Receiving techniques3 common errors3 drills
Uke-waza — Receiving techniques

Age-uke 揚げ受け

Rising block

What it is

The technique, and its job.

A rising forearm block that deflects a descending or head-height attack upward and away. The forearm rotates as it rises so that the attack is turned aside rather than met head-on.

Application. Receiving a descending strike or a head-height straight attack while moving the head off the line, and finishing with the hips loaded for a counter.

8 points

Mechanics

What each part of the body does, in the order it does it.

Stance
Usually zenkutsu-dachi.
Starting position
The blocking arm crosses the body low, the other arm extended forward; the two exchange positions.
Hips
Rotate into the block, supplying the force so the arm does not have to.
Elbows
Ends bent at roughly a right angle, the elbow lower than the fist and never flaring outward.
Hikite
The other hand withdraws to the hip on the same beat.
Trajectory
Rises in front of the face and finishes about a fist’s width above and in front of the forehead, forearm angled so the attack slides off.
Contact surface
The outer forearm, near the wrist.
Kime
The block finishes with the same sharpness as a punch — it is a technique, not a shield.
Principles

What survives when the name is forgotten.

  1. The angle of the forearm does the work. A horizontal forearm absorbs the whole attack; an angled one deflects it.
  2. Blocking arm and hikite are one action driven by one hip rotation.
  3. The finished position must not cover the eyes.
3 faults

Common errors, and how to fix them.

Naming a fault teaches nobody. Each one below carries why it happens and what corrects it.

Fault
The block finishes too high, or on top of the head.

Why it happens. Fear of the attack.

The fix. Set the finish a fist’s width above the forehead and check it in a mirror.

Fault
The elbow flares outward.

Why it happens. Lifting with the shoulder rather than rotating with the hip.

The fix. Keep the elbow inside the line of the shoulder and let the hip drive.

Fault
Blocking with the arm alone.

Why it happens. The block is treated as a defensive reflex rather than a technique.

The fix. Block a partner’s committed oi-zuki. An arm-only block fails immediately and audibly.

Practice

Drills

  • Age-uke stepping down the floor, checking the finishing height every repetition.
  • Gohon kumite against jodan oi-zuki — five committed attacks, five blocks.
  • Block into immediate gyaku-zuki, so the block is never the end of the movement.
Kihon ↔ kata ↔ kumite

Where it appears.

Kihon is the vocabulary, kata is the literature, kumite is the conversation. Every link below was written down deliberately; none of it was inferred from a name matching.

Kata
Kumite
Same family
3 terms

The Japanese, explained.

Age-uke 揚げ受け
Rising block. A rising forearm block that deflects a descending or head-height attack upward and away, finishing about a fist’s width above the forehead.
Jodan 上段
Upper level. The head and the neck — both as a target and as the level at which a technique is named and performed. Jodan-zuki is a punch to that level; jodan-uke is a block against one arriving there.
Hikite 引き手
Withdrawing hand. The hand that pulls sharply back to the hip as the other technique goes out. It is not decoration: it accelerates the working hand by opposing rotation, and in application it is the hand that has just grabbed the opponent and is pulling them onto the technique.
Reference recordings

Video

No recording in the register is tagged to Age-uke. MMAKF has not filmed this technique, and the discovery pass did not find an external recording specific enough to attribute to it without guessing.

Nothing is shown here rather than a search link dressed up as a demonstration. What has been found, checked and registered is listed in full on the source register.

The video source register →