An expertise acceleration experiment in Judo

https://commoncog.com/expertise-acceleration-experiment-judo/

by jger15 • 3 years ago

84 52 3 years ago

jperras3• 3 years ago

I'm quite interested in the outcome of this "experiment". I wish the best for the OP, but I feel like things will end poorly.

I've been a judoka for several years; I also started late, in my 30s. I train 4-5 times a week for 2+ hours a day at one of the best dojos in my country, and my country regularly medals in international events - there's no lack of high-level talent.

I've sparred with literal Olympians, and receive instruction from one of the most highly ranked and respected judoka in the world who has produced Olympic medal winning athletes, in addition to our other instructor who was a top 9 finisher in the Olympics, World Cup winner, and multi-year Pan Am champion.

And you know what I've found out after all that? Competitive judo is fucking hard. It will brutalize your mind and body in ways you never thought possible.

And just when you think you're getting anywhere, you'll have a match with someone at a national/international level, and you feel like you're a day-one white belt getting ragdolled by someone having fun and going at 40% of their competition-level intensity.

KRAKRISMOTT• 3 years ago

Really? I have found that like most sports it all comes down to mass and height.

Winning is an entirely different case (because resisting getting thrown too much results in points loss), but if you just want to avoid falling, just be in your upper end of your weight class, don't be short, and pay attention to footwork. You won't win any competitions this way but you won't get thrown easily during tachi-waza either.

jperras3• 3 years ago

I honestly don't even know how to respond to most of this.

You must be The Chosen One™ if all you need to do to avoid being thrown by an opponent who is more skilled than you are is "pay attention to footwork".

just be in your upper end of your weight class

Nearly every single competitive athlete is at the upper end of their weight class. If you compete in -81kg, you're training/walking around at more or less 85kg, and cutting weight for competition. No one is showing up to the -81kg category weighing 75kg.

don't be short

At the top level, weight classes are, effectively, height classes in disguise.

There's some variation, but the distribution of heights for a particular weight class doesn't have a very large standard deviation, especially as athletes get a little older and have packed on as much muscle as they physically can onto their frame.

ProAm2• 3 years ago

This is extremely incorrect.

edgyquant3• 3 years ago

We’re talking about winning though. It’s true it’s harder to throw a guy twice your size with good footwork (there’s a white belt at my gym who comes from BJJ and did karate as a kid, nearly impossible for me to throw) but that person also isn’t likely to get you with throws if he isn’t competent (the aforementioned gentlemen is twice my size and has never thrown me or even came close.)

serjester2• 3 years ago

Similar experience with Brazilian Jui Jutsu. If you pick up these sports late, you fundamentally move differently from the guy that's been fighting since he was a toddler. I can tell you the second someone walks in if they have a wrestling background. Experience helps but every now and then you come across someone that's picks up more in a year than you do in 5. Just look at J Rod winning ADCC's this year as a blue belt.

CodeAndCuffs2• 3 years ago

Ok, so I'm not the only one who's noticed the wrestler walk? Like, something in their posture or their gait. Idk what it is, but you can just eyeball a dude and be like, "yeah he knows what a Granby roll is"

ru552• 3 years ago

Jay Rod won ADCC NA trials. This is a qualifier to get into ADCC. He then lost in the first round of actual ADCC.

CodeAndCuffs2• 3 years ago

IMO this is one of the beautiful things about Judo/BJJ. I'm bad at BJJ. I know that. Yeah I can manhandle a dude my size who's day 1 no experience. Anything more than that is me trying my best and then going easy on me. I passed that purple belts guard but he could've stopped it if he wanred to bad enough.

Then you roll with a legit seasoned black belt, and realize you are even worse than you thought.

And it's not because of the team, or the gear, or someone cheating or lag in a videogame. It's just him being better.

And you either let that beat you up, or you look forward to how high the scale goes, and keep on growing

yodsanklai4• 3 years ago

Then you roll with a legit seasoned black belt, and realize you are even worse than you thought.

That's pretty much the case with all sports. Try to go skiing for the first time, and compare yourself with a champion. Fighting sports are similar, but maybe we wrongly assume there's something innate with fighting. In the end, it's all technique! at least in a sport context.

One funny thing in fighting sports, is that sometimes there are big thug-looking guys joining the class, they look intimidating and dangerous, and you realize they're just as harmless as any other beginner!

bradknowles2• 3 years ago

So, I played Judo in college. Our teacher was jokingly referred to as "Choke Monster". As you might imagine, He was really good at choking holds. He told me once that he liked demonstrating with me, because I had good natural defensive methods. He was a 3rd degree black belt at the time.

He sometimes brought black belts from his Dojo to the University class, and I loved playing with them. I got so many good learning opportunities. Even if that did mean that a 300lb black belt threw me to the ground harder than I've ever hit the mat, and then he proceeded to fall on top of me. The problem was that my natural defenses were good enough to stop his first attack attempt, but he could plan multiple attacks in sequence, and rip right from one failed attack into the next one while I was still piled up on his back. But doing so meant he had less reserve to brace over the fallen opponent, as he would normally have done.

In the end, I had a minor injury to my neck, and a separate older minor injury to my hand. And I also attended one tournament at his local Dojo, which meant that I also encountered my professors Sensei, who was a 5th degree black belt. He was also the meanest and nastiest prick I ever met, and after one encounter with that asshole, I was never going back.

Thus ended my year playing Judo.

neilv• 3 years ago

and you feel like you're a day-one white belt getting ragdolled by someone having fun and going at 40% of their competition-level intensity.

You reminded me of a nice memory. I never trained competitively, nor very far, but was fortunate to see some people with amazing ability.

As a young teen learning Aikido, one time, our great sensei (at a local public school auditorium that was converted to a dojo in the evening) had a very high-ranking person from Japan visit. The visitor was middle-aged and jovial, and his family was also there.

At one point, the visiting sensei was demonstrating throws in the middle of the mats, and would indicate a student who was to attack. Then he'd do some subtle, conservation-of-movement whole body thing, and the student would go flying.

I received the technique myself, and the students weren't just being polite or trying to show good rolls/breakfalls -- the technique was surprisingly powerful, and you were definitely getting thrown, whether you wanted to or not. But done gently enough that you wouldn't get hurt. He would smile and maybe give a good-natured little chuckle each time.

hummus_bae• 3 years ago

I'm quite interested in the outcome of this "experiment". I wish the best for the OP, but I feel like things will end poorly.

I feel like you're being a little hyperbolic. The founder of HackerNews says that he trains less than half of what this guy does, so I don't see why this guy has reason for failure any more than anyone else.

yodsanklai4• 3 years ago

I did judo for 5 years when I was a kid and a teenager (extremely popular in my country). Then I stopped and resumed in my late 20s for a few more years. I really loved that sport but it was too much strain on my body. Maybe I was in the wrong club, but for me it wasn't sustainable as an older adult, randoris were too intense (but the best part).

I then switched to Muay Thai which seems like a more violent sport, but it's much easier to control the intensity, as long as you're in phase with your sparring partners.

hermitcrab3• 3 years ago

I remember the first time I got my thigh shin kicked by an ex-pro thai boxer. It was like a bomb going off in my head and I felt naseous afterwards. I could feel it days afterwards. Give me judo randori any day!

kuhewa• 3 years ago

In full contact competitive arts e.g. striking and MMA the trend has been toward more and more limitation of contact sparring. For striking and grappling arts like BJJ, you can still train skills with very low contact and low intensity drills so you could train many hours of the day sustainably. I have never practiced Judo but I am pretty sure due to the dynamic nature of throws there is no real way around throwing each other to train, i.e. the intensity or equivalent of 'contact' can only get so low.

tayo423• 3 years ago

Loss in Judo is more personal than in other sports. Defeat in a sport like tennis feels bad, but defeat in a fighting sport is crushing in ways that most people do not comprehend.

Just this stuck out, this was one of the worst parts of high school wrestling, just two people, one on one more or less fighting. At least in football you can blame it on the team all together.

FartyMcFarter• 3 years ago

However, if you're doing it for fun then getting thrown like a ragdoll is actually quite entertaining.

Even the parts that hurt are memorable in a good way. I remember someone quite expert performing a move that made my body feel like it was about to split into 4 pieces, but the pain was not that bad and only lasted for a moment (because they knew when to stop).

It is amazing (and humbling) to experience first hand what a skilled fighter can do to you in a safe context.

edgyquant3• 3 years ago

I lose in Randori all the time (at least every week) to the black/brown belts at my gym and it’s usually to the sound of laughter. Yea I want to win but it’s fun pulling and grip fighting and the throws are beautiful and eloquent even when it’s you getting thrown.

tayo423• 3 years ago

"doing it for fun" and "high school wrestling" don't really go together haha that sport churns through people with the way it's done.

dylan604• 3 years ago

This is what I came to appreciate about golf as well. There's nobody to blame except yourself when things don't work out, and there's nobody else to steal credit when things go well. Even more so since there's no direct competitor/defender actively interacting with you in ways to prevent you from doing something

hermitcrab3• 3 years ago

That is partly a cultural thing though, isn't it? I went to the USA as a camp counsellor in the 80s and was really stuck by the difference in attitude to winning and losing between the UK and US. In the UK it is generally considered ok to lose at sport, as long as you give it your best and conduct yourself in a sportsman-like manner. The US attitude (on my camp, at least) seemed to be to win at all costs. During the final week of sports competition at the camp, the boys would be so psyched up that the losing team would almost always burst into tears. Even the 15 year olds. Not all what you would expect in the UK.

tayo423• 3 years ago

could be, maybe depends on the sport. but I really couldn't comment on culture of the UK hah.

personally at least, i grew up playing sports with friends and losing was ok and happened, sure they were competitive though and maybe the occasional sore loser. high school sports were different for sure. probably to intense for the average kid.

theptip• 3 years ago

It’s interesting to think about what “atomic drills” would look like for programming. I do “dojos” with my team but it’s usually more “group code review” or “present interesting concept”.

I’ve heard folks do mob programming on simple problems (eg “implement fizzbuzz in a few different paradigms”). Perhaps also a little time spent on advent of code would be good too? Everybody on the team does Day X and then we discuss and compare solutions?

Edit to add: thinking about drills - what if we merged interviews and team drills, spent some time setting up a realistic work scenario as a drill, and added an interviewee? That way, during an interview the team gets to drill, say, reviewing and debugging a feature rollout. The interviewee gets to actually spend 2-4h in a realistic work simulation instead of solving LeetCode problems.

tmtvl• 3 years ago

Aren't things like LeetCode and Hacker Rank supposed to be programming drills? Though I do like the idea of getting a realistic work simulation. That said isn't 4 hours a little short? I wouldn't be able to get much of anything done in so little time.

anthomtb• 3 years ago

"Atomic drills", as done for sports, do not apply well to programming IME. The following will make a lot more sense if you are familiar with the book Thinking Fast and Slow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow), or the research upon which that popularization is based.

Atomic drills as performed for sports allow you to use System 2 (slow, deliberate, logical) to train System 1 (fast, reactive, emotional). But when programming you are almost always going to be in System 2. Programming does not deal with instantaneous reactions in the same way sports does. Sure, you might react to a bug report (dammit, Johnson, I told you async was a bad idea for this!) but its not like sports, where by the time you consciously process input your physical reaction should have already occurred. To take the example from the Judo article, if you have formed the thought of "that guy looks about to throw me!" you are probably already on the ground.

There may be very time limited, competitive programming events where you need to think so fast that atomic drills can come into play. I do not know of any but they could exist.

But basically, when programming, at least on a professional basis, you are not relying on physical reactions to get the job done. And atomic drills are about training physical reactions.

There is definitely value, lots of it, to the "realistic work scenarios" you describe, it is just not the same as figuring out the bare fundamentals of a sport and practicing until they are entirely subconscious.

operator-name• 3 years ago

What about the "basic competencies" such as touch typing, learning editor shortcuts and other workflow optimisations?

joshka• 3 years ago

The term you're looking for to find more info on this is a Code Kata.

hermitcrab3• 3 years ago

I did some judo back in the day. But found it demoralizing to be 'stiff-armed' by people who were just bigger and stronger (which is most people, in my case). I much preferred Japanese ju-jitsu, where you could kick or punch people who tried to stiff-arm you or stood still in randori.

I think it is quite sad that judo and taekwondo have become olympic sports. The emphasis on winning and rules has taken away far more than it has given (IMHO). Also, even as a martial arts fan, I think both are really boring to watch. Judo is mostly 2 guys trying not to move. Taekwondo is mostly 2 guys alternately bouncing up and down and hugging each other. How do you make a sport where people are trying to kick each other in the head boring? The olympics managed it.

riku_iki• 3 years ago

Judo is mostly 2 guys trying not to move.

I am not judoka, but I really enjoy watching judo matches. It looks to me like long positional game with the goal to achieve dominant position and catch sub-second opportunity window to perform explosive winning movement.

Also, I like that techniques are not brute force, but with the goal to put opponent off the balance, or find some angle for attack.

ProAm2• 3 years ago

But found it demoralizing to be 'stiff-armed' by people who were just bigger and stronger (which is most people, in my case)

Why let them get a grip? It's strategy. Bigger means higher center of gravity, which is easier to throw.

The emphasis on winning and rules has taken away far more than it has given (IMHO).

I completely agree. The IJF has ruined the sport of competitive judo. They would rather make a new rule about something being illegal than evolve the sport.

yodsanklai4• 3 years ago

But found it demoralizing to be 'stiff-armed' by people who were just bigger and stronger

This is why Judo (like most combat sports) is weight-class sport. That being said, technique can compensate weight difference to some extent.

Judo is mostly 2 guys trying not to move

That's what happened when these guys have almost identical level. If not, one is going to move toward the tatami very fast.

flybrand• 3 years ago

I wish such clarity of training and feedback exists in other skill domains.

a lot of success as a leader is creating such fast feedback loops for a team

Nevermark• 3 years ago

That sounds like a good principle in managing oneself too. Work in feedback for every mini-milestone into your work rhythm.

Training the subconscious to do (automatically know what to do next, want to do it, get on it) is the self-management goal.

Do something measurable, and arrange things to experience some meaningful response to any milestone.

I may be doing this when I design and code in different rooms of my house. Obviously speed isn't the main point of either task. But my subconscious definitely registers "I completed an actionable part of the design" as I move from living room to my study to code. And vice versa.

Helps that this mini-milestone context-switching "feedback" is a natural part of doing the work. Part of the flow.

rojotek• 3 years ago

Very interesting. It feels like a replay of the Josh Waitzkin story, as he told in The Art of Learning.

readthenotes1• 3 years ago

"My number one advice is don’t focus on yourself, but focus on the strategy to win the points, knowing what you have today. "

Steven Brust, in his books, has a recurring advice "do not think about what you can do; think about what needs to be done, and do it"

junglistguy• 3 years ago

As a judoka with 20 years of experience, I don't know what the hell this article is about.

jperras3• 3 years ago

Glad it wasn't just me who was baffled by the whole thing!

pestatije• 3 years ago

Oh, acceleration in the sense to learn quicker...not physical accel

steele• 3 years ago

I guess they forgot that sports should be fun.

adamgordonbell• 3 years ago

I originally found commoncog through hacker news and his insights on deliberate practice (and its limits) were so helpful for me, that I've been following him on twitter and reading everything he puts out.

Now, this experiment! I'm excited to learn more. I want to know more about the mental strength work and about constructing drills for softer skills.

enahs-sf• 3 years ago

Recently got my shodan and can relate to this article and the merits of structured practice. Judo taught me a lot about how to learn a skill as it's really pedagogically laid out by Kano. The method for learning is spelt out in such a way that if you repeat the process then apply what you've learned during randori, you will improve.

maCDzP• 3 years ago

I practiced BJJ and our black belt advised against “drills” in favor of sparring.

Now I train gymnastics and “drills” is basically the name of the game. I prefer the drills, gives a clear feeling of progression that I like.

thomascgalvin• 3 years ago

I think the big difference is that BJJ is meant to be used against a resisting opponent, while gymnastics is not.

You can get really good at kata by, well, doing kata, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to employ your knife-hand block when someone's trying to punch you in the face. That drill lacks an important aspect of the actual practice.

On the other hand, if you can pull off an armbar against a guy that's really good at defending armbars, you can almost certainly pull one on a drunk guy in the Kroger's parking lot.

Gymnastics doesn't have that dynamic variable. The drill and the skill are largely the same, or the drill is at least a component of a larger skill. There's huge transfer between the two.

An expertise acceleration experiment in Judo

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