Rolling feet

In the article about footwork, the role of heel-ball-toes was briefly discussed. The focus was more on the use of gravity.

Here we will briefly point out the concept of “rolling feet”.

heel – ball – toes – lift heel/knee forward

During stepping the knee is flexible and can be seen as the leading factor in the movement.
By keeping the knees flexible you can keep the body on the same level.
You will avoid the up/down movement and the left/right swaying of the body.

An example of rolling feet during pushing exercise

• Putting hand on chest of uke
• Make your vertical line (seichusen)
• Tilt forward keeping line, don’t bend ankle while lifting heel, knee comes forward

The action of making line and touching with palm on the chest of uke, creates kei-ryoku (Jin in Chinese). It is a line connecting root (earth) and target (opponent). This is an imaginery line between the back foot of tori and the hand on the chest. With this method it is not necessary to push down with the back leg. See also “using gravity“.

Atemi waza 

By using the skill of “rolling feet”, the power of atemi waza is greatly increased.

Hiji waza & tekubi waza

Again the ability to generate power into these techniques will benefit a lot of this kind of stepping.