Morote-seoi-nage made easy

Morote-seoi-nage is a classical judo technique. In the Gokyo, it’s known simply as seoi-nage but it’s useful to call it by its full name to distinguish it from the other seoi-nage in the Gokyo (ippon-seoi-nage). First of all let’s look at the term seoi-nage. Many people mistranslate that as “shoulder throw” but “seoi” actually means “back-carry”. So “seoi-nage” is “back-carry throw”. Morote-seoi-nage is a two-handed back-carry throw while ippon-seoi-nage is a single-handed back-carry throw.

There are a few key challenges to doing morote-seoi-nage but the biggest is how to bring your lapel-grip arm across uke’s chest and tuck it underneath their armpit. It’s very difficult to do this unless you have very flexible arms. Kids tend to have more flexible arms which is why you see a lot of kids doing this technique. If you’re an adult player who just took up judo, you might find it close to impossible to bring that arm across. Shintaro has the solution for you!

Many players like to overcome this problem by simply cross-gripping and taking hold of uke’s right lapel instead of their left one. Then it becomes easier for tori to fold and tuck his right arm underneath uke’s armpit. However, there is a couple of drawbacks to doing it this way.

Firstly, when you cross grip for too long you’ll get a shido under today’s rules. Secondly, when you cross grip, it signals to uke that you’re about to do a seoi-nage or tai-otoshi. You don’t want to telegraph your intentions.

Shintaro has a very unique solution that’s better than a cross-grip. What he does is he opens up uke’s right lapel and pulls that lapel across uke’s chest. By doing this, his lapel grip position is now akin to a cross grip situation. You’re effectively getting a cross grip without doing an actual cross grip. You’ll find it’s much easier to now tuck your right arm underneath uke’s right armpit. (See below)

First you open up uke’s left lapel to loosen it up a bit.

Then you bring that lapel across uke’s chest to bring your right hand grip closer to uke’s right shoulder.

The effect is like a cross grip. In fact, if you look at this picture, you’d easily mistake this for a cross grip.

In executing the throw, Shintaro drops to his knees. You’ve probably seen tons of videos of Japanese judokas squatting instead of dropping to their knees but if you watch video clips of those very same players in competition, you’ll see that they all drop to their knees.

Squatting is not very realistic except for demonstrations. Dropping is the more pragmatic way to do the throw.

For the finishing, Shintaro springs off his left leg to throw uke. Some players spring off both legs and that’s fine but if you find it too difficult to do this, springing off one leg is sufficient to launch uke into the air and onto their back. Note, if you don’t spring off your leg(s) but merely roll uke over your back and onto the mat, it’s technically seoi-otoshi not seoi-nage. I know that many people have the perception that seoi-otoshi involves a tai-otoshi-style extended leg but it’s not necessary to do this. Classical seoi-otoshi is just seoi-nage without the spring.

If you can’t spring off both legs, spring off one.

And this is what the finished product looks like.