Morote dori kokyo help

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[Ta Kung]

Hi!

Let's face it, Morote dori kokyo is a technique that is hard to master. At first it seems simple, then it gets hard, and then you feel like you've got it again. And so forth. In Iwama Ryu we always do this as the second technique (after tai no henko), in every class... :eek:

Recently, my kokyo sucked. Then I got a tip from Bill Witt sensei, during a seminar in Sweden a few weeks ago.

He told me to "place my hips where uke is" (almost like a tackle, yet you don't touch uke. It merely brakes his balance really well). This certainly gave my technique a great leap forward. I used to go straight back when throwing, which resulted in some uke just stumbling backwards, not falling. Moving in like Witt sensei showed me, all my ukes fall nicely where I want them to. :)

Anyone else have good advice on this technique? Please share!

[Choku Tsuki]

Thanks, I thought I'd share this.

Dip your elbow below his hands/bend your knees/enter.

All three are done simultaneously, not in sequence. Your hands should stay where they are. It's not enough to move to uke's center, you should also be slightly under it for morote dori kokyu ho to work.

I've had a lot of luck with very strong, resistant ukes(because I offer my arm with my hand palm up?).

--Chuck

[Lyle Bogin]

What does this technique look like?

Thanks!

[JW]

Dip your elbow below his hands/bend your knees/enter.

--Chuck
Yes I have to second this--it is priceless. Other styles have another way of doing it, where instead of bending the held arm as stated above they EXTEND the held arm out, and then the entry is also not a 180 degree pivot anymore. I don't understand this way at all. I think it is based on ideas like "unbendable arm always wins" and "extending ki whenever possible always works." I think those exaggerated statements are not right. Extension has its time and place, and the irimi entry into a static morotedori is NOT the time and place IMO. Actually one of the coolest things about this technique is that as the blend progresses (with the elbow quite bent, dipped under the 2-hands/held-wrist-bundle), there IS profound extension, but it is through a bent elbow, not through an extended arm. (think ki extending through the humerus and OUT the elbow) It's a great feeling, and this blend is absolutely unfightable as long as uke is determined to hold on.

With that other way, the extended arm way, I always feel like I am muscling (which is just poor technique I guess), and the ukes of this style seem just accustomed to giving in. However with the bent arm way, there is this guy at my old dojo who as uke always wanted to challenge me by being EXTREMELY tough throughout the technique--no matter what he did, the throw was ridiculously effortless when I really relaxed and used his toughness to let that relaxed arm bend and let the elbow slip deep inside.

--JW

[JW]

oh another thing.. at a seminar Patrick Cassidy sensei was doing this technique. After you get real low during this blend (in order to slip in beneath the strength of the grab), he said you don't need to "come up again" meaning during the throw, you don't necessarily need to raise your hips back up after dropping them in the entry. Of course the throw is based on uke being RAISED up as he is taken backwards, but CAssidy sensei suggested that as your hips move low into uke, "something else rises." I even noticed your arms don't need to go that high either. You just sort of stay low and uke gets stretched out upwards and backwards.

Hey maybe it's because your bent legs allow so much distance to be covered in the one step after the throw, that no matter how low nage stands, uke is stretched far. Just a thought.

--JW

[Greg Jennings]

What does this technique look like?
Look on this page:

http://www.ysaohio.com/6thkyu.htm

Click on the "Morote dori kokyu ho" link. It's the last column in the top row.

Best Regards,

[JW]

What does this technique look like?

Thanks!
Well since I apparently can talk about this technique for hours:

1. Static attack: 2hand grab (can be the type of grab where uke tries to lock up nage's elbow by extending along the arm)

2. Nage enters to the outside of uke (irimi)--obviously this is exactly what the power of a morote grab is trying to prevent, so this is why the blend is so debated--it is the key to everything)

3. nage should be either facing the same direction uke was at the start (the loose bent arm, low, full turn way) or turned towards that direction (the other way)

4.nage turns back toward uke raising slightly, extending up under uke, along center line (elbow could be under uke's chin) as arms begin to extend

5. nage finishes turn after stepping diagonally toward (into) uke, uke falls under nage's downward-moving arms, nage 2 arms extended palm up, uke splat into mat

something like that
oh wait Mr. Jennings just beat me to it oh well
--JW

[Lyle Bogin]

Thanks.