Wen Hsiu Quan

Hi, everyone! I am typing this post while taking a nice break from a 2 and a half hour long gasshuku (training camp- I have only heard this term used by karate people, but maybe some students of other Japanese martial arts know it too.) The Olympics are on our TV's and we get to see some Judo amongst other things. I wish somebody wants to post more videos of Judo kata on Youtube and stuff, because that is much nicer to look at than the competitions. If you have not seen a Judo kata before- here is an example: https://youtu.be/q9SfzhSDjBw?t=328 That looks pretty cool, doesn't it? Now- most of the time we see something like this going on- The sequence below shows one of my favourite throws that is a good way to get someone acquainted with throwing techniques. You can see that for one thing- I am not on one leg when I am pulling my partner into the throw. Let's go through the essential elements of a good throw: 1. Keeping your stance: It looks as i...

I really loved Judo when I was younger. Reason for this was mainly because it was not karate. Back in the 80's and the early 90's everyone knew what karate was. It was so bad that even kungfu got called karate and I think basically every town in the country had a karate club. Judo, however, was not that well known. We did not have a Judo club, but we had a library. That is where my study of Judo started. Learning the throws was fun and seeing how a relatively small person like me could topple larger opponents was even more fun. Still- what I did not know at the time- Judo was not meant to be a complete fighting method. Well- it could be, but the Judo we get taught is mainly meant for a sports setting where your opponent does not come at you with a kick or a weapon and Judoka seem oblivious of things such as combination punches and the like. When I started learning karate I actually learnt a very important lesson in throwing- the importance of stance. In karate we ...