Judo groundwork keeps developing with Shiba Lock

Techniques sometimes come and go in seasons. There are periods when certain types of techniques are in vogue and lots of people seem to be doing them. Right now, a fairly old technique seems to be popular, especially among the Japanese female players. It's a groundwork move known as the "Shiba Lock" in Japan executed by Shori Hamada and Amandine Buchard to name a few top players.

Turns out, it is named after Michihide Shibata, a judo player (now coach) who developed this move around 2007 while he was at Kokushikan University.

Shibata has since said that the way the players do the Shiba Lock today is a bit different from how he used to do it. It's not clear exactly how he did it but the versions used by many of today's female Japanese players involve a Figure-4 lock on one of uke's arms. This approach is how Hamada does it.

Although Shibata probably wasn't aware of it when he developed the hold-down that bears his name, British female players were doing a form of it in the early 90s. Rowena Sweatman, Britain's 1994 European Champion, was one of the key exponents of this move.

There was no formal name for it (and there still isn't today). I recalled the legendary judo photographer David Finch referring to it as "the women's hold-down where tori ends up on her belly, with both her legs under uke's back". That's quite a mouthful. Perhaps it's easier to just call it the "Shiba Lock". Or you could call it the "Sweatman Lock". Rowena Sweatman was doing the Shiba Lock more than a decade before Shibata.

The way Rowena Sweatman did it was different from the way Hamada and other Japanese female players like to do it. Sweatman did it combination with a choke not a Figure-4 grip.

The closest contemporary example of this is how Amandine Buchard does her unusual choke which also leads to a Shiba Lock situation. Because it is also a choke, quite often her opponents would tap out.