I’ve been doing Judo since February, and have been doing randori for about 6 weeks. I’m at a small club (affiliated with a larger club) that has only been around for about 7 months and pretty much everyone there is a white or yellow belt.
When we randori we go all out with full resistance. I have the advantage of being bigger (well, heavier) than most of the other guys there, so I have been able to land some throws, mainly o soto gari and the occasional foot sweep. At this point, I am probably relying more on brute force rather than good technique.
I’ve been reading in other places that it’s not always wise to go full out in randori, especially as a beginner. Rather, it’s better to be somewhat compliant in order to get the feel of certain throws and to be able to actually pull them off.
I’m curious as to what other’s experience has been, especially as beginners. Did you go all out from the get-go or did you ease into it?
We will sometimes do “light randori” to practice throws. However, normally when we roll and when we randori we are all pretty competitive and go all out. That includes all the whites and greens too. Shoot, half the time when doing “light randori” it degenerates into a brawl anyway! lol
OP I think you’re on the right track. At my club it’s similar. The philosophy is that going either too light or too hard can be counterproductive. In either scenario you’re not going to learn as much as finding the happy medium relative to you and your partner’s skill. Not too mention the increased likelihood of injury if you always go all-out (can’t learn much if you have to sit out for two weeks.)
Another thing we do is “situational randori” where we’ll be required to work the techniques we’ve been drilling. This can be a round of “forward throws only” or “if you’re a righty play left and if you’re a lefty play right.”
Either way you adjust the resistance/intensity relative to you and your partner’s skill. I could go all out against my coach and still get tooled. He could go all out against me and ruin my day. Neither would be much of a learning experience.
Whenever I do Randori I’m always trying to work on doing something live full force, its not a competition you’re trying to develop what you learned that day just keep going for whatever you learned and so as to add it to your skill set.
We’re similar. Everyone who is above green belt at our gym has training from somewhere else. Assuming more or less equal skill and size, we always try full bore to throw, but we don’t fall on people unless we have to to complete the throw, and we don’t try to twist out of throws or do other dangerous escapes. If someone gets you airborn you take the throw. We also don’t go for extended gripfights.
Unless we are drilling those specific things of course.
I think what you may be reading is cautions against some common beginner habits like stiff arming and being too aggressive in defense.
I’m fairly new to judo too, so this is just what I do and not advice.
Mostly I try to partner with guys who are bigger and stronger than me, and go as hard as I can without spazzing all over. If I wind up against someone who is weaker than me (i.e. the skinny 19 year-old I had last night), I just try to match their strength and win by better technique. I don’t think I’m learning anything if I win just by being stronger.
I think we follow a lot of those same “unwritten” guidelines. Once I feel my feet start to leave the ground, I just go with the throw instead of resisting. I’ve seen footage of tournaments where guys end up landing on their heads and shoulders really awkwardly just to avoid being thrown onto their backs.
Of course, the one time I went against my instructor he threw me so fast I didn’t even have time to react. Fortunately he wasn’t going all out and he kept himself from landing on top of me. (Good thing since he probably weighs at least 230 lbs.)
I also learned the downside of being too defensive. There’s a yellow belt that has a great tomoe nage, and he gets me with it every time I start to crouch down too low.
Happy Old Guy nailed it. We go very hard quite often, but take the throw if someone has you. We focus on clean technique as much as possible and avoid reaping the side’s of people’s knees, watch out for fingers caught in the gi, etc. Basically, we go hard but try to look out for each other.
One thing to watch out for is just relying on speed and muscle. You’re not gaining much by just demonstrating that you are faster or stronger than someone. But improving your technique can really help your game. Sometimes keeping things amped down and slow will really allow you to examine the timing and angles much better.
If you can practice in a controlled manner you can examine and improve your technique, then add the speed and power when it is called for. You can always add speed and power.
If you always practice with lots of muscle and speed, you many have difficulty seeing what is wrong with your technique. You won’t be able to just simply add good technique to the equation.
Pretty much what HappyOldGuy said. We sometimes go light, but mostly it’s full resistance but without being an idiot about it (shiai will always be different from randori no matter what, so there’s no need to risk injury).
With newer guys we go lighter of course. If they’re bigger than me I won’t let them get a good hold though, and I’ll dance away from their attempts. I’ve had bad experiences involving crunched ribs as a white belt, and I’m not going through that again if I can help it.
I personaly think that begginers go way to hard in live rolling rather then working on better technique. Using too much muscle rather then proper movement. You may want to consider doing various degrees of “hardness” when doing randori.
For example, go really light for the first round, working at about 50% of full force working more on proper application of technique and having more a “back and forth” with your partner rather then trying to making it a point to submit him. Next round raise it up so that your working more aggressivly and trying to win, but still working at a speed that lets you do good technique. For the 3rd round you can go full force.
One thing we do is offense/defense rounds. One person will stay out in the middle and everybody lines up and has 30 seconds to a minute each to attack while the guy in the middle defends. That way you can go full force and concentrate on offense or defense and work multiple body/skill types in a short amount of time. Then do regular randori after that.
Randori is usually full contact, however you don’t try and slam people as hard as you can (from what I have seen, most of the time 6 kyus aren’t allowed to participate but I’ve had a go a couple of times). Pins are also drilled specifically with resistance, however I’m not sure if you would qualify that as randori per se.
Unless you are getting ready for an upcoming competition, you should try to inprove yourself in randori. For example, you said you were mostly winning in randori with o-soto gari, so to improve yourself stop using o-soto, and try to throw with a move you are not as good at. If your a lot bigger than uke you should really try to use as little power as possible. If you are getting ready for a tournament then stick to the same two or three power moves is randori and uchi komi.
So I should probably stop tossing that female orange-belt around like a rag doll in randori. Oops. I must oughtweigh her by at least 60 lbs, so she’s the one person in the club I can beat. Damn.
Randori is not shiai. It is a “free” drill designed to simulate shiai, yet allow folks to take risks and attempt to work on those things they don’t do well, in addition to what they do well. If a person is keeping a tally on how many throws, submissions, or pins, they are missing the point.
In addition, randori can be a set in a particular situation, allowing free play within a specific context.