Doing seoi otoshi (drop seoi nage) does NOT cause knee pain / injury if done correctly. I'm sick of this "drop seoi wrecks your knees" myth being paraded around as fact.
Olympic bronze medalist Cho Jun Ho said that he has not seen a single judoka in his lifetime that injured their knees due to doing seoi otoshi. Falling badly during randori, or other mishaps during training , yes, but not to seoi otoshi.
And even in my experience as a Korean judoka, every judoka here learns and does seoi otoshi and neither my coaches nor I have heard of any one injuring their knees from doing seoi otoshi. We've all seen injured knees, but not tori getting injured from doing seoi otoshi. A badly performed seoi otoshi can of course injure your knees but that goes for pretty much any throw. There is proper technique to seoi otoshi.
Don't think of 'dropping' to your knees, but instead think of 'sliding' down onto your knees. Your lower body & hips should be sliding down forward and turning, as you enter the throw. In other words you are already lowering your level as you are entering forward. Akimoto's demonstration of seoi otoshi at 1:08 shows this sliding motion quite well.
And here World champion and Olympic silver medalist Cho Gu Haum shows on the HanpanTV channel what the orientation of your hips/feet should be like this. Another angle. These photos are assuming you are doing a right-handed seoi. Notice how the hips are leaning to the right. This is so that tori can pull uke down diagonally (not straight down). The right foot's ankle is flat on the mat while the left foot's toes are "alive", so that the left foot can drive off the mat to help with twisting tori's body diagonally. As the left foot hits the mat it should be driving off the mat already.
Thanks for this. I had uncritically accepted that doing drop seoi nage was a terrible idea and that it would destroy my knees, but it seems that the problem lies more in how it is done than the throw itself; and as you say, any throw done badly can hurt you.
I forget who said it, it might have been Cho Jun-Ho, but someone observed that in South Korea, there are two kinds of judoka: drop seoi nage judoka and uchi mata judoka. Everyone over there does one or the other.
I'll have to research how to properly do drop seoi nage. Because of my earlier opinion, I had wanted to always do seoi nage standing up, but it seems that in many cases, that's just not very feasible (like if uke is significantly shorter than you, and particularly if they are both shorter and heavier). I had just sort of resigned myself to seoi nage being a throw that I would rarely use, especially on someone shorter than me or even the same height, but perhaps I can make use of it after all.
That being said, I think a lot of people do drop seoi nage badly. I remember it being done to me at my dojo, and as I recall, it often felt like I was being pulled straight down, going head-first into the tatami. The tatami comes at you fast with drop seoi nage, and if tori isn't pulling you down diagonally, it's even worse, because now you've got to twist yourself so you don't face-plant.
Yes, but also, lots of repeated impact to the knees and repeated flexing/bending/kneeling can be detrimental to joint health (see Volleyball, Catching in baseball, etc.).
Only reason I couldn’t hit drop Seoi was because of an existing issue. Otherwise I don’t think I’ve ever hurt myself with it.
Granted I do like the one knee version more.
But yeah, this guy I know has done it all wrong just dropping right down and hurting himself. No one taught him any better, but this is why you don’t do what you haven’t been taught.
It absolutely does hurt the knees. Think about all the failed seoi nages that occur. If seoi nage is your main throw, it should fail more times than it works. That’s just judo. And for every failed one you often do hurt the knees due to landing. Plus, seoi nage isn’t always done with optimal grips. In competition you have to throw with what you can get, or if you are behind with shidos, and do that enough and your knees will absolutely hurt with time
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u/wowspare Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
Doing seoi otoshi (drop seoi nage) does NOT cause knee pain / injury if done correctly. I'm sick of this "drop seoi wrecks your knees" myth being paraded around as fact.
Olympic bronze medalist Cho Jun Ho said that he has not seen a single judoka in his lifetime that injured their knees due to doing seoi otoshi. Falling badly during randori, or other mishaps during training , yes, but not to seoi otoshi.
And even in my experience as a Korean judoka, every judoka here learns and does seoi otoshi and neither my coaches nor I have heard of any one injuring their knees from doing seoi otoshi. We've all seen injured knees, but not tori getting injured from doing seoi otoshi. A badly performed seoi otoshi can of course injure your knees but that goes for pretty much any throw. There is proper technique to seoi otoshi.
Don't think of 'dropping' to your knees, but instead think of 'sliding' down onto your knees. Your lower body & hips should be sliding down forward and turning, as you enter the throw. In other words you are already lowering your level as you are entering forward. Akimoto's demonstration of seoi otoshi at 1:08 shows this sliding motion quite well.
And here World champion and Olympic silver medalist Cho Gu Haum shows on the HanpanTV channel what the orientation of your hips/feet should be like this. Another angle. These photos are assuming you are doing a right-handed seoi. Notice how the hips are leaning to the right. This is so that tori can pull uke down diagonally (not straight down). The right foot's ankle is flat on the mat while the left foot's toes are "alive", so that the left foot can drive off the mat to help with twisting tori's body diagonally. As the left foot hits the mat it should be driving off the mat already.