Hi there!
I'm Will. I'm posting on this forum for the first time as I'm getting back into Judo after a hiatus of about a year or so.
Being an orange belt, there's still much for me to learn about Judo (perhaps this could be said for any belt, though ) and I was hoping
I could please get people's opinions on what I feel from my experience may be quite an unconventional grip style: the double-lapel. I feel
that whatever grip style you adopt as your 'standard' one forms the foundation of how you execute techniques, and the double-lapel may
be an avenue I might be interested in going down.
Now, I've experimented with it in the past, and, don't get me wrong, I am by no means suggesting that it's 'better' than the traditional
sleeve-lapel grip; a notable weakness is that the lack of control on your opponents arms easily gives them the opportunity to effect what I like to
call the 'suppression' grip, for want of a better expression that I was so often subjected to, where your opponent holds the end of your
sleeve down in such a way as to prevent you getting a grip with the hand of that sleeve (does this 'suppression' grip itself have a
particular technical term for it? )
However, one benefit to the double-lapel grip is that your grip is symmetrical. One thing that I've often been told in Judo is that you ideally
should learn to execute a throw from both sides. Another thing I've learnt is that when executing hip throws using the sleeve-lapel grip, the side
your opponent moves past you when you turn around doing the throw should be the side on which you had the sleeve grip, meaning that you
can only execute the throw effectively on that one side. Now, presumably, the trade-off of throwing on a side that you're not used to and find difficult
is that you hope to catch your opponent off-guard with the element of surprise in throwing them on an unexpected side, but, surely, in having
to switch the traditional sleeve-lapel grip over to the other side in order to throw on that other side, you're telegraphing a warning of this intent to your opponent
in advance and thus any element of surprise would be lost? With a the double-lapel grip, you don't telegraph this to your opponent as your grip continuously remains
the same throwing on both sides.
Finally, I do feel that I may be able to effect kuzushi more easily with the double-lapel gip over the traditional sleeve-lapel grip. I'm not sure
if this is necessarily the case because the turbulance of randori makes it difficult for me to tell which one gives me more control over the
opponent's balance. Although, correct me if I'm wrong- it does seem, from a theoretical perspective, that the double-lapel grip should
be better for shifting your opponent off balance, because of how the double lapel essentially has both of your sources of control
focused on their torso as a solitary source of resistance, taking a significant part of whatever resistance they could exert with one of their arms
out of the equation. However, in attempting to effect kuzushi with the traditional grip, you are fighting with half your strength against your opponent's torso and
half against not only the strength of your opponent's arm but also the difficulty in bringing your opponent's arm beyond its range of motion so that
your effort can permeate through the sleeve grip to your opponent's torso in order to actually affect his/her balance. An analogy could be that the double-lapel grip
is like a WW2 scenario where an attacking force focuses an attack along a narrow front, leaving defenders further along the line unable to contribute
much to defence, whereas the traditional grip seems like trying to fight on two fronts, diluting your force across both and allowing a defender to
recruit more of the defensive force he has available. Maybe there's something I'm missing here and I am fully willing to yield and admit so if that's
the case but, specifically regarding the factor of effecting kuzushi, it just seems like it should be bio-mechanically more effective to use double-lapel
over sleeve-lapel.
I'm Will. I'm posting on this forum for the first time as I'm getting back into Judo after a hiatus of about a year or so.
Being an orange belt, there's still much for me to learn about Judo (perhaps this could be said for any belt, though ) and I was hoping
I could please get people's opinions on what I feel from my experience may be quite an unconventional grip style: the double-lapel. I feel
that whatever grip style you adopt as your 'standard' one forms the foundation of how you execute techniques, and the double-lapel may
be an avenue I might be interested in going down.
Now, I've experimented with it in the past, and, don't get me wrong, I am by no means suggesting that it's 'better' than the traditional
sleeve-lapel grip; a notable weakness is that the lack of control on your opponents arms easily gives them the opportunity to effect what I like to
call the 'suppression' grip, for want of a better expression that I was so often subjected to, where your opponent holds the end of your
sleeve down in such a way as to prevent you getting a grip with the hand of that sleeve (does this 'suppression' grip itself have a
particular technical term for it? )
However, one benefit to the double-lapel grip is that your grip is symmetrical. One thing that I've often been told in Judo is that you ideally
should learn to execute a throw from both sides. Another thing I've learnt is that when executing hip throws using the sleeve-lapel grip, the side
your opponent moves past you when you turn around doing the throw should be the side on which you had the sleeve grip, meaning that you
can only execute the throw effectively on that one side. Now, presumably, the trade-off of throwing on a side that you're not used to and find difficult
is that you hope to catch your opponent off-guard with the element of surprise in throwing them on an unexpected side, but, surely, in having
to switch the traditional sleeve-lapel grip over to the other side in order to throw on that other side, you're telegraphing a warning of this intent to your opponent
in advance and thus any element of surprise would be lost? With a the double-lapel grip, you don't telegraph this to your opponent as your grip continuously remains
the same throwing on both sides.
Finally, I do feel that I may be able to effect kuzushi more easily with the double-lapel gip over the traditional sleeve-lapel grip. I'm not sure
if this is necessarily the case because the turbulance of randori makes it difficult for me to tell which one gives me more control over the
opponent's balance. Although, correct me if I'm wrong- it does seem, from a theoretical perspective, that the double-lapel grip should
be better for shifting your opponent off balance, because of how the double lapel essentially has both of your sources of control
focused on their torso as a solitary source of resistance, taking a significant part of whatever resistance they could exert with one of their arms
out of the equation. However, in attempting to effect kuzushi with the traditional grip, you are fighting with half your strength against your opponent's torso and
half against not only the strength of your opponent's arm but also the difficulty in bringing your opponent's arm beyond its range of motion so that
your effort can permeate through the sleeve grip to your opponent's torso in order to actually affect his/her balance. An analogy could be that the double-lapel grip
is like a WW2 scenario where an attacking force focuses an attack along a narrow front, leaving defenders further along the line unable to contribute
much to defence, whereas the traditional grip seems like trying to fight on two fronts, diluting your force across both and allowing a defender to
recruit more of the defensive force he has available. Maybe there's something I'm missing here and I am fully willing to yield and admit so if that's
the case but, specifically regarding the factor of effecting kuzushi, it just seems like it should be bio-mechanically more effective to use double-lapel
over sleeve-lapel.