Block this!

Effective blocking feels wrong.  What?

Blocking itself is a bit of a misnomer.  I don’t believe that blocking is an isolated incident.  It doesn’t exist on its own; it’s weaved into a larger tapestry of technique (where’d that come from?)

In Kempo/Kenpo and in several other arts, I’ve heard the following:

“Every strike is a block, and every block is a strike”

I like that.  I think it helps in understanding that there’s more to blocking than meets the eye.   A good block can be quite jarring and can cause damage or stun your opponent.  A good block is actually the initial set up or entry into the next technique.  More accurately, it can be thought of as being part of the technique itself, whatever that may be.

Too often martial artists only practice blocking from rigid stances, and the blocks themselves are exaggerated with a clear starting and stopping point. 

Most times, an effective block does just enough to move the incoming strike off its target or line.  But that’s not normally how we practice them.  We concentrate on completely moving the incoming limb off to the side, or up or down.  This is unrealistic and opens your body up to further attack. 

A good block, especially for in-close systems like Jiu Jitsu, only needs to redirect the incoming force slightly.  Quite often, we don’t meet the attack with any force whatsoever, we just re-direct or guide it off to the side or past us as we shift out of the path, using your opponent’s strength and momentum against them.

For those times that you do meet the force somewhat, proper blocking can feel unnatural.  For instance, if your opponent throws a straight punch at your chest (like that would ever really happen), you don’t need to do an exaggerated block which moves the arm way off to the side.  You only need to block enough that the arm slides off its trajectory to escape the impact.  Realistically, it will still glace off your chest, but at such an angle that it causes no real damage.  This puts you in the ideal position to counter strike as your opponent actually moves into your attack.  

A big block moves your opponent too far off to the side which either opens up your body's vulnerable areas or makes you play catch up to close the distance to effectively land a counter-strike.

Big, exaggerated blocks put you at an additional disadvantage if you miss with the block.  Big blocks throw your arm way off your center line, opening your body or head.  It also increases the time needed to bring your arm back to fend off the next blow.

Consider practicing blocks with less range of movement or that travel less distance.  For middle blocks, stop just past your center line. Try shortening the entire plane of movement and experiment in half or partial blocks, without a ‘proper’ set up and chamber.

We tend to extend our blocks during solo practice, as if the end of the block is the end of the entire process.  We need to turn our minds to thinking of it as a set up or a strike to our opponent and our next action.

When doing blocking drills with a partner, concentrate on blocking ‘just enough’.  At the start of this article, I said effective blocking feels wrong.  In partner drills, you’ll sometimes still be getting hit, but the blow will have lost most of its power and, if done properly, will only be a glancing blow.  This is why it’ll feel wrong at first. (this doesn't apply to punches aimed at your face...)

We program ourselves to think that any contact from our attacker is somehow a failure on our part to block correctly.  The idea is to avoid injury and to improve our position.  So the next time you practice and block ‘just enough’, take a look at how many options are available to you.  Better yet, only think of your ‘just enough block’ as one part of a larger fluid attack plan.  Do your best not to separate the block from the rest.  You may find you can just slip past the incoming strike.  Don’t finish the block and then start the counter.  This stop/start form of practice is a dangerous trap to fall into and is all too prevalent in the martial arts. 

Ultimately, everything you do in the martial arts should reduce/protect you from injury, put you in a better position, or put your opponent in a worse one.  Ideally, you’ll do all three at the same time.  Effective blocking is one tool in achieving these goals.

Block well.


Welcome Rick.

Stuff it and the Stop-hit concept

Happy New Year!

Many years ago, I began using what I called ‘stuffing’ a technique.  It turns out that it has some similarities to Bruce Lee’s stop-hit or stop-kick concept. 

‘Stuffing’, while less technical and more crude than Bruce Lee’s concept, can provide several advantages, mainly due to its versatility and flexibility.  Where Bruce would use a carefully timed kick to stop an opponents attack or attacking limb, ‘stuffing’ uses the whole body to do so.

The idea is to stop, interrupt, or ‘stuff’ someone’s attack as it comes at you.  This is accomplished by attacking, or blocking and attacking simultaneously, using your entire body to intercept or to 'stuff' your opponents attack back into them, while protecting yourself and causing them damage all at the same time.  

 Advantages:

      Your stop the attack

This one is pretty obvious.  Stop the attack from landing and knocking you out.

You reduce the chance of injury to yourself

By interrupting the attack with your own, you greatly reduce the chance of serious injury.  Even if the intended strike, kick or attack lands, chances are that it will be a glancing blow, or at the very least, not fully realized.  Better to get caught by an attack mid swing or mid cycle, or during the wind up when the power is still being generated in anticipation of the end of the technique.

      You startle or overload your opponent.

This is one of the main reasons for ‘stuffing’ an attack.

By startling and interrupting your opponent’s attack, you overload their ability to figure out what is going on temporarily.  This provides the opportunity to follow up your stop-hit ‘stuff’ with another technique or made good your escape.

This is your brain when it's 'stuffed'...

Your opponent’s mind is focused on causing you injury and on the desired outcome when their initiated attack lands.  By interrupting, or ‘stuffing’ the technique with a hit or attack of your own, you force their brain to ‘switch gears’ and go from aggressor to defender.  This takes time.  Couple that with pain and shock and it takes even longer for them to decipher what just happened and how to react to it.  It doesn’t take long of course, but confrontations are won or lost in these precious seconds.

Most people do not spend a lot of time practicing what to do if their attack is interrupted or intercepted.  Strikes and kicks are normally attacks that are performed with a degree of forward movement, having judged the timing based on the distance of your opponent.  If you advance on the attacker, you’ll often find that they are not prepared to, or do not know how to, adjust to your forward movement. 

You will catch them mid-attack and off balance.  This can be particularly effective against people who use deep stances.  You may find they topple over if they are too rooted in their stance

‘Stuffing’ an attack doesn’t have to be as technical and sharp as some of the examples on the internet show for stop-hitting.

In a real violent encounter, I’ve found it is just as effective, if not more, to just kind of ‘crash’ into your opponent, using your head, shoulders, elbows and the like as your attack.  The protected position created by many of these attacks serves as your block, or ‘stop’ portion.  Bring your arms up to protect your head when you crash into them.  You’ll find if their half-cocked attack lands, it’ll land on your arms and shoulders, or on you legs in the case of a kick.  It may still jar you a bit, but it won’t incapacitate you or knock you out.

Be the train, not the car...

 This crashing, or ‘stuffing’ also removes the necessity to absolutely identify what attack is being initiated by your attacker.  Often there is not enough time to identify and then react with a stop-hit.  It can be done with enough training, but for most real self defense situations, the crashing or ‘stuffing’ will work just fine for most attacks.

Bruce Lee mentions that this works best on advancing attackers, or those that are stepping in to attack you. 

I agree.  I think this adds to the value of practicing ‘stuffing’.  Most real violent attacks are thrown by attackers who are committed to the techniques, those who are trying the knock your head off your shoulders or kick right through you.  These attackers will almost always move towards you or step into their attacks.  It is during this crucial initiation phase that ‘stuffing’ is used to its greatest advantage.

Of course, you need to know what to do once you’re on the inside.  In close, you should have non-striking techniques in your arsenal to follow up with.  Also, if your attacker topples over, be prepared to get the heck out of there.  You’ve just created enough time to get a good head start.  By the time your attacker reorients them self and gets up, you can be half a football field away, or more.  That’s a lot of ground to make up if your attacker decides to chase you, assuming of course that their confidences isn’t so shaken that they decide not to pursue.

‘Stuffing’ is a valuable concept and an effective method of dealing with real world violence.  It’s effective against a variety of attacks and can readily be used by people of varying skill levels.  It can also be used in responding to a surprise attack as it reduces your chance of receiving a fight ending blow, regardless of what attack is thrown your way.  It essentially defends against a whole bunch of attacks all at the same time.  When you’re caught off guard, this is important.

In my opinion, ‘stuffing’ gives you a lot of bang for your training buck.  You do have to be careful when training though, as by its very nature, ‘stuffing’ has a high chance of injuring your opponent, which is fine in the street, but not in the dojo…

Train safely.

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone.  During such a crazy time of year, I hope you've all found a few wonderful moments.

And as always, thanks to all who comment, follow, or just pop by from time to time for a read.

My best to you and your loved ones,

Journeyman.

Overload

Things have been pretty crazy for me lately and I've found it challenging to post regularly.  I just wanted to say thanks for your patience and I'll be posting more again soon.  And I also wanted to say thanks to all of you for posting quality material.  I may not always have a chance to comment, but I'm always reading and there's been a lot of great stuff lately.

Getting a bit punchy

The punch.  I can't think of any martial art that doesn't work on punching.  Many martial artists practice it for a lifetime, perfecting it's every nuance.

A punch is an interesting thing.  It's kind of instinctual.  Balling up your fists and hitting someone emerges as a natural consequence of anger and frustration in the early years of life.  Now, very young children seem to keep an open hand and have full arm swing movement when they "attack".  Smart for power generation and protecting the hands, but pretty easy to see coming.  After that, it's 'fists-a-flying'.

Some will argue and say that a proper punch is anything but easy.  In some ways, I agree, in others I don't.  Take a person who has never taken a martial art.  Ask them to do a four corner throw, or an arm bar, or a joint lock.  They will struggle and have to be shown.  Ask for a punch, chances are they'll be able to do a half decent one right off the bat.

I've been questioning the effectiveness of the punch.  Scratch that, I've been questioning how much time I should be spent practicing the punch.

I've been working out with a boxer off and on over the last several months.  He is a tried and true striker.  Well that's not entirely accurate either, since he's now expanding his study into Jiu Jitsu.

At first, I was a little bit intimidated by his punching ability.  They were crisp, fast, and usually part of a flurry of strikes.  Over time, though, I've found ways to work around his fists of fury.  First off, I don't box with a boxer.  Once I got over trying to go toe to toe with him, I could move back into my comfort zone, and started finding openings.  The punches that I throw are rarely meant on their own to be knock out blows.  I use them to distract and 'get in' on my opponent.  What I learned with the boxer was that the actual quality of my punch didn't matter nearly as much as how I was using it.  Used properly, a poor punch still created an opening for me to move in and go to work.

This got me looking at the punch more closely.  In a real confrontation, how many punches actually land, and of those, how many land where they were intended?  And for those that did land as intended, how many were fight enders?  We're conditioned watching sport fighting to expect the punch to be the tool that ends most matches.  Highlight reels are full of spectacular knock outs.  Yes, they can happen, but they're much more likely to occur in a ring than in a dark alley or parking lot.

What's also likely to happen is that you're going to break your hands in a bare knuckle fight.  Even professional boxers break their hands in fights when the gloves come off.  The hands contain too many breakable parts.  Small errors on angles, arm position and striking surface can cause injury.  What happens then if a weapon comes into play?  Can you still use your hands?  Did you de-fang your own snake?

My point is not to abandon striking and the punch.  I'm just questioning how much time I should spend practicing something that I can do fairly well with little or no practice, and something that is as rife with danger to the delicate structure of my hands.  And on top of that, are they really all that effective in the first place?  In my line of work, I've rarely come across situations where a punch or two ended things.  Quite frankly, most are fairly easy to get out of the way of unless you're standing face to face in a 'punch off'.

I know I'll never stop using or practicing punching.  What I may do is spend more time working on what comes next.  For me, a punch is a tool that leads to something else.  This stays in line with my belief that the first, second, and sometimes even third technique you try in a real fight probably won't work out as planned anyway, so I'm not going to put all my eggs in one, um...punch basket.

Thoughts?

Taking a Stance. Or not.

“Sink down”

“Deeper”

“Knees over toes”

“Wider”

“Power”

“One strike, one kill”

These are only a few of the things that have been drilled into me over the years when it comes to stances and stance work. 

I’ve been told stances should be the core of your martial repertoire, that it is the source of all your power.  It’s the foundation the house is built upon, that sort of thing.

Eventually, I programmed myself to always use deep, powerful stances.  This led to me having powerful technique.  There was no denying that.

Over time, I realized that while my technique was powerful, I only really got one shot at it.  I was sacrificing a great deal of mobility in the process.  If my first technique missed or didn’t work out as planned, I was very limited in my follow up.  I was essentially stuck in the deep stance and didn’t have a lot of options left. 

One of my theories on combat is that your first attempt at a technique probably isn’t going to work out as planned in a real confrontation (and sometimes your second, or even you third…). 

You must adapt, adjust and go with the flow.  For me, deep stances were hampering my ability to do so.  I had to ‘come back up’ to move on to my next technique.  Equally challenging was getting out of the way of incoming attacks with a moving opponent. 

I study an in close combat style of Jiu Jitsu, and most fights occur in this range.  Deep stances were creating distance between my body and my attackers.  This had the effect of actually hampering my ability to apply many non-striking techniques (joint locks, breaks, take downs, etc.).  They were also negating the advantage that my height gave me in certain situations.

In my opinion, the measure of how effective a martial art will be for real world application and survival is in its ability to create options.  The more you have, the higher the likelihood of emerging victorious, or at least in one piece.  I am willing to sacrifice a bit of power for a few more options and/or escape routes.

I have not abandoned stance work, of course.  Having a balanced stance is necessary for leverage, generating explosive force and for simply moving around and getting out of the way.  After all, Kuzushi (balance breaking), is a central component in most martial arts.  It most certainly is in Jiu Jitsu.

I now believe high stances are the most effective for most situations in real combat.  A proper high stance gives you decent power, good balance, speed, and high mobility.  It makes you more adaptable and gives you more options. 

There are still times where a deep powerful stance is beneficial, and some situations and techniques warrant their use, but in general, I opt for the flexibility of the higher stance. 

The mobility that a higher stance gives you reduces your need to meet force with force, something that has become more important the longer I have studied martial arts.  It is easier and safer to use your opponents speed and momentum against them, which is a central concept in the so called “gentle” arts.

Along this line of thought, it’s better to be like water than to meet force with force.  Water moves around, under or even over an obstacle, instead of meeting it head on.

The same applies to the example of the willow tree and the mighty oak.  In a violent storm, the rigid limbs of the mighty oak are often snapped and broken, unwilling to yield to the power of the elements.  The willow, however, yields, adjusts and moves, and by doing so, remains unscathed.

There are trade offs and advantages to both high and low stances.  It is about finding the balance of what works best for you and what provides the greatest chance of success in surviving a violent encounter.

Food for thought.

Random Thought - Buyer Beware

“I’ve been stabbed several times”

This was the opening line given by an instructor delivering a knife and edged weapons seminar I attended not too long ago.

From that moment on, the crowd pretty much accepted, without question, everything he had to say about knife defence.

I found myself wondering how that statement somehow qualified him as an expert.  After all, isn’t getting stabbed what we’re trying to avoid?  What made him more of an authority on the topic than someone else who’s managed not to get stabbed several times?

In pretty much every other area in life, this would disqualify someone as an expert. 

Would you take swimming lessons from someone that proudly asserted that they’d nearly drowned pretty much every time they got in the water?  Would you take driving lessons from someone that had been in a bunch of car accidents?

The other thing that occurred to me was how many similar assertions I had heard in the past.  It seems pretty much every instructor putting on a new flashy course has been mauled, bitten, shot and stabbed repeatedly.  Amazingly, most of them seemed unfazed by the experience.  Now I’m not suggesting anyone is making anything up in order to sell their particular brand or product or anything, but…

Caveat emptor in all things, I guess.

Note:  I should mention that the instructor in this case had actually been stabbed, and the experience had been the catalyst for him to question everything he thought he knew about knife and edged weapons training.  As such, the seminar was great and I learned a lot.  Unfortunately, this seems to the the exception, and not the rule at most of these events.