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Old 06-03-2008, 08:57 AM   #12
raul rodrigo
Location: Quezon City
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 777
Philippines
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Re: Irimi nage- Tenkan to throw?

Hi Joe:

Here are a couple of examples:

First, Hayato Ozawa shihan at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxQuFxnsFGg

In this series of yokomen attacks, Ozawa enters deep behind uke and no longer needs to unbalance him forward with a tenkan. Uke is still upright, but his balance has already been taken; he is already vulnerable to falling backward. It becomes an easy matter to turn, enter and throw.

Tissier does do a lot of irimi nage ura, and it's spectacular. Here's a clip that shows him doing mostly the ura version, but now and then he will do a direct entry version. For instance at 0:34, 1:01, 1:10, and so on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NmaYu2Kvc

In these instances, Tissier has entered so deep that he takes away uke's balance with the first contact, with no need to tenkan any more.

These are examples of what our Japanese teacher was talking about--that the essence of irimi nage is to enter so deep that you are in a place where uke has no power (usually right behind him). At this point, you are standing at his dead angle and your two bodies have united (awase) so that when you move your body, his body must follow. It has no choice. Two bodies are one body.

Our teacher was displeased if we did shomen uchi irimi nage ura automatically, always trying to take uke down with a tenkan so that one or both his hands touched the mat. He felt this practice built up a lack of sensitivity and often created an opening that an astute uke could use to reverse the technique. He wanted us to get behind first, unite and feel where the opening was. If the uke's energy was turning toward you, you would respond with tenkan. If not, you just pivot and throw. Sometimes you have taken his balance backward so well that even pivoting is unnecessary; you just do kiri otoshi, as Ozawa does toward the end of his clip.

best,

RAUL

Last edited by raul rodrigo : 06-03-2008 at 08:59 AM.
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