Flow drills

I’ve started a steep learning curve recently, based upon two person flow-drills. Continuous training drills were a feature of my original karate study, but they were so stylised as to be irrelevant in terms of real combat application. The most significant advantage of these new drills over the ones I worked previously, is the realistic range.

Basic Tegumi flow drill –

Incoming RH direct punch/throat grab
Parry across your body with LH (outward-to-inward motion is quicker than inward-to-outward), RH haito to his wrist, press/trap with LH, Punch direct with RH.

Interestingly – this most basic of flow drills is essentially the same technique as the first part of Jitte no bunkai ichiban. It’s a shame it was always practiced as a defence against a chudan jun tzuki in zenkutsu-dachi stance from a full stride away instead of a close range boxing-style jab punch.

The traditional karate foundation (or at least its training drills) on which my skill set was based, begins all its techniques with the protagonists a step or so apart – which gives a fraction of a second of preparation time that does not necessarily exist in a realistic conflict. Certainly, if you have your wits about you at this range, the chances of stopping a situation from escalating either with avoidance, awareness, dialogue or pre-emptive strikes are half-decent. The real training need kicks in if everything has fallen apart – when you’re forced to cover, block or parry incoming strikes – then your arms will connect with your adversary’s and this moment is crucial as the phase of combat transitions from kicking/punching range to clinching.

Most martial arts possess drills to train the practitioner to capitalize on this moment of connection with the adversary. My research has indicated that Chi-sau, Hubud, Kakie etc. are distinctly different methods from traditional arts, but they focus on the close range fight scenario.

Steve Morris says of Hubud;
“The Kali hubud drill is one similar to that used within Tiger systems and Uechi-ryu. It's a way of making offensive, defensive or counteroffensive contact on the outside or inside of the man's arm, and on the basis of that contact and his reaction to it, initiating your next move and so on and so forth…
…it forces you to work with your hands out in front of you, not cocked or 'chambered' as in a karate. They become antennae, looking for contact and learning to interpret and act upon cues of touch. At that range, you can't use your eyes. Your working range is from elbow to hand, so it's not only half-beat but half-range working range. That's why the emphasis within the southern systems is on short-range strikes.”

Patrick McCarthy has developed drills in his “Koryu Uchinadi” syllabus for traditional karate practitioners to achieve the similar ends - some of these drills I’m learning and messing with for my own training regime.

The challenge for a keen practitioner or wannabe-instructor like myself is to bridge the gap between these valuable drills, and the actual fight. A drill will only ever be a drill, regardless of how much training value it can imbue. Unless you put the drills to one side and so some actual fight practice its all still academic – especially if they are stylised. Why keep one hand in hikite during a drill, unless that hand is there to simulate a grab…?

Naihanchi / Tekki

I finally spent some time learning the sequence of Naihanchi/Tekki kata this weekend. Its a pretty short form. I've been taught a large number of practical applications for it recently. Many of these applications are clinch fighting techniques and hence provide a great addition to my skillset (which is predominantly longer range still).

Its a great kata for solo practice (if that's your interest, though obviously solo practice of a form will only provide limited training benefits) in the home since it requires so little floorspace.

Internal Battles

Its not easy to for me to write this kind of stuff.
Inbuilt in me is a need to record some of my thoughts on martial arts/self defence, and to share them. Unfortunately the very act of formulating all this material, in order to put it into words tends to become so long-winded that the thought has then passed on, morphed into something else or been discarded for more pertinent information. Perhaps the act of writing is a good exercise, a way of stretching my communication skills by describing a coherant shape to things that were unformed.

Another part of the difficulty that I battle with whilst writing is to do with the martial arts/self-defence topic itself. This content is very sensitive because of the simple fact that I don't want to spread any mis-information. If I'm going to write anything down on this subject I want to be as sure as I can be that its fact, or at least workable and practical. Its one thing to teach martial arts as a means of attaining fitness, since this is relatively easy to achieve if you're leaping about room for an hour trying not to get hit by someone. Its a totally different animal to teach someone to become more aware of their surroundings, and equip them with a means of coping better with violence should they encounter it.

I know in my heart-of-hearts that some of the material I can offer is worthy of reading by the right audience. Its sometimes difficult to acknowledge or have confidence in this though, because the standard of information and the quality of delivery from some of my sources is so solid.
That may seem like a pair of contradictory statements, but look at it this way; There's no point in me regurgitating information straight from the likes of Iain Abernethy and Rory Miller, they deliver it far more succintly than I ever will - you're better going straight to the source. That means in order to have something to say I need to add value to the debate, and quite honestly thats a tall order.

I guess Sgt. Miller has said this already though in a far more succint way:

"I’ve put as much personal experience into my teaching and writing as I can, along with advice from people I know and trust to be experienced. I also quote or paraphrase researchers (many of whom have never bled or spilled blood in either fear or anger) when the research sounds right. Take my advice for what it is worth. Use what you can use. Discard anything that doesn’t make sense. Test everything."