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Biggest lesson I learnt from Judo. Context here is that Toshihiko Koga and Travis Steven’s version of ippon-seoinage is non-classical. It’s not the way it’s taught in most clubs. And yet it works, and it works incredibly well. (I do it too).

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Cedric Chin

@ejames_c

Aug 28, 2021

I think the thing that I internalised is to not pay attention to what experts say they do, or even to what they say when they’re teaching the technique they do. I’ve learnt to always check against their actions in the field.

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Isn't it more subtle than that without an accounting of why they instruct X but perform Y? The differences point to what they've become insensitive to in their expert-hood, which is harder to triangulate if one pays no attention to X.

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Oh good point. I think you’re right in general. Though in Judo, I’ve found it counter productive to pay attention to X. X tends to be the way it’s taught in the Kodokan (i.e. for 100 years). Whereas modern competitive pressures might mean Y is effectively a different throw.

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I find if I go back and read the original & surrounding conversations, a lot of subtlety's often lost to time. I wonder if early Judoka justified specific techniques in other terms? It's the (apocryphal) "5 monkeys and a banana" scenario that's risky IMO skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6828

Cedric Chin

@ejames_c

Replying to

@jfarmer

I think the context here is that Japanese pedagogy isn’t … that great. I’m not the only one who’s observed this, fwiw. Friend points out that Japanese frisbee players tend to do a lot of drills that are difficult and beautiful to watch but don’t translate to on-pitch perf.

3:38 AM · Aug 30, 2021Twitter Web App