Mokuso from Fudo dachi (as seen in several katas)

[Martin H]

You know the move, it is the ceremonial "bow in" before many katas, especially advanced ones.
In Mosubu dachi you bring your hands up so that the hands covers the eyes, elbows pointing down, the fingers on your left hand in front of the right. Then you turn the hands downwards (closing your eyes) until the hands covers just below the belt.

A simple move that I always regarded as purely ceremonial.
Not any more. After watching a video with Iain Abernethy (yes I know I mention this guy a lot), I have a whole new respect for this move.

First the situation.

The "bad guy" approaches you and initiate a argument. Sometime during the argument he escalate it by slipping his left hand behind your head, with the idea that he is to hold it in place while punching it with his right. You are now in a bad place.

You dont want that so you bring the hands up in front of your face (note that you do this inside his left arm that is holding you) like in the ceremonial mokuso, hunching down your head behind them. You close in TIGHT to him, reducing his space to work the punch. You may even sort of tackle him.
You just cover up and crowd him. There is no time to do any blocks at this close range.

You are now really close to him, and go to phase two. You slip the hands behind HIS head, going into what thaiboxers call neck wrestling position (still very close, keep your knees together so not to offer your groin as target too easily). Do not interlock your fingers, but hold them just like in mokuso, one hand over the other

You now got your elbows pressed against the front of his shoulders, and your hands behind his neck (as high up as possible, while not losing the position of elbows in front of his shoulders). Here you can do some fun things. You can headbutt him, elbow him in the face or work with the close in circular hiza geri, as is so popular in thaiboxing. By a quick foot work to create some space you can also work the straight hiza geri, but that is opening up for him a bit.

Next step is to press down the hands just like the formal move. The elbows on the shoulders provide leverage for the hands as they press down the head (remember, hands high up as that gives more power. Low down is less powerful). This should force him to bend forward, and give a good opportunity to do a jodan hizageri at chudan height.
The final parts can be seen here:
YouTube - Ian Abernethy Masters Seminar - DVD available now
(the first part can be seen on the dvd that this clip is a promo for)

If the bad guy happens to be a thaiboxer trained in neck wrestling, or a wrestler with neck muscles like a.. well like a wrestler, you are out of luck and needs to think up a plan B real quick.

As a alternative followup to the hiza geri, that came to my mind when watching.
If you get him to bend forward, you can slip forward into a low X-block (Juji "uke") over the neck, and use a low version of the turning hands move from pinan Go. This then becomes a rather unpleasant neck crank. Just grab his head with both hands and turn it 180 degrees. Add a little 45 degree turn by stepping up with your right leg into a kind of kake dachi and snap into a lose zenkutsu dachi to get a bit more spin to the move. This is a _really_ nasty move, and I dont recommend it being done. It is a rather forceful version of a move I learned in jujutsu under the name iriminage. But there we stepped in with close contact to the body to take some force from the neck crank. Here all the power goes into the neck. As I said. a really nasty move. (I feel like I should not even write it down here)

There, a bunkai for the simple standing mokuso move with a few followups at appropriate places.

comments?

Edit -minor correction. For the alternate ending, you either need to reverse the hands from mokuso (putting the right hand in front of the left, not like we do -left hand in front) or reverse the side of the pinan go move and neck crank (and stepping up with your left leg into kake dachi for the spin). Personally I would prefer to just shift hand in the mokuso move. That is much simpler.

[seienchin]

Nice one Martin - I'd add rep for that normally, but you look like you've been out buying beers for everyone on the board! Oh - OK, have some more...

[DKKC]

Excellent post Martin! Thanks for sharing this with us!

[Bloke]

Many Thanks Martin - I always thought that it was ceremonial too. Thanks for sharing.

[Lucy]

Now thats very interesting! Thanks for sharing, great post!