Comrade Butterfly Guard now an Unperson

[BKR]

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I've had a little think about what we used to call the positions before we adopted BJJ terminology. Half guard was 'with one leg trapped', Guard was 'in between the legs' and Turtle was 'uke on all fours'. Whenever we did newaza randori we would be told to either start in one of those positions or from the knees.

I was at a session once where Japanese female third dan taught standing guard sweeps, they were introduced as something like 'methods of defence when on your back against a standing opponent'.

Don't really know where I'm going with this but just kind of running through how Judo has dealt with not having names for transitional positions.

I use "turtle", "legs around bottom", "one leg trapped" stuff like that, and show the position. ***Edi**** half guard was was "niju garami". Lots of methods to free your leg if on top, only a 2-3 of what in BJJ would be "half guard sweeps", maybe one was from "deep half guard".

The instruction from higher level japanese sensei I have gotten was pretty much devoid of positional terminology. Show the position, show the way to attack it, escape it, or drills related to it. I do not think that a name for each variation or method would have made it any easier to remember. More practice would have made it easier, though. When a teacher gets 5-6 deep into "if uke does this, then do this" for a single attack, remembering gets pretty tough anyway, names or no names.

Ben

[judoka_uk]

The instruction from higher level japanese sensei I have gotten was pretty much devoid of positional terminology. Show the position, show the way to attack it, escape it, or drills related to it. I do not think that a name for each variation or method would have made it any easier to remember. More practice would have made it easier, though. When a teacher gets 5-6 deep into "if uke does this, then do this" for a single attack, remembering gets pretty tough anyway, names or no names.

Ben

Yeh when Hosaka sensei who was Kodokan 8th dan used to teach half guard it was just 'this is how you get your leg free method 1, method 2 etc...'

It irritates me when people go off on 5 or so variations because it is really hard to remember everything especially for beginners who end up starting with technique one then doing random bits from the other 4. I work by the adage 'show them everything, teach them nothing' and try to limit myself to 2 variations at anyone time.

[BKR]

Yeh when Hosaka sensei who was Kodokan 8th dan used to teach half guard it was just 'this is how you get your leg free method 1, method 2 etc...'

It irritates me when people go off on 5 or so variations because it is really hard to remember everything especially for beginners who end up starting with technique one then doing random bits from the other 4. I work by the adage 'show them everything, teach them nothing' and try to limit myself to 2 variations at anyone time.

In my particular case, the visiting instructor was at the dojo for one and a half years, so we did drill the sequences a lot (I was doing Judo 4 days a week in advanced judo class). He was very organized in presentation, so it was not so bad.But still, names would not have done any good. I do not know how he remembered it all. He was from Tokai University, so had direct instruction from Sato, Yamashita, et al..

Ben