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Rob Gassin
18th May 2010, 14:00
Gyaku Gote and Kote Nage are similar techniques. Many people perform a version of Gyaku Gote which is almost indistinguishible from Kote Nage.

When is it Kote Nage and when is it Gyaku Gote?

BTW - I thing that the answer is a bit deeper than Gyaku Gote is a defence to a grab and Kote Nage is performed against a punch to chudan.

Gary Dolce
19th May 2010, 03:58
Let me start by saying that I have been doing Shorinji Kempo long enough to know that there are multiple variations to each technique and that expressing certainty about one right way to do things is best left to people well above me in experience.

That said, I used to think that gyaku gote and kote nage were the same, but I was corrected a few years ago by Sakuyama Sensei.

Gyaku gote is done with the attacker's elbow bent and the arm completely folded up. This allows you to gain control of the elbow and thereby control of the shoulder and balance.

While Kote nage can be done by folding up the attacker's arm, it is more typically done with the attacker's elbow straight or almost straight, rotating the wrist to the outside. He emphasized rotating the wrist along the line of the fingers (looking at your own palm, rotating the pinky in the direction of the index finger).

A few years after that lesson, I was at a WSKO study session in which Kawashima Sensei introduced a method for classifying juho that confirmed Sakuyama Sensei's lesson. He described 8 basic types of juho throws. The first two were:
1. Rotate wrist to outside while folding up the arm, as in gyaku gote.
2. Rotate wrist to outside with arm straight, as in kote nage.

Anyone want to add the rest?

Rob Gassin
19th May 2010, 09:03
Great post Gary!!

The actual difference between the 2 techniques has never been pointed out to me but I worked out the straight out and bent arm concepts myself. The point of my post is that I have noticed a tendency, in some quarters, not to focus as much on the bent elbow whilst doing Gyaku Gote and instead perform a wideish circle with a partially bent elbow and like in kote nage, extending the person out and off balance. In many cases, it seems to work as well as the 'standard' Gyaku Gote.

I will further add that I have noticed the same trend with certain variations of oshi gote, maki gote and kote maki gaeshi.