Mokuren Dojo: The Walk - 9 - soto mawashi gaeshi

Friday, August 23, 2013

The Walk - 9 - soto mawashi gaeshi

Links to previous articles on The Walk - nanameashi, wakiashi, tenkanashi, shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, uchi mawashi, uchi-soto gaeshi, and uchi mawashi gaeshi

Next comes soto mawashi uchi - the outside sweep&turn (our nickname is "the helicopter") - and like all of the moves in this set of exercises, there are several interesting points to be made here...

This motion most closely resembles release #4 - the basic idea is that you have stepped offline but engaged (blocked maybe) with the opposite hand. Finding yourself in an inside condition, you sweep uke's arm down ans across and turn to place yourself behind uke.
Prior to this, all of the motions have been same-hand-same-foot. After this, all the motions are goofy foot - that is, the left foot and the right hand are operating together (or vice versa).
In this motion the arm rises up the centerline, drops off to the side, and sweeps back into the center. All this happens prior to the turn to illustrate that you cannot sweep and turn at the same time. So, your hand comes back to center before you start the turn.
Likewise, you cannot lift and turn at the same time. The turn occurs - then there is the extra body rise that Nick talks about on the above video.
Incidentally, one of my favorite applications that features this motion is kaiten-nage. Tori steps offline outside uke's punch, sweeps the arm around and trades hands. Then the same sweeping hand repeats the same motion again except it strikes the back of uke's neck and sweeps his head around under his own armpit - similar, but not exactly like this one...