Unusual feet movement in morotedori

Hi,

I noticed a very unusual movement when watching a video of Yoko Okamoto Shihan during a morotedori attack (2 hands grabbing wrist). In my limited 3.5 years of (Aikikai) aikido experience, I have never seen anyone else place their feet like that. I tried it out in our dojo and it is surprisingly effective. Below is a link someone else posted of her teaching and demonstrating what I am talking about. Does anyone else do that? Is this "common"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVh6AFS9xc

Justin Tom wrote: Hi, I noticed a very unusual movement when watching a video of Yoko Okamoto Shihan during a morotedori attack (2 hands grabbing wrist). In my limited 3.5 years of (Aikikai) aikido experience, I have never seen anyone else place their feet like that. I tried it out in our dojo and it is surprisingly effective. Below is a link someone else posted of her teaching and demonstrating what I am talking about. Does anyone else do that? Is this "common"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVh6AFS9xc

Not common but foot walk doesn't matter much. It's just to create space and get uke pulled by moving body backward. So she can handle uke easily since she takes balance before applying techniques. Btw, she makes herself unbalanced and use the power that her body moves to regain the balance. It's effective but can be exploited since she makes herself unbalanced.

Interesting. It looks to some extent like the irimi-tenkan og Nishios Sensei except He would do it from a more ai hanmi katatetori looking approach to have ukes balance continue forward and in a circular path. However from morotetori it is new to me. Main point must be to maintain the front towards uke and make sure kusushi happens from body movement and not from strength. This reflects on the interplay of atemi from right and left side with Tori. Worth exploring I think.

Here is an example of an omote version: https://youtu.be/XfheWg0WdVE

And in this you can see a lot of morotetori variations including some to an ura approach: https://youtu.be/MOdzF8mbi3Y

It's interesting, thank you for sharing.
I'm familiar with this specific foot movement from a Jo kata taught by Hiroshi Tada sensei. It is called Wakayama 1952, because, as far as I know, Tada sensei has seen O-sensei perform this sequence of movements in this place and time. Check out the part that begins in 1:53
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obDNZag5aHQ

IME that's not unusual. If you're standing face to face and you need to get behind someone, you have to make up that distance somehow.

assuming uke didn't grab and pull

She gets away with that in the example because her partners are not asked to try and stop her during this movement. The footwork creates a large weakness in her structure, but the movement and vector is basically the same thing that I would do, just changing the order of the footwork to protect my own balance.

Phi Truong wrote: assuming uke didn't grab and pull

Tarik Ghbeish wrote: She gets away with that in the example because her partners are not asked to try and stop her during this movement.

Yes, this was assumed, otherwise there'd be a tug of war.

Tarik Ghbeish wrote: The footwork creates a large weakness in her structure

Jaemin Yu wrote: Btw, she makes herself unbalanced and use the power that her body moves to regain the balance. It's effective but can be exploited since she makes herself unbalanced.

Never noticed the unbalanced part until you pointed that out. Tried it out again this week with our group and there is indeed a small but very significant moment of being unbalanced in the initial movement, especially if the back heel does not touch the ground.

Jørgen Jakob Friis wrote: Main point must be to maintain the front towards uke and make sure kusushi happens from body movement and not from strength.

Yes, I believe this was the purpose as well; it's just strange to me that the movement was so direct in this particular example.

Ziv Klausner wrote: I'm familiar with this specific foot movement from a Jo kata taught by Hiroshi Tada sensei. It is called Wakayama 1952, because, as far as I know, Tada sensei has seen O-sensei perform this sequence of movements in this place and time. Check out the part that begins in 1:53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obDNZag5aHQ

Cool! I never knew it'd show up in Jo work.

Jørgen Jakob Friis wrote: Here is an example of an omote version: https://youtu.be/XfheWg0WdVE

Slightly off-topic but I really really like that kokyunage! I'm going to try and learn to feel for that movement next.

Thanks for sharing your observations and insight everyone!

With a dynamic attack from uke at a realistic speed the "small significant moment" becomes insignificant.

dps

In Tomiki Aikido, this kind of footwork is used to perform sumi otoshi throw. It is used during "competition" randori (a free play with 100% resistance and counter attacks). It takes time to become skilfull.
Of course the concept of competition is not accepted by some practitioners although it has many possitive point for your development.

Eddy

Justin Tom wrote: Hi, I noticed a very unusual movement when watching a video of Yoko Okamoto Shihan during a morotedori attack (2 hands grabbing wrist). In my limited 3.5 years of (Aikikai) aikido experience, I have never seen anyone else place their feet like that. I tried it out in our dojo and it is surprisingly effective. Below is a link someone else posted of her teaching and demonstrating what I am talking about. Does anyone else do that? Is this "common"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVh6AFS9xc

Watch Osawa teach in a seminar. He emphasizes footwork as well that is very similar to this. I think Yoko has optimized her foot movement to her body so we have to find the proper foot movement for our bodies.

Justin Tom wrote: Hi, I noticed a very unusual movement when watching a video of Yoko Okamoto Shihan during a morotedori attack (2 hands grabbing wrist). In my limited 3.5 years of (Aikikai) aikido experience, I have never seen anyone else place their feet like that. I tried it out in our dojo and it is surprisingly effective. Below is a link someone else posted of her teaching and demonstrating what I am talking about. Does anyone else do that? Is this "common"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVh6AFS9xc

I can't say what is usual because that varies from place to place, but it looks very similar to the kind of footwork I'm taught. Just to be clear though, how would you describe the footwork you're speaking about?

Eddy Wolput wrote: In Tomiki Aikido, this kind of footwork is used to perform sumi otoshi throw. Eddy

I can see this footwork working for sumi otoshi, but I never practiced it that way for that throw. I should try that sometime.

Clare Din wrote: Watch Osawa teach in a seminar. He emphasizes footwork as well that is very similar to this. I think Yoko has optimized her foot movement to her body so we have to find the proper foot movement for our bodies.

I've been lucky enough to attend one of Osawa's seminars before. I remembered he indeed emphasized footwork a lot, being grounded, being balanced, and lots of tenkans but not this particular footwork. Maybe I'll see it in another one of his seminars; will keep an eye open for that.

Matthew Gano wrote: I can't say what is usual because that varies from place to place, but it looks very similar to the kind of footwork I'm taught. Just to be clear though, how would you describe the footwork you're speaking about?

Yup, "usual" does vary from place to place, which is why I originally asked here for some input because I thought it was cool. I would describe this particular footwork similar to how Yoko Okamoto would: move the back foot off the line to unbalance and draw uke forward towards nage then slide the front foot forward to redirect the moving centre (assuming uke didn't plant their foot down already).

My dojo has never used this kind of footwork so this one in particular was something new and "exciting". For example, in sumi otoshi, I never used this footwork; I'd do a tenkan to get uke moving first, briefly wait for uke to turn around, then slide both feet forward to unbalance uke and have my other hand on uke's elbow area to guide uke down.

Justin Tom wrote: Hi, I noticed a very unusual movement when watching a video of Yoko Okamoto Shihan during a morotedori attack (2 hands grabbing wrist). In my limited 3.5 years of (Aikikai) aikido experience, I have never seen anyone else place their feet like that. I tried it out in our dojo and it is surprisingly effective. Below is a link someone else posted of her teaching and demonstrating what I am talking about. Does anyone else do that? Is this "common"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVh6AFS9xc

I am not sure it would work if you have two ukes, which is usually how I prefer to teach morote-dori.

Peter A Goldsbury wrote: I am not sure it would work if you have two ukes, which is usually how I prefer to teach morote-dori.

Peter, do you know the source of the quote that aikido should be practised against a single opponent as if you had multiple attackers, and vice versa?

Alex

Alex Megann wrote: Peter, do you know the source of the quote that aikido should be practised against a single opponent as if you had multiple attackers, and vice versa? Alex

Hello Alex,

No, I don't. I am hopeless with quotes, especially from people like Morihei Ueshiba. However, I believe that Okamoto-San and I share something of a common lineage, in that we both took classes from a wide variety of teachers. Tada, Yamaguchi, and Arikawa regularly came to Hiroshima and I had the benefit of some years in the States with Kanai, with regular input from Yoshimitsu Yamada, and then with Chiba in Japan. To name just a few.

So I would not want to say bluntly that Okamoto-San's footwork would not work, since I am quite sure that she has the resources to make it work. Actually, I tried it tonight in a class. I could make it work with one uke and also with two ukes, but my own personal preference would be for the regular footwork. This being said, I suggest that you try dealing with four attackers, all holding with morote or ryo-kata-dori. You can do it with two attackers, either holding left and right, or front and rear, but it is more difficult with them attacking all together. I had to do this for my shodan test, in 1978.

Okamoto-San showed her interesting footwork with one uke, but I think that morote with two to four ukes is a very good training method. I am in my seventies, and I cannot use pure physical strength, so I have to use my entire body-mind, in ways that I still do not fully understand. Had you started training when M Sekiya spent his year in the UK?

Best wishes,

PAG

Peter A Goldsbury wrote: I am in my seventies, and I cannot use pure physical strength, so I have to use my entire body-mind, in ways that I still do not fully understand. Had you started training when M Sekiya spent his year in the UK?

No, I wasn't around when Sekiya Sensei was "in his prime", so to speak, although I did see him a couple of times when he returned to the UK in the years after he went back to Japan. He taught at a BAF Summer School a few years later, much to the disapproval of Hombu Dojo. I think Kanetsuka Sensei wanted somehow to recognise publicly Sekiya's influence on his own aikido, although the week turned out to be not the most harmonious, for various reasons.

I like two-person morotedori very much, and practise it often. It requires the two arms to work together but on different partners, and - as you say - you have to use sound principles as you can't use strength with big ukes. The tai-sabaki encapsulates for me so much of the essentials of aikido too: it is the same as you see O-Sensei doing when surrounded by attackers, where he seems to move in an instant to being outside the circle and behind one of the attackers.

Alex

Justin Tom wrote: Hi, I noticed a very unusual movement when watching a video of Yoko Okamoto Shihan during a morotedori attack (2 hands grabbing wrist). In my limited 3.5 years of (Aikikai) aikido experience, I have never seen anyone else place their feet like that. I tried it out in our dojo and it is surprisingly effective. Below is a link someone else posted of her teaching and demonstrating what I am talking about. Does anyone else do that? Is this "common"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVh6AFS9xc

It's just another of these highly theoretical "awase" scenarios in current aikido.
Only aikido-trained polite ukes will (re)act like the ones in the video.

But it's fun.
"It's a lot like dancing".

Best,
Bernd

Interesting to see as its footwork I've used for some time. I find it particularly effective if uke is committed to the "grab " in an attempt to apply a pin. It then means you're not stopping their momentum but just redirecting. It does present some risk - as there is a point of potential unbalance for tori - as i discovered when a 110kg close protection worker got me to the floor on one occasion but generally it works well.

Philip Smith wrote: It does present some risk - as there is a point of potential unbalance for tori - as i discovered when a 110kg close protection worker got me to the floor on one occasion but generally it works well.

Yup; there is a small moment of weakness and possibility to be unbalanced at the turning point of redirection. The transition also has to be smooth; no jitters.
I forgot all about this and gotta bring this back to try out in the dojo later this month.
Am surprised this is still being thought about and discussed.