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.
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.).
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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.