The "Ah Hah!" Moment

[Munacra]

Serge, tell me about Harai Goshi, since that is a throw in which I have the mechanics down well enough but still fail at setting it up in Randori.

[theotherserge]

Serge, tell me about Harai Goshi, since that is a throw in which I have the mechanics down well enough but still fail at setting it up in Randori.

well son, have a little sit on my lap and daddy will...eewww! *shiver*

I find that training Uchimata first is harder to learn but easily converts over to Harai-. If you have the principles down for Uchi then you will get Harai as well

It is just hard to get anything in randori, unless you're fighting a bunch of chunners.

If you've had success combining Ko-Uchi, why not try Ko-Uchi into Harai Goshi? You need to get a very good hip-switch to pull it off.

Here's a killer vid, ignore the French and watch:

[ur"]YouTube - JUDO Harai goshi par F. Dambach
[/URL]

[theotherserge]

also, O Guruma by Mifune was an "Aha" moment for me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<obje...mbed></object>

[HAPKO3]

For me, the biggest "ah hah" moment so far has not been about technique, but about faith.

A while ago, I was a couple of years into being a white belt and my game felt like it was stagnating. I was forever stuck in high white belt limbo (i see this in other people all the time) where I would beat most other white belts and almost inevitably lose to anyone ranked higher than me. I would often be able to hold on for a long time defending, but would still lose or at least never really have a chance of winning, minus a few flukes.

I must've spent a few months in this state when my instructor gave me a talk on having faith in my game. He told me that my technique is getting solid and that all I need to do is to stop hesitating and go for things.

Then something clicked - I started really committing to my attacks and being a lot more cold and calculating in my defense. Shortly thereafter I started tapping out blue belts and sometimes even more advanced people. In a few weeks my instructor gave me my own blue belt.

All in all, this has probably been my most powerful instant realization in my entire time training.

[jnp]

v1y's post moved here: Armbar from guard, need help - No BS Martial Arts

[265lbsfist]

My biggest aha moment recently was when I was told by my instructor to keep the knees as tightly together as I could when doing the S-mount. My control increased 100% and the arms were much easier to attack. Should've been obvious but my laziness had me sitting loosely on top of my opponents instead of really cinching it in.

Employing grip fighting techniques I learned from judo to play within my own guard also opened up my game alot.

[HAPKO3]

One more thing.

In training, when starting from the knees, pick either top or bottom position and go from there. I've spent a lot of my training time basically working on takedowns from the knees that are useless in competition and take up valuable training time that I could have spent working on other stuff.

Now, when I start from the knees, I will pull guard if my opponent is aggressive or go into their guard if they're not. Not engaging in knee-wrestling lets me work on all the other parts of the game that actually matter.

[Ungjaevel]

In training, when starting from the knees, pick either top or bottom position and go from there. I've spent a lot of my training time basically working on takedowns from the knees that are useless in competition and take up valuable training time that I could have spent working on other stuff.

That was an important moment for me as well, not only because I stopped wasting valuable sparring time, but also because that was the moment when I finally stopped being a competitive prick about sparring.