Hard and Soft

DaveB

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What do you understand by the terms hard and soft, in relation to martial arts technique?

How do these concepts manifest in your training and your sparring?

Do you apply these elements in self defense and how?
 

Kung Fu Wang

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- Hard is used for offense. For example, your fist meets your opponent's face.
- Soft is used for defense. For example, you use "arm drag" to move your opponent's arm to wherever that you want it to be.
 

ChrisN

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From my experience in my opinion, and I often think the benefit of having an opinion is it can change.

It depends on what you mean by training and sparing? In my mind they often fall into the same category. Although there is a difference between light sparing and heavy sparing depending on both my opponent and the body protection they have it dictates what I will do.

For part of my misspent youth I studded Ninjutsu. In very much layman’s terms and dragged up from the deepest darkest recesses of my memory, there is four (Probably a lot more) distinct unarmed styles. Roughly equivalent to earth air water and fire. Just looking at water and forgetting the animations what does water do?

It flows, takes on the shape of whatever it’s in. it adapts. Seems like a soft style. But waves they roll back and then come crashing in and are pretty much unstoppable. Does that make it soft or hard?

Applying the principle to theGrosse Messer as it’s a sword than many of the techniques have similarities to other weapons you may be more familiar with. I could say do a lateral parry keeping the point of the weapon facing the opponent ready to drive it forward into their neck. Very much a hard response, yes? But if you have good control over your weapon it can be performed safely at speed in training without any neck protection. In sparing I would only respond like that if they had a gorget.

On the other hand a literal parry shifting the strong of my blade to the week of theirs I can then easily control the blade drive it down possibly step on it, cut to the hands, maybe follow with a throw. Realistically all of these things as individual moves acquaint to what most people would call soft techniques. Put them together however…..

As for applying things to self-defence. Good awareness of what’s happing around you and the ability to run away always helps. If you have no other choice but fight. When you do whatever is necessary to survive including bleed. I’ve been beaten down in the street by one person I could have easily taken. If I had I would have had his six mates on me. So I concentrated on minimising the damage I took.

Just made more questions with that reply havent I.;)
 

Oldbear343

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There are many aspects to hard and soft. It can be taken simply as a polarity thing, as in yang/yin, straight/circular, and so on. For me hard for offence and soft for Defence is a little too simplistic - for example, if you are attacking a soft target area then a soft strike might be as effective as a hard strike, and could also avoid over-committing yourself.....
 

Dirty Dog

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If I am putting power directly into the target (doesn't matter if it's a strike or a block, and our students often hear me say that strikes and blocks are the same thing), then it's hard.
If I am working at an angle, then it's soft.
It's less about the power in the movement and more about the angles at which it is being applied.
As an example:
A punch is thrown. If I just want to avoid being hit and maybe create an opening for a counter strike, I can strike the arm, at a 90 degree angle, knocking it to the outside.
Same punch. If I want to move in and apply any number of grabs as a counter, I strike the arm at a much lower angle, still deflecting it to the outside, but moving my blocking hand in towards whatever grab I'm planning to do.
 

mograph

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Along those lines, it's said that "hard" and "soft" are analogous to "external" and "internal." It's also said that there are basically two paths up the mountain of martial mastery: internal to external and external to internal. The former could apply to taijiquan, while the latter could apply to karate or Shaolin. Nevertheless, both paths meet at the top of the mountain. ;)

(Well, that's the metaphor.)
 

marques

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Hard
Force, striking, offense, rigide, muscle, emotion, speed, initiative, direct, line...

Soft
Sensitivity, grappling, defense, flexible, intelligence, peace, distance control, passive, indirect, circle(s)...
 
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marques

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It's also said that there are basically two paths up the mountain of martial mastery: internal to external and external to internal. Nevertheless, both paths meet at the top of the mountain. ;)
Well, that is the politically correct.
But I'm seeing the "external way" going fast at the beginning, then stabilizing and then dropping with age (and inevitable injuries).
And I'm seeing the "internal way" going 'nowhere' at the beginning (or first decade...) and one day it becomes magic, even with age (and less injuries in the way).
 

Dirty Dog

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Hard
Force, striking, offense, rigide, muscle, emotion, speed, initiative...

Soft
Sensitivity, grappling, defense, flexible, intelligence, peace, distance control, passive...

Have to disagree with a lot of this. So called "hard" arts can (and do) include "soft" techniques, and require flexibility, intelligence, distance control, can be passive (counter striking) etc etc etc.
And there are inflexible morons studying "soft" arts.
 

marques

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@Dirty Dog Of course.
Nothing is absolute, but relative to the opposite side. That was the way I learnt Yin/Yang in chinese medicine. It just give a feeling in relation to the opposite.
Hard includes soft, but it is more hard than soft. Defense is more soft than offense, so we call it 'defense', but it includes offense at some level... Clear enough? :)

And inflexible morons will understand better hard arts, but will be more balanced as person doing soft arts, at least because they're working the weak side.
 
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Oldbear343

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My own take, fwiw, is that Defence can also be Offence (eg block as strike) so the hard-soft distinction may or may not be correct, depending on the context - perhaps a little like uncertainty in particle physics....so the duality might be a useful principle, but is not necessarily gospel ☺
 

hoshin1600

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In okinawan naha-te systems there is a hardness and a softness in your body at the same time. Certain muscles will have dynamic tension in them while other muscles will remain soft and pliable. Somtimes there are both attributes in the same area of the body, fluctuating between the two conditions.
 

Limasogobudo

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I agree with you hoshin 1600. I think their are many ways of using soft and hard. Many types because of style and idea. I think the real mean of those is when to use them and why are you using them? But yes SANCHIN!
 

mograph

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Well, that is the politically correct.
But I'm seeing the "external way" going fast at the beginning, then stabilizing and then dropping with age (and inevitable injuries).
And I'm seeing the "internal way" going 'nowhere' at the beginning (or first decade...) and one day it becomes magic, even with age (and less injuries in the way).
But of course. "External" is easier to grasp, but when the going gets tough in the harder-to-grasp internal process, some practitioners drop off ... or claim that they know all there is to know, and open a studio. And, yep, "the internal" requires lots of hard and seemingly pointless (and yes, boring) work until a breakthrough comes. Or, if not, those internal folk who get nowhere after a few years and drop out, go and open a tai-cheese studio.

Both only reach the top if they persevere.

I just realized another analogy, this one from cognitive science: insight problems vs. non-insight problems. Insight problems (such as the join-the-nine-dots problem) require perspective-changing, incubation and reframing, much like internal martial arts with its metaphors and processes that are difficult to explain and grasp using our day-to-day life experiences. Conversely, non-insight problems (well-defined, where we know the initial state, the goal state, and how to get from one to the other, even if arduous or time-consuming) can be solved by examination without having to reframe or incubate -- we know what to do, or we can grasp the process using our existing life experiences.

Both are valid, but both are necessary to gain a complete understanding of problem-solving, and of martial arts.

In my opinion. :D
 
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Oldbear343

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In okinawan naha-te systems there is a hardness and a softness in your body at the same time. Certain muscles will have dynamic tension in them while other muscles will remain soft and pliable. Somtimes there are both attributes in the same area of the body, fluctuating between the two conditions.
Thanks ☺
 
OP
D

DaveB

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The diversity of responseses is interesting.

I think of hard and soft technique as how we direct our own force: soft technique is continuous while hard technique is staccato in nature.

My kungfu teacher would differentiate between a punch and a thrust, where one would deposit it's energy into the target and the other would send it's energy beyond the end of the fist to infinity.
 

oftheherd1

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Well, this has been an interesting thread for me to read so far. I understand one must always approach anything on Wikipedia with caution, but I always understood Hard and Soft more as described here:

Hard and soft martial arts - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Hard and soft (martial arts)
...

Regardless of origins and styles "hard and soft" can be seen as simply "opposing or yielding"; each has its application and must be used in its own way, and each makes use of specific principles of timing and biomechanics.
...

A hard technique meets force with force, either with a linear, head-on force-blocking technique, or by diagonally cutting the strike with one's force. It is an example of the defender using the attacker's force and momentum against him or her. Although hard techniques require greater strength for successful execution, it is the mechanics of the technique that accomplish the defense. Examples are:
...

The goal of the soft technique is deflecting the attacker’s force to his or her disadvantage, with the defender exerting minimal force.[1] With a soft technique, the defender uses the attacker's force and momentum against him or her, by leading the attack(er) in a direction to where the defender will be advantageously positioned (tai sabaki) and the attacker off balance;...

But apparently it is defined in many different ways by different arts. And one could argue that the wiki definition is too broad (soft ?) ;-



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