Asou

Well, I tried yesterday. It's best for me to "catch" their head right after irimi and before stepping to uke's behind. I catch them in the side of the forehead, just above eye level and ears. After that, guide the head to the side and downwards to the front of my shoulder, but while doing tenkan, so, it will look like a spiral just by doing that. Amazingly, uke's body just following my lead on his head.

Then for the throw, after rotating (the classic rotation of iriminage), I just suddenly reverse the rotation, while rising my arms slowly beneath uke's chin, from here, uke is already unbalanced, I can give a gentle push and he will fall, and if I'm feeling like a showman, just cut diagonally to my front (to the center of the spiral), making uke do a high fall.

Funny thing is, the key to this is just practice, practice, practice. My sensei just give me a hint, "Spiral", then he asked all of us to remain silent while practicing. The class was conditioned into total silence. Then we do irimi nage for a full 2 hours (with different strikes though).

What about the faceplant? Well, also did that, just drop your weight while holding the head. But sadly, I can't control uke. Can't control his (expected) reaction, can't control the next move, can't control anything. I deemed that too dangerous and back to basics.

One of my "aha!" moments in aikido. A glimpse of enlightenment.