Dynamic Francisco Garrigos makes the somersault sode

Back in the days before there was a ban on leg grabs, one-handed sode specialists like Oren Smadga (ISR), Toshihiko Koga (JPN) and Yordanis Arencibia (CUB) would grab hold of uke's leg with their free hand and do a somersault in order to finish the throw.

This approach largely disappeared after the ban on leg grabs. Without the grip on uke's leg, it's impossible to do a somersault that would land uke on his back. Without the leg grab, uke could just spin out.

But the one-handed sode didn't disappear. Soichi Hashimoto (JPN), probably the best one-handed sode thrower in the world today, came up with a version where no somersault was needed.

Spain's Francisco Garrigos is giving new life to the somersault approach though. His version is very similar to what the likes of Smadga, Koga and Arencibia did except instead of holding onto the end of uke's sleeve, he adopts a different gripping pattern.

The only man who successfully defended his European title, Garrigos usually does this technique when uke tries to reach for a high grip with his left hand. Instead of defending against it, he catches uke's extended arm near the biceps area, and with his free hand he grabs uke's waist (above the belt).

With uke securely loaded on his back, Garrigos then does a committed somersault, hurling uke over with him, and landing him flat on his back.

At first glance it looks dangerously like a head-dive but if you watch the movement carefully, you'll see his head doesn't hit the mat and is never in any danger of being hurt. In fact, the somersault is so complete that Garrigos ends up landing on uke's body!

It's a very dynamic, crowd-pleasing throw and he used it twice in the recent European Championships in Sofia.

The first one was against Israel's Matan Kokolayev. In Golden Score, as Kokolayev reached over for a high grip, Garrigos launched into a very low version of this technique. Initially it was scored a waza-ari but that was later cancelled (Garrigos went on to win with a kouchi-gake).

The second one was even more spectacular because of the height achieved when doing this throw. He was up against former World Champion Lukhumi Chkhvimiani (GEO), always a tough opponent with his relentless Georgian-style high grips. But this is perfect for Garrigos (1.63m), who took full advantage of this and launched his Georgian opponent with the kind of somersault one-handed sode that hasn't been seen since the days of Smagda, Koga and Arencibia.

His grip is a bit different than theirs (all three preferred the end-of-sleeve grip) but the execution of the throw is identical.