Speculation on three new rules

As of now, nothing concrete has been announced but there have been some supposed leaks. One famous judo YouTuber even made a video based on some of these so-called leaks. Are they reliable? No one knows.

But we’ve heard three things that supposedly likely to happen:
a) Some leg grabbing will be allowed
b) No shido for stepping out or pushing out
c) No hansoku-make when the head lightly touches the mat during a throw

Let’s have a look at these three possibilities:

Firstly, about leg grabbing. I think most people agree that upright judo is more attractive to watch than players just diving for the legs. At the same time, I think many people also agree that it’s a shame that dynamic techniques like kata-guruma and te-guruma, done with leg grabs, are not allowed.

Basically, the general view among most judokas is that some form of leg grabs should be allowed. The question is what restrictions should the IJF impose to avoid judo becoming like freestyle wrestling?

One approach is to require that at least one grip is secured before attacking with the leg grab, just like the case with bear-hugging. If you bear hug without any grip, it’s a penalty. If you leg grab without any grip, it can also be considered a penalty. This will help to limit the diving for legs. It does mean morote-gari will not be an option but most people won’t mind.

What about abuse of leg grabbing for the purposes of shido play? What if someone keeps grabbing the leg to make themselves look busy without actually doing any real attacks? Well, the rules must reflect that simply grabbing at the leg without any serious effort at a real throw will not count as activity and a player who constantly grabs at the leg could still get a shido.

Secondly, no shido for going out of the contest area. Many people may have forgotten but there was a period is the 2010s when the IJF experimented with that. And during that time, many players fought with one leg outside the contest area. There was also a lot of cases where the matches strayed outside the contest area, with no penalty.

At the time there was no issue and you didn’t see a whole lot of abuse of that rule. I didn’t recall many players purposely stepping out or purposely pushing out their opponents. People fought freely and if they strayed outside the contest area, they were called back in. It really didn’t hinder the flow of the matches.

I felt it was a good development and was surprised (and disappointed) that the IJF later tightened the rule so much so that even an accidental step out resulted in shido (and sometimes cost players the match).

Again, there must be rules in place where very blatant attempts at running outside the contest area will be penalized. But if two players are fighting hard and the one whose back is against the border accidentally steps out, that player shouldn’t be penalized. Just bring them back in and let the play continue.

By having this change in rules, you eliminate a form of shido play where the intention is to pressure uke into stepping out. You want more throws and more ippons, then eliminate opportunities for shido play.

Thirdly, head diving. When there is a reckless head dive by tori, every audience member cringes because they can imagine that person (or themselves) getting seriously injured. Maybe even paralysis will result. Nobody likes to see that. That kind of head dive needs to be given hansoku-make. But not if tori’s head briefly grazes the mat.

Under current rules far too many players received hansoku-make for when their heads very barely touched the mat. The rules on that were way too stringent. It’s not fair. Hopefully the new rules will rectify that.