How To Do Ouchi Gari (Major Inner Reaping)

Basic Technique:

Ouchi-Gari is a great competition technique both as an outright scoring opportunity or as a break down technique for combinations.

The basic technique tends to be against an opponent who has spread their legs a little too wide or have been caught back on their heels.

The thrower turns almost completely right side on to his opponent whilst balancing on his left leg. At the same time the thrower inserts his right leg between his opponents two legs and reaps away the opponents left leg with his right leg whilst pushing him down and backwards to the mat.

Classically the throwers right leg does not touch the mat at all but rather follows a small circular reaping motion.

Whilst the reaping action is taking place the thrower pushes down and backwards with his right hand lapel grip making sure that the weight of the opponent is firmly fixed on his left leg (the leg being reaped) and not his right leg.

To maintain the throwing direction and power of the technique the thrower looks over his opponents left shoulder and keeps looking and driving that way until his opponent hits the mat.

Advanced Help:

A common mistake when executing Ouchi-Gari is to reap the opponents leg by sweeping directly backwards. If you find your opponent often hops off the technique then this is due to hooking backwards. It is essential that you first sweep your opponents left leg out to the side before hooking backwards.

Another common mistake is whilst sweeping your opponents left leg you remain side on to your opponent whilst throwing your head over their left shoulder. This will result in your opponent being able to counter the throw. If you find you are losing balance and being countered on a regular basis then it will be because of this movement. It is essential that when you are sweeping and looking over your opponents left shoulder that you switch from your side on stance to a chest to chest position before driving backwards.

Competition Tips:

Timing is everything in Judo however in modern competition opponents are getting physically stronger and so if you find you are often weaker than your opponent you will need to rely on tricks in order to execute techniques with timing.

Conventional wisdom says that you wait until your opponent spreads their legs a little to wide or they get caught on their heels. The difficulty here is that you are trying to spot the right time to attack and once you do you have get past strong gripping and even stronger arms.

Ouchi-Gari is a technique that you can instigate even against the strongest of opponents. If during a contest you continually take and exaggerated backward step with your right leg and at the same time almost replicating the reaping action without attacking your opponents leg you will find your opponent also takes an exaggerated step forward with their left leg. After a couple of practise steps you will find it much easier to get your timing correct. When you are ready to attack properly pull your opponent as though you are going to make the exaggerated step but this time you do not move your legs. Your opponent will take their exaggerated step with their left leg as before however this time you catch their leg by reaping it with your right leg before they put their foot on the floor.

You reap and drive as with the classic technique out to the side and round whilst driving your head over the left shoulder. However the difference now is that the opponent has already over extended and has had chance to regain their balance by putting down their left foot.

No matter how strong your opponent is they have no defence for this.