So tonight, while rolling no-gi at BJJ, I think I accidentally O Guruma'd someone. I had a whizzer on one arm and control of his other bicep, and was going for a Shinya Aoki-style no-gi Harai Goshi. It seems I put my leg too high, because he flipped over my thigh 360 degrees. It was a thing of beauty. At the appex of the through, his feet were pointed straight at the ceiling. The weird part is, I've never been taught O Guruma, and never really understood how it worked. The throw I did may in fact not be O Guruma at all, and I'm using the name erroneously. But whatever it was, it was amazing, and I want to do it again. I just thought I'd share that little story, and try to breath some life into our Judo forum.
Well it's not that dissimilar to harai goshi really: http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/haraigoshi.htm http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/oguruma.htm I can see how you could go for one and end up doing the other if you broke the guys balance properly but messed up your entry. To be honest I only think that theres so many names for throws in Judo because it means you never have to admit to doing a technique badly, you can just pretend you where doing a different throw.
I find it strange how some incredibly similar throws are differentiated (such as O Guruma and Harai Goshi, or a lot of things that end with "Ashi berai"), and other throws (such as kata guruma) have a huge number of variants. Can we like, petition the Kodokan to make standing kata guruma and kneeling kata guruma different throws?
O guruma & harai goshi only look similar. the method of throwing is actually quite different. Harai goshi uses a sweeping action to knock the legs from under uke whereas there is no sweeping action with O guruma - the leg is used to block the forward momentum and uke is "wheeled" over the leg. Different principles therefore different technique and name. kata guruma and kneeling kata guruma is exactly the same action hence its just a variation.
To back up what Garibaldi said (I was kidding before) If you read "Kodokan Judo Throwing Techniques" by Toshiro Daigo you can understand where a lot of the distinctions come from despite the way they seem similar, and you can see why the classification is the way it is and it does make some sense. I think the most artificial distinction you see in Judo is the one between osotto gari, osoto otoshi and osoto guruma and even then you can see the rational behind the distinction, it's just not a major influence on the technique as used in competition. http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/osotoguruma.htm http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/osotootoshi.htm http://judoinfo.com/images/animations/blue/osotogari.htm
Only really worth it if your looking for a catalogue of Judo throws, if you want stuff thats more competition oriented theres better stuff out there.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Attacking-J...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196946312&sr=8-1 Its a fairly small book and only has drawings of techniques but they drawings are clear & concise. It really is one of the best I own for options and counters
For free online advice I think you probably can't beat http://judoforum.com/ though occasionally reading the Department of Homeland Security on Bullshido is good too. Other than that, if you have a particular technique you show an aptitude for then there's almost certainly a book on it that's worth buying in the Judo master-class series.
