One of the codes of karate that I am most impressed by is this: "A person's unbalance is the same as a weight."
I understand this to mean that stealing a person's balance is the same as forcing them to carry a heavy weight while still trying to fight you.
From what I've read, learned, and observed, when a person loses their balance, the very first thing they do is try to regain their balance. Everything else is secondary to that primitive survival urge, including fighting. A person who is slipping on ice will fling valuable items in the air as they flail about, trying to keep from going down. Nothing matters in that moment except not falling down. It's instinctive.
So I always attempt to steal a person's balance. It doesn't have to be a big obvious thing like a leg sweep (although of course that works too). It can be as little as trapping a punch and pulling them slightly off-kilter, or pushing, or hitting them once to unbalance them and the second time to do damage, and etc. Lots of ways, big and small, to steal balance. Even if it's just a tiny disturbance in their equilibrium, even if they don't consciously realize that they've lost their balance, the primitive part of their mind knows and attempts to regain that balance.
Secondarily, this is also part of the reason that stance training is so important; so you don't lose your own balance.
I understand this to mean that stealing a person's balance is the same as forcing them to carry a heavy weight while still trying to fight you.
From what I've read, learned, and observed, when a person loses their balance, the very first thing they do is try to regain their balance. Everything else is secondary to that primitive survival urge, including fighting. A person who is slipping on ice will fling valuable items in the air as they flail about, trying to keep from going down. Nothing matters in that moment except not falling down. It's instinctive.
So I always attempt to steal a person's balance. It doesn't have to be a big obvious thing like a leg sweep (although of course that works too). It can be as little as trapping a punch and pulling them slightly off-kilter, or pushing, or hitting them once to unbalance them and the second time to do damage, and etc. Lots of ways, big and small, to steal balance. Even if it's just a tiny disturbance in their equilibrium, even if they don't consciously realize that they've lost their balance, the primitive part of their mind knows and attempts to regain that balance.
Secondarily, this is also part of the reason that stance training is so important; so you don't lose your own balance.