Hey everyone, if you happen to face any of the following problems:
- Not able to apply your techniques in randori successfully
- There’s too much to learn all at once, feels like drinking from a firehose
- Don’t have a real “strategy” for randori, not sure what you’re even doing or looking for (you end up simply following your instincts)
- Judo feels less fun and/or more frustrating
Then I have a few practical suggestions for you, which have helped me while training at the Kodokan.
Focus 1: Kuzushi
Decide that for the next 6 months, your primary goal every day is to improve your grasp of KUZUSHI — the “off balance.” It is the fundamental essence of Judo, and the basic pre-condition for a good throw. Yet many people overlook it / try to power through throws.
Simply getting better at kuzushi will improve your Judo (and your ENJOYMENT from it) by magnitudes.
In my view, there are two overarching ways to achieve kuzushi — stationery (shifting a person’s weight away from their center of gravity in a particular direction) and moving (using the person’s momentum against them by accelerating it in such a way that they lose control).
Within these, there’s a whole universe of techniques that gives rise to different styles of Judo. Even here at the Kodokan, for any given throw (eg: the ouchi gari), some senseis prefer to use momentum, some like to pull the opponent’s whole body in one direction, some try to simply move the opponent’s head, all different ways to achieve kuzushi.
Everyday, no matter what you are learning in class (eg: when the sensei demonstrates a technique), focus your attention primarily on how kuzushi works. Ask questions about it. Then while drilling the technique, slow down and simply try to master the kuzushi of it. This deep study will have a HUGE, permanent payoff in your Judo journey.
Focus 2: One throw at a time
This might not be applicable depending on how your dojo does things, but in order to practice kuzushi, it’s helpful to have a particular throw that you want to drill for the entire month.
For example, for me, January and February 2025 are dedicated to studying the Tai-Otoshi. In class I learn whatever the sensei is teaching, but whenever he gives us time to drill our favourite moves, I only drill the Tai-Otoshi and study how its kuzushi works. By constantly making adjustments and trying it against different body types, my grasp of the throw (and in turn, of kuzushi) got better in the last 30 days than in 2+ years of Judo before — and I was able to do a clean, effortless Tai in randori against a guy who is physically much stronger than me, which I could never do before.
Focus 3: Randori strategy
The best Judoka have been practicing for so long that for them, a technique (such as Uchi Mata) is simply a tool that they can deploy at any opportune time. They don’t have to think about it. So for them, randori is more about creating or finding good opportunities to deploy their tools, and less about learning how to use the individual tools.
As for you and me, we’re still learning how to use our tools, which can add additional cognitive load during randori. So my advice to you is a combination of points 1 and 2 earlier:
Decide on ONE throw that you want to throw everyone with. In every randori, with every opponent, your goal should be to somehow achieve the kuzushi for that one throw. There are many ways to set up a throw, but the goal should still be to try different ways to get the kuzushi you desire.
Eg: Trying to throw a standing, defensive opponent with a random Tai Otoshi is not judo. I’m constantly trying to get them to move or react in a way that off balances them first, so that I can do the Tai effortlessly. This “effortlessness” is only possible if you have kuzushi.
Another tip for randori: in general, good throws hit like lightning — they’re fast and explosive and the opponent doesn’t realize what happened until they’re already on the floor. If you’re doing everything I mentioned above (i.e. building your familiarity and confidence with a particular throw and the type of kuzushi required for that throw), there will soon be a day when you spot an opening and pull the trigger instantly. Judo will become much more fun.
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An additional thing I’ll say here is that JUDO THROWS WORK! If you create kuzushi, and then enter and do the throw as you learned it in class, the opponent WILL get thrown. The reason your throws aren’t working in randori is that you aren’t recreating the basic conditions required for them to work.
