What does "randori" mean to you?

Randori is one of the most important training tools we have. It's so important we start our people on it from day one. I don't know how others do it but here's a brief description of what we do.

Minimum of 5 people, 3 attackers(trainers), 1 defender(trainee), and 1 facilitator(person who controls drill). We prefer to have 4 attackers(trainers).

We (attackers/defenders) dress in armor face, chest, and gloves.

It's generally a 3 minute round. Each trainer attacks individually, and the trainee takes them out one-by-one. The moment one goes down the next one attacks-immediately. This goes on for the full 3minutes. The point of the drill is to keep constant pressure on the trainee. 3 things we look at are timing, intent, and intensity. 2 of the 3 never change, timing and intent. Timing is simply the amount of time between attackers, which is zero(the trainee must be under constant pressure). Intent is also constant, whenever an attacker attacks his intent should always be to a committed attack(the traine will get hit, or pushed if they do not defend). The trick is getting the intensity correct and this is the job of the facilitator. If the intensity is too low, the trainee isn't learning to fight through the stress and the facilitator instructs trainers to step it up. If however, the intensity is too high and the trainee becomes overwhelmed (you can tell this by the trainee either freezes or starts using gross-motor skills instead of fine motor skill techniques) the facilitator must back them off.

When we teach our lower kyu ranks we limit the attacks, post and punch or push. As they progress through the ranks we take those limitations off the trainers and start putting limitations on the trainees, you only use gedan-barai or shuto-uke. We frequently do randori after kata and bunkai and then use our bunkai in our randori. It's not just important, it's essential to do randori training it completely solidifies everything else you do and makes you understand why you do what you do.

You must be careful with randori though, several times (I've lost count now) we having been doing randori and a student will either break down and cry or start to panic. I've had students that have been assaulted before and they began to break down or I've had combat veterans who went berserker on their trainers and severely hurt them. We have gotten in the habit of making sure everyone knew about the stress of the drill before hand.

Sorry if this got a little long but, I love randori it is such an effective way to train and everyone should do it if you want to prepare yourself for a high stress self-defense situation. Thanks for the great question!

I was taught the randori mean free practice. It is similar to sparring yet different. This is how it was done in our judo classes. There are no points, referees, etc. You get a chance to work on your techniques for a time period. I would throw a guy and pin him. I would use this time to work on transitioning from one pin to another. Then if there was time left I would work on a submission. You let them up and throw them again with a different technique. Of course they are trying to do the same to me. Once the time was up you switched partners and it begins all over again. You really get to learn how to use your techniques. There are no weight class. There are no trophies, winners or losers. You learn how to make things work for you. If you get pinned you learn to make the escapes you were taught work. You learn to counter the escapes, throws, chokes, or pins. This continues until randori is over. I later found out that randori translation may be something closer to chaos.

in Aikido this randori is with multiple attackers coming at you in no set or defined order. You must be able to survive and control how you are attacked. Sometimes you just avoid being hit, kicked, or grabbed. Other times in the process of not being hit you might throw. It could involve an attacker or 2 with a weapon.

In our karate class we don't do it often enough, but my sensei had multiple attacker attack me from behind. I don't know how many attackers or how they will attack. It's my job to end the threat and take them down. But they keep coming until it is called off.

In our class randori simply means sparring. A training process that involves spontaneous applications of techniques in resistance setting. Goal is to perfect our techniques and our spontaneous choices within a time period. There are no game plans and no winning. Shiai is our matches where people compete to win, but that’s not done often. Oh, I’m an ex-mma student turned judoka.

We have it at our Aikido dojo, but not for folks at my level (4th kyu). I don't know the technical definition, but when I see it being done by the senior students, it's almost always in the context of multiple opponents, sometimes with weapons, sometimes based on a single technique, sometimes single technique with henka waza, sometimes jiu waza.

I don't teach it - or it's equivalent in Taekwondo - since my students are not advanced enough to do it.

I liken it to sparring, but with one big detail: in sparring, the "winner" is never pre-determined. In randori, nage always wins.

Again, I don't do this because I'm not senior enough yet... but this is what I see when I go to the advanced classes. So my understanding may not be adequate.

Free practice

So its about freeing up/expanding your mind......not sparring exactly but physical confrontation to simulate assault scenarios and applying principles and techniques -the most common setting is one person in the centre and "random" individuals or "groups" attacking in a SAFE but unpredictable(hence not like sparring) manner

As an 'attacker' you try judge the level of the learner and not over stress/over shoot their ability

and hope they react in a controled manner..some struggle with this :(

it's like sparring but it also includes instruction on how to correct your technique as your sparring.

like if I'm teaching and my student's jabbing I'll try to teach him to do it as they practice it on me and show variations and follow ups etc.

I translate it as learned sparring

It's that Indian chicken with the red/orange spice. Good stuff!

Oh wait, that's tandori...