6/18/11 – Adult judo Waza of the Week!
The adult judo class concentrated on Harai Goshi this week. Harai Goshi is one of the 40 throws from the judo Gokyo. It is a popular and quite effective competition technique, as well as being useful in a self defense context.
Harai Goshi is classified as a hip (Goshi) throw. Although the grip is different from ogoshi, the hip placement and contact are very similar. While learning the throw, it can be useful to grasp around the waist as in Ogoshi, while adding the leg sweep. This helps to emphasize that Harai Goshi is executed with uki loaded fully on the hip.
To execute the technique, Tori breaks uki’s balance towards uki’s front right corner, while quickly turning and loading uki onto the hip. As tori is turning and loading uki onto the hip, tori’s reaction will be to begin sliping off and around the hip to the front right. Tori foils this by sweeping the leg back. The sweeping leg also helps to guarantee uki is rotated onto his back.
It is important that tori sweep the leg as low as possible, trying to brush the toes on the mat a the bottom of the sweep. Failure to do so gives uki the opportunity to grap the sweeping thigh with his hand, which at best will thwart the throw, and at worst result in a spectacular counter throw.
Additionally, while it can appear that the leg “lifts” uki, it does not. Lift is accomplished primarily with the hip. The leg is more of a guide, and perhaps a counter weight which allow tori to pull uki explosively, and to follow through.
In the video, Sensei Rick, Sean Carmack and Matt Lawton and myself demonstrate Harai Goshi.
Sensei Pat