Thoughts on TMA blocks. A discussion.

[Kframe]

Well, having joined a new mma gym, one very much near my home my training has taken distinct and different direction. It is still mma but different. My new coach has a background in Military combat ju jitsu(blackbelt) and a lot of previous training in one of the kenpo styles as well as boxing and kickboxing.

Well during practice on thursday, he introduced blocks. Which for me was more like a reintroduction, having done them in my short 3 month stint in Shorin ryu karate. Now for him and apparently in kenpo as well, the blocks arnt just blocks, they are defensive intro manuvers. Case in point in his system they are hand traps that lead into a aggressive attack on our opponent. Something he called Seven Knives. What i learned is that most of the "blocks" can be/ are traps. So he demonstrated the block into handtrap into attack and it was smooth fluid and made sense to me. So he has me drilling just the block portion of the manuver first. He breakes everything down into steps and we drill them till we get it right, i very much like this new way of training for me. So for now i am practicing the block portion, then prolly next week will work into the block-trap- segment of the thing. Whats even cooler about it is that it dosent always have to be a trap, i can use it as just a regular block if i wanted or needed to.

Relearning them was not as difficult as i thought it would be. The basic movements were the same, minus the extranious movements that shorin ryu had. Un like my former karate art, we dont do the elaborate hand motion infront of our chest(not sure how to describe it, its like you draw the blocking arm down your forearm then when it reaches the bottom you bring it out for what ever block your doing) we just throw the block. Now my boxing has some similar things, such as our outside inside parry, and my personal favorite the catch. Tho i am kinda curious about the lower block i am learning, it evolves into a lower attack catch(like a front kick or round kick or other some such attack aimed lower) i can see danger to my arms. Is there a increased risk of breaking my arm with these TMA kick defenses? I figured since TMA's here use blocks in sparring and what not more then i currently do how do your blocking arms react when they deflect or block/trap a kick of various flavor?

Now practicing them and doing them in practice is one thing, tho i can allready see a issue with them that is less about them and more about me. That is integrating these decidedly TMA defensive manuvers into my dedcidedly more boxing based striking defense. It will come in time, with more sparring and training but i can see them being usefull as heck.

Gonna make for some odd looking sparring tho. Slip-bob-weave, then outa the blue a very non boxing block.

 

[WC_lun]

For Wing Chun, the most effecient thing to do is use the same motion for blocking and attacking the same time. If that can't be done then you use the block to gain an entry angle to either strike or chin na. At our school, we do use traps, but it isn't as prevailant as I've seen in some other Wing Chun schools. The focus is not to be to rigid and be able to continue any motion you make. This is a hallmark of most CMA, not just Wing Chun.

 

[seasoned]

It was called blocking when I first started training. As a training method it was useful at first, but not practical in the long run of learning my art.
Redirecting so to keep their momentum moving and our strike occurring at the same time is preferable.
In Okinawan GoJu grabbing is a big part of first contact with their extended technique, making traps and locks work better.

 

[mook jong man]

Blocking is a bit of a dirty word in Wing Chun , in our lineage we prefer the term deflection.
Although that being said , a lot of the deflections attack the inside of the opponents forearms in an aggressive forward shearing action and to them it probably feels like a block.

The problem with blocking as seen from a Wing Chun perspective is that it is just like two bits of wood smashing together , the biggest and hardest bit of wood usually wins.
Because there is a clash of force , that energy has to go somewhere , and usually it is transferred through the arms and shoulders and ends up destabilising the stance.
Redirection on the other hand will not upset the balance in this manner against a heavy blow.

I'd advise against using your arms to stop the kicks , your arms have to leave the defensive area of guarding your head and leaves it vulnerable to strikes to the head
Where ever possible use your legs to deflect and jam any incoming kicks and let your hands stay up guarding your head.

There are ways to redirect powerful kicks with your arms only , but they involve pivoting , perfect timing and technique , generally only used if your surprised and were to slow to guard with your legs.
Basically it is best to use hand against hand and foot against foot.
Using your legs to deflect and jam kicks is generally a safer proposition and leaves the arms free to guard your head.

 

[Dirty Dog]

I'd advise against using your arms to stop the kicks , your arms have to leave the defensive area of guarding your head and leaves it vulnerable to strikes to the head
Where ever possible use your legs to deflect and jam any incoming kicks and let your hands stay up guarding your head.

Except when the kicks are aimed at your head...

I use my legs a lot to jam/deflect lower kicks. I've never studied any CMA, but the concept of deflection, as opposed to direct opposition, is not unique to CMA by any means. Even us knuckle dragging TKDin do it.

 

[Kframe]

I thought in WC they treated all incoming attacks the same and used a corresponding defense based on which quadrant it is in? I think tho the term block needs to be erased from martial arts cuase, in practice they arnt, they are redirections and traps. I have y et to try the lower defensive stuff on anything other then the training aids, so hopefully coach will throw some kicks at my lower side and let me see how this thing really works.

I think when that lower kick comes in(but to high for a efficent leg check) the lower deflection combined with a movement of some kind is what is called for. Incoming round kick, move rapidly forward and defend or rapidly backward and try to deflect or trap at there ankle area. I think just standing there and banging it out in one position is asking for a broken arm.

Now about defending punches in the torso and head area, ill have to give WC a huge props for that. I found this video of a WC student in his first Full contact kick boxing fight, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP05PC3ReW0 and his "blocks" looked amazing. He held his own and allowed few attacks in. Tho ill have to say he retreated a lil much and his distancing with his kicks was off, there were several times when he threw a kick that took his opponent completely off guard and would have WTFKO him but he come up short, but he looked good for his first bout.

Now seeing the rapidity with which WC can defend, i wonder to the rest of the TMA world, be it Okinawian or Korean can your defenses vs a rapidity of incoming attacks be as effective? Yes i realize i phrased that poorly becuase its the practitioner not the art, but i have yet to ever a see a video of a Karate based fighter defending against more then 1 punch at a time. In time ill get to try this, in my own sparring, but that time is not now, not for a little bit anyways.. Just looking for your thoughts on this.

 

[Kframe]

I found a nother AWESOME video on this subject, it comes curtousy of the Goju ryu and shorin ryu karate folks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_uqkE2s6Zo&feature=related . He basicly is saying what most people here are saying, its not a block(two large objects smashing each other) but a deflecting redirection. That being the case, i think its amatter of practice and more in portantly, how its tuaght. There was a reason i left my shorin ryu karate dojo. I felt i wasnt learning and the things i was doing made no sense. This was one example of that. I was tuaght the UKE's but not what they ment or what they were really about. I was made to feel they were blocks when in fact that is a inacurate way of describing them.

 

[Takai]

Blocking is a bit of a dirty word in Wing Chun , in our lineage we prefer the term deflection.
Although that being said , a lot of the deflections attack the inside of the opponents forearms in an aggressive forward shearing action and to them it probably feels like a block.

I agree. Deflect the energy and complete the triangle.

 

[mook jong man]

Except when the kicks are aimed at your head...

I use my legs a lot to jam/deflect lower kicks. I've never studied any CMA, but the concept of deflection, as opposed to direct opposition, is not unique to CMA by any means. Even us knuckle dragging TKDin do it.

I probably should have explained that better , in the case of the high kick to the head , the arm and the leg will be guarding / deflecting in unison.
The arm and the leg raise at the same time with the shin attacking the inside of the opponents upper thigh , the leg is doing the bulk of the work deflecting the kicks power and the arms raise as well but more as a support in the defence.

We still directly oppose some kicks though , one of the counters to a kick to the groin is to raise the leg on the center line and jam the opponents shin with the heel of your foot and then kick them in the groin with the same leg you just jammed with.

All of this is secondary though to attacking first if possible , as soon as they move , ideally they should hardly be able to get a kick off the ground before you counter kick them through the center line or attack their lead knee/shin with a low heel kick.

Most of this philosophy of hand against hand and foot against foot is because in Wing Chun we specialise in close quarters , so punching and kicking range can be the exact same thing.
Which means both of the arms and a leg may be involved in attacking and defending at the same time.

 

[mook jong man]

I thought in WC they treated all incoming attacks the same and used a corresponding defense based on which quadrant it is in? I think tho the term block needs to be erased from martial arts cuase, in practice they arnt, they are redirections and traps. I have y et to try the lower defensive stuff on anything other then the training aids, so hopefully coach will throw some kicks at my lower side and let me see how this thing really works.

I think when that lower kick comes in(but to high for a efficent leg check) the lower deflection combined with a movement of some kind is what is called for. Incoming round kick, move rapidly forward and defend or rapidly backward and try to deflect or trap at there ankle area. I think just standing there and banging it out in one position is asking for a broken arm.

Now about defending punches in the torso and head area, ill have to give WC a huge props for that. I found this video of a WC student in his first Full contact kick boxing fight, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP05PC3ReW0 and his "blocks" looked amazing. He held his own and allowed few attacks in. Tho ill have to say he retreated a lil much and his distancing with his kicks was off, there were several times when he threw a kick that took his opponent completely off guard and would have WTFKO him but he come up short, but he looked good for his first bout.

Now seeing the rapidity with which WC can defend, i wonder to the rest of the TMA world, be it Okinawian or Korean can your defenses vs a rapidity of incoming attacks be as effective? Yes i realize i phrased that poorly becuase its the practitioner not the art, but i have yet to ever a see a video of a Karate based fighter defending against more then 1 punch at a time. In time ill get to try this, in my own sparring, but that time is not now, not for a little bit anyways.. Just looking for your thoughts on this.

Not every Wing Chun lineage uses a lead leg fighting stance like that , my own lineage stays square on with the feet pointed inwards and parallel.
A lead leg stance in my opinion exposes the front leg to attack from low heel kicks and doesn't allow for equal opportunity to attack or defend with either leg.

 

[Xue Sheng]

In Xingyiquan a defense is attack and an attack is an attack, therefore a block...is an attack or part of an attack :EG:

 

[jks9199]

Block is arguably a misinterpretation in many arts. (I'm tired; please realize that I'm speaking generalities, and not absolutes even if I don't say "many" or "often", OK?) Block in English is a pretty concrete thing: a stop or stoppage. And that's certainly one purpose and function of a block; to stop an attack and prevent it from hitting you. But there's much more to it. Maybe Chris Parker or someone else is fluent enough in the various languages -- but I suspect that the words in Japanese or Chinese aren't as narrow a definition. Blocks also redirect, and damage the attacking weapon. They should provide entry for the true counter-attack, whether that's trapping and holding or striking. They should make it hard for the attacker to throw another attack. If you throw a combination at me, and I "block" the jab that sets it up -- you shouldn't be able to throw the next punch or kick, because your balance should be disrupted and your attack should be injured. Then I should be capitalizing on the opportunity presented by you coming into range to attack me.

By the way -- those "extra movements" you find in some martial arts are worth taking a good look at. There just may be more to them than you realize; they may cover you if you're not fast enough to get the actual "block" out -- or they may be able to become the blocking motion, allowing the "block" to become a vicious limb destruction. And that's only a starting point...

 

[Kframe]

Well, at the time i thought they were extra and usless becuase the teacher must have thought i wasnt worth the time to talk to. I had no idea what they were for or why we were doing them. I knew that the motions i was doing were blocks, but beyond that i was very lost.

Im still kinda concerned tho about arm injury with regards to the middle blocks. Sure there primary objects to deflect are the arms but, even with the circular motion of the blocks wont that precipitate a impact on my small bone of my forearm? I know from the video that its not a smash during the block but a sliding redirection. I have a feeling that many of my questions will be answered with time. I just want be as informed as i can be so as not to annoy my teacher with questions.

 

[jks9199]

Some things only come with time and practice. Some answers only come after you've trained long enough. 3 months is just not much time in most traditional arts, and the instructors often don't necessarily explain everything -- especially in the first few months. I don't even hint at some of the things I mentioned above unless I'm training a fairly advanced class. You need to integrate the pieces before I can cover some of the stuff... and you need to learn it "big" before you can take the motion and make it smaller.

By the way -- don't take this as trying to tear you down. I'm thrilled that you found someone with a teaching approach you like, and that works for you. Just don't fall into the trap some folks do where they dismiss everything because it wasn't broken down in a way they liked or found useful, either.

 

[Kframe]

JKS i understand what your saying, and i was younger back then. I probably should have stuck it out, and im sure it would have came in time. How long doyou usually wait to inform the students of what some of the concepts in the defensive movements are? I would imagine there comes a time when they must be tuaght the more advanced concepts, and step up from the basic.


One day i want to go talk to that old teacher, and make peace with that situation. Its one of the last unfixed things i have left in my life.

 

[jks9199]

How long depends on the exact material, and on the student. Some stuff may be taught as soon as we move from static drills to fighting stances -- other stuff takes a few years or more.

 

[Danny T]

...How long do you usually wait to inform the students of what some of the concepts in the defensive movements are? I would imagine there comes a time when they must be tuaght the more advanced concepts, and step up from the basic.

From the beginning I teach position, movement to position, concepts for the movements and a couple of age appropriate technique possibilities.

 

[Chris Parker]

Block is arguably a misinterpretation in many arts. (I'm tired; please realize that I'm speaking generalities, and not absolutes even if I don't say "many" or "often", OK?) Block in English is a pretty concrete thing: a stop or stoppage. And that's certainly one purpose and function of a block; to stop an attack and prevent it from hitting you. But there's much more to it. Maybe Chris Parker or someone else is fluent enough in the various languages -- but I suspect that the words in Japanese or Chinese aren't as narrow a definition. Blocks also redirect, and damage the attacking weapon. They should provide entry for the true counter-attack, whether that's trapping and holding or striking. They should make it hard for the attacker to throw another attack. If you throw a combination at me, and I "block" the jab that sets it up -- you shouldn't be able to throw the next punch or kick, because your balance should be disrupted and your attack should be injured. Then I should be capitalizing on the opportunity presented by you coming into range to attack me.

By the way -- those "extra movements" you find in some martial arts are worth taking a good look at. There just may be more to them than you realize; they may cover you if you're not fast enough to get the actual "block" out -- or they may be able to become the blocking motion, allowing the "block" to become a vicious limb destruction. And that's only a starting point...

Well.... since you asked....

The most common term used in Japanese arts is "Uke(ru)" (受 - "Oo-kay", for pronunciation), which pretty literally means "to receive". As a result, it's not defined as a single "type" of action.... and can refer to anything done to allow you to receive an attack, whether it's moving with the attack to absorb it, circling away to avoid, creating a physical barrier, deflecting the energy of the incoming attack, and so on. Within the Ninjutsu systems, it's often expanded to "Uke Nagashi" (受流し - "Oo-kay Nah-Gah-Shee"), which translates as "receiving flow". The implication is that the receiving action is not something done by itself, but as part of a continuous action, leading from evasion to defence, to offence.

 

[chrispillertkd]

Tho i am kinda curious about the lower block i am learning, it evolves into a lower attack catch(like a front kick or round kick or other some such attack aimed lower) i can see danger to my arms. Is there a increased risk of breaking my arm with these TMA kick defenses? I figured since TMA's here use blocks in sparring and what not more then i currently do how do your blocking arms react when they deflect or block/trap a kick of various flavor?

That depends on whether or not you're doing them correctly. It's a bit like asking is there an increased risk of breaking your fingers if you use a knife-hand block when someone punches at you. The answer is "yes", if you miss; the attck you're trying to block with your knife-hand can end up hurting your fingers if you're not accurate. If you're blocking a kick with a low block your arm can get hurt if 1) you miss the correct point of interception on the leg, or 2) you haven't conditioned your arm enough. Different styles target different points of the leg when low blocking and I can only speak for Taekwon-Do. In ITF Taekwon-Do a low block with the outer forearm targets the lower tibia when being attacked with a front kick. Your forearm reaches the point of interception like a hammer, striking the attaker's leg near the ankle joint. A low block with a knife-hand uses an altogether different trajectory. You intercept the attacker's leg in a more arcing direction, hitting him in the side of the lower tibia on the inner or outer part of his leg. Your knife-hand should cut his leg, in effect, rather than smashing it like your outer forearm does.

Blocking other kicks, such as a side kick changes things up a bit. The point of interception will shift because the leg you're blocking will be in a different position. An outer forearm low block will end up hitting around the kicker's ankle joint, which can be painful if you hit the ankle itself. A knife-hand block will hit either the back of the leg below the calf or the lower tibia.

With any block the opponent should be redirected from the force of the block. Also, in Taekwon-Do most (though not all) blocks should really be seen as a direct attack to the opponent's limb. In other words, you're setting out to hurt him not just prevent him from hitting you. There are other blocks which are actually deflections (either hard deflectioons or soft ones), blocks that are actually throws, blocks that are actually grabs, blocks that are kicks which that act to impede the movement of your opponent, etc. All of these types of blocks place less emphasis on a hard impact. But the most common blocks in Taekwon-Do are limb destructions.

Regarding the conditioning of the forearm, this will make its use much wider. I do a bit of forearm conditioning every morning. Not a ton by any means but it certainly helps. It hurt a bit at first but now I can block harder without feeling any discomfort. But even absent this conditioning if you keep in mind that most blocks are attacks and focus on tightening the body at the moment of impact the resulting tensing of the muscles will reduce any pain your would experience from impact in the first place.

Now practicing them and doing them in practice is one thing, tho i can allready see a issue with them that is less about them and more about me. That is integrating these decidedly TMA defensive manuvers into my dedcidedly more boxing based striking defense. It will come in time, with more sparring and training but i can see them being usefull as heck.

Gonna make for some odd looking sparring tho. Slip-bob-weave, then outa the blue a very non boxing block.

Interestingly, in Taekwon-Do I'd say that learning how to dodge is as important, if not more important, than blocking. In Gen. Choi's condensed Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do the number of pages covering dodging is greater than the number of pages covering all 24 patterns (forms)! There are many different ways of dodging and Gen. Choi places a great emphasis on learning how to do so correctly so you avoid injury to your own body while being able to place yourself in a superior tactical position.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Kframe]

Chrispillertkd, dodging is my primary defense on most things. Being that im heavy set tho, its harder for me to dodge a incoming kick so i tend to check it, or in the case of front kicks, eat them.

In the case of my forearms conditioning, are you refereing to strength or or bone strength and pain tolerance? Im not so worried about pain tolerance but my bone breaking is a worry.

Example, Last night I was playing with my 4 year old daughter. I wanted to try lower block, and she loves playing the "punch,front kick" game with me.(fun game, usually leads to them tackling me and i tickle the poo out of them) Well i had her stand in striking range and told her ok, front kick me as hard as you can. Now to put my self in the proper height i got on my knees so she could reach my vital areas.
First time around she feinted a punch and kicked me in the stomach. So as we proceed, i start using the lower block as i was shown. Every time i threw it and it connected, it felt like i was "smashing" (impacting hard) on her leg, it hurt the bone it impacted on in my arm, tho it did deflect the kicks and sometimes threw her off balance. If it hurt my arm while doing it on a 4 year olds kicks, it will break it on a full power adults kick wont it? At this point i think i may be doing it wrong.