YouTube: Kotegaeshi - Basic and Variations

Here is a video on Kotegaeshi with many variations and reversal techniques:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxz...MWgkqAobsoXRkQ

What are your thoughts on this video?

Mihaly

after practicing aikido all these years, i only know one. take uke balance, keep uke from smacking me 20 ways to sunday, and drop uke where i want. i liked the KISS principle.

I liked the big tenkens.

People who can move like that on their knees make me jealous.

In general the movement is very nice. The first four or so times he does the technique in the video, he leaves uke behind when he turns for the tenkan, though. That isn't just martially bad, that actually breaks the nice flowing movement he has.

Very pretty and elegant gymnastics with very little martial veracity.

Nage has a lot of movement - I think that's where he's getting his kuzushi (not even goin' there whether he has kuzushi for real or his ukes are just playin'). But, wow, he brings the hand up awfully high before applying the kotegaeshi. I've always been told that's a big no-no because it gives uke the opportunity to get their balance back. What would stop that from happening in this case? The movement?

The movement ist not so bad, but it's a rythmical dance with a little bit overdone attitude, not budo. The rhythm is very uniformly. Move - break, move- break.
Very easy for uke to find his balance, and to stop at every point of movement he wishes.

Mihaly Dobroka wrote: What are your thoughts on this video?

Martial homeopathy.

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: Martial homeopathy.

and as effective as the non martial variety http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2WRcxXHDo

It is a demonstration video. I really enjoyed it. I seldom watched whole videos. You cannot judge martial validity by a demonstration video.

Yes, it's a demonstration video. I'm rusty and it took a few moments to see what I'd consider a problem.

Nice, big, flowing movements.

However...

The late Kawahara Yukio shihan used to get rather crusty if we let our hand get behind us when we were doing our tenkan movement as part of a kotegaeshi. In the video, nage's back is frequently turned on uke (and I'm not referring to the spinning around backwards variants) while Nage is doing tenkan. The arm with which he is connected to uke while doing tenkan is behind him. He looks around in the direction he's moving (which we were trained to do) but he lets his hand (and uke) get behind the look... The arm is bent, and he's pulling with his shoulder (or seems to be) and not with an arm connected to his "core".

Kawahara, IIRC, used to insist that all of our 'work' was done in front of us - if we were doing tenkan for anything, really, our hands stayed in front of us... I THINK that's what just about all my sensei have been pretty adamant about, too - if you turn your back on uke, he/she had better be dealing with an atemi as you pass through or have enough kuzushi on so that he/she can't harm you while your back's turned, and you want as much as possible to get back to having uke in the "front" workspace.

That's not as clear as I want to be but I have to get ready for work....

Walter Martindale wrote: The arm with which he is connected to uke while doing tenkan is behind him. He looks around in the direction he's moving (which we were trained to do) but he lets his hand (and uke) get behind the look.

This is the typical way to do kote gaeshi for a whole lot of teachers. Christian Tissier shihan being one of them. I also learned to do it that way.

Mary Eastland wrote: It is a demonstration video. I really enjoyed it. I seldom watched whole videos. You cannot judge martial validity by a demonstration video.

You can judge martial validity of a demonstration (video).

Mary Eastland wrote: You cannot judge martial validity by a demonstration video.

Yes I can.

I'm curious to see a video of kotegaeshi that you guys think is more manly and effective. Got any links?

Mary Eastland wrote: It is a demonstration video. I really enjoyed it. I seldom watched whole videos. You cannot judge martial validity by a demonstration video.

What you CAN do, is you can observe that uke is not really attacking nage with intent to kill them. And nage is not responding in a manner that would have been wise or effective if uke had attacked with the intent to kill.

Pretty much every second of footage I have seen of Osensei or any of his students is lacking in these departments too!

But what you are judging is actually the people doing the demonstrations, and their teachers, and the combination of the way training is done at their dojo and the expectations of their instructors that led to whatever it is you don't like in the video.

Which is a thing that people do. Maybe we ought to view footage of the old greats from the same angle, when we form our ideas of what Aikido should and should not be.

Cliff Judge wrote: I'm curious to see a video of kotegaeshi that you guys think is more manly and effective. Got any links?

http://youtu.be/Gf6F1Wa8bsc?t=16s
I've pulled this version succesfully in bjj sparring... so it is effective and, me being (let me check.... yes) a man, manly.

However I like this manliness lacking version even more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oqfNno0pJs

Carsten Möllering wrote: This is the typical way to do kote gaeshi for a whole lot of teachers. Christian Tissier shihan being one of them. I also learned to do it that way.

Yep, seen it a lot too. And it's still a very bad idea no matter who does it. Once you let your elbows and arms go past the body wall you're prone to being exploited and it would be hard to keep connection and recover from it. And as somebody who likes to relate sword to aikido like Tissier, what kind of sword movement justifies such arm movement?

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: http://youtu.be/Gf6F1Wa8bsc?t=16s I've pulled this version succesfully in bjj sparring... so it is effective and, me being (let me check.... yes) a man, manly.

Sure...so next time I am attacked on the street by a guy in tights who doesn't want to come close to me....I'll hold his hand and return his wrist.

Actually that was pretty cool - red trunks took the fall the way he wanted, so that he had enough slack to get back before the pin came on. If only there were some way to train that placed an emphasis on taking ukemi in a relaxed and controlled manner...

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: However I like this manliness lacking version even more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oqfNno0pJs

Hendricks Sensei would have been toast if her uke had a knife in the other hand. Which of course her uke didn't because they were both cooperating to allow some Aikido to happen on the mat.

There is an element of control over uke in both of those clips that is something I see in at least some of the kotegaeshis in the original post's video.

Gerardo Torres wrote: Yep, seen it a lot too. And it's still a very bad idea no matter who does it. Once you let your elbows and arms go past the body wall you're prone to being exploited and it would be hard to keep connection and recover from it. And as somebody who likes to relate sword to aikido like Tissier, what kind of sword movement justifies such arm movement?

It isn't just that it creates an opening, it really LOOKS bad, even if you are trying to do a nice flowy demo.

Cliff Judge wrote: Sure...so next time I am attacked on the street by a guy in tights who doesn't want to come close to me....I'll hold his hand and return his wrist.

So he learns to not go around attacking people while poorly dressed.

If only there were some way to train that placed an emphasis on taking ukemi in a relaxed and controlled manner...

May be there is.

Hendricks Sensei would have been toast if her uke had a knife in the other hand. Which of course her uke didn't because they were both cooperating to allow some Aikido to happen on the mat.

Well, I said I liked it more, not that I considered it manly and/or effective.

There is an element of control over uke in both of those clips that is something I see in at least some of the kotegaeshis in the original post's video.

Sure, but at different levels of dilution.

BTW, regarding the issue of leaving the hand back... check 'Budo: Teachings of the Founder of Aikido' by O Sensei.

I like the video. But it is also why I wandered off to study Judo, Jujutsu and Kung-fu. But I still do Aikido as I look at it for its merits.

Mary Malmros wrote: ... But, wow, he brings the hand up awfully high before applying the kotegaeshi. I've always been told that's a big no-no because it gives uke the opportunity to get their balance back.

While the smaller circles are more effective, I do like the big cirlces. Personally, I want to be able to use both the big and the small circles in normal Aikido practice. Ikkyo can be big or small circle, for example, and most people do it big. Kote-gaeshi can likewise be big or small, and most people do it small. Study what you can't do until you can do it - then you can freely have the choice. I think we move from big to small constantly throughout most techniques - and if you are flexible you can vary it as you like. It's just yin-yang etc.

Some examples:
Start big finish big
Start big finish small
Start small finish big
Start small finish small
Start big - then change small - finish big
Start small - then change big - then finish small
And so on ... you can do it with everything ...

Once you have these ideas in your head the variations are endless. Not all are practical - the discerning eye willl steer you through it.

The big taisabaki entry on kote-gaeshi once saved me. I was walking behind a car (on my left side) on a side street at some traffic lights. Suddenly the reversing lights came on and I saw them - just as a gap in the traffic appeared. I was right behind the car. I took one right-foot step forward and slapped my right hand down on the trunk and did a taisabaki just like kote-gaesi and got passed the car just as it whizzed backwards thorugh where I had been. The guy meant to pull out, but mistakenly was in reverse. Luckily, no one was behind him. After my taisabaki I continued walking on without looking back. Even our sometimes wishy-washy looking movement can be useful.

Cliff Judge wrote: Hendricks Sensei would have been toast if her uke had a knife in the other hand. Which of course her uke didn't because they were both cooperating to allow some Aikido to happen on the mat.

Usually the knife would be in the hand on which kotegaeshi is applied...
Aside from that we do kotegashi against a knifeattack a little bit ditfferent.
The free hand is always a problem in normal kotegaeshi.

To keep the hand behind the body ist poosible if the connection between the hand and the center is strong enough, but not many people can really move uke in that way effectivly.
Normally, from a martial point of view, it's a no go.
In the case of the first video and also in Tissiers movement, there is no control on uke in the moment when he turns his back to uke, no kuzsuhi was apllied.