The 4 Best Judo Throws For Heavyweights

Within judo there are a huge range of different skills, ages, body types, and weights. Outweighing your opponent is generally a very big advantage. This is why when competing, judo competitions are categorized on only gender and weight.

With all that being said, within a gym, the chances are that you aren’t only sparring people of your own weight. Typically there will not be enough people in class to only go up against opponents within your own weight category. It is also worth mentioning that if you do not have a solid game plan, it is very easy to lose against a smaller opponent. This is particularly true if you join a gym where the judoka are familiar with sparring much larger opponents. Despite having an advantage on paper, the bigger man must know how to spar against all smaller body types.

As a general rule, tall and heavy judokas should be using trips and foot sweeps. Shorter, stocky, yet heavy judokas can use powerful hip throws to their advantage instead.

Height Advantage

As a heavyweight judoka, you will almost always have a height advantage over your opponent. This may not be the case within your own weight category, but in the dojo it is true. It is possible, but difficult to be an athletic heavyweight judoka and not be over 6 feet tall.

Due to the fact heavyweights are all, this should allow you to dominate grip fighting. Not only are the arms of heavyweight judokas long, but they are also often gripping downwards. This is a LOT easier than trying to win grip battles whilst gripping upwards.

Height also opens up the type of grip you can deploy on your opponent. A Georgian grip requires broken posture but is much easier to obtain against a smaller opponent than it is a taller one. Reaching over somebody’s back when they are taller than you is extremely difficult. Having specific grip advantages will skew the favorable throws towards the dominant positions you’re able to get from them.

Speed Disadvantage

When watching lightweight judo, it is almost as if the sport is being conducted in a different timezone to heavyweight. Not only will you see a completely different style of setups and throws, but they will all be done at breakneck speed.

Even though heavyweight judoka you will have seen on TV still look fast, this is because they are professional athletes. Compared to their teammates, heavyweight judokas are exceptionally slow.

All this means is that when sparring against an adversary who is much faster than yourself, you must fight to your own advantages. This may mean tying up the opponent with very strong grips and keeping them at a distance where they can’t quickly explode in to inside space. It may seem that this type of match is boring for the spectator with very little action, but it does at least keep the strategy in your own favor.

Best Judo Throws For Big Heavyweights

De Ashi Harai

When compared to other techniques, de ashi harai is an extremely simple judo throw. Although the move is technically “low percentage”, it is almost a 0 risk maneuver. This is because the grips are dominated in such a way that your opponent does not have much of a counterattack and failures will usually almost always end in a neutral position.

By not fully committing to a sacrifice throw or hip throw exposing your own back, heavyweight judokas can continue to control the match. Having your own weight being used against you can be catastrophic at the 100kg+ category. Since as soon as you reach a certain imbalance, there is no recovery.

In summary, De ashi harai is a foot sweep which is high reward for a very low risk. Your grips and foot positioning will still be very positive regardless of whether you hit the throw or not. Not only this, but de ashi harai does not require a great deal of speed, flexibility, or athleticism, so plays into the hands of a larger judoka.

Harai Goshi

Harai Goshi is a hip throw, which if performed correctly will almost always end the match with an ippon. This could be said for other hip throws too, but none are really more suited for a heavyweight than the harai goshi.

Most of the reason for the harai goshi being so suitable for heavyweight judoka is due to the fact the second grip goes onto the far shoulder of the uke. Being taller than your opponent with longer arms makes this grip a lot easier for bigger judoka. As the harai goshi does not initially break the posture as much as other throws, judoka rely on their height a lot more. Whilst it’s not impossible to perform a harai goshi on a taller opponent, it is certainly not the first throw that comes to mind.

After the grips are set up, it is all power and technique from this point. Once the ukes bodyweight is loaded up onto hips which carry around 100kg+, the only real way is downwards.

Osoto Gari

Another throw which is heavily based on kuzushi and breaking posture. The osoto gari is a throw extremely popular in the heavyweight division of judo since it can be a bit more “forced” than other more technical and complicated throws.

Osoto gari is so effective since that if the position is mirrored, the kuzushi battle will usually go to the bigger man. Provided that your own hips are not too dominated by a smaller judoka, you still should be able to win most 50/50 battles against opponents of a smaller weight.

In addition to this, the O soto gari is not a powerful athletic throw and is rather basic. It also doesn’t need to be the fastest throw in the world, which is absolutely ideal if you weigh more than 100kg.

Ouchi Gari

As a heavyweight, it should be easier for you to close the distance between yourself and your opponent than it is for them to do the same. Even with semi-neutral grips, an Ouchi Gari can be performed by gaining a very slight advantage in kuzushi and pulling your opponent forwards.

Due to the size differential, even if an Ouchi gari fails, it should be somewhat for your opponent to throw you. Despite being in not the best of positions with your chest faced away from the uke, if you manage to get your hip line below that of your opponent, it is going to be incredibly difficult to throw a heavyweight at this point of the sequence.

All in all, ouchi gari is yet another throw that is somewhat low risk mixed with high reward.