This is something that came to me fairly recently, and it was sufficiently eye-opening that I thought it would be worth writing a couple of words about. If you have been following my blog, you'll have read this post, where I explain that my tai sabaki were improved by genuinely standing relaxed, rather than in anticipation of the cut.
Recently I have been doing a fair bit of kihon, and I have been thinking about the nature of tai sabaki in kihon. More specifically, I have been pondering the fact that my sensei always seems to have lots of time to perform his tai sabaki while most of the students seem to have trouble performing the same movement in time to evade the attack.
I also kept thinking about the fact that during our kihon, everyone (incl me) sometimes seems to suffer from the 'false start' syndrome which means that the person being attacked starts his tai sabaki before the attacker has even initiated the attack. And finally, there was the strange phenomenon that I sometimes got hit despite getting out of the way early enough because the hit / kick followed my path.
After some thinking, I figured it out (queue drumroll): I have to take the time to wait longer for the attack.
When facing off in kamae I have to wait until the attacker has committed his attack. At that point I can perform my tai sabaki and I have oodles of time to get away and execute my counter. There are 3 main reasons for this.
Note that this doesn't automatically imply that I have to wait until the fist is flying towards my face. The key is the commitment, not the movement, although they can occur at the same time.
If I were an old grand master, I could say something cryptic like 'You can gain time by wasting it, and you can be faster by being slower'. And everyone would say 'whoa, he much be wise. Let us meditate on that for a couple of years. As it is now, I am just a newbie with a penchant for writing, who is sharing his various rambling thoughts that resulted from martial arts practice.
Recently I have been doing a fair bit of kihon, and I have been thinking about the nature of tai sabaki in kihon. More specifically, I have been pondering the fact that my sensei always seems to have lots of time to perform his tai sabaki while most of the students seem to have trouble performing the same movement in time to evade the attack.
I also kept thinking about the fact that during our kihon, everyone (incl me) sometimes seems to suffer from the 'false start' syndrome which means that the person being attacked starts his tai sabaki before the attacker has even initiated the attack. And finally, there was the strange phenomenon that I sometimes got hit despite getting out of the way early enough because the hit / kick followed my path.
After some thinking, I figured it out (queue drumroll): I have to take the time to wait longer for the attack.
When facing off in kamae I have to wait until the attacker has committed his attack. At that point I can perform my tai sabaki and I have oodles of time to get away and execute my counter. There are 3 main reasons for this.
- If the attack is committed, it is much more difficult for the attacker to change direction so if I get out of the way, I won't get hit.
- If I move before the attack has been committed, the attacker can just aim for where I am standing after / during my move. as a result, the move was at best pointless and at worst put me off balance.
- If the attack is committed, it is much easier to judge the distance and the angle of the attack because I have a better idea of how the other person is going to move.
Note that this doesn't automatically imply that I have to wait until the fist is flying towards my face. The key is the commitment, not the movement, although they can occur at the same time.
If I were an old grand master, I could say something cryptic like 'You can gain time by wasting it, and you can be faster by being slower'. And everyone would say 'whoa, he much be wise. Let us meditate on that for a couple of years. As it is now, I am just a newbie with a penchant for writing, who is sharing his various rambling thoughts that resulted from martial arts practice.
