Muna Dōri – Kote Gaeshi with Hip Kick/Frame

🍃 Advanced 📅 1957 🏛 Archive

⛩️ Source

The photograph shows two practitioners in an outdoor courtyard, in front of a cinder block wall, during a sequence involving arm/wrist control with off-balancing and probable completion into a joint lock (the “wrist lock” family). The combination of visual details (courtyard enclosed by a block wall; “pants-only” attire for the more muscular practitioner; non-competitive setting) is strongly consistent with contemporary/retrospective descriptions of U.S. Marines training with the founder of Isshin-ryū in Kyan (Chan/Chun), Okinawa, where “the house courtyard was the dōjō,” and American students helped build a cinder block wall to isolate the practice area.

The most solid identification (though not conclusive without an archival caption) is that the Japanese/Okinawan figure (smaller in build) is Tatsuo Shimabuku, and that the Western practitioner is a first-generation Marine student—most plausibly Harry G. Smith, or alternatively Art Smiley.

The most probable time frame is 1956–late 1958 (the period during which the group of Marines attended the dōjō between Kyan and Agena; documented awarding of rokudan to Smith on May 22, 1958 in related memoirs/biographies; references to cinder block walls already under construction and photographs taken with very few people present).

The historical window most consistent with place, plausible protagonists, and photographic style is:

1956–1958: period during which the Marine core group (Smiley, Smith, and others) attended the dōjō in Kyan and nearby areas; memoirs attribute Smith’s departure from Okinawa to “late June 1958” and mention rokudan awarded on May 22, 1958.

1957–1958 (narrower hypothesis): sources describe the cinder block wall being built during training to shield the courtyard; the photo shows a wall already present and relatively continuous, suggesting not the earliest phase. This is inference, not documented dating.

🔖 Technique Notes

It appears that Tori has seized Muna Dōri (a lapel or chest grab). Simultaneously, Tori seems to either kick, frame, or press with his foot at Uke’s hip level to disrupt balance, while controlling Uke’s wrist with one hand and the hand itself with the other. This configuration is consistent with the initial phase of a Kote Gaeshi–type wrist turn.
What can reasonably be observed is wrist and forearm control combined with torsion, causing Uke to bend and rotate—a typical reaction to joint locking.
From a single image, it is not possible to determine whether the rotation is supination-based (closer to Kote Gaeshi) or pronation/internal rotation (closer to Kote Hineri), nor whether the lower-body action is an Atemi or simply a framing/pushing action.
The most prudent interpretation is that the posture reflects a rotational wrist lock, without definitively identifying it as Kote Gaeshi or Kote Hineri.

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🧾 Info

🥊 Attack
Muna Dōri
🌀 Type
Nage WazaTachi Waza
🔗 Parent Technique
Kote GaeshiKote Hineri
🌏 Origin
Isshin-ryū (Karate)Karate-dō
🥋 Senseï
Tatsuo Shimabuku