What makes this seated Daito-ryu technique work?

Question

Let us examine this one section of only a few seconds of a video of Okamoto-sensei, a Daito-Ryu practitioner, demonstrating a way to free oneself from an opponent grabbing both your wrists when both are in a seated position. He shows one of the most fundamental techniques of daito-ryu, in which he raises his hands in a circular motion towards the shoulders of the opponent (or towards the sky) and then sends the opponent to the side. The opponent appears to be pushed back through the arms before being jerked forward and rolling out. Additionally, the seated practitioner's movements throughout are small and subtle.

Stslavik, one of users of this site, in one of the comments on this question, mentioned something to the effect of a wave being generated and sent into the opponent. What is this wave, where and how does it start, where, when and how is it sent into the opponent?

For those who are curious, there is a Systema video on Youtube that shows some of the same principles being applied through a stick. The effects are much more overt.

Answer 1

(this is not intended to be a full answer - I just want line breaks)

The other answers are good ones, and all bring up valid points. I think they're all a bit long though. I like stslavik's answer (it's very technical and detailed, which is nice), but I think he missed a couple points:

The first is that Okamoto-sensei isn't letting his uke settle into the grab. As soon (or before) their hands have touched his wrists, he's moving into the technique. This difference in timing can make or break a technique.

The second is that while the students may not be deliberately 'going with the technique', they are almost certainly not attacking. They are giving Okamoto-sensei an attack; not actually attacking him. Another important difference, in that the students are more willing to give up their position when they haven't fought to get it.

Lastly, if there's one part that is really the key to this technique, it's that Okamoto-sensei puts himself underneath (not literally, but focus/force/positional-wise) the uke's elbows and then applies force; this creates a joint lock and from there, any sort of pin or throw can be applied.

Answer 2

There is no one, unifying piece that is at work in the video provided, but many pieces working in parallel. I will be as explicit in naming as many as possible to give an accurate view of the principles at work.

1. Balance – Okamoto-sensei (I have it as Okamoto Seigo, though have seen Okamoto Shogo as well, especially from Russian videos) sits upright in seiza, shoulders over hips. Uke sites in seiza at a distance of about a foot; in order for uke to reach sensei's wrists, he has to give up his balance – that is, he breaks alignment of his hips and shoulders, whereas sensei need not do so. Therefore, uke is imbalanced, his arms at a full extension by virtue of needing to keep some balance (avoiding falling forward). In this way, uke gives himself to sensei, and sensei needs only to steer him right or left to point him where to fall. This loss of balance, interestingly enough, occurs at 9:35-9:36, immediately following uke's best attempts to seat himself in a balanced posture.

2. Locking – Once that uke makes contact, he is supported partly by sensei. Sensei now has a lever in the form of uke's arms provided that he can maintain rigidity. To do this, sensei first raises the hands and points up (an exaggerated example of this technique is available on the DVDs Daito-ryu Roppokai and Daito-ryu Roppokai Hawaii Seminar, the latter being from which the question's link is drawn.) which bends the wrist, locks the elbows, and pushes the arms up into the shoulders. So long as sensei maintains his balance, the pressure on the joints will prevent the lock from being released. This occurs at 9:37 in the video.

3. Flow – Called nagare in Japanese, or known as The Wave in Systema Ryabko, the continuity of motion from 9:36 to 9:38 begins in the knees, a slight wave moving up from the knees through the hips and up through the arms. This combined with the lock setting at 9:37 lifts uke, and the continued movement in a circle biased toward one side leads uke's already natural tendency forward.

4. Will – This is, without a doubt, the most difficult aspect to teach. Without getting too philosophical, the martial artist has to realize that we are not all that different than Hermetics; we are workers of will. When we move, we move where we are invited and take the space that we desire. We command our movements take priority. The novice struggles with technique, assuring himself he's performing correctly when it works, never understanding why it just so happens to always work for sensei. The reason is that the sensei wills for the technique to work, consciously or not. His presence, his actions, and his authority all lend themselves to his ability to act.
   
   On the simplest of levels, I understand that if I tell you, "Don't think of a black cat." you must, in order to understand me, think of a black cat. By making this statement, I am subjecting you to my will, whether it is your intent to be subjected or not. It is unavoidable. For a technique like the te hodoki seen in the video to work, the martial artist must first bend the reality around him; that is, he must create the illusion that the only viable option is for the uke to grab his wrists. To say that the martial artist must wait for that opportunity to present itself is misguided, as that would put him into the realm of reaction, which is too slow to be effective. Why does uke grab for sensei's wrists then? Because sensei, through his position and his intention has set up the scenario in which that is the appropriate response. Uke, then, puts himself into position such that he has no choice but to be thrown. [ Related - Reality and Non-Reality of Techniques]

I am, of course, asking you to accept this conclusion based on my experiences knowing full well that you do not have the same experiences necessary to have come to these conclusions as well. You'll notice in here that I only once mentioned a technique (calling what was performed as "te hodoki), but gave you four points to examine. In order for you to make use of what I'm telling you, you're going to have to take a moment to consider that techniques are not the smallest unit of training. These are all principles, the atomic units upon which techniques, forms, and even movement are all based. If there's anything at all that you feel remotely unclear upon, please ask, and I will do my best to break it down further.

Answer 3

There are two things going on there that need to be separated out.

One is the technique that Okamoto-sensei is performing, the other is the technique that the uke is performing. It is important to observe both, since both are part of what is fundamentally occurring here.

On a purely physical level, what he is doing is:

1. Pushing them back while they hold on. This is reminiscent of a few of our escapes in Hapkido: Pushing them back weakens the grip and forces them to adjust their balance.
2. Pulling them down and to the side. This is pulling their center off, down, and to the right and aligning their (now forward) momentum along the angle to the side. This is particularly effective when combined with the previous technique, so that their balance is already disrupted.
3. By turning his arms over, it is forcing their arm all the way over to the opposite side from where it started.
4. As mentioned by others, there is a psychological force in play compelling everyone to go along with the technique (to be compliant, as it were). Part of this is the nature of the training and the situation (you want to look good for the cameras), part of this is actually practice (see below).

That's all part of the first component there. The second thing deals with how the uke are responding.

From here multiple things can result. If the uke does nothing here but just holds on tightly, then with a little extra movement in the technique the uke will probably end face-planting and/or ending up in a lock (depending on what the sensei is aiming for). Minimally, the sensei will end up in a position where his hands are free and he can strike his (hopefully off-balance) attacker.

Instead, they are going along with the technique, which trains them in how to escape it. This is part of the "compliance" piece: in hapkido we don't just train how to put the techniques on, but how to get out of them or keep the lock/throw from going into place on us. That's the other side of what you are seeing here: they are training to essentially break the lock and escape by kipping out of it. As we like to say: "Don't be the dummy for the other side."

This is further exaggerated by the desire to make it look good for the cameras, so you get what looks like a fluid and pretty much choreographed movement, where the instructor is slowly demonstrating a technique and students–who are training in the movement that will help them not get caught by it and have seen it many times before–see what is coming and go along with it.

Answer 4

Technique versus parlor tricks

There are two concerns I have with this technique. First, it seems to rely less on solid technique than on social factors. Second, the set-up is transparently counterfeit.

In judo, I get used as uke occasionally. I take kumikata grips or an unusual grip we're working on, I stand with good posture or one of the commonly-seen-in-sparring poor postures, I move with good footwork or take a specific misstep, et cetera. The instructor uses me as a dummy if we're doing technique straight from the gokyo (e.g. osotogari). If we're working counters, set-ups or tactics, then a specific technique follows from one of my specific mistakes. I'm compliant, but the technique we're learning is rooted in usable, tangible, functional application.

There's also no hand-waving about how to translate the technique into practice. Either we're learning a throw that we know works because millions of judoka throw their trained, resisting, motivated opponents with it in competition, or we're learning a tactic or counter that we can test ourselves in randori later that night. The set-up has very close to a 1-to-1 relationship to application, so we know (or can determine) its value.

There's nothing wrong with odd drills that develop "intangibles". Balance, intuition, sensitivity, and timing are all hard to isolate during practice. Sometimes we'll do an odd drill that involves taking easy falls, but that should only be occasional. The more these drills (like the demonstrated Daito technique) supplant sparring and straightforward technique drilling, the more one should become dubious.

When I trained in light-contact karate, I'd also get used as uke for demonstrations plenty. Sometimes it would be similar to my description above: I'd punch, instructor would show an evasion and counter. Straightforward technique, straightforward set-up.

But much more frequently, as is common in non-sparring or light-contact arts, the set-up would be quite strange. It would start with "grab my wrist", and there'd be an unspoken subtext of "and don't react like a normal person when I start applying this convoluted, multi-step technique". Or, "grab my lapels...no, not like that! With your arms outstretched like a zombie, and now just stand there." Set-ups like that aren't just compliant. They're contrived, and often elaborate, awkward, and unlikely to boot. They rely on situations that don't actually occur (or occur like that) in fighting.

Also from my experience in light-contact karate, as well as eyebrow-raising demos from aikido instructors, I'm wary of techniques that seem to have over-the-top results. Sometimes, the technique is valid and just unusual. Other times, the technique simply does not have a solid basis. Instead, its production of over-the-top ukemi relies on cooperation from a compliant demonstration partner.

The technique is called "jump for sensei"

Okamoto is working with incredibly dedicated, long-term students of his. They are demonstrating for a crowd. They are being taped. Both uke and tori have invested years, if not decades, in making these techniques look effective on a compliant partner. In the past, it is almost certain that if Sensei attempted a technique and uke did not flip over and tap, Sensei would apply A) some other technique with a greater degree of force, and B) group social shaming of that individual for not receiving the technique compliantly.

Gillian Russell's Epistemic Viciousness (PDF) makes this point eloquently:

Not everyone treats their martial art like a religion, but another, more inevitable problem for martial arts epistemology is that those who already have beliefs in the area tend to have a lot invested in those beliefs. The people whose testimony we are most likely to believe have inevitably put years of effort into perfecting their techniques.

Everyone involved in Okamoto's demo is subject to an extraordinary degree of cognitive dissonance of the form "whatever Sensei does, I'd better take ukemi, and fast."

More than anything else, Okamoto has set up a contrived parlor trick. He twitches his hands and the students jump for him. This is meant to showcase some broader principle or efficacy of technique, but largely it demonstrates the power of social suggestion and long-term setting of expectations.

For an example of how this fares against actual martial techniques, please see this challenge match (YouTube) of a "kiai master" against someone trained in punching and kicking.