Judo and Karate

My Brother-in-Law is a judo competitor, in fact he's qualified to fight in this year's British national championships, which is one heck of an achievement. We were recently "talking shop" (as you do!) and he loaned me a book on strangle technique (shimewaza).

I commented how the number of photos look very much like Karate postures taken direct from katas (not advanced ones either, I'm thinking pinans/heians here). He replied that "anyone with a knowledge of Okinawan Karate would find most of those techniques familiar".

Interesting stuff!

And since my art of choice is wado ryu - a combination of Okinawan Karate and Japanese (old school) Jujutsu then there must be certainly some common threads. Indeed, a UK kata bunkai exponent, Iain Abernethy has teamed up with some Judo guys and they are doing seminars on kata bunkai with an element of Judo too.

I really must check out one of those seminars!

So, if you're interested in the bunkai side of things I recommend getting hold of some Judo books or even take lessons. I'll have a look on Youtube for some suitable Judo clips that might help. Watch this space!