Georgii Zantaraia - Some cool stuff

Saw this on Google+ earlier. There is a very nice counter for ippon seo nage. Most will probably know it, but I've never seen it before

If you look at the end of the video (around 01:14) it is clear we have a jûdôka with gymnastic skills and abilities here. For that reason one needs to wonder how realistic what he shows is for the average jûdô population. This is also the impression you get when looking at some of the warm-up exercises such as the hand-walk. I am not sure what the proportion of jûdôka is who can do this, but I bet it is less than 1 in 5. The counter you are referring is not new at all and has been around for a very long time. I remember well in the 1970s a good friend of mine and very successful female jûdôka with fabulous technique at the time fighting the Europeans against a jûdô-technically far less accomplished Swedish jûdôka. Much to our surprise she had difficulties throwing the Swedish jûdôka with her seoi-nage, because she did exactly that. Soon we found out she had a past as a gymnast. She still threw her for ippon flat on her back with an entirely different technique, I think de-ashi-barai or something.

Cichorei Kano wrote:If you look at the end of the video (around 01:14) it is clear we have a jûdôka with gymnastic skills and abilities here. For that reason one needs to wonder how realistic what he shows is for the average jûdô population. This is also the impression you get when looking at some of the warm-up exercises such as the hand-walk. I am not sure what the proportion of jûdôka is who can do this, but I bet it is less than 1 in 5. The counter you are referring is not new at all and has been around for a very long time. I remember well in the 1970s a good friend of mine and very successful female jûdôka with fabulous technique at the time fighting the Europeans against a jûdô-technically far less accomplished Swedish jûdôka. Much to our surprise she had difficulties throwing the Swedish jûdôka with her seoi-nage, because she did exactly that. Soon we found out she had a past as a gymnast. She still threw her for ippon flat on her back with an entirely different technique, I think de-ashi-barai or something.

He is also a former World and European Championship gold medal winner. I can probably walk five or six times on my hands before I have to roll over. I think my personal best is 12 times. I've heard of people being able to walk around their entire dojo on their hands but I've never seen it. The video appears to be some sort of clinic. I would have loved to have seen it for entertainment value but honestly even in my 20's when I had significantly far more athleticism I couldn't do anything he did in terms of counter throws.

Dave R. wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:If you look at the end of the video (around 01:14) it is clear we have a jûdôka with gymnastic skills and abilities here. For that reason one needs to wonder how realistic what he shows is for the average jûdô population. This is also the impression you get when looking at some of the warm-up exercises such as the hand-walk. I am not sure what the proportion of jûdôka is who can do this, but I bet it is less than 1 in 5. The counter you are referring is not new at all and has been around for a very long time. I remember well in the 1970s a good friend of mine and very successful female jûdôka with fabulous technique at the time fighting the Europeans against a jûdô-technically far less accomplished Swedish jûdôka. Much to our surprise she had difficulties throwing the Swedish jûdôka with her seoi-nage, because she did exactly that. Soon we found out she had a past as a gymnast. She still threw her for ippon flat on her back with an entirely different technique, I think de-ashi-barai or something.

He is also a former World and European Championship gold medal winner. I can probably walk five or six times on my hands before I have to roll over. I think my personal best is 12 times. I've heard of people being able to walk around their entire dojo on their hands but I've never seen it. The video appears to be some sort of clinic. I would have loved to have seen it for entertainment value but honestly even in my 20's when I had significantly far more athleticism I couldn't do anything he did in terms of counter throws.

Indeed, the combination of gymnastic abilities and world elite level jûdô is what matters. Some counters are notoriously difficult to pull off. Two others come to mind. The first is one I struggled with a long time myself, namely Okano Isao's yoko-guruma counter. The timing of that one is difficult, but it isn't just timing, but the coordination of the action and your own body as a function of timing. The second one is the Matsuda uchi-mata + uchi-mata counter. These are the kind of things where the copy cat approach miserably fails. They are wonderful to watch, but they are the kind of things that most jûdôka will never master no matter how much they practice.

Cichorei Kano wrote:

Dave R. wrote:

Cichorei Kano wrote:If you look at the end of the video (around 01:14) it is clear we have a jûdôka with gymnastic skills and abilities here. For that reason one needs to wonder how realistic what he shows is for the average jûdô population. This is also the impression you get when looking at some of the warm-up exercises such as the hand-walk. I am not sure what the proportion of jûdôka is who can do this, but I bet it is less than 1 in 5. The counter you are referring is not new at all and has been around for a very long time. I remember well in the 1970s a good friend of mine and very successful female jûdôka with fabulous technique at the time fighting the Europeans against a jûdô-technically far less accomplished Swedish jûdôka. Much to our surprise she had difficulties throwing the Swedish jûdôka with her seoi-nage, because she did exactly that. Soon we found out she had a past as a gymnast. She still threw her for ippon flat on her back with an entirely different technique, I think de-ashi-barai or something.

He is also a former World and European Championship gold medal winner. I can probably walk five or six times on my hands before I have to roll over. I think my personal best is 12 times. I've heard of people being able to walk around their entire dojo on their hands but I've never seen it. The video appears to be some sort of clinic. I would have loved to have seen it for entertainment value but honestly even in my 20's when I had significantly far more athleticism I couldn't do anything he did in terms of counter throws.

Indeed, the combination of gymnastic abilities and world elite level jûdô is what matters. Some counters are notoriously difficult to pull off. Two others come to mind. The first is one I struggled with a long time myself, namely Okano Isao's yoko-guruma counter. The timing of that one is difficult, but it isn't just timing, but the coordination of the action and your own body as a function of timing. The second one is the Matsuda uchi-mata + uchi-mata counter. These are the kind of things where the copy cat approach miserably fails. They are wonderful to watch, but they are the kind of things that most jûdôka will never master no matter how much they practice.

I agree with you. Eventhough I would probably never be able to do the things he did in the video, it is still mighty impressive, especially for someone as new to the sport as me.