3 votes

Leg grabs coming back to All Japan Judo Championships

1 comment

  1. unkz
    (edited )
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    Translated link: https://ejudo-info.translate.goog/articles/17303?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp This is pretty big news for judo enthusiasts. Hopefully this gets adopted by...

    Translated link:

    https://ejudo-info.translate.goog/articles/17303?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

    This is pretty big news for judo enthusiasts. Hopefully this gets adopted by the IJF and lands in the Olympics too. I've heard rumours that it's under consideration there as well, at least.

    As a little background for non-judo-enthusiasts, grabbing the legs to take down your opponent has been part of judo since its inception over a hundred years ago. It was only recently, in 2010, that grabbing the legs was banned in Olympic competition because... well, it's disputed. Some say it was to make judo more distinct from wrestling. Some say it was to prevent foreign wrestlers/sambo players from dominating traditional judoka. However, since the Olympics is in a sense the ultimate goal of all competitive judoka, that rule change has percolated down to just about every regional competition with the exception of a few relatively small niche communities like freestyle or kosen judo.

    In any case, I think if you ask a typical recreational judoka the general consensus is we shouldn't over-regulate the sport and remove actual useful techniques from competition. It's kind of funny that nowadays, you can do more judo in a BJJ competition than you can in a judo competition.