Foot Sweep drills

I was wondering if you all knew of any good solo drills that I could do to better my foot sweeps. Or any other bits of info. that would help me in learning to do foot sweeps better. I was looking for solo drills, because 99.9% of the time, I cant find training partners, so I have to train myself.

You can get an old car tire from the junkyard and sweep it round the back yard.

You can also get a barbell and put about 20 pounds on one end. Hold the unweighted end and 'sweep' the weighted end for about 50 reps. This one's good for balance

get a soccer ball. put it on a rope. take it to the park and kick the living shit out of it.

nothing prepares you to really get somebody's foot moving like a true kick. =)

Mike Swain developed a "Judo Sweeper." It's like a foam pod with a sand bag that you can adjust at the bottom. Very good for developing ashiwaza skills!

What do you mean by "adjust"? I haven't seen this particular device but others are straight forward rubber "pods".
I've seen the picture and it doesn't look "adjustable", can you give a little more detail? I'm interested in buying it.

Do the basic sweeping motions statically, then move forwards, backwards, and sideways. Do a lot of them, and concentrate on good form, working up your speed as you get better. Visualize an opponent/uke as you do this. Make sure to use good hand motion as well.

Take a paper towel. Lay it on the mat (hard floor works too). Practice sweeping the towel around, from one end of the mat/area to the other. You can do the same with a wadded up piece of notebook paper too. The better you get, the smaller the wad of paper. This helps you to keep you foot close to the mat and your foot pointed/cupped, which is proper form for sweeping.

Get the Ippon Series book on Ashi Waza by N. Sato, and find some video tapes of good foot sweeps to help you visualize the movement and actions (the Kodokan Gokyo No Waza Tape is good for that purpose, as it shows different directions and variations).

Ben R.

swain's lil foot sweeper is cool cause you can truly nail that damn thing as hard as ya want to and it'll just slide smoothly. not mention that it has numbers all over it so you constantly have to adjust your attack direction and stuff which make it good for balance while on 1 foot.

the problem with foot sweeps is that people dont kick hard enough when they do em. everybody cries and cries about being kicked in judo so nobody really wants to be the bad guy. fuck that. getting kicked is a part of judo when the fella does foot techniques. deal with it. it isnt intentional, the guy is just trying a throw and doing it full force like it should be done. GET. SHIN. PADS.

like i said, anybody who is any good at foot techniques will kick you 10 times for every throw. they dont care, neither should you.

I've got to agree in Resnick. As I came into judo from a striking art where shin kicks and checking the opponents shins are common, I've become known as a "hacker" because when I check your leg.. I whack the crap out of it.. It's really a kick in disguise.. I've got the power and understood the concept of commiting thru the leg, now I've just got to develop better timing.. and more varied ashiwaza. (among the many many other aspects of my pitiful skills)


btw: big guys, I often find that when doing randori with a young student or an older judoka or maybe a guy that says "let's go light" (LOL) that this is the perfect time to practice ashiwaza and tai sabaki and it take the uke's fear of you using your power against them. they'll be more open and you'll get better practice instead of an uke who's defensive and stiff.

-Take and old (or new) pair of pants.

-Tie off the bottom opening with tape or a string.

-Stuff the pants legs with old clothes.

-Put a couch pillow or some type of pillow in the top portion of the pants.

You now have a leg sweeping dummy that you can use to perform leg sweeps on.

I earned a reputation for shin kicking myself, and started asking for advice. The most clear advice (from Brett Cooper, NZ coach who was in Seattle at the time): go ahead and kick them.

But, he also pointed out something, which is to err n the side of coming in early to get your foot in position, then sweep. Then you don't have to have exact timing. Also using your whole leg if you can (contact from thigh down like in okuri-ashi-barai or harai-tsurikomi-ashi). Then you get your whole body into it, plus it's an easier target to hit. I.e. coming in fast but late + using only foot = kick (w/low chance of success).

Hey guys... i just want to let you know that i have read this thread and for the last week i have really been focusing on sweeps and my foot work and this weekend i went into a tournament and even though i was fighting in a heavier weight class... i won all my matches with foot techinques.. i had 2 kosoto garis for ippon and 2 kouchi garis for ippon..

i am definately not trying to brag but i just wanted to let you guys know that your input really can help people out

Thanks for contributing!

Great job!

I think kicking the crap out of somebody should be incidental, not the primary goal. You can't say ashi waza are about timing and they say "just kick the crap out of them, it works".

OK, so you can say it, I just disagree.

Note that I do kick the crap out of guys at times when I'm doing footsweeps, but I'm not just letting fly and hoping it works, I'm setting it up and TRYING to do the technique correctly.

Ben R.