Skills
Not every graded skill has a technique name. Breakfalls, gripping, escapes and turnovers are taught, drilled and examined exactly like techniques, and the first thing anyone learns in judo is on this page rather than on any of the others.
Ukemi受身 · breakfalls
How to land. The first thing taught and the first thing examined.
- Mae Mawari Ukemi, The forward rolling breakfall: turning a forward fall into a roll along the diagonal of your back, coming out on your side.
- Mae Ukemi, The forward breakfall: stopping a straight fall onto your face with your forearms, without rolling.
- Ushiro Ukemi, The rear breakfall: how to land safely on your back.
- Yoko Ukemi, The side breakfall: landing on one side rather than flat on your back.
Kumi-kata組み方 · gripping
Taking a grip, keeping it, and answering the grip you are given.
- Alternative grips, Everything other than the standard grip: same-side and cross grips, the double lapel, the high collar over the shoulder, and the sleeve-and-belt.
- Gripping against the opposite stance, Right-handed against left-handed, and the reverse.
- Standard grip, The basic right-handed grip that almost every technique in this reference assumes: left hand on their right sleeve, right hand on their left lapel.
Escapes · getting out from underneath
Getting out from under a hold, which every syllabus examines beside the hold itself.
- Escape from Yoko-shiho-gatame into Sankaku-gatame, An escape that ends ahead rather than merely free: as the side hold is settled, the bottom judoka swings their legs up, closes a triangle around the holder’s head and near arm, and finishes holding rather than being held.
- Escape into Kesa-gatame from between the legs, Not an escape from a hold but from a position: trapped between your partner's legs, you pass them and arrive in a hold of your own.
- Escape into Yoko-shiho-gatame past the legs, The same passing problem finished on the other side: instead of coming all the way to a scarf hold you settle square across them in the side four quarters hold, which is quicker and harder to escape..
- Kami-shiho-gatame escape by action and reaction, A hold from above your head is hard to bridge straight out of, so you use their own correction against them: push one way, let them resist, then go the other.
- Kesa-gatame bridge-and-roll escape, The other side of the same hold: instead of trapping a leg you attack their head-side balance, bridging hard and rolling them over your own shoulder line.
- Kesa-gatame escape by trapping the leg, The first escape on the junior syllabus.
- Kuzure-kesa-gatame escape by sitting up and pushing, The broken scarf hold passes an arm under your armpit rather than around your neck, which leaves your head free.
- Mune-gatame escape by bridge and roll, Mune-gatame holds you chest to chest across the body.
- Tate-shiho-gatame escape by clamping and rolling, Being held astride is the hardest hold to escape and the most important to learn, because it is where a lock or a strangle usually follows.
- Yoko-shiho-gatame escape by trap, bridge and roll, Three actions in one movement, and the syllabuses name all three: trap an arm so they cannot post, bridge to lift their weight, and roll in the direction the bridge sends them..
Turnovers · turning a defending partner
Turning a partner who is defending on all fours or flat, and arriving in a hold.
- Arm roll from the front, The same principle worked from in front of a turtled partner rather than beside them.
- Arm roll from the side, Rolling a turtled partner by taking one arm out from under them, working from beside them.
- Turnover into Kata-te-jime, Against a turtled partner: one hand feeds deep across the neck to take the far lapel, and the turnover and the single-hand strangle arrive together, so defending one exposes the other.
- Turnover into Kesa-gatame, Your partner is on all fours and defending.
- Turnover into Mune-gatame, The same problem finished square instead of at an angle.
- Turnover into Sankaku-gatame, Against a partner defending on all fours: the attacker threads a leg triangle around head and arm from the side, then rolls them over their own shoulder into Sankaku-gatame.
- Turnover into Tate-shiho-gatame from beneath, The one turnover that starts from underneath.
- Turnover into Yoko-shiho-gatame, A partner lying face down is a different problem from a turtled one: there is no gap to reach through, so you use their near arm and shoulder as the lever and roll them along their own length..