In my last post I covered the color and move pattern for the double faced kikko braid in Masako’s Study of Archaic Braiding Techniques in Japan. What I’ve neglected to cover yet are the basic moves in Kute-Uchi, specifically the hand loop moves for the kikko braid. In this post I’ll cover moves A-E and in the next post cover RL-LR and LR-RL. In deciphering the oldest books on Japanese braiding, Masako rediscovered the four basic moves of kute-uchi. All other moves are based on these four foundation moves.
A quick note: In the kikko braid pattern moves are joined with an R or L. In all cases R&L stand for Right hand and Left hand. So, a move *R means grabbing the applicable loop from the right hand to be placed on the left hand and *L would be moving from the left hand to the right.
The first move is the Outside Around Open, sometimes written as OA/O, shorthanded to A. In this move the outermost loop is grabbed from inside the loop and brought around the others to the innermost position of the opposite hand.
The next move is the Outside Around Closed, sometimes written as OA/C, shorthanded to B. In this version the loop is grabbed from the outside of the loop before being brought around. This causes the loop to make a half twist and linking the top and bottom half of the braid together.
The third move is the Inside Through Open, sometimes written as IT/O, shorthanded to C. This is like move A but the hand grabbing the loop goes through the other loops before picking up the outer most loop.
The last move is the Inside Through Closed, sometimes written as IT/C, shorthanded to D. This one is similar to move B and again goes through the loops before being placed on the opposite hand.
While I posted a link to move E in the last post I want to explain a little of how to actually make the move. Move E is essentially move D but given a full twist so that the top and bottom remain the same and still linking the top and bottom of the braid. The easiest way to do this is to perform move D, then put the loop in the innermost spot of the original hand and make the closed move again onto the new hand.
A link to Masako's instruction flyer for moves A-D, F and G (both of which will be covered soon): http://www.lmbric.net/ILh/ILh.html
This link and the one for the fingerlooping moves are nearly identical, handlooping includes an 'h' after the 'LH'.
And finally after two weeks I have the video up: https://youtu.be/vfleiaMltRc