Confused about Mae and Ma

[Jon Bray]

Hi. I'm a judo student and was recently corrected on a translation of
masutemiwaza - I was told that these are "rear sacrifice techniques"
rather than "forward sacrifice techniques". The former translation does
make more sense, as in all of them the thrower lies on his back (in most
of them his opponent is thrown forward, but not all of them).

I pointed out that other uses of the "Mae" prefix in martial arts
translate as "forward" (Mae ukemi, Mae geri etc) and was told that there
is a difference between "Mae" and "Ma".

I've googled them both, and the only translation of "Ma" I can find refers
to some arty sense of negative space (I realise this is a clumsy
translation because it appears to have sparked a flame war on the site I
found it on, but suffice it to say it does seem to be a bit of a leap to
get from that to "rear" or "back"). I did find a suggestion that "Mae" is
pronounced "Ma-e" and I was wondering whether Masutemiwaza is just
Maesutemiwaza with the e dropped off because the two words are run
together.

Can anyone explain this discrepancy please? Does "Ma" have an archaic
second meaning meaning "rear" or "back" (and if so, would this be
synonymous with "ura" which is the term I've come across before to mean
this)?

Thanks.




--
Jon Bray

[Jon Bray]

I found a better translation site than google and dissected the kanji - ma
and mae are indeed different kanji although both can translate as
forward. Ma translates as "straight forward" (and "head over heels")
though whereas mae translates as "in front of". So mystery solved, other
than the reason for the original mistranslation.