Kembudo-Kai Kempoka
Senior Master
It ain't no mystery that Doc Chapel takes a lot of guff for the SL4. It also ain't no mystery that I'd be in his crib full time if circumstances were different. I get what I can, when I can, and practice what I DO know, then use it to experiment with cleaning up whatever I can until I get to the mat with him and his motley crew again. I still got a lot to go (a lot), but I think my bod may be (gradually) embracing some SL4-induced change. A funny thing happened on the way to a nap today.
I’m in the wine country, taking odd wine country jobs. Been pouring at a local winery, and was asked to pour at a special event. OK. I need the green.
The event has a lot of nouveau riche from the Bay Area coming in to try new vintages, and show off their latest rides, etc. There’s a young guy who has more money than tact or brains, and he begins to berate one of the bartenders. It escalates to “ugly” fast, and they start to blows. Well, with too many years bouncing to stand by and watch a comrade get pummeled, I leap in to break it up. I grab the NR guy in a figure-4 (right arm around his neck from behind, and my left arm entangling his behind his back), and stretch him backwards by puffing out my chest. His friends, not to be outdone, start on me. One of them has apparently had some MMA-type training or boxing or some dang thang, but not enough. He starts to punch me, leaning in to shoot the blow past his buddy’s noggin. I lean the noggin into the way, and he whaps his friend square in the face. A little ticked, he doesn’t skip a beat, and drops to a single-leg shoot on my left leg (closest to him, and available at a slight angle towards the front).
I “trake” his buddy when I see what’s happening (impulse the radius into the wind pipe to induce spasm and pre-occupation), and this is where the cool SL4 part starts. I start a reverse step-through with the left leg, to keep the guy from getting his shoulder into my thigh or knee (he has one hand behind my leg, but doesn’t have both clasped yet). As I let go of the choke and start to bring my right arm around, my hand drops to my side, palm facing forward (the beginning of a particular index in SL4 kenpo), and then bring it up to the side of my head-ish, palm still facing forward (as in a ‘surrender’ position). As my left leg starts to plant, and the marriage of gravity moment is arriving, I bring my right palm down in not much more than a push-down blocking motion to his spine, right between the shoulder blades. You would have thought I hit him with a 100-pound sledge. He hit the floor straight down, face planted, and was deeply TKO’d. Some other members of their group were on the way in as this happened, so I figgered I oughta get my hands back up and ready to deflect some incoming ordnance. Unfortunately (from a hindsight view of strategy), I don’t bring them up to the SL4 braced-index position, but rather to my more familiar, standard kenpo stance…palms forward, lead hand higher than rear…twin dragons fighting after the pearl…you know the stance; the typical stance everybody poses in, and practices in the mirror to look cool. The way the remaining guys slammed on their brakes, you’d have thought Bruce friggin’ Lee raised from the dead and yelled “wagaaah” at the lot of them. I went from thinking I was gonna get buried under an angry dogpile, to untouchable in less than half a second. The looks in their eyes were priceless (and me without a camera).
Odd thing is, I still really believe that shots to the back are wasted. “Spine” shots in karate are aimed at some of the most heavily armored body parts, where all the good stuff is tucked away in vaults of bone…it’s like aiming at armor plates, instead of between them. It had to be that I (luckily) caught the guy just right as he over-extended to keep up with my left leg in the reverse step-thru (Doc calls this a misaligned state, but again…purely luck and coincidence on my part, as misaligning the guy wasn’t where my mind was at). The indexes are wicked cool…prep the body for max effect. Odd thing again…although I’ve been practicing them (i.e., re-training all my basics to include indexing prefixes to basics executions, at least insofar as I know how), I didn’t intend to use it this time around…I was just trying to get my choking arm free of the first guys body, towards me & around his torso, and up into live play. But I followed the path of an index. I’m not even sure if it was a proper index for a push-down block or not, but it sure worked well as the prep for a downward thrusting palm-heel that follows the same arc.
Thanks Doc. Bitchin' stuff. Keep it comin'.
Dave
I’m in the wine country, taking odd wine country jobs. Been pouring at a local winery, and was asked to pour at a special event. OK. I need the green.
The event has a lot of nouveau riche from the Bay Area coming in to try new vintages, and show off their latest rides, etc. There’s a young guy who has more money than tact or brains, and he begins to berate one of the bartenders. It escalates to “ugly” fast, and they start to blows. Well, with too many years bouncing to stand by and watch a comrade get pummeled, I leap in to break it up. I grab the NR guy in a figure-4 (right arm around his neck from behind, and my left arm entangling his behind his back), and stretch him backwards by puffing out my chest. His friends, not to be outdone, start on me. One of them has apparently had some MMA-type training or boxing or some dang thang, but not enough. He starts to punch me, leaning in to shoot the blow past his buddy’s noggin. I lean the noggin into the way, and he whaps his friend square in the face. A little ticked, he doesn’t skip a beat, and drops to a single-leg shoot on my left leg (closest to him, and available at a slight angle towards the front).
I “trake” his buddy when I see what’s happening (impulse the radius into the wind pipe to induce spasm and pre-occupation), and this is where the cool SL4 part starts. I start a reverse step-through with the left leg, to keep the guy from getting his shoulder into my thigh or knee (he has one hand behind my leg, but doesn’t have both clasped yet). As I let go of the choke and start to bring my right arm around, my hand drops to my side, palm facing forward (the beginning of a particular index in SL4 kenpo), and then bring it up to the side of my head-ish, palm still facing forward (as in a ‘surrender’ position). As my left leg starts to plant, and the marriage of gravity moment is arriving, I bring my right palm down in not much more than a push-down blocking motion to his spine, right between the shoulder blades. You would have thought I hit him with a 100-pound sledge. He hit the floor straight down, face planted, and was deeply TKO’d. Some other members of their group were on the way in as this happened, so I figgered I oughta get my hands back up and ready to deflect some incoming ordnance. Unfortunately (from a hindsight view of strategy), I don’t bring them up to the SL4 braced-index position, but rather to my more familiar, standard kenpo stance…palms forward, lead hand higher than rear…twin dragons fighting after the pearl…you know the stance; the typical stance everybody poses in, and practices in the mirror to look cool. The way the remaining guys slammed on their brakes, you’d have thought Bruce friggin’ Lee raised from the dead and yelled “wagaaah” at the lot of them. I went from thinking I was gonna get buried under an angry dogpile, to untouchable in less than half a second. The looks in their eyes were priceless (and me without a camera).
Odd thing is, I still really believe that shots to the back are wasted. “Spine” shots in karate are aimed at some of the most heavily armored body parts, where all the good stuff is tucked away in vaults of bone…it’s like aiming at armor plates, instead of between them. It had to be that I (luckily) caught the guy just right as he over-extended to keep up with my left leg in the reverse step-thru (Doc calls this a misaligned state, but again…purely luck and coincidence on my part, as misaligning the guy wasn’t where my mind was at). The indexes are wicked cool…prep the body for max effect. Odd thing again…although I’ve been practicing them (i.e., re-training all my basics to include indexing prefixes to basics executions, at least insofar as I know how), I didn’t intend to use it this time around…I was just trying to get my choking arm free of the first guys body, towards me & around his torso, and up into live play. But I followed the path of an index. I’m not even sure if it was a proper index for a push-down block or not, but it sure worked well as the prep for a downward thrusting palm-heel that follows the same arc.
Thanks Doc. Bitchin' stuff. Keep it comin'.
Dave
