The important point with this throw is to turn completely round so that you are facing the same way as your partner. If you only manage to turn three-quarters round the chances are that you will not be able to sweep your man up into the air. As your leg sweeps up into the opponent's crotch your arms should be pulling him strongly forward with your head dipping down towards the mat. For a smaller man it is necessary to put his left leg through or between the opponent's leg when he first starts to pivot so as to get right underneath.

If necessary in the sweep be prepared to stretch your leg up almost vertically with your forehead brushing the mat. It is this extreme range of the throw that makes it very difficult to stop when once the thrower has got into position. The whole movement of the throw should be as fast as possible especially the initial leg movements. One of the counters for this throw is to get out of the way of the sweeping leg by jumping slightly to the right side and closing your own legs together. If the thrower is attempting the throw properly by putting his heart and soul into it he should go sailing past and turn a complete somersault by his own efforts.

Uchi-mata

(inner thigh)

This throw is the number one contest throw. Possibly the reason for this is that in contest people defend and fight in a crouched position with their legs spread wide. This is not an ideal position from which to attack. But it is a natural tendency to retreat into it when competing against a good man. A man who adopts such a position is a sitting duck for uchi-mata.

Stand in the right natural posture with the man who is taking the throw bending forward with his leg spread wide. Pivoting on your right foot swing your left foot round and close in behind your right. As soon as your body and left leg have pivoted into position, with your right leg sweep back and upwards into the top of the opponent's thigh. This should lift him into the air. Now pulling strongly with your left hand across your body turn your man in the air and drop him on his back.

This is quite an effective throw especially for tall long-legged men. The position of the right arm can sometimes be uncomfortable. If you are shorter than your opponent try to push your right elbow somewhere under the opponent's armpit, and if you are taller let your elbow point up to the ceiling. Having pulled the man forward on to your sweeping leg take care to keep your man pinned tight to your body. Imagine your opponent is like a door hinged not at the sidebut at the top. If you want to sweep his legs up, ie, the bottom of the door, you must have the top of the door hinged to something firm. Try for chest contact. Although it may not always be possible to keep actual chest contact try to get as near as possible. If you have pinned and hinged your man firmly on his upper body it will be easy to sweep his legs away.

Once again remember the direction of this throw. You should be pitching forward with your partner to his right front corner.

Harai-goshi

(sweeping hip)

Stand in the right natural posture. Step across with your right foot as in the previous throw, then round with the left foot so as to pivot as before. This time the right leg sweeps into the opponent's right leg, so it is not necessary to push your hips completely in front of the opponent's.

As your left leg swings round pull the partner forward and with your right leg sweep the opponent up so that he almost somersaults and lands on his back. Study the plates. The arms in this throw pull the man forward strongly and onto the sweeping leg. It is not necessary, as in the previous throw, to hoist the man up with your hips. Care should be taken to see that your right leg actually sweeps the opponents legs and doesn't just dangle in the air. In the sweep, keep the leg fairly firm and use the weight and impetus of the leg to hit the opponent and sweep him off his feet rather than putting the leg in position and slowly hoisting.

You should by now have your main pinned tightly on your hip with your legs slightly bent. To throw the man straighten your legs so that your partner comes off the floor and by swinging slightly round to your left side unload him off your hips.

Your left hand helps to pin the man on your hips by pulling strongly forward in conjunction with the pivoting movement of the feet and body. This technique is rather difficult to do as a straight throw. The reason is that when you let go with your right hand the opponent usually knows what you have in mind and defends strongly against it.

However, in a mix-up when one man has attacked and failed with, say a hip throw, it is possible to do. In this case when he is still close to you slide your arm round his waist and when he moves out from his own attack follow up immediately with this hip throw. Another occasion when it is possible to attack with o-goshi is when for some reason or other you are only holding with your left hand. This happens very often. Instead of resuming the normal grip on the lapel with your right hand jump in quickly, pulling strongly with your left arm, and whip your right arm round your partner's waist in one movement.

Two variations on this throw can be employed. The first is to throw your right arm round your opponent's neck and head instead of his waist. This can be used with great effect by a tall man on his shorter opponent. The other is to hold your partner's belt at the side and heave him up and onto your hips. This can be a very powerful throw. It does not depend on too much speed and can be used by a slower short stocky man. These two variations have slightly different names in Japanese but I consider them as more or less similar to o-goshi.

O-goshi

(major hip)

This shows the basic action of the hip throws. Stand in the right natural posture. Step with your right foot to a spot just in front of your opponent's feet. Pivoting on the ball of your right foot swing your left leg and foot round to about the position where your right foot was first. You should now have made a complete turn and be facing the same way as your partner with your feet about shoulder width apart. As you take the first step with the right foot, let go of your partner's jacket, and as you swing your body and left leg round put your arm round the opponent's waist and pull him forward onto your right hip. Do not move close in to your partner with the foot movements. Turn more or less on the spot where you are and aim to pull the opponent forward and on to your hips.

Koshi-Waza (Hip Throws)

Opportunities for the leg throws mentioned in the previous section occur mostly when the opponent is standing fairly upright or bracing back against a forward throw. Should your opponent be bending forward at the waist with his arms fairly straight, it will be difficult to do the leg throws described in the previous chapters. However, against this posture forward hip throws are usually employed and three of the most important will be described in this section.

This throw can be likened to somebody stepping on a banana skin. Their foot comes down on to the skin and then slides away. Stand with your partner in right posture. With your right leg step backwards and then forwards and so on, get your partner to do the same with his left leg. This should be something like a natural walk except that only one leg moves in order to isolate the throwing movement. Your left leg and the opponent's right leg do not move.

As the opponent's leg steps forward and is about an inch off the mat, using the flat of your right foot, sweep his foot across diagonally in front of your own left foot.If you have caught his foot at the right moment he will fall over. If you are a bit slow and his foot and weight are solidly on the mat it will seem like uprooting a tree trunk. If you are too soon in sweeping his foot it will just dangle in the air because his weight will still be on his rear foot. To finish off the throw the right arm pulls the man down to the mat. When this throw is done, with speed and correct timing the man may be levelled off almost at hip height.

In this throw the arms and shoulders push the opponent back and over his right leg. The action of the arms is not isolated. They start working before or at the same time you step out with your left leg.

This throw is my particular favourite. I've studied it for a long time and have come to the conclusion that the action of the arms is most important especially the right arm.

This throw seems deceptively easy. One reason for this is that it is easy to move the feet quickly and get the right leg almost in position. For this reason everybody tries it. However, because of bad arm work in the majority of cases, it rarely comes off.

With his right leg in position, it is often possible for an experienced man to hop forward until his arms come into play and with further hopping and hooking with his right leg force the throw through. However, to move in quickly and throw the man on the spot needs positive armwork. Look carefully at the arms in the plates.

O-soto-gari (major outer reap)

This throw ranks as number two in the big contest throws. The reasons for this is that there is nearly always an opportunity for it. Secondly, it can be done very quickly and thirdly, once in position, it is very difficult for the opponent to escape. Also the man who uses o-soto- gari can apply a lot of power for forcing the throw through even if he is only partially in position. Study the photographs. You will see that the attacker has swept his partner's leg off the ground with his right leg and is throwing him to his right back corner.

The moment for this throw is when your opponent's right leg and side are forward either when he is stationary or moving forward or backwards. Stand with your partner in the natural posture. In order to sweep the opponent's leg successfully step with the left foot out to his right side and close to his right foot.Instantly the right leg follows through sweeping in an ellipse against the back of the opponent's leg. To complete the throw sweep vigorously back with right leg scooping both of the opponent's legs up and dropping him on his back. As in all these throws where you take away an opponent's legs, you must make sure that his weight is on the leg. Notice in plate 161 that my opponent's left foot is almost off the mat.

Ko-soto-gari

(minor outer reap)

This throw is similar to the last except that one's leg reaps or hooks the opponent's leg from the outside. Once again it is essential that your partner has weight on the leg you are taking away. The opportunity for this throw is when one of your opponent's legs is forward. This can happen when he is moving forward or back.

It is even possible to do the throw against a rear leg. Stand with your left foot advanced and your partner with his right foot advanced. With a short step of the left foot followed up by the right, move in closer and to the opponents side extend the left leg and using the flat of your foot or the back of your heel on the back of partner's right heel. The direction of the throw is tothe opponent's right back corner and down.

There are many other opportunities when your opponent is moving round the mat. Every time he steps with his left leg he is spreading his legs. Try with a subtle pull to make him step a little further forwards or to the side. Then attack with o-uchi-gari.

This throw is very useful for breaking up a defensive position. It is possible to attack several times in quick succession with it which should at least make your man stagger. Depending on what reactions you get it is then easy to come crashing ni with some other throw.

One last point. When you hook your opponents leg do not lift it up. If you do this you are supporting him to a certain extent. The idea of the throw is to take away his support. Aim to keep your reaping foot fairly close to the mat.

A similar throw against this wide leg stance is to use the right leg and foot against the opponent's right leg. This means shifting his weight over his right leg. This is called ko-uchi-gari.

Stand in the natural posture with your partner bracing backwards with his legs spread wide. We will assume for the minute that you have got your opponent into such a position. As you stand now it is not possible to stretch out your right leg to hook the inside of his. Starting with the right foot take a short pace forward followed by a similar short step with the left. This will bring you in closer and within range. Stretch out your right leg and with the back of your heel and lower calf sweep round in a small circle until you hit and reap away the opponent's left leg.

This is because my experience has shown that the methods I describe actually work in top competition which is the ultimate test of technique. Body mechanics and theories of 'what should work' are not taken into great consideration.

One reason for this is that surprise, which plays an enormous part in judo, can help a man win from a very inferior position. It may be possible to say that such and such a position is the best mechanically but if this position gives one's opponent a chance for an easy counter or block it will be of little use. We attempt what we can get.

This is a diagram of throwing directions against an opponent standing with his feet about shoulder width apart facing you. These directions will often be mentioned in the description of throws.

Note that most throws are in a direction which is usually against an opponent's weak point. Try not to stray from these directions as you might be trying to throw a man against his strong point.

Moving around

Having completed a few of your basic lessons your instructor should get you on to 'free practice'. This is where you try to put into actual practice all you have learnt against an attacking and defending partner. This is where the beginner is surprised to learn that the throws which seemed so easy to do against an unresisting partner now seem impossible. This is where knowing how to move round the mat comes in useful. The beginner will be shown that for most throws there is a particular position in which his partner's feet and body should be in. Some throws depend upon whether the opponent is upright or crouching over, moving forward or scuttling back. An inexperienced man will in the beginning be in a bad position but it doesn't take long to learn how to keep out of trouble and this is where it is essential to know how to manoeuvre your opponent into a suitable position for throwing. It is not usually possible to make a man move as you want. If, for example, you tried to make a man step forward with his right foot by stepping back with your left foot and pulling him forward with your left hand the chances are that he would realize what you were after and do the exact opposite. This gives a clue, however, for action. If you want a man to step forward push him backwards. In many cases he will react against your push and come forward.
However, if you make your push too hard and obvious, the opponent will realize instantly what is happening and use your own pushing action for his forward throw. The art in moving is not to make your manoeuvering obvious.

Holding your partner

If you are right handed, grip opponent's left lapel at about your own shoulder height with your right hand. If you are tall or your opponent is very small stick to this rule about shoulder height. It can be of great advantage to hold up high around the collar at the back of your partner's neck. The left hand holds the opponents sleeve halfway on the outside. There should be no slack but with the cloth gathered up until it is tight on the opponent's arm. There are several variations on holds. The standard hold is best as it gives maximum control of the opponent. The body should be slightly inclined to the right with the right foot forward. Left handers should follow these instructions substituting left for right, and right for left in all cases.

Exercise 4

is possibly the closes one can get to an actual throw. With a partner stand as in plate 152. The man standing grasps his kneeling partners sleeve and trouser at the knee and pulls up sharply thus lifting his partner up and spinning him quickly on to his back. The man who is being spun over uses his free arm to beat the mat. The force of this exercise is then gradually increased. There are several breakfall exercises. The best one is to take an easy fall and, bearing in mind the important points about the head and arms, get one's partner to gradually increase the force and speed of the throw. As this happens naturally from the first lessons on throws it is wise not to waste much time on the exercises. They should occupy no more than half of your first lesson with perhaps one or two revision periods in the second and third lessons.

After a few attempts at No. 2 exercise stand now not quite upright but with a bit of a crouch. Fall slowly backwards and to one side and roll into the mat. Do not hold the body stiff as a board or too limp. In this case where the body is falling to the side only one arm is usedfor beating. In most throws it is only possible to use one arm. However, this is sufficient. As the beginner gains more confidence he can do this last exercise with more gusto until he is almost throwing himself off his feet backwards.

The next step is to crouch down, then slowly falling backwards, roll into the mat. The head must be kept near the chest right from the beginning. If the head is slack when thrown it will snap back and hit the mat. The other natural tendency is to use the arms as supports. This must be avoided. The beginner must get used to keeping his head out of harms way and using his arms only for beating.

Ukemi

(breakfalls)

The art of falling is, in most cases, letting the broad expanse of the back take the shock of the fall. With this there are two important points to remember. The first and most important is keeping the head tucked in to avoid it banging the mat. The second is to not use the arms for saving one's position. For example, when a beginner takes up skating and his skates fly out from underneath he will drop down on his backside with both arms stretched out backwards to stop his upper body and head from hitting the ice. This is dangerous because if the fall is hard all the joints in the arm and shoulder could suffer injury. In this case it is better to keep the arms out of the way, with the chin tucked in and let the curve of the back take the impact.