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I gave this article two visits and was even more confused the second time. IMHO, he’s overdue for a vacation.
First, my understanding of omote & ura is that they’re nouns or even adjectives, but not adverbs. Whatever. In my experience, in every dojo and country I’ve practiced, techniques are described by the motion nage makes in executing them, i.e., irimi and tenkan, or sometimes by the area to which nage will be traveling, omote (to the front of uke) or ura (to the back of uke). I object to “in front of uke” because then nage is unprotected. While nage may move “to the front of uke,” it’s where uke starts out, because by the time nage gets there, uke will have had to have moved/turned, otherwise nage would, again, be unprotected/open. I hope this makes sense. When the author goes through his permutations of terms, he lists (I think?) some configurations which I don’t think would be practical, like yokomen-uchi tenkan-omote, which to me sounds like the guy is attacking uke’s front, and is, hence, open.
My impression is that he’s created an overly complex system for simple concepts, and it’s not completely applicable. But truly, I’d have to see it acted out to pass judgment.
Allan
On 10/19/06 9:44 PM, "johnsw1953" <JohnSw@...> wrote:
I have struggled for a very long time to get an understanding of the
meaning of omote and ura.
I recently came across a definition on a web site that I wanted to
share with everyone. This is the first time I begin to understand
their meanings, so here is the URL and let me know what you think.
http://www.budodojo.com/MovementsOfAikido.htm
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