Morote-gari

Tori holds the back of Uke’s legs from the outside with both hands. At the same time, he pushes Uke’s chest and abdomen with his right shoulder while pulling him down towards the rear to throw him.

Tori seizes his opportunity at the moment both sides raise their hands to begin grappling. At the moment they enter the grappling space, Tori assumes a right defensive posture while gripping Uke’s wrists and pushes them up from below, so that he controls Uke from his first step. Uke responds by pushing back while shaking off Tori’s hands, and begins to return to a stable posture.

At this point, Tori raises and releases Uke’s hands so that Uke rises and lurches forwards, losing his stable posture so that the inside of his body is vulnerable.

At this moment, Tori lowers his waist and body, jumps inside Uke, steps his right leg between Uke’s legs, and follows with the left foot to assume a right defensive posture, with the right shoulder against Uke’s right chest. At the same time, he puts both arms around the outside of Uke’s thighs and reaps the back of Uke’s thighs by sliding his arms down to the back of the knees.

Simultaneously, Tori pushes Uke back with his upper body using the force from stepping forward, opens Uke’s legs on each side of Tori’s body with both hands, and, holding him, executes the reap.

This technique can be executed when uke initiates movement during the grappling phase or when their bodies momentarily separate. At that moment, tori lessens the action of pulling uke downwards, straightens up, and applies the technique as uke’s body rises. This approach is highly effective in competition.

The essential part is accurately judging the distance for stepping in one move to enter inside uke’s space and catch the opponent off-guard. Seizing this opportunity requires sharp senses. A notable example of the morote-gari technique, favored by experts, involves a strategic deception at the moment both competitors enter the grappling space. Tori distracts uke by clapping both hands in front of uke’s eyes, as if ‘fooling the cat’, or by throwing both (or one) hands upwards, fingers pointing, as if to momentarily blind him with a ‘two-handed mist’ or ‘one-handed mist’. Caught off-guard by this feint, uke bends back, providing tori the perfect opportunity to launch a surprise attack using the morote-gari technique.