Jukendo Kata: Mokuju vs Tanken #6 銃剣道 形 （木銃と短剣）

And now the one that I feel has the most potential for mistakes being a tad painful.

• Starting from 9 steps apart.
• Ju takes a geidan aimed at Tan's front knee (I think this is the aggressive geidan)
• Tan covers with a twist of the forearm so the blade is now pointing over the left shoulder of the gun barrel and the base of the tanken is to the right of the gun barrel but quite high. Almost a horizontal tanken.
• 3 steps in each
• Tan quickly steps in with one huge step (right foot first)attempting to pressure the mokuju similar to in the previous kata
• Ju evades the pressure stepping straight back, dropping the mokuju kensen and almost immediately launching an attack.
• Tan strikes the mokuju barrel (Uchiotoshi), fairly close to Ju's front hand knocking the mokuju up and away.
• Tan steps forward (left foot) simultaneously putting the tanken on his hip (aimed at Ju's kidney) and grabs Ju's front arm just below the elbow. Tan's grabbing hand has thumb on the right.
• Tan's left arm is straight, pushing Ju's elbow up and back
• Ju is off balance, maintaining eye contact Tan uses the hip rotation stabbing technique.
• Tan performs zanshin by Ju's front arm and running the point of the tanken down the arm as he steps away
• As Tan moves back to centre the tip of tanken follows the line of the arm and then the base of the blade controls the barrel. The tanken is between Tan and the mokuju
• Note that in this case the "natural" choice is to hold the mokuju out to the left from Tan's perspective. If you ask Ju to try and hit you this choice will be revealed as somewhat stupid. Get the tanken onto the outside of Ju's arm immediately when you are bringing their arm down.
• Return to chudan
• Drop weapon point down releasing pressure on opponent, At this Tan's back hand goes down as well.
• 5 steps back
• Return to Chudan, Tan's back hand comes up to hold the (imaginary) bayonet scabbard

Important Points:

• When Ju makes the attack it must be straight and on target. If Ju deliberately aims high it just looks stupid
• As in #5 the Uchiotoshi strike of the mokuju is like a drummers strike. It isn't a slap or a sliding technique. It is an abrupt hard strike using wrist movement (not arm).
• The uchiotoshi strike is late. Ju has to have fully committed. This is where Ju might have to say sorry to Tan.
• The contact point of the tanken and the mokuju is back of blade to blade of mokuju.
• I don't tend to actually grip the opponents arm as much as just use their elbow joint as a big bump to push down against. The important thing is the lack of balance on Ju's behalf and the control of Ju's body by Tan

What we did wrong:

• When I was Tan we were too close in the centre at the beginning
• I move my head back away from the mokuju while attempting the block, this made the block less definite
• I chose the natural feeling (and wrong) side at first when coming down for zanshin 
• Ewa's covering with the Tan was a bit too horizontal
• My strike with the mokuju was not a strike, more of a general waving of a stick in Ewa's direction