I'm playing a little with one of my young, successful competitors, who not only competes in judo (Blackbelt) and BJJ (Purple Belt), but also in submission wrestling. I catch him with a kata-guruma performed as a yoko-otoshi.

Very nice! In my own cross-training, I find that sacrifice throws work really well for BJJ because of the bent-over posture that most people tend to take. For example, I use sumi-gaeshi a lot in BJJ, but almost never in Judo. I particularly like how your video illustrates (1) the importance of dominating the grip fight to set up the throw, and (2) the usefulness of kami shiho gatame (North-South) for defeating guard recovery attempts.

Hi Mark, nice work! May I comment on your throwing video? At 2:35 you show a kind of twist shot that I can't quite classify. Personally, I would have feared that the opponent would lock and therefore break his knee with this execution. From my point of view it is not Koshi-Guruma, it is not Tai-Otoshi. So how would you call this technique? I'm not sure - apart from the risk of injury to the knee of the thrown person - that you can really throw a bent standing opponent (BJJ fighter) with this throwing execution or even bring him down ... At 4:20 you show a kind of hip throw (I would now call it a Kubi-Nage). I notice that to throw your opponent, you deep squat, then straighten your legs to lift them up and throw them over your hips. I know hip throws, where the thrower stands on both feet, are often taught that way. However, I always wonder how I could throw someone who is 20-30kg heavier than myself with this kind of 'digging'... I don't mean it badly, I'm just curious. No offense. :-)

Your comment about the throw at 2:35 is bang on. I have a ruptured ACL to prove it.

You are misunderstanding the technique. My leg is not deeply bent, and it is NOT tai otoshi. The throw is O Soto Gake.

In tai otoshi you bend the knee deeply and then straighten the leg for a snapping motion.

Sorry to hear that! Was it a “Neil-Adams-style” tai otoshi that did it (where the blocking leg is straight instead of having a raised heel and bent knee)? I have seen a couple of knees sacrificed over the years to a straight-legged tai otoshi that blocked the knee joint rather than the shin. I also saw one guy who injured his own knee while throwing because his opponent fell onto his straight blocking leg while trying to avoid the tai-otoshi.

Rambat, thanks for posting that video. This is a very interesting variation of tai otoshi. The “te-waza” hand action is very apparent in your throw. The leg action at the end seems minimal compared to the hand motion. It looks like you aren’t blocking the leg as much as you are changing your stance to more effectively apply rotational leverage with your hands. I need to work on this to understand it better.