them usually rather unsatisfactory. By far the most satisfactory jûdô for me was in the -71kg and -78kg weight classes. People would at least attempt real throws instead of dragging you down, and they would also less be force, force, force, like how it was often in the -86 kg.
When one is in jûdô one hopefully evolves, and one finds and learns effective and more efficient ways of training. My technique today is far better than when I was 20 years old, but of course I am way past my date of expiry. When one is young, very young and full of testosterone, we do all kinds of things, and attempting to throw someone as hard as possible yes, that too. There a clip where you can see Willem Ruska throwing Okano during training. Knowing that Ruska is a heavyweight of pure steel muscle and would later become a double Olympic champion, yes, that's the sort of really hardcore bury in the tatami kind of throwing. So it exists, no doubt, and he was at that time also just in his 20s, but that being said, no one was using crashmats, although admittedly yes, a proper springfloor Japanese dôjô. I repeat that again, the biodynamics of being thrown and making ukemi during a hard throw on a proper tatami are quite different from those of a crashmat. In terms of dissipation of energy there is a reason why there exist dôjô and tatami standards and why those are different from crashmats. The indentation of a crashmat is far greater and the biomechanically and healthwise, this is not unequivocally 'better' or 'less risky', since the handslapping effect becomes less effective and dissipation is different. One could for example, also use the medium of water. That too would be possible and no one would break anything, but the ukemi action would be totally different and the handslapping quite different due to the specific physical behavior of water, such as notably its poor compressibility.
In other words, I 'understand' why some people use crashmats either for certain parts or training, for certain throws, or for certain people. I don't use them ever, not for myself and not for teaching. That they can be 'fun', no doubt, I believe that very much; however, I do not teach 'fun' in the dôjô, but jûdô. I have not said that there is no place for a crashmat in the dôjô, rather what I mean is that if one teacher's pedagogy cannot but need a crashmat in order to reach his objectives, I am absolutely convinced I can reach that same objective without a crashmat, which does not make them 'necessary'; whether they are 'useful' depends on one's pedagogical approach. They would not be in mine.
There exist somewhat similar discussions in other martial arts. For example, are break tests necessary in karate in order to become a very skilled and accomplished karate who can strike very hard ?
Are cutting tests necessary in iai in order to properly develop technique that can do more than just make movements in the air.
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