okay so there’s a popular post going around that’s having a bit of a laugh at one of the moves steve did in the lemurian star sequence in catws. i’m all for finding the amusement in things but given that steve’s fighting style is an amalgamation of martial arts, one of which i have been doing for 11 going on 12 years, the whole post kinda bugged me.
so here’s an accurate breakdown of this move (under a readmore bc it got long) based on what i know, and what would happen if steve tried it on the winter soldier:
the move:
the techniques:
now it might look like he’s jumping into the guy’s arms, but there’s actually a lot going on here.
a quick background: i’ve been doing judo since i was ten, and teaching it since i was 18. judo, or “the gentle way” is a martial art that uses throws and holds rather than strikes. the idea of a throw is manipulating the body, momentum, and the centre of gravity to your own purpose. this manipulation makes it very energy efficient, and allows a smaller/lighter/weaker person to defeat a larger/stronger/heavier person if done correctly.
back to steve:
in judo we have two techniques similar to the move steve is doing here. those techniques are are yoko-wakare, and yoko-tomoe-nage (the video for the first one is for the kata so it’s kind of weird, but they show the throw before breaking it down)
both of these throws are known as “sacrifice throws” - ie. you throw your opponent by throwing yourself in a controlled way. by controlling your descent, and controlling their core (ie the stomach/hip area, and the centre of power as well as gravity), you throw the person over yourself. they’re not easy to master, especially if you don’t want to hurt your training partner (steve, obviously, doesn’t care about that).
in this sequence steve is doing what, to me, looks like a mix between the two throws mentioned, and then he’s modified it slightly on top of that by bringing it up to the chest level.
steve’s version:
what you can see steve doing is jumping up, closing the distance between he and his opponent, and gripping behind his opponent’s head, somewhere between the shoulder blades. as his body drops, he rotates himself, and, with his grip on the back of the opponent’s neck, drags him in a large circle, head first.
there are several things here that make this effective.
steve placing his weight above the opponent’s centre of gravity
steve’s grip between the shoulderblades
steve’s body rotation
the height steve has jumped to
steve’s strength advantage over his opponent
steve placing his weight above his opponent’s centre of gravity makes the opponent top heavy, and easy to overbalance. once your shoulders are in front of your hips, you tip forward if you don’t move your feet/bend your knees.
steve’s grip allows him to not only control the spine, but control the clavicle. this control means he can force his opponent’s shoulders forward - there’s no way his opponent can push his hips forward, his head back, and ride this one out.
steve’s body rotation then continues this forward direction, dragging the shoulders so far in front of the opponent’s core that the only thing he can do is fall forward. he’s accentuated this by swinging his free arm, with the shield, around in a circle to generate momentum.
the height of steve’s jump creates momentum. What goes up must come down, and steve’s using this energy he’s generating to move his opponent forward and down. steve’s drop also allows momentum to build, to the point where his opponent is throwing himself.it also, obviously, gives his opponent somewhere to go.
this technique is possible without steve’s supersoldier strength, but that makes everything easier - he knows he’s stronger than his opponent, knows he can use his strength to essentially pile drive his opponent into the ground. this isn’t required - it’s possible to do this on someone stronger than you if you get everything else right, but it would be difficult.
vs winter:
the bit everyone’s interested in right? the arm and the serum and everything that makes the winter soldier so deadly has got to pose some sort of problem to the technique above, right?
not really, no.
the original post implies that bucky’s arm would catch steve, and he’d end up in a bridal carry. this is incorrect for a few reasons:
winter’s arm is attached to his body
the strength of the arm doesn’t move winter’s centre of gravity
steve is a tactician and would modify his techniques based on his opponent
so. winter’s arm is strong, it can rip off doors and hold things up and do a lot of Strong Things. but it’s not independent of winter’s body. if something heavy suddenly lands in your arms and you’re unprepared for it, you’re going to stumble or tip forward. this is because that object is in front of you. the weight is on your shoulders but in front of them, so your body instinctively places your shoulders above the weight to best minimise the strain of carrying it.
which puts the shoulders in front of the centre of gravity.
which puts you off balance.
see where i’m going with this?
the arm is strong, yes, but strength doesn’t matter when you go from having no weight in your arms to suddenly bearing a load. it’s the suddenness that would be key here. get him before he braces himself, and he’ll tip right over. faster probably, because he’s so top heavy (thanks to the giant hunk of metal attached to his shoulder).
the fact that he’s top heavy is point number two: attaching the strong object to him doesn’t move his centre of gravity, which is still somewhere in his core. sudden load above this point? tip. control the clavicle in some way and drag forward? tip faster.
the one thing that most bugged me though is that the post implies steve would not modify his techniques for a stronger opponent. even at the start of the first fight sequence (the causeway) he’s seen winter move and work, seen the strength in the arm, seen how strong he is. what worked on your average joe on the lemurian star will not work here.
so, going high could prove beneficial, but if there’s not enough surprise it leaves steve vulnerable. the smartest thing to do in this situation would be to go low. against winter this would only really be possible with steve’s strength, but irl this would work on anyone who isn’t expecting it. therefore, if you watched the videos above, he’d be more likely to move towards a pure yoko-wakare.
getting a grip somewhere around the shoulder, dropping his weight, rotating his body, and planting himself somewhere just in front of winter’s feet? that assassin is gonna face plant and there’s not much he can do about it.
and if y’all would like me to demonstrate i’ll see if i can get an unwitting partner and a camera and i’ll prove my points (with less athleticism than steve because i’m broken af) but if you have any questions/points you’d like to bring up i’d love to hear them!
