Worked on Kotagaeshi and fine tuning the technique in its details with Shihan. A few key points, to remember the movement pattern, Tenkan, Irimi, Tenkan. The first Tenkan is used to blend in with Uke and after the first Tenkan the two of your should be mirrored with your one hand sliding down their striking arm (from a ski) and capturing their hand. As you Tenkan and slide your hand down to their hand to grip their thumb with your fingers and place your thumb across their fingers you give a leading tug forward to continue their energy forwards before giving a whip to them to turn around. At this point their body is going to turn around towards you, preferably with one of their legs getting off the ground if you kept their arm low enough to the ground and didn't raise it back up. At this point you Irimi to the side, continuing along the "Dynamic" Circle that is connecting the two of you, so you should have the same distance between you as you did before the Irimi to the right side. As you Irimi your other arm should resemble the "Unbendable Arm" that we practice in Aikido and will come across to connect with and apply downward and over pressure to their gripped hand which you should now have locked up as far as it can go. As you bring the other hand to their hand you perform another Tenkan, and the other arm will press over their pinky and ring finger downward at the same time you Tenkan and direct them down to the ground before their foot (that's in the air unbalanced) can re-balance and thus drop them to the ground.
The biggest issue I had here at first was giving the guiding tug out and in the direction of their energy. I have a tendency to pull their arm to me as I do the first TEnkan. This is bad in that it opposes their energy and allows them to fight back. Once you start fighting with them the techniques become harder to do, sometimes impossible for inexperienced Aikidoka (sp). Another key point is keeping that arm in the same place once you whip them around. Don't raise it up and give them back their balance!! Make sure to keep their hand in the same point and pivot around it like it is the center of everything. As you Irimi the hand should stay put and all you will do next is Tenkan AROUND that point and at the same time that you apply more downward pressure from both hands towards their center. Pushing the hand over but not towards their forearm or center just torques them but won't necessarily bring them down and sets you up for a nasty whipping roundhouse from Uke. It's VERY VERY VERY important to remember that I must not start trying to torque their hand before I start the Irimi and final Tenkan. Also, I need to remember not to Irimi and Tenkan at the end until I have the Kotagaeshi grip fully in place.
On a side note, while working on this, if someone were to throw a jab and you can deflect it well, as they pull their arm back you just go into your final Tenkan on the technique and using their withdrawing energy you will put them down.
I still have a ways to go on solidifying this technique and saying that I can actually execute it when necessary. For now I will keep working on it and fix little things here and there until it works.
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