Kote Kaeshi Men, Takenouchi

“Kote kaeshi Men”, which means receiving opponent’s Kote and soon turning one’s snap and hitting Men.

The player who is thought most skillful is Takenouchi. In following video, 4:00 Kote kaeshi Men of white was typical ippon of him. In the serial matches, he got several ippons with this technique.

However, this skill sometimes controversial because depend on jusde’s preference, frequently Men win and other occasion Kote win.

From our experiences, Men is preferred in many cases, partly because Men is more good-looking and had an impression more strongly hit the opponents.

If Kote hits so strongly with perfect sound, Kote might win. But in general, for Kote hitter, it is more difficult to get ippon and has risk of giving ippon to opponent.

Let check them with other matches.

This video collected ippons of Takenouchi, who is a champion of 62^nd All Japan Kendo Championship at 2014.

At that time, he was just a university student and youngest of all participants. There are several reason he could be a champion that year; The momentum of youth, his extraordinary gut and mental, his skill and a little bit luck made him possible to win the tournament.

Among all the match, I think match for Nishimura from 3:03 seemed toughest for him.

In this match, red player persistently aimed at Kote of Takenouchi. And like 3:43, it was not far from ippon. However, judges prefer Men more than Kote.

After that red player also tried Kote like 4:15, but it was not admitted enough as ippon. He was careful not to give another same Men to Takenouchi. But that made his Kote a bit shallow and therefore couldn't get Kote at last.

Red player’s Men at 4:43 was nice timing, repetitive attack of his Kote, white player paid more attention to Kote, so he delayed his reaction a little. If this Men was a bit deeper, this Men would become ippon.

Takenouchi bearly avoided this situation, his rapid reaction and tall height might save him.

Next semifinal from 5:10, Takenouchi was red side. White player Hatakenaka was strong and good player, but first Men in this match was rather careless for him, giving chance for Takenouchi to counterattack.

As a result, he had to get one ippon within time and that made him haste situation.

Red player was clever and Hatakenaka was good Kote hitter, so here he tried to make opponent hit Kote. Look at 6:26, almost as red player intended, he successfully get Men with same technique.

With slow motion check, both Kote and Men were insufficient, but Men won this time also.

In final, red was Takenouchi was white was Kunitomo. Both player were representatives of Fukuoka prefecture. So kendo committee of Fukuoka was proud of two of players went to final in this year.

This final match two Men (first Kote-Men 7:30, second Awase-Men 8:04) were excellent and can be a good model of Men for all generation who study Kendo.