Wierd.

My wife brought back tapes of the various judo bouts from her trip to
Japan (being in the US, I'd been able to see, well, nearly one bout.
Nearly.) Only seen the first tape, but...

It seems like the only ones doing throws anymore are the Japanese and
(to a lesser extent) Cubans. Everyone else is doing international
freestyle wrestling (with the occassional tomoenage) in gis. Various
single legs, the ubiquitous fireman's  carry (oops; kata-kuruma) and
others, with an occassional uchimata thrown in for comedy relief, it
seems. And, true to the wrestling tradition, it seems they award ippon
for simply getting the guy's back flattish. I have yet to see a solid
ippon like back in the "good old days".

Uchishiba was fun to watch; the first match I saw, he improvised a
bizarre move off a blown kata-kuruma, and even the announcers had no
idea what to call it. In the gold medal match, though, his opponent
initiated the move, Uchishiba countered it, and they more or less fell
to the mat: Ippon. Even Uchishiba seemed to think it wasn't an ippon in 
the interview later. Oh, well.

And the mat work was horrible. I understand that if the guy doesn't tap
within about 3 seconds, they make you stand up, but these were some of
the worst arm-bars I've ever seen attempted. I haven't yet seen one
thrown successfully, despite very good position. It looks like they
simply try to power the arm straight. I didn't see a single choke even
attempted, and as soon as a guy got his opponent's back and his legs
hooked over the guy's legs, they called "matte".  That's probably about 
as dominating a position as you get on an opponent, and the rules now
seem to bail you out of a big mistake. 

Oh, well, at least the Japanese are fun to watch. Haven't seen the
Koreans yet, and we have 2 tapes to go.

Mike