ewolput

About "roppo". In a book (in French) written by Tadashi Abewith the help of Jean Zin in around 1958 the term "roppo" is used as a form of how to move with the feet. The French word is : deplacement croise. It is a step forward (shite) with the back foot at an angle of 90°, followed by a step forward by the original leading foot. Uke is using the sampe principle to do a step backward.
It is mentioned that this way of moving is used against attacks with a stick or spear. Tadashi Abe was a postwar student of Morihei Ueshiba.
Around the same time a movie was made by Senta Yamada, and in the movie a similar step is used to step forward and doing a turning movement, the front foot is used to "step out to the inside". This stepping out to the inside has a flavour of Tadashi Abe's "deplacement croise". This kind of stepping we also can see in Kenji Tomiki's movie of the early fifties (Judo Taiso). As far as I know the term "roppo" is not used by Yamada or Tomiki. Stepping in this way gives the opportunity to move in almost a direction of 360°.
Can we conclude that in the early fifties some of Ueshiba's students had some "important" (?) knowledge, but were not able to pass it to the next generation?

Just a thought on "roppo"

Eddy