Demonstrations
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Step by step
The whole movement in words, so no part of it depends on watching a video. Described in the standard right-handed form.
Left-handed: these steps are written right-handed, as the syllabuses write them. Read every left as a right and every right as a left, and the throw is yours.
- Your partner attacks your right foot with a sideways foot sweep.
- Curl that foot up and back so their sweep passes beneath it: a small, soft dodge, knee bending.
- In the same motion, before their sweeping foot lands, sweep it with your sole in the direction it was already travelling.
- Steer with both hands the same way, carrying their body after their swept foot.
- They land on their side or back beside you, taken by their own sweep's momentum; hold the sleeve firmly through the fast landing.
Receiving it
Your foot sweep meets air, and in the same beat your sweeping foot is itself swept: the counter uses your own momentum, and the fall is as sudden as the throw you attempted. Slap hard with your free arm as your side lands, and trust the held sleeve; this is the fastest landing in the counters.
About this technique
The swallow's counter: uke attacks with a foot sweep, and tori's attacked foot dips under the sweep and sweeps back in the same beat, like a swallow turning in flight. The Kodokan treats it as a form of de-ashi-harai.
Key points
- Dodge and counter are ONE motion of the same foot
- The foot curls under their sweep, then sweeps their sweeping foot
- Hands steer in the new direction the instant the counter lands
Ashi-waza (foot and leg techniques)
In combinations, counters and transitions
Know another? Suggest a combination or counter.