traditional grip vs double lapel

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.

Different grips can serve different purposes and have their advantages and disadvantages.
A big one for a double lapel grip is space.  The tori-uke spacing or ma-ai is not going to be appropriate for all throws.  You also correctly point out the lack of control over uke's hands.

Taking a double lapel grip does not automatically give an element of surprise unless one diligently trains both sides equally.  Most people will still favor one side, and that preference will be easily detected by an astute opponent, either by feeling you out during the match or scouting your other matches.

I'm right handed but I tend to randori and shiai with a left handed grip.  I find most opponents suffer from a bit of a south-paw jinx and I score more often from a left handed grip.  That said I will switch up during a match and will sometimes open with a right handed grip to feel out my opponent and switch left when ready to attack.

A more beneficial approach may be to do as I've done and develop a series of throws that can be done left, from a right handed grip.  Sode-tsuri-komi-goshi is the classic here, but I also do ippon-seoi-nage, koshi-guruma and sasae-tsuri-komi ashi.  This can keep an opponent unsettled.  They will expect a right-handed attack due to the right-handed grip, only to be treated to the opposite.

I will sometimes also use a double-sleeve grip, which I find more useful (to me) than a double lapel, but it depends what your doing.  Again Sode-tsuri-komi-goshi is a classic, but other possibilities exist.  I like harai-goshi or even uchi-mata as spectacularly demonstrated by Kovacs against Inoue, who was thought unbeatable at the time.
Rather than stick to a single unconventional grip, which would not be advisable so early in your career, I would encourage to explore different possibilities and applications.
"Wrong" side attacks.
Left-on-right situations.
Double sleeve.
It's all good stuff.
Finally, one still needs to be competent with the traditional grip for grading purposes if nothing else.
Enjoy and don't stress.  There are no magic bullets and no secret sauce.  It's really more about being better at the same things.

Thank you for your reply, Y-Chromosome. I appreciate your feedback and you make some interesting points.

Would if be all right if you could please elaborate on the spacing issue of using a double-label grip? I'm afraid I'm unsure as to how that works - are you generally too far away/close with double-label compared to sleeve-lapel and how exactly, biomechanically, does that affect your throwing?

Also, if able, could you or someone else please provide feedback on the bio-mechanical explanations I give in my last paragraph about comparing the ease of breaking balance between the double-lapel and sleeve grips, with the WW2 warfare analogy? Do these makes sense or am I talking nonsense?

I know I go on about bio-mechanics like a broken record, but, like with anything, physics is everything in Judo.

Waza Will wrote:Thank you for your reply, Y-Chromosome. I appreciate your feedback and you make some interesting points.

Would if be all right if you could please elaborate on the spacing issue of using a double-label grip? I'm afraid I'm unsure as to how that works - are you generally too far away/close with double-label compared to sleeve-lapel and how exactly, biomechanically, does that affect your throwing?

Also, if able, could you or someone else please provide feedback on the bio-mechanical explanations I give in my last paragraph about comparing the ease of breaking balance between the double-lapel and sleeve grips, with the WW2 warfare analogy? Do these makes sense or am I talking nonsense?

I know I go on about bio-mechanics like a broken record, but, like with anything, physics is everything in Judo.

As a rule, a double-lapel grip would place you closer so for some waza this might be too close.

There is a limit to which mass military tactics principle can be applied to judo mechanics.
The "concentration of force" principle is present, but not exactly as you describe, nor does it operate in the same way as in land tactics.
In general, when used correctly, the hikite (sleeve hand) and tsurite (lapel hand) act in concert against uke's torso. Since uke's torso tends to move more or less as a unit (presuming he has not been cut in half) then all force delivered through both grips ends up acting on the same mass. There is slightly more delay sometimes before the pull on the sleeve acts against the torso, but this can be minimized or eliminated by taking up the slack.
If one imagines a line traced in the cloth of uke's gi from one gripping point to the other, you'll quickly realize that as long as you are gripping either side of uke, that line passes around uke's back from hand to hand like a cord, looped around his back. In this sense, as long as your two hands work in concert and don't pull in different directions, the net force generated on uke is the same whether you grip left, right, double-sleeve or double lapel.

Thank you very much, Y-Chromosome! Outstanding response! You've given me a much better insight into grip dynamics and I shall probably opt for the sleeve-lapel grip as my standard grip from now on. I hope this discourse will also prove informative of the differences between the two grip styles for other judoka on the forum. Cheers!

good. learn sleeve-lapel now. Later, you can mess with other grips and find which grips work better for some throws than others. Guarantee you, double lapel is a crap grip for techniques like sode tsuri komi goshi.

As far as control goes, you might want to bail on double lapel and experiment with trying to get what was described to me way back when as "the rings" of the gi - basically the seam where the arm attaches to the chest. You won't get that as a double grip, for sure, but it will give you an idea of control that's absent with a lapel grip on all but the tightest gi.

Btw, if you expect to test for rank, you're going to want to learn throws from a classic grip, with classic movement. Sure, this might not be ideal in randori or shiai especially against players who are taller than you or shorter than you or in some other way different, but it is how you'll be expected to demonstrate throws in most testing situations.

Stacey wrote:good. learn sleeve-lapel now. Later, you can mess with other grips and find which grips work better for some throws than others. Guarantee you, double lapel is a crap grip for techniques like sode tsuri komi goshi.

As far as control goes, you might want to bail on double lapel and experiment with trying to get what was described to me way back when as "the rings" of the gi - basically the seam where the arm attaches to the chest. You won't get that as a double grip, for sure, but it will give you an idea of control that's absent with a lapel grip on all but the tightest gi.

Btw, if you expect to test for rank, you're going to want to learn throws from a classic grip, with classic movement. Sure, this might not be ideal in randori or shiai especially against players who are taller than you or shorter than you or in some other way different, but it is how you'll be expected to demonstrate throws in most testing situations.

Sure things. Thanks for the advice!