Ep. 387: Trips & Foot Sweeps, feat. Isa Friedlander & Chris Round

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I just want to let you know, we released a new mindset course featuring Rob Bernaki from Island Top Team and BJJ Concepts. It's called Mindset for Betas. It's an amazing resource that breaks down a new way to build a resilient jiu-jitsu mindset. It's part of BJJ Mental Models Premium. I will spare you the full sales pitch because you can try it for free. Just go to BJJmentalmodels.com/beta. I will give you a free month, you can check out the course and if you decide that it's not worth your money, you can cancel, you won't have to pay a cent. I've already been told by subscribers that this is the most valuable piece of jiu-jitsu content they've ever received, so I hope you like it too. Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to BJJ Mental Models episode 387. I'm Steve Kwan and BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent jiu-jitsu approach. Here with a panel episode. I'm excited about this. We're going to be talking about foot sweeps and trips today. Great topic with two great guests. First, I have a returning champion. I've got Christopher Round on the line. Chris, how's it going? Speaker 2: Going great. How are you doing, Steve? Speaker 1: Also doing good and I've got a new person. I've got Isa Friedlander on the line. Isa, how's it going? Speaker 3: Good. How are you? Speaker 1: Still doing great and I'm excited for this chat. Let's get the ball rolling though. Maybe I'll pass it over to you guys. First, some quick intros though. Chris, if people missed our earlier chat, want to just say hi and remind everyone about who you are? Speaker 2: Sure. Hi everyone. My name is Dr. Christopher Round. I am the head judo instructor for High Noon out of Alexandria, Virginia. I've been coaching on the IGF tour and on the national level for a long time at this point. And I've coached athletes at the Junior World Championships. I've coached them on various events on the IGF tour, which is the International Judo Federation tour. And I've been involved in the Olympic pipeline for judo since I was a kid. I'm a black belt in judo under JB Pedro and a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Dr. Roddy Ferguson. I've had the opportunity on the Brazilian jiu-jitsu side to train a lot of great gyms. Actually, I used to train at Unity where Isa's from and now I'm based out of Alexandria at High Noon. Speaker 1: Amazing. And Isa, how about a quick intro from you? You were the suggested guest here for this topic from Chris, but I'll let you say it in your words. Why don't you tell everyone about yourself? Speaker 3: Yeah, so my name is Isa. I was born and raised in Costa Rica and in high school, I spent some time competing on the Costa Rican national team. And then I moved to the US for college and also competed in judo throughout my college years. And a couple years after college, I represented Team USA in judo. And then during COVID, I transitioned to coaching judo and training jiu-jitsu. And a few years ago, I went and took a class at Unity and kind of fell in love with it there and got really into competing in jiu-jitsu. So now I'm a brown belt in jiu-jitsu from Unity and I spend my time training jiu-jitsu and coaching judo and a little bit of jiu-jitsu, both at the Dojo, which is a gym in Bushwick and at Unity in Manhattan. Speaker 1: Fantastic. And I know that you two were working on a foot sweeps instructional and I thought, you know what, this is a great time while this is fresh in mind to share some of the key concepts here with the jiu-jitsu audience. Most of the grapplers that I know love the idea of foot sweeps, but because we train jiu-jitsu and it's so easy and tempting to just sit down, people often don't really develop the refined motor skills that you need to pull those off. And so often it's an idea that people love, but they can't really execute. So I thought who better to talk to than you two about this. And the nice thing about a panel is I can shut up and let Chris and Isa do the talking. So I will maybe pass this over to you, Chris. Do you want to introduce this and get the ball rolling on some of the key concepts behind this and and what your work has found? Speaker 2: Sure. So when we talk about foot sweeps, we're talking about using the area underneath our knee to displace our partner's lower extremities. So typically that what that looks like is using our heel or our instep, in some cases actually the outside of our foot as well, in some way interact with our partner's ankle or foot to take one of the legs out off from underneath the table, so to speak. So typically when we've seen Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kind of like the beginner version of that more often than not, a lot of times we first introduce it, at least in my experience, when I was coming to Brazilian jiu-jitsu from my judo background, I end up deploying a lot of foot sweeps and not in the way that you would normally use in judo. So in judo, you use them to check attacks, you use them to counter, you use them to check somebody's base, use them for a lot of different purposes beyond just trying to score. In jiu-jitsu, it's actually timing that guard pull that I initially found I could use them for. So techniques like what's called Ouchi Gari or Kosoto Gake, you can use them to either time that guard pull or even you can even with techniques like Kosoto Gake, you can actually set your foot in a way where, come on, please guard pull so I can have my two points. Isa, what's your experience been in bringing foot sweeps into Brazilian jiu-jitsu? Speaker 3: Yeah, I think for me, the when you think of the all of the techniques in judo, all of the takedowns in judo, a lot of them, you're turning your back to your partner, which for judo is okay because if you end up in turtle, it's not the end of the world. But in jiu-jitsu, if you fail a throw and you end up in turtle, it's pretty bad. So I like to think about what are some judo techniques that are lower risk for jiu-jitsu. And any technique where you can try to execute it and you're still facing your partner, so you're not turning away from them, is going to be much lower risk. So already, we're kind of narrowing down all the throws in judo for jiu-jitsu and we're thinking mostly about trips and sweeps. And for me, I try not to be too pedantic, but saying trips and sweeps is really important to me. And Chris, this is something we could maybe get nerdy about maybe at another time, but yeah, the idea of trips and sweeps. So either getting your partner down or off balance when the leg is light, so a sweep, or when their leg is heavy, a trip. And using not just your feet, like you said, but also your hands and your hips. Those are equally important for our trips and our sweeps. So when I think about using my takedowns and my judo background for jiu-jitsu, I'm thinking about lower risk attacks like trips and sweeps to, yeah, score off the pull, like you were saying, Chris, but also just to kind of keep my partner constantly off balance, whether I'm the one playing guard, I can do trips and sweeps, whether I'm wrestling, whether I'm hand fighting, whether I'm about to pull guard, or sometimes even in like other positions, like when I'm playing key master, stuff like that. Speaker 2: I think that's a great breakdown. And by the way, there's I don't think there's a better podcast to just get into the weeds with than yours, Steve. Hey, so we can jump right into that a bit. But, you know, one thing I'll say to that comes into play that's great about foot sweeps versus say a single leg or double leg or a high crotch is that from an energy perspective, they're pretty low. Once you get kind of comfortable with the core movements and there's not a ton of them. You know, for the most part, as long as my leg's not getting caught up in a single when I go into something, I'm not going to expend a ton of energy. It's very much a low risk, high reward attack and there's not a ton of those in grappling, just across the board. You know, a lot of times, you know, the best you might do is something that's like, ah, low energy but medium risk or vice versa, you know, you kind of call that a good day. You know, a foot sweep works if I'm 130 pounds wrestling with somebody who's 220 pounds and it works if I'm 220 pounds and wrestling with somebody who's my size. Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of agree with that. I mean, size difference always matter. Speaker 2: Of course, 100%. Let's be very clear. Speaker 3: But I do think trips and sweeps can be really great equalizers and you're right, they don't require as much energy expenditure. And you also don't have to level change the way you do when you're going for shots. And I feel like right now it sounds like we're doing like a sales pitch for trips and sweeps, which I think if you talk to any judo person, they would be like, yes, of course, we need our Ashi Waza, like we need our foot sweeps techniques. Because I think like for judo, when you think of like the underlying fundamentals of judo, it's just essential. Like if you ask any judoka what techniques they need, they're going to name at least a few foot sweeps and trips or Ashi Waza. Speaker 2: So Isa, how are you defining trips versus sweeps? Speaker 3: So for me, this is again, just kind of like my own definition based on like how I teach and what makes sense when I teach and also when I train. But when I think about a sweep, I'm catching the leg when it's light. So like a Dashibarai or like Harai Sutemi Komi Ashi. And then a trip is is something when the leg is heavy. And by the leg, I mean our partner's leg. So like Sasai or Osoto or Ouchi Gari. And this can be debated for sure, but for me, if I want to really simplify trips and sweeps, that's kind of what I'm saying. One of the reasons I came up with this kind of delineation is because I noticed in teaching, especially my jiu-jitsu students, people who are like even blue to black belt jiu-jitsu students, they get really confused between different like leg techniques. And a lot of times that's how you end up just kind of like accidentally kicking your partner's leg instead of really going for a technique. So I always say like when I'm going for a Dashibarai, that's a sweep in my mind. I'm catching the leg when it's light. And then let's say Sasai, which is a technique that a lot of people kind of confuse with Dashibarai. I'm catching the leg when it's heavy. But of course, Chris, you can disagree with me. It's probably an oversimplification. Speaker 2: I mean, so what you're touching on, I think of through a slightly different conceptual lens. So in general, I think of timing in two different ways. I think of timing, and this will come back to hooks and sweeps. You know, when I think of timing, I think of what I call structural timing and on the move timing. So on the move timing would be like catching that foot sweep as we're moving, where structural timing is I've created a structure that effectively via leverage can overpower another structure. So the way I would think about that would be in this context, you know, if I think about a major inner reaping throw, so an inside trip or Ouchi Gari, you know, a very timing version of it is I get my partner to take a step and my leg hooks the inside of their leg, my hamstring gets into the back of their hamstrings and kind of pulling your foot out from underneath them. That'd be more of a sweep, I think under your definition versus when I kind of crash into somebody and I use my foot to kind of pull that that stack leg out of position. Like how Kayla used to hit some of her OGs back when she was competing. Kayla Harrison for those who don't know was an Olympic champion for the United States, where she would grapple a pound and kind of laughs through you almost like it was a double. That's kind of how I think about those two in difference. But yeah, kind of roughly aligns to how you think about it. Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think like when people talk about timing, you want to get, if you really want to get into it, you can get really specific about what that timing means. But yeah, that that makes a lot of sense to me. And I think like if you think about the way that like Suzuki, Koji Suzuki, one of the like most well-known like foot sweep technicians does his foot sweeps. A lot of times he's doing that like structural timing that you're talking about for Dashibarai, where he just like brings the other person's head down so low close to the mat that it doesn't even really matter what you're doing with your leg. So to me, a lot of trips and sweeps is like all in the hands. It's what your hands are doing, not really what your legs are doing or even the timing. And that kind of goes to like what you're talking about with the the structural timing is like, how are you using your hands to move your partner or your opponent's head? And if you can get your partner's head or shoulder line super off balance in one direction or another, then you can trip or sweep them. So that kind of aligns with like the structural timing that you're talking about, I think, if I understand correctly. Speaker 2: Yeah, as a fun aside, actually, I remember, I didn't get to train with them, but I was on the mat with Suzuki in Japan, you know, back in the Stone Age. I remember getting a chance to see him do that live in practice and that was a lot of fun. Nice dude. But, you know, I think to your point and where I'd like to kind of start to steer this is how we teach them. You know, I love times when I had a really good conversation with Justin Flores about this. And, you know, well, I'll put that aside for a second, but I like to think of what you're describing as like an L-shape. So I'm just trying to get someone's shoulders and hips out of alignment. So whether that's their, you know, a lot of times on Ashi Waza on foot sweeps, so what we're looking for is we're looking to bring someone's shoulders out over the side past their hips. You know, in some cases it might be slightly forward, like with Sasai or even forward, forward. And then, you know, when we're talking about trips, more often than not, it's bring their shoulders out past us, out past their butt, basically. Is how I tend to think about what the structural disruption is. So I like to think about, you know, when we talk about discussions about whether to apply CLA or more traditional training methodologies, you know, I think actually foot sweeps and trips are a very interesting case study for how these two different styles can be used for teaching. How do you like to teach foot sweeps and trips? Speaker 3: I tend to really use a variety of different kind of like training modalities. I think for trips and sweeps, I really like to build kind of from the ground up, both literally and kind of conceptually. I like to start with really basic footwork and getting people to understand how to use their hands, which is something that I explain in my instructional, just what are you using, what are you doing with your hands to get your partner's head or shoulder line in a certain direction. And that's exactly what you were just talking about. So we start usually with no resistance, our Uke or our partner, our drilling partner is just kind of helping us get a feel for the technique. And for me, for judo, when we're training throws, we're making shapes. And so what I really want is when we start from the beginning is to figure out how to make a shape. So let's say for Sasai, which is one of the takedowns that I show in the instructional, the shape I'm trying to make is really getting my partner's head and shoulder line coming forwards, while my hands are doing the steering wheel motion. And then my leg is making a hockey stick shape and that's kind of wrapping around the shin. And those are like the three main elements that we focus on when we're learning Sasai. And that's the shape we want to make. And that's kind of the groundwork for like whatever technique we're doing. What shape do we need to make? Can we practice making that shape? And then once we have that down, we start adding movement to it and context to it. So if my partner does this, then I want to do this. If I want to set up Sasai, then I want to do this, right? So we start with just making the shape and then once we are comfortable making the shape, we start with movement, trying to understand when to apply the technique, if our partner gives us the opportunity, and then how to kind of set up the technique if we know we want to go for that technique. Something I think people have a misconception about is a lot of foot sweeps that you see, especially like in the highlight reels, tend to be really opportunistic foot sweeps. Like the other person makes a mistake, and because they made that mistake, you kind of you're sticking your leg out, you're taking advantage of that error and you're catching that really nice sweep. And those are great, but what we really want to train is more like the intentional trips and sweeps that we're doing. And we're thinking like, how can we really set this up? So Sasai, for example, if my partner's kind of charging towards me, pushing into me really, really hard, that's a very good opportunity to go for Sasai. But then how do I intentionally set this technique up? I need my partner to push into me. So what is a really simple way to set that up? I push into them, they push back, and then I can do Sasai. So now we're talking about like actually setting the technique up and thinking about how we can learn to feel the technique. So that's sort of like the second layer of how I teach is how do we set this up? What is the context? What do I need to feel from my partner, either intentionally or opportunistically, to be able to do the throw? And then once we have that down, the third layer is what is this going to look like in Randori? What is this going to look like in a live training? So Randori is just the judo term for live training in class. So we think about like, what is Sasai going to look like in live training? What problems am I going to run into? How might I struggle with it in the round? And then we start looking at that. So, for example, with Sasai, a lot of times my partner will push into me, I'll go for the Sasai, but they end up with their shoulder line so far forwards that you miss the leg. So what do you do next? You can snap them down, you can follow it up with a different technique. You have a couple options. So just kind of building the layers from really basic making shapes all the way up to how can we troubleshoot this in a Randori? Hopefully that makes sense. Can't tell if I was just rambling or not. Speaker 2: It's all right. No, it does. So, you know, one of my favorite stories about teaching foot sweeps is actually, there's a technique in judo called Tsubame Gaeshi. It's just counter a foot sweep with a foot sweep. And, you know, I learned the basic shape of how to do a foot sweep and how to make that hockey stick shape. But I how I actually learned how to do a re-foot sweep was actually in a game my dad and I used to play together. My dad liked to call it kitchen judo. So my dad was also a judo player and he would come up, I'm a righty and he would play lefty and we'd play this game where we were both trying to foot sweep the lead foot. Now, the fact that this was being done in my mother's kitchen, I'm very thankful that we never broke anything. But one of the things that came from that was because I was dealing with and, you know, this other people on this podcast that you've had, Steve, that can explain this a little bit more fluently than I can. But because it's, you know, there's a perception action coupling that's occurring. I found that I was able to quickly pick those things up and a lot of what I've been working on recently has been efforts to find other situations like that where we can take something that's normally difficult to time and condense the space down that we actually get to play with it and make it something consistent. And something related to that, you know, part of why that's hard to do is you just nailed it was so many foot sweeps are targets of opportunity. You know, you're mentioning Suzuki. If you count the number of foot sweeps Suzuki would try in a match, it was a pretty high volume. You know, some of the not all those were winners. And and this comes back to timing and other elements. But this is something that I think, you know, aside from what I was going on about about finding, you know, particular opportunities to play with the timing of things, understanding that there's some value in, you know, taking a punches and bunches approach when you're starting to learn foot sweeps. As long as of course, you're not shredding your partner's shins. So how do you, you know, one kind of what are your thoughts on this and I do think that for a lot of people there is a big question of, all right, how do we avoid turning this into a Muay Thai match? Speaker 3: I get asked this question all the time. Like anytime I teach like a foot sweep class, there's always at least one person who asks, how do I not kick my partner? I think the there's two main answers that come to mind initially. The first one is make sure you're making the correct shape. So if you're shin kicking your partner, you're not making the right shape with your foot. You want to use your foot and the shape that you make with your like foot and ankle to either trip or sweep your partner. So at no point in time should you be shin kicking. I mean, with few exceptions, right? Like if you know, there's a couple heated Randoris where you get a little frustrated, but that's another story. That's an aside. You're not doing that. Speaker 2: Suzuki actually had actually said to me that a kick is just a foot sweep that didn't work. Speaker 1: I love that. Speaker 3: A lot of times. Speaker 1: This makes me think of low quality jiu-jitsu foot sweeps where people don't really train these that well and so they often think, well, if I don't have the technique, maybe I can just kick the person's leg. And that's where you can see some gnarly injuries, especially off of people trying things from the outside like Osoto Gari. If they think that the technique is just all about, well, I'm just going to kick this person in their knee. That's not good. I would love to hear how you work around that and what proper technique looks like. Speaker 2: Sure. I'll take this first. You know, one of the things I think that comes up when we think about avoiding, you know, I will say this, and I don't know if this was your experience, but when I started seeing videos like that, I thought that was wild because some of the injuries I've seen in jiu-jitsu tournaments with these techniques, I've never seen in a judo context. And I think there's two reasons for that. One is, look, I am all about CLA and Eco, but there is some value and I will please bring the haters on this. There is some degree of value when people are first starting and learning how to do some of these techniques statically. And the reason why is because I want someone to understand the sensation of when something is right and safe. So I don't necessarily care which variation of Osoto Gari most of my students do. I do nudge them in a direction to something that is a little more modern than what you might see in a in an instructional from the 1960s. However, generally speaking, I'm emphasizing you're going to get your hamstrings, your knee in the back of their knee, your hamstrings around their hamstring. So that way they get the sense of fully entwining the leg as opposed to trying to hack out a knee. This is particularly the case when we deal with things like cross body Osoto where and where a lot of injuries happen is this classic right on left Osoto variation where I hook my heel in the back of the knee and I use that I'm supposed to use that to drag myself into position to do a more standard Osoto Gari. And that's where a lot of times you see those knee injuries. Isa, what are your thoughts? Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this. Most of my time now is spent teaching adults judo. So I've quite a bit of experience teaching kids in the past, but right now most of my teaching time is spent teaching adults judo. And when you come in as an adult learning judo, you're naturally going to be a little bit stiffer, a little bit less relaxed than you would be if you were a kid who started judo at 5, 10, even like 12 years old, right? So when I think about how to teach judo to someone who didn't do it growing up, one of the big things is learning how to relax in the correct way. Because judo has this looseness to it that you really need to be able to one, stay safe, two, be a good partner, and three, for me, this is the last one in order of importance, is execute your own techniques. So how do we learn how to relax so that we can have fun, be safe, be good training partners and do our throws? Because if you're going to do a technique and you stand there and you take every single muscle in your body and you just clench it as hard as possible, you're not going to do any judo ever. At least it's not going to look good. And I think what happens in jiu-jitsu a lot of times is because jiu-jitsu can be isometric, people get used to this idea of like really like tensing up, which is the opposite of what you need for judo. So the question is like, how do you learn how to relax in the correct way, right? You don't want to just like be like a wet noodle. So for my students, I think drilling is really important. I love drilling and I know that's like not what's popular now. But I think the idea of drilling is to drill correctly and to drill thoughtfully and mindfully and you're drilling towards a goal and towards an ideal. This is an aside, but a lot of my students are super nerdy, we do judo. And sometimes my students will ask me like, what is the platonic ideal of this technique? Like what is this supposed to look like in a perfect world? Which my personal philosophy is that there is no perfect technique, right? It's just a technique that works. But the fact that we're thinking when we drill that we want our techniques to look a certain way, means that we're kind of on the right path to drilling correctly. And for me, drilling is just kind of like an on ramp to performing the techniques live. So I try to decrease, as much as I love drilling, I try to decrease the amount of time that we spend drilling without any resistance and and use that just like I said, like as an on ramp to drilling with resistance and then executing the technique with in a live round or with, you know, like getting close to 100% resistance. But I think you have to understand the concept and you have to understand how to make the shape and you also have to be able to relax and not be scared. I think a lot of times the techniques look bad when you're scared. So in your head, if you're like, I'm really scared, I'm going to kick my partner in the shin and that's all you're thinking about when you go to do your technique, chances are you're going to kick your partner in the shin. So like, you know, we need to remove that fear. And I think drilling and learning how to break fall and be a good partner is is how we remove that fear. Speaker 2: So where I was going with this was saying, hey, so when we look at, you know, it's funny because we have these discussions around CLA and drilling and stuff down that line. You know, one thing we can think a lot about is an element called variable drilling. So when we look at variable drilling, how that applies to foot sweeps, ultimately, what are we talking about when we're talking about the shift from static to dynamic? We're really just talking about does Uke give an unpredictable reaction or at least with a set of reactions that they're not insane, but they're a set of reactions that are realistic. So I like to teach a lot of my adult beginners and adult intermediates the idea that the most important person in the pairing of partners is the person who's receiving the technique because they're going to be the ones that are helping as a learning as they're the ones who are providing the feedback that will tell me whether or not I'm doing it correctly. I don't mean necessarily verbally, but if I go to hit a technique and it's not working, you know, I have to adjust for my partner and make adjustments as long as things are being reasonable. And by reasonable, I mean like my partner's not doing something that would just completely shut down and prevent the technique. So there's a happy medium, I think in this kind of drilling versus CLA discussion that pops up where what are we talking, we're talking about, all right, so I'm going to work on my Kochi, but I'm also going to have, all right, once I have the basic shape of my Kochi in play, I know how to make it work. I'm going to add in my partner's going to sometimes lean in direction where I can hit my Kochi, then or they might shift their weight so that I can switch to another type of Ashi, another type of sweep or hook. Um, or even include like a forward throw, like I do my Kochi, it doesn't work, but then I have a Sode, um, which is a type of sleeve hip throw that we can do. And I think one of the things that comes up in these discussions, um, when we talk about judo, ultimately is that you do actually need some static work on some of these techniques and I can I think that when we talk about foot sweeps, that's absolutely true. This is something that Justin Flores and I were talking about last time, um, he and I were together, is that understanding how to make that shape really does allow you to then experiment with where I can get to use that shape. So, and and that also applies to for some throws that are much, much more dangerous, but that we're not talking about entirely today, but um, bear hug Kosoto Gari and uh, Yokotemoi come to mind. Speaker 3: Yeah, I completely agree. I think something that we're still kind of figuring out as like a grappling community is judo, the majority of people who do judo at the highest level started when they were four or five years old. And a lot of the training elements are things that are kind of unspoken. So like, Chris, what you were saying with being a good Uke, again, if he's done judo since he was five, you already know how to be a good Uke. And that kind of like giving flexible reactions, various reactions is is built in already if you've been doing it for this long. So now the the question comes up of like, how can we take those skills that the elite judoka have because they've developed them since they were so young, and how do we teach them to ourselves or or to people who who don't start judo that young? And I think that's where kind of like the different training modalities come in because I think if you talk to the average elite judoka on the international circuit and you ask them like what Eco or CLA was, they would have no idea what you're talking about. But then if you watch them train, yes, they do a bunch of reps without any resistance. But then you'll watch and they do a lot of reps where the Uke or the drilling partner is giving different reactions. And it's not like they're even really talking about it. It's just kind of unspoken. It's a part of the training. So how do we like as coaches of adult judoka or people who do judo as adults, how do we learn those trips and sweeps? And I think, like you said, Chris, teaching your partner or as the instructor, teaching your students how to be good training partners, how to be good Ukes, the people who kind of receive the technique, that's a really big element. And you start static so you can make the shape, but then you very quickly build up to giving different reactions that are good and realistic. Something two really big things that we do in our classes, the classes that I teach, for any technique that we learn, whether it's a grip sequence or a throw or a trip or a sweep, we start by making the shape, but once the technique looks good without any resistance, we do two different, I kind of branch off into two different types of drilling. The first one is start the technique without any resistance. So let's say I'm doing an Ouchi Gari, an inside trip. I have my students start their Ouchi Gari, they hook their partner's leg. So you're about 20, 30% into the Ouchi and then from there, you say ready, go. And depending on where we are sort of in the the training, the unit, the Uke gives different reactions. Maybe they go 100% trying to counter or maybe they just give a little bit of resistance. But the idea is for the person executing the technique, the Ouchi Gari, say in this case, the idea is for them to understand how to follow it up once they're connected. And then the second route we take is you start in on the Ouchi Gari, you say ready, go. And now your partner surprises you with a different reaction and you have to chain the technique with something else. So now that my students already know how to make the shape, let's say for Ouchi Gari, they're adding in resistance and reactions and chaining techniques already. And what's nice about this is that the Uke is learning a lot too. So the person getting the technique, say in this case the Ouchi Gari done on them, they're learning a lot about how to defend, how to counter, how to stay balanced. So I think it's really a a win-win. And when my students can get this down, I've noticed that's when their judo looks the best. So that's kind of my teaching philosophy when it comes to building resistance for not just throws, but also like for safety and for grip fighting as well. Speaker 1: Something that both of you have said, and Chris, this harkens back to our previous chat, you've been talking about the shape that you want your opponent's body to be in. And this is a really cool coaching cue that I've heard several people, yourselves included, talk about. The idea of thinking of your training partner's body as a shape. And what does a good shape look like? What does a bad shape look like? Chris, in our prior chat, we talked about how if you're grip fighting and doing stand up with someone, if you can force your opponent's body to go L-shaped, meaning you can make them hinge and bend at the hips where they're leaning forward, that's almost always a bad thing for them. So if you are standing with someone and you can break their posture by forcing their body to go L-shaped where their torso is falling forward, is angling forward, they're going to have tremendously weak posture and base as well. And similar things apply when you're on the ground with someone. I mean, the seated panda position is quite weak to play from because your body is L-shaped if you're in that position. And if you've ever been caught going L-shaped while you're playing a seated guard, you know that it can be a pretty difficult position to defend from. I'd love to maybe hear more about this general theory about the shape of the body, something that both of you have talked about a little bit. How does that come up in coaching judo, jiu-jitsu, but especially foot sweeps and trips? Speaker 2: You know, when we think about it, at the end of the day, like we can talk about the ability for people to find their own answers to things, etc, etc. But at the end of the day, I think I said in a previous podcast, you know, there's only so many ways the human body can interact. And when we understand that, we can pretty quickly isolate what are the conditions we need to do certain things. So if my condition that I need is to take somebody from being on their feet to off of their feet, I can forcibly change the orientation of their foot and their leg in relation to how they're standing, or I can take advantage of where they are and actually lift them and put them in a direction they can't catch themselves. So an example of that would be a foot sweep is typically removing and changing the orientation of the leg so that way they'll actually go down. You know, hypothetically, a double leg, I'm taking them to the rear where they can't actually turn and step and catch themselves. So, but in all of those situations, I want to note when I say L-shape, I don't just mean forward. You can't make a complete L in the other directions. I mean, God, if you've made a complete L to the rear, something has gone terribly wrong and you're probably going to be in one of those BJJ injury videos. So, but it does to an extent, it's probably more of a J that you would make to the side, but the anytime I can get my partner's shoulders out of alignment with their hips, more often than not, I'm going to be in a pretty good position to actually go ahead and take them down because what I've done is I've pulled them out of balance. I've actually pulled them outside of their base. Isa, do you want to add on? Speaker 3: I agree with everything you're saying and I think when we talk about making shapes, we're for me at least, I'm talking about like what shape do I want to kind of get my partner to make and then also what shape do I want to make? And I think for me, I really like analogies. I like to think of myself as kind of like a creative person who's constantly like has a lot of visuals in her head. And so a lot of my analogies I've stolen from my students when I'm trying to explain something and then they say, oh, that's a lot like this or that's a lot like this. So I think shapes are important and adding to that, it's really just like analogies and the language we can use to help us understand what shapes we need to make. So one that all of my students will hear all the time is paint the rainbow. And what I mean by that is your sleeve hand, so the hand that's gripping your partner's sleeve, when you're going to do basically any turn throw, the shape you need to make with that hand, it's like you're painting a big rainbow. And I say this all the time. So for me, I like structure and I I like systems, but also it's nice to just have good visuals that are memorable. So when it comes to coaching, I think shapes are really important and using analogies and words and phrases and visuals to describe those shapes is also important. And then the second thing is judo is like a very feel-based sport. So learning how to kind of like understand the feeling that you need to generate in the other person and also understand how the other person needs to feel when you do a technique is really important. And there's a lot of language for that too. So I think when I coach, that's also really important. And different things work for different people, different analogies kind of like click with different people. So for me, it's like a lot of sort of mixing and matching of of what works. And I can talk a little bit more about, I can also just do like funny funny coaching stories, but just kind of like what works for different people. But it's really just learning to feel things correctly because a lot of times in judo too, the the moment to do a technique has already passed by the time you see it. So a lot of times you just need to learn how to feel it. And how do you learn how to feel it? I think a lot of times it's good drilling and good reactions and good good verbal descriptions of techniques. I hope that makes sense. Speaker 2: It does. You know, if you don't mind, Steve, I I do want to I do want to ask something. Talking about analogies and I think that one of the things that for me has helped me kind of nail down techniques. A lot of times I attach stories to them or stories I tell myself about my relationship to different techniques. For me, for example, I tend to attach my Kosoto Gake to, you know, when I was training with Jason Morris in upstate New York, or my Ouchi, my sensei, or I I remember Neil Adams finally fixed my Kochi. And I tend to associate each of those techniques with stories related to some of the people who helped me with them. Where, you know, you went through and inspired this instructional that we've released. You've gone through several different things. Are there any stories to any of the techniques that you were teaching? Or stories of how of times you've gone to teach them? Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we're going to have to think of a little bit. But for me, I think humor is important, having fun is really important. And and I think when we're having fun and trying to be like a little bit funny, not that I'm saying I'm funny, but when we're trying to be funny or silly, maybe, we're more relaxed. So this isn't a specific story, but that is really important. One drill that I have people do is and I'm sure you've done this plenty of times, but you get your grips and one person jumps up and down as high as they can and the other person has to catch the Dashibarai, the sweep as they're doing that. And that's always fun, that always gets a laugh out of people. I was teaching a foot sweep class a few years ago somewhere and one of my students who I've known for ages did this drill with me as I was demonstrating and I accidentally threw him so hard. I meant to just do like a nice little throw. But because we've known each other for ages, we're used to training with each other, we throw each other hard all the time. I accidentally threw him really hard and everyone in the room was just like, oh my gosh, what are we about to do? This is what she's teaching us. And then I had to explain like, this is not going to look like this. Like Jill and I have trained together for like 10 years, we're used to throwing each other with high amplitude, but you guys aren't going to do this. So I think this again, not super specific stories, but just humor and fun and learning how to be relaxed is important. We do a lot of live training that has I just call it situational training, live training that has like different rules. We do a lot of trips only training and recently I realized that we were doing so many foot sweeps and trips only training that my students were neglecting their turn throws. So a few weeks ago for the first time, I had my students do turn throw only rounds, which was very interesting. And I think when we add the situationals, it can add an element of stress, but then if you add, I'm trying to think of the right words, but like if you make it fun, it can make you more relaxed and make you your technique better. So again, not like specific stories or analogies, but more just like how I think about coaching. It's just trying to kind of like be serious enough that the technique is good, but also be chill enough that the technique is good. If that makes sense. Speaker 2: Oh, 100%. I mean, I think an element of I know this sounds like this sounds like craziness to a certain part of the martial arts world, but an element of playfulness and silliness can definitely improve technical uptake. You know, I was one of the things that blew my mind is, you know, you know, the the Japanese women's team has been generally more dominant than the men's team for some time. And when I've gone over to Japan as a coach and brought people over to the men's side versus the women's side, I noticed that the women's side is often a bit more playful and there's a bit more, it's not that the rounds aren't hard, there are certainly tons of hard rounds, but I actually have noticed a bit more of a opportunity that people will give each other to actually just play. And I think that does two things. I think that opens up, you know, if you make it opportunity just to play, then the fear of failure starts to at least dissipate a little bit. And it also makes you want to still be there. Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. And I think hard rounds and fun, silly playfulness are not mutually exclusive at all. And that's something that I really try to instill in my students when we do rounds, when we do Randori, is that hard rounds and having fun and being playful are not mutually exclusive. If anything, like you can only have so many tough competition rounds in a day where you're trying to win, win, win every single round. You have to do the majority of your rounds fun and playful, but they can still be competitive. So that's really what I try to get people doing the most of in rounds. But yeah, that I mean, that's I guess the next question is, how do we have fun in rounds? How do we make sure we are pushing ourselves, but still being playful and having fun? And that is I think where this like having round diversity comes in, having different skill levels, different sizes, having men, having women. If you're just doing rounds with like a copy of yourself every single time, it's going to be really stressful. But if you're doing rounds with all different body types and different people, then it's going to be much more fun and you're going to get much more different looks and reactions and that and I think really that's how you're going to get better at least in the context of like new techniques. Speaker 2: No, 100%. I think that there's a lot of rooms in judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu that try to recreate the movie Vision Quest to their detriment. And I'm just dating myself here, Steve, do you remember that movie? Speaker 1: I don't, sir. Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I feel old. It's a movie about folk style wrestling from the 1980s. Great soundtrack. But generally speaking, particularly I think when it comes to learning foot sweeps, I think it's very, very key to, you know, be willing to engage that kind of playfulness because if every time you miss or every time you don't budge them, you feel like it's a catastrophic failure that reflects poorly on yourself and all of your coming descendants and all of your ancestors, you're not really going to get enough reps doing them to ever actually get good at them. So I found I a lot of my foot sweeps I found I learned at least in terms of like actually applying them, happened from teaching kids and just playing around with kids and, you know, you're not going to throw a nine-year-old with a big Toshi per se when at least when you're eye size. So actually playing and learning how to use them in that space was great for me. Speaker 1: I actually really love that that explanation here and just this focus on the importance of play. Isa, you mentioned earlier that you sometimes find it easy to train with the people who have come up in the sport and have a lot of experience training competitively because they know how to be a good Uke. And I agree with that. In jiu-jitsu, the scariest training partners for me are the older hobbyists who don't have athletic experience and they don't know how to be a good training partner and they think that this is a fight. And they're just incredibly stubborn and stiff and unpredictable. Those are where injuries happen, much more so for my experience than someone who is a lifelong athlete and competitor and knows how to be a good Uke. This to me is one of the reasons why playfulness is so important in the martial arts because it encourages you to adopt this mindset of, hey, we're just having fun, we're not fighting. And the thing I like about foot sweeps is it's relatively easy to play a foot sweeping game playfully because you don't have to worry about the person jumping on you and trying to strangle you. There's not that much of a concern of your falling body weight on top of the other person, except for some very specific moves that we can constrain around. So you can set up a a simple playful foot sweeping game that doesn't really scare the less experienced athletes. Am I barking up the right tree here or has that contradicted your findings? I'm curious to know what this looks like when you actually teach a room and also if you've learned anything from putting together this new instructional about how to present this info. Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think you're completely right and it doesn't even have to be a game with specific rules per se. I see this all the time with beginners where in the entire round, no foot sweeps happen. But what if you say, okay, we're going to do a foot sweep only round, but we're going to relax and let each other work a little bit. Then the round looks great. So I think there's just an element of like letting go of trying to win and not wanting to take a fall and just take a couple falls. Like you never look at the black belt in the room in a judo practice and see them not take a fall once, right? Just like when you go to train, it doesn't matter what you're training. Just take a couple break falls for your partner. It'll make you a better partner. It's really like in my mind, I just don't want to don't even think about overcomplicating it or like games or anything. It's just like relax, take some break falls, we're in training. My best students that compete the best, they take the most falls in training, but they also move the most and execute or attempt the highest number of techniques. So there's kind of like just anecdotally in my mind, thinking about my students who perform really well in competition. It's not the ones that don't get thrown the most. It's the ones that get thrown a lot, try a lot of techniques and move a lot. The ones that are super tired by the end of the training. And that just comes down to effort. Like and by effort, I mean like effort and letting go of your ego. So just try the technique and take some falls. It's really that simple. And what's cool about judo is that you get thrown, you stand right back up. Like you don't have to stay on the ground, you're not concussed, like you tuck your chin, slap the mat, you got thrown, great, stand right back up and now you're back to to training. It's not like it's it's it's not as complicated as like adding all of these rules. Just like stand in front of your partner, let's do a foot sweep only round, let's let's do some technique. Connecting it to my instructional, I am a big believer in less is more and not overcomplicating things. I think something we have like with the internet and access to all of this information and all of these conversations, it's really cool, but it's very easy to overcomplicate. So my thinking with this instructional was just taking a few trips that I really love that are high percentage that I've done in competition in jiu-jitsu and in judo and that I've taught to my students and they've also done in competition in jiu-jitsu and judo. And I thought, what are the really, really core things that we need to know to be able to practice these techniques? And so I took the answer to that question and just applied it to my trips. And that's kind of where the heart of the instructional is, is just really straightforward and simple and and just what are the super fundamental elements of each technique that we need to know to be able to do these throws and nothing like in my mind fancy. There's really no fluff. It's just like A, B, C, these are the things that we need. And then each trip that I explain has one drill that you can do with a partner that kind of will develop your skill, the skill that you need to be able to execute that throw in live training. Speaker 2: And the great thing about this instructional too is that a portion of the revenue from it is going to support a nonprofit that I manage, Martial Arts for Social Transformation, Equity and Rights, known as Masters. So this was something that we produced in partnership with Isa. Speaker 1: Why don't we talk about that for a second? I know we've talked about Masters before, Chris, but it's a worthy cause. We should definitely plug it again. Do you want to talk about the work that you do with Masters? Speaker 2: Sure. So we work primarily within two spaces. One is we've started doing some work, some more community oriented. Um, recently we held some women's self-defense workshops. So we're starting to work on more of our the arm of our work that's aimed towards helping, for example, helping families who otherwise can't afford martial arts, get access at lower rates or in some cases for free. We're working with some of our partners. Our other major areas have been the development of new instructor training materials. So particularly for judo and also for Brazilian jiu-jitsu, for folks who want to integrate and kind of up their game in teaching. We're in the process of building different tools. And then the next element is finally, we're working with athletes who are trying to go to the LA Olympics in 2028. We had actually just received our first corporate sponsorship to support that effort. And we have about 12 athletes we're working with right now. We've put people on the junior world team, we've put people in the medal rounds of all of the biggest domestic US events and we've started to put people in the medal rounds on the IGF tour. So right now we're very focused on helping and some of these are people who really they would not otherwise without our help be able to have an opportunity to try to go to the Olympics. Um, there's a young woman we just brought on who they were ready to quit the sport and even though they had been a very successful player. And we came in and it was because they couldn't afford to travel. They couldn't afford to travel, they couldn't afford to get the training they needed. And what we've been doing is we've been finding athletes like that who we believe, you know, have a lot of potential and that also we hope to guide them so that when they're done with judo, they have a successful life off the mat as well. If that or if if they're going to be on the mat still as an instructor, we help them with that path too. But we've been able to work with a lot of these folks both on and off the mat to get them to a much better space. So, you know, a lot of ways we like to think of ourselves as we're finding people who would really benefit from having a high performance coaching team, who otherwise would never be able to afford it. So that's what we've been doing on the elite athlete side and then combining that with our community work. Speaker 1: Nice. Well, that's amazing. And I love that you're tying that to the instructionals that you're doing and that by buying this stuff, I mean, people can immediately benefit the cause. That's fantastic. Let's maybe talk about the work that you guys have put together. So on this foot sweep instructional, I mean, tell me a bit about it and also I'd love to know, were there any findings that came about as a result of putting together this instructional? I find sometimes when I have to package up content, it helps me realize patterns or ideas or ways of explaining something that I'd never thought about before. So tell me a bit about what you made and also what the main learnings were that you had from that process. Speaker 3: The very first thing that comes to mind and this this doesn't really directly answer your question, but what I'm explaining in in my instructional is very much like my life's work so far in a lot of ways. Like I said before, I I really like to kind of simplify things and I think it's really easy and maybe this is kind of what I learned. But like, you go online and you look for instructionals and it's like an hour of this or two hours of this or like a six-hour instructional. And for me, I like personally, I'm just not going to sit through six hours of someone teaching me stuff. I'd much rather go train for six hours. That's just my personal perspective. When I was thinking about teaching, and I guess I already said this, but I just really wanted everything to I wanted the path from watching my video to getting on the mat and drilling to be as short as possible. So it's really not the kind of video that you sit down and you take a bunch of notes and then you go and drill. It's the kind of thing that you can take with you to the mat and watch for three minutes and drill for an hour. And for me, that's just personally how I like to train and so maybe this isn't something necessarily that I learned from shooting the video, but I guess what I learned is that's how I like to train and that doesn't mean it's how everyone has to train, but I I mean, at the end of the day, we're we're martial artists and we want to spend time on the mats. We want to like take our shoes off and get on the mat and grab another person and train, right? So I think if we can minimize the amount of time we spend sitting in front of a screen, we spend way too much time in front of the screen already. If we can minimize that time and and watch a really short video, three to five minutes and then go train for an hour, for me, that's the most efficient personally. And I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me. But I guess this is the first instructional video I've filmed that's not like for social media or like for for YouTube. And I I've just found that like you don't need that much information. At least for judo. Judo in in so many ways is much simpler than jiu-jitsu and in other ways it's much more complicated. So all of this to say that maybe the biggest thing I learned is that I love spending time on the mats and when I think about teaching other people, it's really how can I help people spend more time on the mats in a productive way. So that wasn't like a super technical thing, but and it's more like philosophical, but that is very much my thought process, not just going into filming, but also when filming and and editing as well. Speaker 2: So I'll piggyback off of that. One of the things that when I was looking at putting together this instructional series and we'll have some other instructionals coming out as well. When you look at the modern instructional, you know, it is this format of more is better and if I can just add another hour to this instructional, I might be able to charge an extra 30 bucks. And it's not that there isn't some value to that. I actually years and years ago, grabbed all of my instructionals and created like an Excel library for each move that was in there. But the reality is I've personally on the six-hour instructionals, I've watched pieces of them. I definitely got my value out of them. But I have very, very rarely ever sat down and actually gone through all of them, every bit of film from them because it's like there's a lot there that's awesome. I can go find little topics. And what I was interested in in terms of doing this series was, can we, you know, let's cut out the fluff. Let's look at what are the core things that people need. And it was great working with Isa on this project and being like, all right, well, hey, here is straight up, you want some key information to help help improve your foot sweeps and your trips. We got it right here. And, you know, you're not going to have to sift through 35 minutes to understand how to do Ouchi Gari. It's quick, you can get what you need from it and you can support a great cause. Speaker 1: I love that. I've said this before. I think that the instructional market these days seems to be centered around volume and creating as much quantity with the purpose of impressing. I guess the idea being that it'll look better and of course you can justify a higher ticket price. But my findings have been like you said, Isa, most people just aren't going to benefit from that type of material because if you've got eight hours kicking around to practice martial arts, you're probably going to want to prefer to spend that time training instead of watching something. Uh, friend of the show, Chris Wojcik has said that you shouldn't be studying more than you're actually training. And sometimes these gigantic content libraries tip the scales in the wrong direction. I really think that there would be a market for shorter, more to the point instructionals that just save people time rather than trying to put more in there. I think that's probably a better use of everyone's time, including the people making this stuff. So I'm excited to check out what you've made. Chris, Isa, if I want to get this instructional, where can people find it? Speaker 2: You can go to martialartsforsocialgood.org, click on the store and it'll be right there. Speaker 1: Amazing. And I will put links to that in the show notes and also to everyone's social media. Isa, if people want to follow you or ask you questions or contact you, how do they go about doing that? Speaker 3: My Instagram is @isa100kg. So you can follow me there and message me. And my email is also on my Instagram. Speaker 1: Amazing. And Chris, how about you? Speaker 2: So you can learn more about Martial Arts for Social Transformation Equity and Rights at Masters Social Good, which is the Instagram handle. So just Masters Social Good. And then also martialartsforsocialgood.org. And then you can find me also on Instagram, Chris_double_underscore_circle and my judo program at High Noon Judo. Speaker 1: Fantastic. I will throw all of those links in the show notes to make it easy for people to find. We are also quite easy to find. Everything we make lives at BJJmentalmodels.com. The podcast, both full length episodes like this and mini episodes and the newsletter are all completely free, no ads. That's part of what makes us different. And the way that we're able to do that is with BJJ Mental Models Premium. If you would like to level up with us and work with us to improve your jiu-jitsu game, go to BJJmentalmodels.com to check that out. First week is free. It's the world's largest audio library of jiu-jitsu master classes on strategy, tactics, concepts, mindset, philosophy, topics that tend to be communicated better through a medium like this. It's a really unique offering. First week is free so you can check that out at no risk. And you can also go up to the higher tiers with us. We also do direct coaching and even business and marketing support if that is something that you are interested in. Again, all of those details are at BJJmentalmodels.com. But I will put a link to that and all of everyone else's stuff here in the show notes. Isa, Chris, thanks so much for doing this, man. Really fantastic chat. Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having us, Steve. Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 1: Most welcome. Thank you to the listeners as well. We'll talk to you soon. See you in the next one.