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Saturday, December 31, 2011

How's your Chi?

Everybody focuses on the physical stuff. The martial arts community is practically built on this. The RBSD guys(and gals), competition guys, the people who just do forms. With the exception of maybe a few people it's all a comparison of the physical things because these are the things that are tangible. They are also the things that are "fun" to practice and play with. I'm right there too.


I don't think we give enough credit to the non-tangible elements of martial arts. Especially those that revolve around self-defense and physical violence. I'm kind of seeing this lately as I have been asked to put together a women's self-defense course. So what do you teach them? They're not looking for martial arts they just want to know things that may save their life. If you could show them one effective technique what would it be? Now, what if you could only show them one thing, physical technique or otherwise? What do you show or explain? Hmm, a groin kick is not nearly as important as good awareness.


Anyhow, it gets me thinking. and then I was reading some stuff about Chi. The old Chinese "energy" stuff. I've never been one who puts much into the idea that I can control and use some mystical force as a weapon or shield. No-touch-knockouts and all that sort of junk. It's out there with throwing fireballs at a mugger. But this time it finally started to make a little sense.


I was reading through the Hakutsuru Kenpo manual by Tony Sandoval and I had a light bulb moment. Chi = energy (and that's a rough translation into English) and I've seen it also used interchangeably with "power". I use the term power in class all the time. As in power generation. Teaching people how to strike with power requires building and controlling that power through the body and releasing it into the target. (Now I'm starting to sound like those other guys.) Going back and re-reading the stuff about Chi I started to see something. For example, striking certain points on the body to create a disturbance in the Chi (strength or power) makes some sense now. If I can kick the back of the knee, it's not about hitting a magic point to explode the attackers joints and nerves but it weakens his balance and structure, which weakens his strength or power. Hmm.


The same for throws. If I  upset his balance or break his connection with the ground (disrupting the flow of energy) then it's pretty hard for him to hit me with anything substantial short of a taser. If I hit him properly, then try to throw him it get easier. I already know this is true but now I can put the term "chi" into that statement and use it in a way that is functional, not just conceptual.


So maybe this is yet another thing that's  been lost in translation and time. The meaning we have now is not necessarily the one that was used in the old days of martial arts training. It makes you wonder what else this applies to? Maybe all that mystical dim-mak type secret stuff really does work somewhere between the proven smash and break violence of combatives and Chi. And now we're back to the physical stuff again. Time to play with it and see.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Why go hard?

Had a training session recently where it became obvious that some things just won't work at speed and power. We were padded up (as much as needed for safety) and going at it with intent, power and speed. Just some attacks with a club. Very similar to what we do a bit lighter on a regular basis, but not the same. And the results were glaring.

The only difference other than the extra safety equipment was the speed and intent. Even at faster speeds we were usually successful making the blocks and intercepting the attack. But the intent was the game-changer. Fact: the "I'm gonna take your head off" attacks are just not the same as the "Here's something to block and counter" attacks. The commitment changes, the power certainly changes and the swing even changes a little.

The technique being used wasn't bad really, it just wasn't good enough to be reliable and consistent. In the end it was just a subtle change that corrected the issue. But subtle things can get you killed if you don't understand them.

And then there's the emotion! Everything changes under pressure. I say this all the time. Perfect example here. You don't know what you thought you knew until you need it. Or something like that. You won't be at your best if you ever need to use this stuff for protection. The script is important when you are first learning but, at some point you have to get uncomfortable and see what you really know.

That may be the biggest challenge now that I think about it. The comfort. It's too easy to go slow and safe and believe that we're more capable than we really are. It's comfortable because the fault tolerance is so great. It's another matter to know you can do it at speed and power most of the time. That's how it should be though. If you never miss you likely aren't going hard enough. Without some discomfort you can't really trust your ability.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Thoughts, theories, and a place to keep them.

I've been thinking this might be a good idea. Something I considered doing for some time but never followed up on. So, by way of an introduction this is my new martial arts and related topics idea catalog. Just somewhere I can get some things out of my head and hopefully make them available for discussion.

My background is in traditional Japanese and Okinawan martial arts, mostly. I define my approach to training with one general question, "How can I make this work for real?" I've found that a lot of stuff out there is built on some pretty sound fundamentals but often misunderstood. And there is a lot of junk too. I guess I'm a skeptic but I think you have to be if you want to find the 'good stuff'.

I take everything with a grain of salt. If you can show me how and why something works, it might be worth training. If, after some practice, you can make it work under pressure with repeatable results it's worth keeping. After that I'll shoot some holes in it and then it becomes it's own thing. Nothing is perfect. No technique is fail-proof. I get that. Just searching for a way to make my skills and those I pass on better.