Leg Grabs Are Back

Yes you read that correctly, after nearly 15 years Leg Grabs are returning to Judo, albeit in a limited capacity. At present I have only managed to find limited information however the current implementation of these changes will be to allow leg grabs only as an extension to an initial attack (so no 3-second ippon with morote-gari's). I will update with more information as I find it

Why Were They banned?

Leg grabs, or "ashi-tori" in Japanese; were banned from judo by the IJF in 2010. It should be noted however that this was not for the purposes of safety or practicality but, for semi-aesthetic purposes in an effort to improve the sport. There have been several more pessimistic conspiracy theories as to the motivations behind the change, suggesting that it was a politically motivated change: either because the other wrestling arts were dominating (which didn't happen) or because the Russian Judokas favored the leg-grab techniques and were very successful with them, however, they were also equally successful without them, which negates this theory.

What was the reason then?

The removal of leg grab techniques was actually a lot more mundane. It was a well-intentioned (though widely unpopular) change made by the IJF in an attempt to improve the quality of the sport at its core. many judo competitions were devolving into passive/defensive brawls rather than the judo competitions that we all love. Leg grabs themselves may not have been the cause of the issues, however, they were being used to abuse the rules.

The issue came down to the way the scoring works in judo [see how scoring works article link]. In short, the winner is determined as whoever has the highest score 'category' so a single "yuko score would win over 100 "Koka" scores. Leg grabs would be an easy way to gain a low score, so many competitive coaches would encourage the strategy of "get the easy leg grab score then defend until the time runs out". unsurprisingly this resulted in a lot of very defensive (and very boring) judo.

About Leg Grabs

Leg grabs have long been an integral part of Judo and their being made illegal was a largely unpopular decision particularly for those who used them as their prefered throw. Even though they were banned they were still taught as part of the Kodokan syllabus, appearing at 1st Kyu (Brown) belt. Furthermore, in an effot to preserve the techniques, those that favor them have devised some creative adaptations that do not require the grabbing of the legs. Kata-guruma (shoulder wheel) in particular has had some fantastic adaptations and can still be seen used in competition.