Green and Sweeps? (Sandbaggers!)

Just curious, at what level would you expect to see excellent footsweeps in a Shiai?

Green by that you mean green belt?

Green belt... Yep.

Doesn't everyone learn footsweeps early on?

Yes but I think what Kai meant to say was once we see a green belt showing excellent footsweeps ability then perhaps he is a sandbagger?

I am not sure if footsweeps are good standards to measure one's judo ability.

I think it really depends. I am sure they are some black belts out there who aren't good with them. Just because they may favor uchimata or uranage. They may be able to teach them but aren't good at applying them in randori.

And in some other cases, certain judokas may develop immediate interests footsweeps since the first day of training. So they end up specializing in them and do nothing else. If they spend a lot of time practicing footsweeps strictly and nothing else then they are bound to be good at them at green belt.

I'm just being bitter... *smirks*

One of my friends in his first tourney faced off another white belt and got footswept hard with an amazingly smooth foot sweep.

i think you start to see them at the senior black belt divisions at bigger tournaments. the E level events even have a number of guys who at any moment can score with their feet.

the fall classic, nationals and above will easily have a number of matches won with beautiful foot techniques. there are also a lot of coaches out there who have very traditional judo and are awesome at them.

-resnick

I lived on sasae and hiza white-green. Though I'm tall and pretty long legged. I still use them as setups for other throws or to get a guy bent over so i can take a belt grip.

Could be just luck, too. White belts sometimes do beautfiul throws in shiai by sheer chance, and then spend the next five years trying to figure how the hell they did them. :)

hell, i still do that Scyth. last night we were watching a few highlight tapes and sat there saying "how the hell did'ja do that?" at nearly every single throw. sometimes in this sport some of the most brilliant throws happen just becuase we were holding on rahter than trying to make something happen at all.

-resnick

KT-

Are you in Kalamazoo?

Ron

Ron: Was. I was also part of the Judo Club at WMU back in the day.

Taking some time off in my Senior year for burnout.

When were you at WMU? I also started judo at WMU. Anyway, if you're in the area, feel free to work out with us down at Southside. www.southsidedojo.com for directions and schedule.

RB

RonB From 1998.

I worked out there 1990-1995. On and off until the program was cancelled - around '98.

Ron

Ron: Yep, it was cancelled after my first year there, and I had to scoot out elsewhere to train. I trained with Local Brett Al-Azzawi from then on out.

That's cool. Brett rolls down at SSD now. I talked to him a few weeks ago, and he said he's planning to move to California.

Anyway, if you're ever around here, come by and play.

RB

I'm a lame green belt and my two best throws are
kouchi and ouchi. Neiter look pretty, but I get them
every now and then.

Greg