Ko-uchi-gaeshi

Tori breaks Uke’s balance by dodging his Kouchi-Gari and instantly throws him by twisting toward the left or right.

Kouchi-Gaeshi – Tori dodges Uke’s Kouchi-Gari and counterthrows him toward the left: Tori and Uke assume a right natural posture. Uke steps forward with his left foot, then right foot, then left foot again while pushing Tori backward, and comes to a halt in a left defensive posture. Tori is pushed back and steps back with his right foot, then his left foot, then his right foot again, holds his ground, pushes Uke back, and begins to return to his original posture. At this moment, Uke lessens the pushing action of both hands and pulls with the left hand, so that Tori begins to step forward with the right foot, and Uke executes Kouchi-Gari at the moment it is about to step on the mat. At that moment, Tori quickly supports his body on the left leg and, while maintaining his stability, lifts the right foot up to dodge Uke’s reap. Uke’s right reaping foot misses its target and cuts through the air to the left, and his body weight rests towards the inside of the left pivoting leg, so that he leans to the right as his balance breaks. Tori seizes this moment to step back with his right raised foot, then his left foot, thereby opening the distance between them. He opens his body to the left while pushing up with the right hand and pulling down diagonally with the left hand, and twists and throws Uke to his right. Uke is thrown sharply in a rotating movement because of his own momentum from losing his balance after Tori dodges his reap, together with the twisting action of Tori’s hands.

It is difficult to continue and adapt from kouchi-gari once uke’s right foot touches tori’s right heel, as tori’s posture becomes unstable. Therefore, tori must anticipate when uke is about to execute kouchi-gari and, while supporting his body on his left leg, raise the right foot to dodge the reap. At this moment, tori should maneuver his body in the direction of uke’s unbalanced momentum and twist and throw uke. These actions must be executed swiftly and in a single, fluid motion.

In some instances, tori maneuvers, twists, and throws uke in the following manner: At the moment uke executes kouchi-gari, tori uses the momentum of uke’s right foot to twist him down with both hands while balancing on the left leg with the right foot raised off the mat. Tori’s posture is unstable while standing on one leg in this situation, but he can still execute an effective throw by adapting and twisting, leveraging uke’s own turning movement when he misses his target.

Tori can also lift his right foot back, assume a left posture, and twist uke down to the left using both hands. If uke’s posture is completely unstable, tori does not need to execute the throw by stepping back with his left foot and opening his body to the left, as in sono ichi.

The following techniques bear similarities with kouchi-gaeshi but are classified differently. When tori dodges uke’s right kouchi-gari, if tori supports uke’s left knee with the right raised leg and throws him, then this technique is hiza-guruma (ashi-waza). Similarly, when tori dodges uke’s kouchi-gari, if tori steps back with the right foot to support his body, and, changing step, sweeps uke’s right reaping foot in the direction of its movement with the left foot, then this technique is deashi-harai.