Video study : Combat Jujitsu

My training day this week is going to be Thursday and I have been chomping at the bit to go and do some throws.  I have been thinking a bit about some of the Japanese Jiu-Jitsu training that I did when I was back in Canada.  I liked a lot of the standing arm locks and wrist locks that we did.  We don't practice those much in Judo.  I found this syllabus  for the World Ju Jitsu Federation on YouTube.

Starting around 6 minutes in you can see that the demonstrators are doing a lot of throws from arm and wrist locks.  Pretty cool stuff from a self defense standpoint.  I also found a video series from a ALL JAPAN JU-JITSU INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION competition in PERU that combine striking and grappling with the gi on.  This is a little different than MMA because in MMA you can't grab the cloths.

There are many parts to the competition video series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x738BHXdX7Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKuwislVnN4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXbgGBhN24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlzWo4i2D50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDttav3pyI

One thing that makes Judo practitioners effective martial artists is that they can practice their techniques against people who are resisting them safely and effectively.  The theory is that a person who can drill a throw or technique full force hundreds of times in a dynamic environment will be more effective at delivering their techniques than people who must drill these techniques in a static or staged manner but can not practice them fully or dynamically because bones would be broken if they did.  This is also why Brazilian Jiu-jitsu has been proven to be very effective as it primarily employs 'safe' ground finishing techniques that can be drilled and repeated in dynamic environments. Sports like Tia-boxing and western boxing are probably effective for similar reasons.  They are practiced in dynamic environments with competition and resistance.

In Judo, one of the most important elements of a throw is the off balancing or Kuzushi.   These videos demonstrate to me how you can take effective and drilled Judo technique and augment it with striking, wrist locks and arm locks to effectively create Kuzushi.   Striking someone can make them stumble so they are easier to throw, as can locking someones wrist or arm to put them up on their toes.

In terms of progressing in the martial art of Judo I think that a decent approach would be to:
A) learn the mechanics of a technique (or throw) through a lot of repetition.
B) learn the timing and applications and combinations of the technique through light randori and heavy shiai.
C) learn the most effective martial setups for a technique by combining it with Judo atemi-waza and joint locks.

Of course I am just pondering these ideas, but in terms of my progression in the art, this may be a good strategy.