Standing choke and throw

So, one of my favorite things to practice in Randori is a standing choke. I like it because occasionally the choke works, but more often than not, it distracts them so much I can foot sweep them with ease. Recently we had a guest instructor, and we were talking about this "combination". He said that it's actually illegal to throw while doing a standing choke. Is this true? After he said that, I realized I had never actually done this in a competition. Neither me or my instructor could argue with him, because we'd never thought about it. Let me know if this is illegal, because if it is, I'd rather know now than after I get Hansoku-Make in a tournament.

Attempting a throw while applying a standing shimewaza or kansetsu waza is illegal.

tafftaz wrote:Attempting a throw while applying a standing shimewaza or kansetsu waza is illegal.

Where in the rules this is stated?

There is only one rule, which explicitly forbids to throw with techniques like Harai-Goshi while
applying Waki-Gatame (or vice versa)

It reads "attempting a throw with techniques such as ude hishigi waki gatame". My son was DQ'ed for this many years ago in nationals.
This is throwing with force while applying a submission. Skillful entries into newaza while applying submissions are fine such as "jumping/flying juji gatame".
Bit of a grey area when it comes to shimewaza as the chances of throwing someone while the choke is applied continously is very rare. The only case I have seen is when tori has attempted a standing cross collar choke and thrown with a morote seoinage type entry while choke is on.
Hansoku make from referee.
To the OP, when you footsweep your uke is choke still on or is it just used to make your uke react? If the latter then what you are doing is fine?

edit
Just copied this from IJF site
"30)
To fall directly to the Tatami while applying or attempting to apply techniques such as Ude-hishigi-waki-gatame.

Playing devils advocate.... It does'nt actually state "throw" but to "fall". There's another can of worms opened.

tafftaz wrote:Attempting a throw while applying a standing shimewaza or kansetsu waza is illegal.

That is not true and has been explained numerous times on the forum before.

tafftaz wrote:It reads "attempting a throw with techniques such as ude hishigi waki gatame". My son was DQ'ed for this many years ago in nationals.

People get continuously disqualified in judo for legal things, and scores get continuously awarded to the wrong player, so not much to rely on there.

tafftaz wrote:This is throwing with force while applying a submission.

That is not true. That is what 'you' are saying.

tafftaz wrote:
Bit of a grey area when it comes to shimewaza as the chances of throwing someone while the choke is applied continously is very rare. The only case I have seen is when tori has attempted a standing cross collar choke and thrown with a morote seoinage type entry while choke is on.
Hansoku make from referee.

Shouldn't be. Ganseki-otoshi is perfectly legal.

tafftaz wrote:
To fall directly to the Tatami while applying or attempting to apply techniques such as Ude-hishigi-waki-gatame.

Playing devils advocate.... It does'nt actually state "throw" but to "fall". There's another can of worms opened.

It is not a matter of actually just stating 'fall' rather than 'throw', but also a matter of 'directly'.

I remember very well when and why the rule was implemented. It was to address a very specific situation, namely exactly as the rule says "to fall directly to the tatami while applying techniques such as waki-gatame". Why ? Because the uke was left a choice between two damning options: either he broke his fall with his other arm to avoid being thrown on his face and with his shoulder in the tatami, in which case he could do nothing to support or block the other arm, or he would use his other arm to support and block the locked arm in which case he was forced to fall on his face and with his shoulder in the tatami. However, even all other forms of waki-gatame where you would meanwhile throw without causing such an impossible situations were not illegal at all. For example, waki-gatame while the tori would perform backwards hikkomi-gaeshi was not illegal, and neither was it illegal if one would roll forwards. Why was that not illegal ? Because the risk from the previous situation did not exist as uke would each time land perfectly on his back. Over the years, like with several things in judo this rule has become increasingly misunderstood, and yes, you will even have several IJF-A referees telling exactly what you said. It is, however, not true and has never been true, just like it has never been true that really that a armbar could only lock the elbow and not the shoulder. That particular one simply evolved from when in 1993 the rules were re-typed with the English 'corrected', but not 'changed' but a crucial part was left out in that version, namely that in locks such as ude-garami the shoulder could only be 'secondarily' locked. As every judoka knows, it is quite common for several forms of ude-garami indeed to partly lock the shoulder. They are not illegal and have never been illegal.

Every experienced judoka also knows that despite several things being legal, doing them in competition is unwise because chances are referees won't recognized it or will wrongly judge it, this is not just with regard to things being possibly illegal or not, but also with several kaeshi-waza. I still haven't forgotten the first major incident that happened to me. My opponent came in with tai-otoshi. I blocked, stopped the movmement intentionally solely so the referee could notice, stepped over, layed myself on my back and threw my opponent with sumi-gaeshi flat on his back with force and speed. Result ? Waza-ari for the other. I lost the match because of that. So, analogous to your argument, does that then mean that when you throw your opponent flat on his back with speed, force and control, a score of waza-ari is given to the other one against you ? That is exactly what the refer did, and he was an EJU ref. (the categories IJF-A and IJF-B did not yet exist in those days).

Moral of the story, don't do things that are above the level of the referee or for which most referees are likely too stupid to realize. So, don't do armbars and chokes that might be misinterpreted as being part or looking like they involve a throw, but do not explain that as illegal, cause in most cases it isn't. In some it is. Another example of an illegal armbar/throw would be gyakute-ippon-seoi-nage, by the way, for reasons similar to the example of a direct vertical fall from waki-gatame. In the case of gyakute-ippon-seoi-nage the uke's arm is gone, oftentimes even if he jumps over and lands flat on his back. It challenges safety in a major way. Another legal way of a combined kansetsu-waza armbar would be standing ude-garami type Kimura Masahiko combined with sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi. That being said, one would be stupid to try that out during competition though, for reasons explained above. For the same reason, a coach should carefully explain that to his students or athletes so they accurately understand the situation. Regrettably people have a tendency to be inaccurate when it comes to judo. Other examples are saying that kani-basami and daki-age are illegal. No, kani-basami is not illegal either, accurate is that kani-basami is illegal in judo competitions held under IJF rules, and daki-age is not illegal at all, it just is not scoreable in IJF competitions, but it is not illegal.

I know what I meant when I said illegal. I am sure that the OP understood that I was talking about shiai. I know completely well that nothing is illegal in judo per se, from a pure judo perspective.
You have just ripped my reply to shtreds and then you write this


"Moral of the story, don't do things that are above the level of the referee or for which most referees are likely too stupid to realize. So, don't do armbars and chokes that might be misinterpreted as being part or looking like they involve a throw, but do not explain that as illegal, cause in most cases it isn't. In some it is

So which is it??

Also When I wrote
"Attempting a throw while applying a standing shimewaza or kansetsu waza is illegal."
I was talking from personal experience.

Sit in moral judgement all you want, in most cases today you will get hansoku make if the OP attempts to throw with a submission locked in.

tafftaz wrote:I know what I meant when I said illegal. I am sure that the OP understood that I was talking about shiai. I know completely well that nothing is illegal in judo per se, from a pure judo perspective.
You have just ripped my reply to shtreds and then you write this


"Moral of the story, don't do things that are above the level of the referee or for which most referees are likely too stupid to realize. So, don't do armbars and chokes that might be misinterpreted as being part or looking like they involve a throw, but do not explain that as illegal, cause in most cases it isn't. In some it is

So which is it??

Quite simply, it is illegal exactly as said in the IJF rule which you quote, that is:

To fall directly to the Tatami while applying or attempting to apply techniques such as Ude-hishigi-waki-gatame.

The words 'fall' and 'directly' are critical and refer to the specific situation caused in standing ude-hishigi-waki-gatame. As explained, a throw that involves waki-gatame that does not involve a direct, vertical action into the tatami is not illegal.

The difference between legal/illegal and recommended/not recommended is not merely academic but important for any jûdôka as should be clear from the example I described that involved the sumi-gaeshi. There is no doubt, that situation is legal, but it is NOT recommended due to the high chance in misinterpretation. There are numerous situations like that in judo. Another example is necklocks out of kata-gatame or tate-shihô-gatame. They are clearly illegal, so should one hope for the opponent being disqualified if that happens ? No way. Virtually always the ref. will fail to see it with the consequence being that in the short term that will elapse between the neck crank being applied, you will be forced to tap out, ippon for the other one, end of story.

tafftaz wrote:I know what I meant when I said illegal. I am sure that the OP understood that I was talking about shiai. I know completely well that nothing is illegal in judo per se, from a pure judo perspective.
You have just ripped my reply to shtreds and then you write this

My intent is not or was not to rip anyone's reply to shred but to be accurate. I am not attempting at all to play the person, but addressing solely the essence of your for the sole reason that your response was not accurate.

Also in terms of "know completely well that nothing is illegal in judo per se, from a pure judo perspective." that is not a correct reflection of what I was pointing out. I was pointing out precisely the difference between the term 'illegal' in randori vs. shiai, not in jûdô as a whole. Atemi are illegal in both randori and shiai, but not in kata. However, kani-basami, double handed grip-breaks, giving someone the middle finger are not illegal in randori (or kata for that matter), only in shiai. Additionally, I was also pointing out the difference between legal, but not scoreable.

I cannot reply in place of the original poster in how far your original response was clear or not. However, since it appeared as a public question rather than a private request, at least one other poster (Fritz) seemed less certain about the veracity of your response. At the least even if you feel my response not helpful, Fritz still might. Moreover, going back to the original poster's question, there is still a critical difference when comparing responses in the sense that yours is arguing that the situation as described by him is illegal, and I am saying that it is not illegal in general as elaborated about by me in the ganseki-otoshi example. To provide a definite response one would need to actually see the precise situation he is describing, but it is certainly possible to choke while footsweeping him. There are various scenarios possible for situation that involves a legal combination of footsweep / choke, obviously, such as it being renraku-waza de-ashi-barai + okuri-eri-jime (or hadaka-jime); however the situation could be different, one example being renraku-waza okuri-eri-jime (hadaka-jime) + de-ashi-barai, or it could be a situation were it isn't renraku but a modified throw with a grip around the neck that represents a choke.

How is something "illegal" in randori? Can you point me to the randori rules?

Ck Can you clarify please?
Is ganseki-otoshi a variation of say sei o toshi or is it a recognised throw?

Neil G wrote:How is something "illegal" in randori? Can you point me to the randori rules?

Neil, when we use the the term 'rules' it is pars pro toto for Refereeing Rules. Randori is not a refereed situation, thus it does not fall under "refereeing rules" but under jûdô rules. IJF does not govern jûdô, only international IJF jûdô contests. Things that are not covered by IJF Rules are covered by jûdô principles and local law. Under jûdô principles several techniques have been referred by Kanô from the inception of jûdô or at a later date (including after his death) to an area exclusively outside of randori, namely kata, hence why many things in jûdô are illegal in randori, among these atemi, wristlocks (specifically kote-gaeshi and kote-hinaeri), necklocks (for example, in shikoro-gaeshi in koshiki-no-kata), leg locks (for example, ashi-garami in katame-waza). A good reference of some of these techniques is:

Sannohe Noriyuki: Prohibited kansetsu-waza in judo. Akita Daigaku Kyôin Bunkagaku-bu Kenkyû-kyô (Kyôinkagaku-bu) 60: 15-22, 2005.

As for the reference with the regard to the organization of jûdô techniques and decision of Kanô to ban certain techniques from randori, this goes back even to some of his very first public lectures on jûdô, specifically: "

"The acquisition of these sorts of dangerous combat techniques can only be acquired through training in kata, but through the practice of kata the student not only acquires techniques but also studies the theory of combat" (Kanō Jigorō: Jūdō ippan narabi ni sono kyōikujō no kachi.Dai Nippon Kyōikukai Zasshi 87, 446–481, 1889 --> specifically page 462).

samsmith2424 wrote:Ck Can you clarify please?
Is ganseki-otoshi a variation of say sei o toshi or is it a recognised throw?

The name ganseki-otoshi does not appear in either the gokyô, the habukareta-no-waza, or the shinmeishô-no-waza. It is a technique where one grips the opponent in kata-jûji-jime, turns one's back to the opponent, lifts the opponent on the back, and drops him off similar to seoi-otoshi. Mifune is one of the people who consistently lists the throw in his writings (like he does with tama-guruma, and sometimes uchi-guruma, also rather uncommon names in present-day jûdô). The throw has always been legal, even though nothing prevents you during your grip from starting to choke and continue your choke on the ground, thus with you positioned in a kami-shihô-gatame-like fashion while your opponent is on the back. That being said, the throw is obviously also very rare in shiai due to both unfamiliarity with it in jûdôka, and the fact that most jûdôka would very strongly and defensively react against such a grip making it difficult to pull off. Same caveat as in the other posts ... as much as it is legal in shiai, would I do it myself or recommend to any student of mine to do it in shiai ? No way, just like I would never do (anymore) nor recommend to anyone to counter any throw from your opponent to my back with a sutemi that requires me to land on my back, unless the visible difference in technical skill between the two jûdôka is so tangible that changes the score would be wrongly awarded are minimal.

My apologies for sounding off CK. Had a bad day and should not have reacted the way I did. I stand by my initial reply to the OP but my manner toward you should have been more polite and better worded. There was no intent on my part to sound hostile

tafftaz wrote:My apologies for sounding off CK. Had a bad day and should not have reacted the way I did. I stand by my initial reply to the OP but my manner toward you should have been more polite and better worded. There was no intent on my part to sound hostile

That's OK, I understand, we're all human, and I also understand your predicament. The situation you face(d) in competition is frustrating. I hope the evening will bring some relief.

Thanks for all the in depth responses guys.

For starters, once I start the foot sweep, it might look like the choke is still on, but I wouldn't be able to finish it in mid air, and by the time he/we hit the ground, I'm usually out of position to finish it. So, if I'm actually going to throw someone with it, it's essentially a distraction.

I understand that Kansetsu waza techniques and going into a throw can be dangerous and illegal. I've heard that before that I have to be very careful doing these, since not only is it very easy for a standing armlock to attack the shoulder, but also it may be difficult for Uke to fall. Since the topic started to become one of armbars to throws, I'm still unclear if it is legal to perform a standing choke straight into a throw. I can understand how locking an arm during a throw would be dangerous, but I find it hard to imagine a choke throw being any more dangerous than a normal one. If anyone could give me a clearer idea of this, I would be extremely grateful.

I was under the impression it is entirely legal to throw from a choke, so long as it doesn't endanger the spine in the process (doing uki waza from a guillotine choke or something similar comes to mind as an example of a choke-throw that would endanger uke's spine).

now a fun thing to consider are the new rules about taking a cross grip and having to attack with a throw immediately...

I have a choke that I was taught 20 yrs ago where you set it up standing and jump to gaurd (moreless) to pull it off inside of 5 seconds. By far, theee most devestating choke in judo or bjj outside of guillotine, maybe. Faster tho. First tried it at 2 tournies where we were fighting decision routine and lost by ippon throw setting it up. Both. Sensei made me so no big deal.lol Scored it at the last tourny for ippon and never was penalized for an obvious gaurd pull/fake tomoenage attempt. Never went to tournies much later and never tried but works like a charm on regulars. Just not sure if its legal.lol It is on the ground.

I understand this isnt 'throw from choke' but do find the idea of that interesting.

genetic judoka wrote:I was under the impression it is entirely legal to throw from a choke, so long as it doesn't endanger the spine in the process (doing uki waza from a guillotine choke or something similar comes to mind as an example of a choke-throw that would endanger uke's spine).

now a fun thing to consider are the new rules about taking a cross grip and having to attack with a throw immediately...

Hands aren't necessarily crossed until one turns for the throw ... and then it's too late. But it's a boutique move, hard for most people to really pull off more than once.

I thought standing strangles were legal as long as you WERE NOT throwing with them. Here are two my mate does very well.

Again from relevant instructions to referees, "If the standing choke does not lead to immediate submission then call mate."

finarashi wrote:Again from relevant instructions to referees, "If the standing choke does not lead to immediate submission then call mate."

That is what I recall from as well...was just thinking the same thing when I read your post.

Ben Reinhardt wrote:

finarashi wrote:Again from relevant instructions to referees, "If the standing choke does not lead to immediate submission then call mate."

That is what I recall from as well...was just thinking the same thing when I read your post.

What does "immediately" mean? Is is it just barring an extended struggle, or is it literally as soon as the grips are locked. In the latter case, why would anyone tap, given you can stick out even a perfectly applied strangle for a couple of seconds?

PointyShinyBurning wrote:What does "immediately" mean? Is is it just barring an extended struggle, or is it literally as soon as the grips are locked. In the latter case, why would anyone tap, given you can stick out even a perfectly applied strangle for a couple of seconds?

It just means that (especially in the national events) if the referee notes that standing strangle is applied then he/she calls mate but in the unprobable case that the uke surrenders before mate is called then that is ippon.

so how long would one have to apply it? do I at least get 2-3 seconds? that's all I need to finish a choke (less if it's applied perfectly). the word immediately implies that no I don't get 2-3 seconds, but a fella can hope, right?

also, if I do throw from a choke, would it be considered entry to newaza, or can I get a score from their impact?

genetic judoka wrote:so how long would one have to apply it? do I at least get 2-3 seconds? that's all I need to finish a choke (less if it's applied perfectly). the word immediately implies that no I don't get 2-3 seconds, but a fella can hope, right?

also, if I do throw from a choke, would it be considered entry to newaza, or can I get a score from their impact?

You get exactly 2.55667778888 seconds. Every time. So you should drill with a precision stopwatch on hand. 10,000 reps should do it, so get to it.