The Most Dangerous Throws

Judo has a category of techniques called "Forbidden techniques." They are forbidden from competition because they are deemed to dangerous to the participants during the unscripted give and take during a competitive match. They are still a part of the curriculum though and are studied to a greater or lesser extent, given the dojo's emphasis on preparing for competition.

Below is a an excerpt from an article on dangerous throws and take downs from Beyond Grappling, together with a couple of videos from that same article. The whole article and many more videos may be found here. 

The last video isn't from the article. It's something I found on YouTube.

Enjoy.

Judo is called the gentle way but it is far from gentle, it is actually a high impact sport. That is why I feel sorry for those Judo clubs who do judo with mats that are laid down directly onto concrete opposed to a nice sprung floor.

When I was growing up we did Judo with mats that were laid down straight onto a gymnasium floor and when I first went to japan and trained on a sprung floor I thought all my christmases had come at once – it was incredible.

But Judo is definitely far from being the gentle way. When Kano first started out creating Judo he looked at many of the traditional techniques and deleted or modified many of them so that we can train at 100% without getting injured. All martial arts do this. Kyoukishin Karate modified their rules to include no punches to the head, by doing so they can train at 100% without getting injured. Imagine if they trained with hitting the head, there would be broken noses every night at TKD and Karate clubs all over the world.

The sport of Judo is the same. Kano removed many dangerous throwing techniques so we can train as close to 100% as possible.

Probably the first throw to ever be removed from competition Judo was Kani Basami or leg scissors. Stephen Kesting from Grapplearts.com posted a video of it here:

I agree with Stephen saying it is a dangerous technique but I argue that every Judo throw can be BOTH dangerous and NON dangerous – it all depends on whether your execution is done correctly, with the intent to hurt or opponent error.

Here is a video done demonstrating a number of Kani basami entries done correctly (and with a co-operating Uke). I loved the Harai goshi into Kani Basami setup.