Crossing the Hands While Blocking

[JT_the_Ninja]

robertmrivers: a linear front stance may be okay for your style, but that wouldn't fly for me, for two reasons:

1) the balance issue; both feet in a line gives you an unstable stance. In TSD, at least as it's taught to me, the front stance is for when you're going straight forward. If both your feet are in a line, it's incredibly easy to be swept off your feet, or to be knocked backwards. Keep your feet just shoulder width apart, both feet facing the same direction, and your back foot locks you in place, at least to the extent that it's harder to sweep you or push you backward. You still have both feet pointed straight at your opponent, and this leads to

2) TSD kicks high, and a lot. No better or faster way to bring up a front snap kick than when your foot is already set and doesn't have to come around your body.

Again, I respect your karate style, but I'm just explaining why there's never 100% congruence between styles.

Oh, and I'm still interested to see your videos.

upnorthkyosa: not sure I completely understand your videos. mind explaining with a little more detail? You say those relate to the main topic at hand (no pun intended), so I'm interested to see what you mean.

 

[exile]

2) TSD kicks high, and a lot. No better or faster way to bring up a front snap kick than when your foot is already set and doesn't have to come around your body.

Karate or TSD or TKD, it's all ultimately intended to end a brutal street attack fast. And kicking high is about the worst thing you can do in that situation. Those high kicks are artifacts of tournament scoring systems, period. Very CQ fighting with some guy who's out to knock your teeth down your throat? Don't even think about a roundhouse or even front snap kick to the head. You'll get the family jewels handed to you....

Again, I respect your karate style, but I'm just explaining why there's never 100% congruence between styles.

`Style' is irrelevant. Fighting effectiveness is what the MAs were constructed for. They aren't decoration. They either take care of business or they don't. It's not an exercise in art criticism, eh?

 

[robertmrivers]

JT

Again you are missing it. I am not punching or kicking from a forward stance. The forward stance is used at the end of the technique (as an example) when you execute the joint lock , throw, or pin.

If I am in my forward stance applying pressure on my pwer line and you are in your forward stance applying pressure on your center line I will have better balance every time. You are still blocking kicking and punching from your stance. In karate we fight from a natural stance.

I have drawn a picture to better illustrate. It is awful but I think will get the point across. Putting it in the next post...

Rob

 

[robertmrivers]

Ok

here is the link:

http://www.virginiakempo.com//images/Power_line_copy.jpg

The stance on the left represents you. The black line is your power line. The red line is your center line. The blue line is your break line...where your balance is at its weakest. It is pretty simple geometry. You are closer to being off balance than I am.

Its hard to grasp because there is so much information in your head that is forcing you to try to make sense out of stuff that doesn't make sense... Once you realize that you do not use that forward stance to fight...it will all start to come a little easier...

If you use Naihanchi to back it up it starts to make more sense...when you step to the side and set your stance with the "hooking punch" still there...just look at your feet and look at your fist. Which way is everything facing? Our naihanchi, we even lean into the punch a bit...as taught by Choki Motobu.

The other element that I didn't explain is that in the forward stance, or naihanchi stance, feet on the power line, feet turned in 45 degrees, you also turn your knees the other way, creating a spiral-spring-like tension in your lower leg, as in the way the Sanchin kata and stance-work is done. This tightens up the stance.

Anyway...as ALWAYS, this is hard to explain in written form and it is possible that you may just want to dismiss everything. That is fine. I am just giving you the tools...take what you want and throw away the rest. But, the standing point is this...what I am explaining is Karate. It is the root of what you do. Even if you would rather live with the contradictions, at least having an appreciation for the method and not resisting every comment might make you a better TSD instructor.

My $.02

Rob

 

[robertmrivers]

Exile

I am going to have to start putting you on the payroll!! I am in Steubenville every now and again. Maybe I can swing by and drop off that envelope of cash on my next trip...

Regards

Rob

 

[exile]

Exile

I am going to have to start putting you on the payroll!! I am in Steubenville every now and again. Maybe I can swing by and drop off that envelope of cash on my next trip...

Regards

Rob

It's OK, Rob—I view it as community service in reparation for a misspent youth! . Besides, the stuff you're posting now is good as gold—what you're offering is core stuff that needs to be understood by everyone who practices a striking MA.

But if you ever are in Columbus, please do come by; it's be a pleasure to talk with you about karate and its KMA offshoots, really!

I think the point JT is still not getting is that a front `stance' is an encoding in kata/hyungs of the information, `project your weight forward into the tech'. And a `back stance' is a way of encoding, `keep your weight back to anchor the tech'. A knifehand `block' is typically associated with a back stance, because you are securing the attacker with the `chambering' hand while you turn 90º to establish a lock on his arm; the back weight shift is part of immobilizing him while you deliver the strike to his throat or wherever. As you say, you don't fight from these `stances'; you move into them as a way off applying the leverage that goes with the tech at very close range. The whole terminology of `stances', like that of `blocks', etc. was part of Itosu's strategy for disguising the nasty apps that the kata encode. You don't want kids applying wrist/elbow locks to set up an armbar movement to their training partner's throat...

 

[Makalakumu]

upnorthkyosa: not sure I completely understand your videos. mind explaining with a little more detail? You say those relate to the main topic at hand (no pun intended), so I'm interested to see what you mean.

If you look at the list of basics that you were taught as a white belt. You have low block, high block, inside outside middle block and outside inside middle block. These movements appear again and again in the forms and many people have interpreted them to be blocks. They are blocks and they are not.

In order to understand where the blocks are, you have to understand where the intermediate position in each technique is.

See the example I posted below.

The set of pictures takes the inside out middle block and breaks it down into its intermediate position and its end position. The intermediate position is what I am using to actually block my uke's kick in the video I posted along with the pictures. And in that video, you can see how my hand could immediately come up and lash out with a backfist, which would correspond to the posture in the second picture.

These are the real basic blocks in TSD.

 

[JT_the_Ninja]

upnorthkyosa: I think I get what you're saying. You're saying that the "final result" position of the block is just the followup to actually blocking, and that the "intermediate position" is where all the action really happens? (Sorry if that sounds nothing like what I mean it to say) I think I see that.

Two things, though: First, why are your hands open in the intermediate position? I hardly think you'd be catching your opponent's attack at this stage of the move. Is there another reason, then?

Second, in the video you posted ("Block 4"), you don't think it'd be wiser to keep your hands closer in on your body? In that situation, my instructor has me jump forward diagonally, hands still in front and close in, so that the opponent's kick (from either leg) either misses or is blocked by my elbow/arm, at which point I'm free to counter. I don't see how an ahneso pakhero mahkee comes into play here. Assuming a different situation: the opponent comes at you with a center/face punch. Where do you see this intermediate position having effect? I agree that part of the reason the blocking hand punches down and the other hand crosses over is so you don't take it in the face; are you saying, then, that the block takes the attack in that position and then finishes the move (in the next half-second) with the final position? Again, I can see how that might have some application, but I'm just looking for clarification from your POV.

robertmrivers: Forgive me if I don't agree with you on the stability issue, especially when you're talking the final stance (for the arm lock, which I understand from ho sin sul combinations). TSD chungul jase has both feet facing forward (the direction of the motion), so if both feet are in a line, there's an unstable base. It's the same reason a step ladder is built with an A shape: keeping the feet shoulder width apart means that, while still facing forward (wherever this stance is implemented), I have more stability. Naihanchi stance this is not[/i]. Naihanchi, or keema, stance is what you seem to be showing me here. That could also be used for the final part of the combination you showed, but you were trying to make a point about front stance. Again, I have honestly no clue how stances are broken down in your style, so I honestly can't call you "wrong" on any count; we just seem to be having another one of those misunderstanding gaps.

exile: You don't have to speak for me. I can answer for myself.

 

[exile]

exile: You don't have to speak for me. I can answer for myself.

I wasn't speaking for you. You're confusing my making an observation about the (mis)conceptions underlying your comments (which is what I was doing) with putting words in your mouth. If, for example, you tell someone the earth is flat and revolves around the sun, I'd be putting words in your mouth if I said that what you really thought, or meant, was that in the end, everything returns to the One. What I was doing was more like saying that your view of astronomy has been a dead duck for the past 500 years.

Do you understand the difference?

Let me try again: I wasn't trying to interpret your remarks. I was saying what was mistaken about them. Is that all cleared up?

 

[Makalakumu]

upnorthkyosa: I think I get what you're saying. You're saying that the "final result" position of the block is just the followup to actually blocking, and that the "intermediate position" is where all the action really happens? (Sorry if that sounds nothing like what I mean it to say) I think I see that.

Yes, that is what I'm saying and that is what Robert was showing us all.

Two things, though: First, why are your hands open in the intermediate position? I hardly think you'd be catching your opponent's attack at this stage of the move. Is there another reason, then?

If you have the proper distance and timing, catching a kick with this move isn't as difficult as it would seem. Also, you have to remember that this technique can be used for other things. Many of these require open hands. Regardless, blocking in the way that I have demonstrated, works with hands open or closed. In fact, I teach my beginning students to do it with their hands closed in order to protect their fingers incase they miss.

Second, in the video you posted ("Block 4"), you don't think it'd be wiser to keep your hands closer in on your body? In that situation, my instructor has me jump forward diagonally, hands still in front and close in, so that the opponent's kick (from either leg) either misses or is blocked by my elbow/arm, at which point I'm free to counter. I don't see how an ahneso pakhero mahkee comes into play here. Assuming a different situation: the opponent comes at you with a center/face punch. Where do you see this intermediate position having effect? I agree that part of the reason the blocking hand punches down and the other hand crosses over is so you don't take it in the face; are you saying, then, that the block takes the attack in that position and then finishes the move (in the next half-second) with the final position? Again, I can see how that might have some application, but I'm just looking for clarification from your POV.

The second part of this block is a strike and it can be delivered immediately after the block. Further, it can be followed up with a strike from the other hand simultaineously or right after the first strike.

In a different situation, this technique may not apply.