Mascha Ballhaus turned into a ground specialist

At the 2025 World Championships, Mascha Ballhaus (GER) stunned the crowd with a very unusual but highly effective osaekomi turnover against Tatum Keen (GBR).

This is a technique we have not seen her do before. Normally, in newaza, Ballhaus likes to do yoko-sankaku, which she is very proficient at. But this time, she did this unorthodox roll.

Actually, it is variation of a turnover made famous by Yoko Ono of Japan. Ballhaus’s version is slightly different but pretty much inspired by Yoko Ono’s roll. Here’s the breakdown:

Ballhaus approaches uke from the right (Yoko Ono approaches from the left). Ballhaus puts her left hand in between uke’s legs and takes hold of uke’s belt (Yoko Ono usually takes hold of the jacket skirt).

Ballhaus gets wrist control of uke’s right arm. (Yoko Ono would usually dig in deeper and grab uke’s far lapel instead).

She lifts and rotates uke’s onto her back.

She climbs on top of uke, as uke is rolled onto her back.

And she ends up with a kind of yoko-shiho-gatame.

Here is the sequence from another angle:

Oon Yeoh explains how Mascha Ballhaus won her contest in a special way.

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