The Omoplata and the July Issue of "Growing Judo"

In the July issue of the USJA's "Growing Judo" e-magazine, I apparently made an error about the legality of the "omoplata" of Brazilian JiuJitsu and its legality in judo tournaments. The error was pointed out to me by "funjudo" of the JudoForum in the July Issue of USJA's Growing Judo now available.


Essentially the omoplata and sankaku garami are the same technique, but, like many other judo turned Brazilian JiuJitsu techniques, called something different. These techniques are much like a down-variation of ude garami (Kimura), however, instead of being applied with the arms, it is applied with the legs. If one peruses the internet in search of the joint to which the technique is applied, you'll find that if the exponent is a BJJ player, the joint is the shoulder. If you can find a judo exponent, the joint is the elbow. My personal experience was with BJJ players, so I believed it to be a shoulder lock. Turns out this is just how they roll...no pun intended.


None of the judo books I have discuss sankaku garami and the only BJJ book (Jiu-Jitsu University by Saulo Ribeiro) mentions the omoplata, but cautions "This move should be applied...to prevent damage to your opponent's shoulder." However, after watching several videos of both judo practitioners and BJJ players, I think the major difference between the two techniques is the ideology of application between the two activities.


And now for something I hope you'll really like:

The only judo sankaku garami I found on YouTube.

Georges St.Pierre teaching an Omoplata

Frank Mir demonstrating his application of the Omoplata

(You can hear him mention separating the shoulder after the first run-through)

Personally, I have no qualm with teaching any of the techniques in BJJ in a judo class, because, honestly, the biggest difference between the two are the rule and mind sets of the practitioners.


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Judo Tidbit for the Day:


If you are or want to teach judo, spend some time learning how to plan a class from beginning to end. That means lesson planning to start with, but if you're really serious about teaching judo as an education there's a lot more to it.


With my club what I like to do is take the promotional requirements, the date of the test, and the number of classes then figure out how much time I have to teach everything required for the test. Once I have all that figured out, I divvy up the material so that there's plenty of time to teach everything, plenty of time to drill everything, and, finally, plenty of time to review everything. This has worked well for me as an educator of judo, but if you or your club are extremely competitively focused, this may not work so well.


I would prefer to have an educational class and a competitive class. That way I can teach everything they need to give them a thorough understanding of the basics of the techniques, then, if the student wants, they can undertake the competitive class to become exceptional competitors.