Legrand starts his Kouchi by bunching up Uke’s sleeve with his right hand. With his left, he comes inside Uke’s lapel grip and then takes his arm up and over their back. In doing this he closes the distance to Uke
Legrand takes a deep grip, reaching for their lower back with his left arm. Grabbing the Gi, not the belt. Legrand feels this is easier as the Gi bunches up here, creating a pocket of material for him to grip. When he lifts his arm up, inside of Uke’s lapel grip, it often breaks off that grip - causing Uke to take a grip around Legrand’s back. This actually enables Legrand to get even closer with his upper body, allowing better control for the Kouchi Gari.
With the arm over the top, Legrand looks to pull Uke on to him. Their natural reaction is to lean back, as they feel threatened by a possible forward attack, this shifts their weight backwards.
In order for Legrand to execute his Kouchi gari, he needs to square Uke up. Making sure both legs are on the same line. To achieve this Legrand uses his twitch Kosoto attack. Faking forward and then stepping behind for the Kosoto. Not fully committing to the attack but doing enough to get the reaction. With Uke already leaning back from the initial pull; the twitch Kosoto is a big threat and gets a substantial reaction.
This creates a great position for Legrand to attack with the Kouchi Gari.
Up Next in Watch All
-
Skip And Execution | Kouchi Gari | Ug...
With the set up complete, the next stage of Legrand’s Kouchi all comes from the skip across. This skip allows him the time to wait and catch the leg at the perfect moment.
Legrand found that when he did the standard Kouchi Gari step, he would feel fixed and it never flowed. However with the skip...
-
Competition Variations | Kouchi Gari ...
You’ve seen how Legrand demonstrates his Kouchi gari, now let’s analyse how he executed it in competition.
Fighting Romania’s Danculea at the 2010 Tokyo Worlds, Legrand is fighting to keep the sleeve grip. As Danculea tries to break it Legrand sends the left arm over the top and attacks with the...
-
Overview | Kouchi Gari | Kirill Denisov
Kouchi gari is a key technique in Kirill Denisov’s judo.
The five time World medallist uses Kouchi not only to score, but to destabilise opponents and to set up his major throws.
He mainly uses it when up against right handed opponents, and as well as a classical Kouchi, he has two other main v...
