DOB - 3 July 1958
COUNTRY - Japan
WEIGHT - U71kg

Hidetoshi Nakanishi came from a sumo family, his grandfather and uncle having both been amateur champions in his hometown of Fukuoka. Combat sports were therefore in his blood when, at the age of 10 he was introduced to judo. He revelled in the competitive element of the sport and enjoyed nothing more than the feeling of throwing for ippon. However, even at this early age he had an appreciation of the need for technique, particularly with his tokui-waza, Seoi-nage. Built with a relatively short figure, Seoi-nage suited Nakanishi perfectly and when he progressed on to high School he spent hour after hour practising it.

The vigour with which Nakanishi practised would actually decide his affinity with ippon-seoi-nage over its sister throw, Morote-seoi-nage. Due to the physical exertion he underwent when doing uchikomi for Seoi-nage his arms and shoulders became big and muscular, (he was nicknamed ‘Iron man’ by Nobuyuki Sato sensei at Tokai University), this meant that eventually his right elbow became injured and he was unable to perform Morote-seoi effectively, lacking the flexibility in his ‘Tsurite’. Ippon-seoi, on the other hand, was a technique which Nakanishi could tailor to his individual strengths. He gained particular inspiration from watching Toyokazu Nomura winning the U70kg gold medal at the Munich Olympic Games; in particular the image of Nomura throwing Antoni Zajkowski in the final became burnt into the back of his retina for a long time to come.

A young Nakanishi learned a valuable lesson on ippon-seoi when, at the age of 18, he competed in the Kyushu Junior Championships in 1976. Facing a taller opponent, who took a high left collar grip against his traditional right hand grip, he found that when he attacked with ippon-seoi his opponent pulled back to thwart the attack. He therefore tried Ippon-osoto-gari and scored a waza-ari. In the very next attack he tried again for ippon-osoto-gari, but this time used his opponent’s defensive forward push to throw for ippon with Ippon seoi instead. This knowledge of how to exploit an opponent’s reactions was key to his victory over Ezio Gamba in the final of the Moscow World Championships, where Nakanishi scored a yuko with Ippon-seoi, a turning point in a match which he eventually won by ippon with Kuzure-kami-shio-gatame. Moreover, it remained a strong theme throughout a competitive career that saw him win the All Japan weight class Championships in 1982 and 1983 as well as the Tournoi de Paris in 1982.