Soete Kake dori

More focus on kata at last night's training where we were able to self-practise again and I worked on the main sequence, as before, but this time adding the jo-uke and the jump into shuto-uke. I'm improving on this middle section of the kata now ... it's just the beginning that needs work! Got to tackle those opening moves at some point.

The 'main sequence' starts with the technique that Kanazawa refers to as soete kake dori, literally 'added-hand suspended capture', but translating more properly as augmented hooking grasp. Nakayama gives it the name tsukami uke, or grasping block. Here are Sensei Kanazawa and Sensei Yahara demonstrating the technique from different angles...

It is similar to the move in Bassai-dai/sho sometimes called kaeshi dori (reverse grasp). In his book Kata - the Folk Dances of Shotokan, Rob Redmond says that the Kanku-sho grasp is not the same as the "scooping hand technique called the Tiger Mouth in Bassai Dai", explaining that in Bassai-dai the hand and wrist do not make contact throughout the motion (though some practitioners do teach the fingers lightly touching on the wrist, eg. Enoeda, Kanazawa). Here is Gichin Funakoshi doing Bassai-dai ...

There are a variety of feasible applications for tsukami uke, many of which do not really utilise the augmenting hand, but the one I will be demonstrating in my bunkai section is a wrist trap, known in Shaolin Chin-Na as xiao chan si (small hank of thread). Here is a picture from a 1936 Shanghai police training manual showing the first stage - compare it with the image of Kanazawa above.

The next part of the sequence sees the defender turning their right palm on top of the aggressor's wrist and pulling down. In Kanku-sho the pull also brings your opponent on to a mae geri.

To finish the sequence I use the osae uke to push the opponent's grasped wrist away and then strike to jodan shomen with uraken which my partner will block and counter with a mid-level punch. In the kata here I'd do uchi-uke, but with no time for the full technique (bringing it back and blocking out) I am bringing my fist from the uraken position down onto my attacker's forearm (a striking block, uraken-uke), then finishing up with nihon zuki.