Gasshou no renshu is like Suwari Waza

We have Branch sensei leading us Thurs night. After the warm up, we did our usual routine practice like Gasshou no renshu.  Sensei has taken some time to clarify this exercise with a new analogy, I find this analogy very appropriate . Then we did kuzushi waza, spent extra time on the double handed grab one after sensei's demonstration. Since we have all blue belts tonight in even pairs, we did the Kihon ura waza Atemi waza no ura with the slow, medium and fast repetition. Last but not the least, we spent the last 15 minutes doing randori with tegatana.

1) Gasshou no renshu: it is a blocking exercise with the hands joined together. Uke starts with yokomenuchi strike, this is really a sword attack, but done with an unarmed hand. Hand needs to go straight over the head, before come down diagonally to the side of the head. Tori needs to block before Uke's hand comes down, the analogy was that it works just like the block we do for suwari waza, blend with the Uke, and block him before the hand drops.


2) The 7th of go no sen no kuzushi waza: famously for two handed grab. I learn two key things.
A. I need to be a better Uke by not stepping with the Tori, hold on to Tori and let my structure corrupts, I unconsciously followed Tori by stepping in, hence Tori don't feel the right kuzushi.
B. Two hands must act together, upper hand tries to do hair brush, body turn, hairbrushing hand remain in center. The throw is really done by the lower hand by drilling the hand deep to the floor.

I found my old video taken back in 2009 during the Japan international tournament trip, amazingly I taped all techniques of kuzushi waza. I still recall at that time, I had no clue... The second video shows how it came from the sword motion, both hands are on the sword, little swirl around the sword in the center, Uke gets thrown.

Terminology:

Kihon ura waza	Basic Counter Technique
Atemi waza no ura	Striking Counter Technique
Kansetsu waza no ura	Joint Counter Technique
Hiji mochi no tsukuri	Technique of grasping arm with both hands