Don't Try To Throw Off A Punch

I grew up with Judo - my Dad practiced Judo; his nickname in the shipyard where he worked was “Judo”, and when his younger brother started working there, he became known as “Young Judo” – I’ve practiced it since I was eight, and my son now trains in the art; I love Judo. Judo is a linear art, in that it develops skills and abilities in one direction only, like boxing; Judokas are good at grappling and boxers are good at punching, etc. Striking has been removed from Judo (accept in the Katas), so that the focus is on grappling, and boxers don’t train grappling, so they can focus on punching, etc. From an overall fighting perspective, this means both groups have areas of combat that they are not skilled in, and that their systems are not designed to deal with – this became apparent in the early days of the UFC, where certain arts and systems were shown to be lacking in particular dimensions of combat. Much as I would love for Judo to be a universal system, where throwing could be used to deal with all types and manner of attacks (armed and unarmed), this isn’t the case – it’s one of the reasons I started training in Krav Maga e.g. I needed to broaden out my skill set. This became apparent to me when I first started working on the door, and had to deal with people who were predominantly strikers and punchers, because until the distance closed, and I could get a hand/grip on people, it was impossible to throw them i.e. only Dirty Harry, Jason Bourne and John Wick, are able to catch punches and throw off them; if it was possible the MMA guys, who have the time to develop such skills and the financial incentives to do so, would have found a way; there are lots of throws and takedowns in MMA, but not from catching punches. However, there are still those in the martial arts community who propose that catching punches and throwing off them is advisable. In this article, I want to look at the very limited situations when throwing against a striker’s punch(es) may be possible, and why it’s not my first go-to.

There are three phases to a throw: Kuzushi (the breaking of balance), Tsukuri (fitting/getting in to place/position), and Kake (the final execution of the throw). All of these have to be present and must start with the breaking of balance. Although many untrained punchers i.e. your average joe on the street throwing a punch, lacks stability when they strike, they remain balanced; they don’t fall over in the process. This means that to throw somebody who is punching, you would have to first take their balance. In a grappling scenario where you are tied up with the person, this is relatively easy ‑ you can pull and push them. However, if somebody was punching you, the only thing you'd be theoretically able to get hold of would be the punching arm; you won't be able to get to the body because the striking arm would be blocking your access – you could perhaps change level and drop under the arm to perform a takedown, but that's a whole other issue, and isn't what's being discussed here. 

Grabbing a moving arm, that is punching at speed, and will be quickly recoiling is virtually impossible; think about trying to grab a boxer’s jab. If somebody is bowling into you drunk, and swinging wild punches at you, as they move into a clinch, you maybe have a chance to throw them as they move into grappling range, but here you’re not throwing off of a punch, you’re throwing somebody who is quickly and rapidly moving towards you; and you can exploit their forward movement to take their balance – not something I’d advocate, but a situation that you might be able to exploit with some kind of hip throw, etc.

I have heard some people make the argument, that to deal with the speed and recoil of the punch – in order to execute a throw off it – the solution, is to make a simultaneous block and strike; the block to deal with the punch, and the simultaneous strike, to stop the attacker. The problem with this is the way that effective punches stop and/or create movement e.g. If I require forward movement and momentum to break an attacker’s balance, because I’m wanting to execute a hip throw (or similar), when I punch the person coming/punching towards me, my strike will move them backwards/away from me – I might be able to now throw in this direction e.g. using an O-Soto-Gari/Major Outer Reap etc. but I’d be having to chase after them to do so, as my strike will have moved them away from me; and from a practical point of view it’s probably more expedient to fill this gap with other strikes, than to go for the throw. If I step off-line to make my punch, I’ll also move the attacker away from me, and change the direction of their movements. To put it very, very simply, to throw somebody with a hip throw or similar, I need to pull them towards me, not push them away – and a successful punch is effectively the reverse of a pull. When you throw a punch, you are going to want it to deliver as much concussive force as possible, so trying to judge and limit the strike so it simply stops the person, for you then to be able to start their movement forward again by pulling them towards you makes no sense (and I question anybody’s ability - in a real-life confrontation - to make a correct judgment of the force required to accomplish this).

I would love to have a proven way of consistently using an Ippon-Seio-Nage, or a hip throw off, off an attacker’s punch – as a Judoka it would please me immensely to be able to do this; I have nearly 40-years of Judo under my belt, so being able to intercept a punch, and execute a throw is more than an attractive idea for me. However, it would rely on luck and a perfect storm, on an attacker’s behalf, to make this happen, and so I have to recognize that throwing in this context isn’t a reliable option – there are many great applications for throwing in self-defense scenarios, but this simply isn’t one of them. I started working door, because all the doormen in my town trained at my Judo school, and although over the years many of them showed me how to get my dojo Judo to work in real fights, never did anyone teach me that I should try a hip throw or similar against a punch. Judo is a highly effective self-defense system/martial art, and with so many fights closing range quickly, knowing how to throw is an essential skill, but recognizing the context when this is applicable is essential.