Randori
乱取り
Free practice in judo, aikido, jujutsu and some karate styles. Partners try techniques against real resistance, but without aiming to win.
Quick Facts
Word breakdown
Definition
Randori (乱取り) is made up of the characters 乱, disorder, confusion, and 取り, to take, to grasp. It is translated as free practice. Unlike kata, where the course is fixed in advance, in randori nobody knows beforehand what the partner will do. In judo and jujutsu it is a one-on-one practice bout in which partners try to throw and to defend against a throw. Judo's founder Kano Jigoro described it in 1932 in Los Angeles as practice under real contest conditions, with throws, chokes and holds, but so that partners are not injured. In Aikikai aikido, randori means one practitioner defending against several attackers at once, who attack quickly in succession in an unknown order. Some karate schools use the term for free fighting in which the action is not interrupted after a successful technique.
Differences between arts and styles
Judo and jujutsu: a one-on-one bout, standing (tachi-waza randori) or on the ground (ne-waza randori). The mildest form is yakusoku geiko, agreed practice in which the partner does not resist the throw. Aikido (Aikikai): defence against several attackers at once, without knowing the order or manner of attack. Karate: in some schools free fighting in which there is no stop after a successful technique. This is how it differs from kumite, where the referee stops the action after a scoring technique.
Common mistakes and confusions
Randori is not shiai. Shiai is a competitive match with a referee and a winner, while randori is practice in which the aim is to try techniques and learn from one's own mistakes. The result does not count in randori.
Relations to other terms
Opposite
Often confused with
See also
Repeated practice of entering a throw without completing it, a basic training method of judo. In kendo the same term denotes practice of strikes.
Kumite組手The part of karate in which one trains against an opponent: from pre-agreed exchanges through semi-free sparring to free and competition fights.