Movement · posture and moving
Turning
体捌き · たいさばきTai-sabaki
Turning the body out of the line of an attack and into a position to make one. There are four forms, each named for the direction and whether the body turns: forward, backward, forward with a turn, backward with a turn. Each has a right and a left version, named for the foot that moves. Tai-sabaki is what makes counters possible, because a counter is an evasion and an attack in one movement, and it is where kuzushi is applied from once you can move without losing your posture.
Key points
- Move the feet, not the shoulders; turning from the waist leaves your feet behind and your balance with them
- The turning forms end with your hips facing where you want to throw, which is the whole point of them
- Named for the moving foot, so migi-ashi-mae-sabaki steps the right foot forward
Step by step
Left-handed: these steps use the standard right-handed form. Swap every left and right.
- Stand in natural posture. For mae-sabaki, step one foot forward and slightly across, turning the hips a little so you finish side-on rather than square. Stepping the right foot makes migi-ashi-mae-sabaki, the left makes hidari-ashi-mae-sabaki.
- Return, and for ushiro-sabaki step the same foot backward and slightly across, again finishing side-on. Right foot back is migi-ashi-ushiro-sabaki, left foot back is hidari-ashi-ushiro-sabaki.
- Now the turning forms. For mae-mawari-sabaki, step forward as before but keep turning on the balls of the feet until your hips have come right round and you finish facing back the way you came. This is the entry shape for most forward throws.
- For ushiro-mawari-sabaki, step back and turn the same way, finishing facing the other direction. Right and left are named for the moving foot as before.
- Practise each form alone, six of each side, until you can do them without watching your feet.
- Then with a partner holding a sleeve and lapel: let them step in, use mae-mawari-sabaki to turn out of the line of the attack, and finish with your hips in front of theirs. That position is where the throw comes from.
From the other side
Attack at a steady, honest pace so your partner has something real to move against, and keep hold of the grip so you feel where they go. When they turn correctly you will feel your own weight arrive over your front foot with nobody in front of it, which is what being off balance feels like from the inside.
VI judo notes
Do this from contact throughout, which is how it is done in VI judo anyway. Because the grip is already taken and kept, your partner's turn is felt through the sleeve and lapel rather than seen, and that feedback is more precise than watching: you know exactly when their hips have come round because your own arm tells you. Count the steps out loud together while learning the four forms, so the names attach to a rhythm rather than to a diagram.
How it is taught elsewhere
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has published guidance on this. Choose whose to show under Organisations' own guidance on My progress.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology · Japan
This guidance was written for compulsory school physical education in Japan, not club instruction, and is taught to a whole class, including everyone who did not choose judo. Its teaching stage does not indicate how difficult the technique is.
Kuzushi
In order to throw the opponent, it is first necessary to make the opponent's posture unstable. Making the posture unstable in this way is called "kuzusu" (breaking balance). To break the opponent's balance you make use of the opponent's strength and movement, or push or pull with your own strength. The basic forms of kuzushi are the kuzushi in the eight directions.
Printed page 96
Tai-sabaki (body movement)
Getting into a posture from which it is easy to throw, while breaking the opponent's posture, is called "tai-sabaki". The basic forms of tai-sabaki include "mae-sabaki" (forward body movement), "ushiro-sabaki" (rearward body movement), "mae-mawari-sabaki" (forward turning body movement) and "ushiro-mawari-sabaki" (rearward turning body movement).
Printed page 96
Step 3
③ Break balance on the spot → break balance while moving → break balance using tai-sabaki
Printed page 97
Practice example
Decide who is tori and who is uke. From a stationary state, using a half-step movement, tori breaks uke's balance in the eight directions. Next, tori uses forward, backward, left and right movement to break uke's balance. Then tori uses tai-sabaki to break uke's balance. Through this practice, students learn the difference between a broken posture and a stable posture.
Printed page 97
Practice 3
Breaking balance using tai-sabaki Point: At first, have students get the feel of kuzushi with the opponent in a stationary posture; then have them become able to break balance using movement and tai-sabaki. Point: If you try to break the opponent's balance by pulling or pushing with the arms alone, your own posture also collapses and you cannot break their balance well. Break the opponent's balance with the movement of the whole body while keeping your own posture, for example by using advancing and retreating movement forwards, backwards, left and right, and tai-sabaki. At this time, the ma-ai (distance) from the opponent is also important.
Printed page 97
Point
Working in pairs, tori breaks uke's balance in various directions and has uke take the side breakfall. At this stage the pair do not yet take a full grip: tori grips both of uke's wrists or the underside of the sleeves, so that the breakfall can be practised on both the left and the right.
Printed page 105
Box
Depending on how one is thrown, there are cases where the side breakfall is taken with the arm only ①, and cases where it is taken using the arm and the legs ②. Generally, when thrown backward or sideways the legs come up and it becomes a side breakfall with the arm only ①; when thrown forward, with the centrifugal force of the rotation added, it becomes a side breakfall using the arm and the legs ②.
Printed page 105
Point
Once students are used to it, uke raises the right leg and develops the feel of taking the breakfall backward with the left foot as a support. This is effective as an introduction to reaping techniques such as ō-soto-gari (major outer reap).
Printed page 109
Point
Tori breaks uke's balance forward with the forward turning body movement and, using the rotational power of the body, throws uke forward. At this time, make uke's right foot the support for the rotation.
Printed page 109
Point
By repeating this kind of paired practice, tori and uke together can become proficient in a feel in which the movement, kuzushi (breaking balance), tai-sabaki and ukemi (breakfalls) needed when throwing are all unified.
Printed page 109
The pages this is taken from
From School Physical Education Practical Instruction Materials No. 2 (Third Revised Edition): Guide to Teaching Judo, published by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. Page images are reproduced from that document.
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