The shiho nage omote technique, performed as part of Master Saito’s teaching method, just as in the Aikikai method, sends uke forwards by extending the arm, and then throws them backwards by coiling that same arm.
That is what study is all about; that is what teaching is all about. I learnt this over a period of twenty years and then taught it for thirty years.
What can I say?
Well, this: this is not how O Sensei describes the shiho nage movement in his book Budō.
It so happens that O Sensei provides a particularly precise description of shiho nage, which states that the energy must be developed vertically, and which does not correspond to the way the technique is practised in the method. This description is explained and commented on in the video:
One might think – and this is the argument generally put forward everywhere – that O Sensei changed the way he performed shiho nage after 1938.
This argument is refuted by the following video, filmed at the Hombu Dojo in 1958, which provides evidence that O Sensei was performing shiho nage at the end of his life in the manner he had described in 1938:
These are the facts. Everyone will draw their own conclusions in good conscience.
