Tips On Facing An Opposite Stance With Shintaro Higashi
Most people grapple with their dominant hand forward. Wrestling, Judo, and Jiu-Jitsu people tend to lead with their dominant hand and dominant foot. This is contrary to many striking sports where the non-dominant hand is leading leaving your rear hand is laying in wait for a power shot. Many people’s first exposure to the term southpaw was probably Rocky where the unorthodox, tough nosed boxer posed significant problems for his orthodox foe.
Applying your skills against someone with an opposite stance can pose some issues. Since most people are right handed your more likely to encounter a right hand lead, however inevitably you are going to run into a leftie. Shintaro Higashi just released Judo Basics with JudoFanatics, where he goes in-depth on how to combat the opposite stance. Here is a quick video on how to start attacking the opposite stance, from Judo Basics. Check it out!
To make any complex situation more understandable it helps to break it into smaller chunks to learn. Shintaro does this by explaining that generally you will have two strategies. An Inside Strategy where you have the lapel grip and space inside you opponent’s arm controlled. The Outside strategy has a higher grip on the lapel and the arm overtop of the opponent’s. From here you can start to apply techniques, but for the most part you are in an equal spot with your opponent. For Shintaro he is always looking to be in an advantageous position to provide an edge against someone who may be more athletic.
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With the inside strategy, finding a strong post against your partners torso is crucial. This takes away a lot of the power in your opponents outside arm. A strong post can also aid in making your opponent’s upper body start to turn. By addressing your opponent’s outside arm and twisting their torso, as Shintaro suggests, you are putting yourself in a much more advantageous attacking position.
By having this strong position it serves as not only an offensive hub for you, but limits how much your opponent can control your upper body. Judo Basics is packed full of these concepts that can make a huge difference in your success rate in your techniques. Multiple times in the demonstration Higashi shows the benefits of a strong posting arm and its ability to stifle many of your opponent’s offensive options.
At the 5:00 minute mark of the video Shintaro starts to go into how you can counter this position when someone has a strong post on the inside. Immediately he starts to address the grip by bringing the hand down and pinning it with his chin. This a nice detail to keep their hand in place while you bring your elbow to a more dominant position. Grip fighting and hand positioning are crucial skills that can make or break your technique!
Shintaro packs in the details in Judo Basics. Cover the essentials in this 4-part instructional, with one of the best instructors in the game! Take control over multiple stances and situations and master the basics with Shintaro Higashi.