Where I come from

Remember I said I had trouble graspingcertain KJKB ideas? This is why. I spent two three-year periods with them in the late 80s and early 90s (back then, tori was a 2d). I recall our main instructor then had some interesting concepts on structure and intent, but he said them far too seldom. Might be one of the reasons they're mostly absent in those videos. It was one of the reasons they looked at me weird, there. That and trying to watch for defence... Glitches, I guess. Things that would bute you in the ass in a SD situation.

For example, see this other one. That elbow lock is badly done, and so is that neck clamp (for starters, they don't reinforce each other); that's the only reason he can do the rest of the technique.

If you watch the longer video, the first one, there are a bunch of movements that make no sense, weird glitches. Some of them have been introduced after I left. I know I still have a couple of the rest, almost 20 years later. Now, there are those weird glitches with the extra step beforee a takedown/throw. That kneeling in kamae after the technique's done. That... You name it, they've put it in.

And I won't get into 1 vs 2 techniques with unresponsive 2nd uke and other niceties. Or the hojo jutsu like endings. Endings are well and good... Once you've actually, you know, defeated the guy, survived the attack.

Thing is, the basic idea of those techniques is not that bad. What they miss could mostly be solved with Japanese concepts. Zanshin, kime... But the modernization has dumped all that... And not gotten anything else to substitute it. There's no intent, no awareness of the danger of the situation. A good lot of those techniques would seriously improve if Tori simply pressured forward some. And dumped extra movement (like that wacky step before throws; seriously, that instructor was a judo competitor!). And, and that's something I was aware of back then, as a colour belt, and links with the 'pressure' concept, if they did the waza technically correct. Like that suppsoed sode garami, for example. I mean, some of our Kaju techniques are pretty similar (That grab technique around the 20s mark is rather similar to one of our second set, for orange; the differences are telling. Not the fact that the attack is different, but differences in the balance of the takedown, for example). And, again, some of these ideas were taught, if rarely, back then. Now...

Sigh. If I've had as much trouble as I've had getting rid of those habits and I goddamn tried...

Take care