More time for unorthodox grips

This was one of the best rule changes. Apparently, a lot of the national judo federations wrote in and said they wanted to see a longer time given for players to use unorthodox grips.

For a long time, the guidance for unorthodox grips was to "attack immediately". That means if you have a cross grip, you literally have no time at all to set up. You have to attack immediately.
Frankly, that was a ridiculous approach. How can you expect players to attack without any time for setting up the attack?
Fortunately, this has now been addressed and the message to referees is, if it's an unorthodox attack, give it more time than you did in the past. You don't quite give it the full 30 seconds that a conventional sleeve-collar grip is given, but you give it more than just a few seconds.
An audience member asked how many seconds should be given. Daniel Lascau replied that he could not give precise seconds. The referee will just have to assess the situation and decide how long to let it go on. But give them more time (that's the point he kept hammering home).
We think this is a superb ruling. Giving athletes more time with their unorthodox grips will almost certainly result in a burst of creativity. We will see more dynamic attacks emerge as a result of this welcome ruling.

Read the other new judo rules that we like most.