Reverse Seoi-Nage Part 2: The Finishing

In Part 1 of our reverse seoi-nage series, we looked at gripping options. Here, we will look at the finishing options.

The most common form of reverse seoi-nage involves getting the grip, rotating and taking uke directly towards his back, as seen in the sequence below.

The backwards finishing is the method used by the throw’s orginator, Choi Min-ho, and indeed, most exponents of this technique do it this way. However, there is another option.

Sometimes, either because you cannot rotate sufficiently or simply by choice, you can throw uke towards the front as in a regular seoi-nage. World Champion Sumiya Dorjsuren of Mongolia, for example, tends to throw in the forward direction for her finishing.

Let’s have a look at what a forward-direction finishing looks like.

Tori enters into the attack just as he would in a typical reverse seoi-nage.

However, instead of continuing to rotate towards uke’s back, he just bends forward.

Tori doesn’t have control of uke’s sleeve so sometimes uke is able to spin out and concede only a waza-ari but quite often uke is so taken by surprise at the direction of the throw, he ends up flat on his back.

It’s worth highlighting that in competition, most of the time the reverse seoi-nage is done as drop technique and not as standing technique.