This week1 in particular I’ve noticed that Kobayashi Sensei, Yokota Sensei and Sakurai Sensei have all been doing ryotedori/morotedori irimi-tenkaisoku kokyuho at the beginning of class a very particular way: none of them tried to force their closest arm under Uke‘s chin. It was like it wasn’t their goal or intent at all.

Usually Seki Sensei does something like this (except he often braces Uke‘s inner triceps with his opposite hand for protection, possibly) so I am used to this in his class, but it has become an obvious pattern this week from other shihans. They focused more on entering deep, minimizing the gap between each other, and raising the inner arm straight up via a large vertical circle.

To be clear, this version of irimi-tenkaisoku is when Tori slides into Uke, but just on his outside, then does tenkaisoku (afterwards facing the same direction as Uke) followed by a large vertical circle drawn by Tori‘s inner arm. At the apex, Tori continues the circle and does tenkaisoku to face the direction Uke is falling. This is not the version Doshu shows in the video here.

As a similar example, here is Doshu performing morotedori kokyuho (omote, not the irimi-tenkaisoku version) with emphasis on raising the inner arm straight up:

Doshu: Morotedori kokyuho omote

Continued

Here is Osawa Sensei performing the irimi-tenkaisoku. Notice how far behind Uke he is:

Osawa Sensei: katatedori irimi-tenkaisoku kokyuho

Aside:

I think I hadn’t internalized this as a staple kokyuho before because of all the years being told to get Tori‘s throwing arm under Uke‘s chin, even if it meant hitting him in the throat with Tori‘s elbow, which isn’t good practice.

1. the week of 2011.12.05 [↩]