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Old 03-06-2012, 08:24 AM   #36
Chris Li
 
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Re: Morihei Ueshiba, Budo and Kamae

Quote:
Eddy Wolput wrote: View Post
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
My personal opinion is:
  1. The "60 degree angle" is certainly not canonical. I gave a couple of examples, and the one's above are good too.
  2. It's really not about the angle. The important material that Ueshiba was discussing had little to do with that.

FWIW...

Best,

Chris

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