Tim Fong

David,

Re: the sword. I think it's about weight transfer. Weight is the force of gravity acting on mass. It's another force passing through the body. The person who can manipulate the force of another pushing in on them, and bring it to their feet could also manipulate the force of their weight. So that perhaps they might look like they were standing with weight on the front foot , when in fact, they weren't. Think about the advantage that could give a person.

Here's some fodder for idle speculation. In "Modern Bujutsu and Budo" Draeger writes that the lifted rear heel in kendo is "...traditionally attributed to the secret teachings of Ito Ittosai." Why do you think it was a secret? And how/why do high ranking kendoka get away with turning the foot out, and fighting relatively flat footed?

Mike,

Point taken. I have had to take a break from judo, and it'll be interesting to see how the skills fare during randori, aka, it'll probably be humbling.

What would you say is the difference between rooting and neutralization? Is neutralization more active? I have had maybe one or two times in pushout where suddenly it felt like my opponent wasn't pushing hard at all...is it something like that? Sorry if we went over this before and I've forgotten.