Ura waza experiments part 2

We've been having more fore fun with aikido ura waza. We went over what's covered in the KUBK forums from last years shochugeiko in regard to gyakugamae ate and ushiro ate; gedan ate, we sort of covered when we encountered it with shomen ate, and we looked at oshi taoshi conditions with aigamae ate.

Which brought us to ude gaeshi, #7. Now, in the traditional Tomiki ryu randori no kata no ura waza some of the techniques from the 17 (randori no kata) are omitted, namely, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16 and 17. Frankly, I have no idea why (in fact, for various reasons, our dojo has only been looking at this kata for a very short period of time).

But, that doesn't stop us from experimenting!

So on we went with ude gaeshi. With this one, we utilized the same turning of the outside foot as we did in our particular version of the counter to oshi taoshi, but with two variations:

1) A large, extending turning motion. As uke begins to try and coil your arm, you basically do a #1 release movement, which should put you behind uke's arm. In this version, you'll have to step away from uke to create space. This one also works as bodies fall (before uke comes up to put your arm in a coil)

2) A small, tight turning motion. This is more like the oshi taoshi reversal, with one exception. It's basically still a #1 release, but this time, you're working with the bodies rising (as uke is trying to put your arm in a coil), and your palm is up, leading with the fingers. Bring it all the way down to your thigh as you turn and you'll find yourself in a lovely set-up for aiki nage/irimi nage (or of course, ushiro kubi gatame).

That is, if uke doesn't fall flat on his face from the initial turn, which seemed to happen the more determined uke was to make ude gaeshi work. On occasion, uke would be so far along in the process of coiling tori's arm, that he got cross-armed (a la juji garami) and flipped. Evil stuff.

Next, we played with ude hineri (after we worked on the counter for hiki taoshi, natch) and found at least two ideas. Both of these operate at the moment that uke, in trying to do hiki taoshi, has your arm extended and has done his little eye threat. He feels like you're not going to go down for hiki taoshi, and decides to try ude hineri. But as the two of you converge towards each other, you're not going to let him slip past your right hip (if he has your right arm) and get your arm coiled behind you. Instead, you can:

1) Step with a sharp, pre-turned foot to your right (uke's left). Your hand will naturally uncoil and end up palm upward, your arm across uke's chest and under his chin in a form of gyakugamae ate. Or, you can...

2) Go down on one knee, your right arm up and your left hand down, clipping uke's left knee, much like sukui nage from yon kata.

. . . . . . . . . .

Fun stuff. I'd like to get a little of this on video, too, if I get the chance. Next, we spent a whole class on just kote gaeshi...