Dropping Versus Lifting in Judo

I went to the Round Rock Dojo last Friday. I walked in ten minutes late, and apparently the ferocious traffic had gotten the best of the rest of the class too. Everyone was late except for two beginners. They looked relieved that I had shown up. They had a book cracked open and they were copying the movements in it, fairly well too!

I watched what they were working on, and it instantly struck me the inefficient motion I was seeing. They would position themselves for a seio nage shoulder throw. They positioned themselves underneath their opponent, then they used the muscles of their legs to lift the person onto their back. Here they would stay, essentially doing a leg press to push the person away from the Earth. That is a lot of energy being used to throw. A judoka has to push himself up and a resisting opponent all with a few leg muscles with this kind of throw.



Here is an anvil. It represents weight. Imagine it as your weapon. Is it more efficient to drop it on an opponent, or lift it up with him on top?

Here is the deal in throwing arts people, The Earth is our weapon!!! Gravity is the tool. The floor is the target. If you are pushing away from the target, you have a conceptual problem and are doing things inefficiently. Your center is an anvil that you can drop where ever and when ever you want in the conflict.



It seems like many judoka are actually weight lifters. They try to fit in just so they can strain and grunt to lift something away from Earth just to drop it back down again. It works great if you are bigger, and stronger but this path has a dead end. In my humble opinion it violates the principles of the art form. It leads to injuries and strain. It assumes strength is a more important factor in technique than structure, technique and gravity. Weight lifting judo is an immature form a judo.

The high level teachers I have trained with are usually older, weaker and smaller than myself. They all realize one thing - gravity is a constant force pulling them and their opponents down. The softest and most effective judo comes not from lifting weights, but BEING WEIGHT. Why fight against the forces of nature, when effortless energy comes simply from the act of bending our knees, letting our center drop and becoming heavy.

Efficient judo is not lifting weight of a stable structure against gravity.

Efficient judo is loading weight on a opponents crumbling structure at angles that are difficult to recover to. Let your fat butt and gravity do all the work for you. Even one level better - use your opponents fat butt AND your fat butt. That is a lot of free and easy downward pulling energy to exploit without a single pound of lifting force.