Thoughts on Kokyu-nage

I continue to struggle with kokyu-nage, or at least with certain versions of it. For example, ikkyo into kokyu. Or off a punch or strike where I enter on the outside and draw uke around and down and then take kokyu. With these situations I feel like I end up muscling through kokyu. I feel slightly off balance myself or like kokyu isn't really there and I am forcing it.

Reflecting after class today I remembered something I read recently comparing some technique from Daito Ryu to Aikido's kokyu-nage. It said they might look the same but that the first is executed with a vertical circle and the second, the kokyu-nage, is executed with a horizontal circle.

Now I know that the people I practice with are performing kokyu-nage in a very linear pull-push sort of way. I try to avoid that. I am trying to think circular. But I still meet resistance. So I started thinking about what is like to receive kokyu-nage. I thought about receiving the pull-push version and how as uke I feel like I am in a strong stance to resist. My balance is not taken unless I have been pulled so far forward that I fall that way and then what is the point of kokyu-nage? So I thought what it would feel like to receive it as a horizontal circle.

I imagine my arm being projected across my center line, being projected forward from (rather than clutched to) uke's center. The elbow is even with or lower than the wrist. Suddenly, my strong stance is corrupted. Weight shifts to the outside of the forward leg. By body tips slightly into uke. I'm pivoting a bit on the horizontal. Uke needs only a gentle motion to complete the throw. If he wanted, he could choose a gentle kiri-otoshi like move rather than kokyu.

I have tried to visualize how I might perform the technique this way, controlling not just uke's wrist but his elbow as well. Especially his elbow so that I can project it subtly across his center line in order to initiate a horizontal circle. I think there is something here. Now I will have to take it to the mat.

Ahh! An after thought. I also can see an alternate version. I would still first need to create that horizontal circle. But then in a situation where for some reason my arm is not in a position to cut smoothly through uke's center (maybe uke's shoulder is in the way or I just screwed up), I can use my elbow. My elbow can come up under the chin and keep going so that my hand is in uke's face. Sliding over his face, the hand finds his far shoulder to draw him round and down like kiri-otoshi. Seems hard to explain clearly, but in my mind's eye it feels quite simple and natural.