The Way of Least Resistance

Introduction Recently a member of the Traditional Fighting Arts Forums, Emero, posted a query where he asked how one would defend against a spinning kick and a reverse crescent kick, pointing to the 2 examples below: A video showing the spinning back kick A video showing the reverse crescent kick I answered Emero on the particular thread, but I thought the question was appropriate enough to pose, and answer, here in my blog - especially since it will feed into my upcoming article “ Situational reflex: the key to martial effectiveness ”. Challenges in dealing with circular attacks What Emero notes is that powerful circular attacks are hard to respond to. A linear attack is relatively easy to understand and can be dealt with by controlling the center line (a topic I hope to address in the future). But circular attacks don’t really respond to the same methods; for one thing, they don’t move along the center line, so controlling it does not yield the same benefits. Now i...

Introduction I have made my views very clear on this blog that I believe "blocks" (better termed "deflections") work . However, now comes the hard question: How should "blocks" be performed? Many karateka and other martial artists (in fact, some of my most esteemed friends and colleagues) believe that the "hard" block is the "mainstay" of their art. I find this view particularly common in the various shorin ryu karate schools. However I disagree. I adhere to the view that the majority of blocks - whether from karate or the Chinese arts or whatever - should be "soft". In fact, I believe that "hard" blocks are rarely useful - so rarely useful that this is part of what accounts for the fact that blocks are very seldom even contemplated in combat sports. Yet I see no reason why they should not be used in that arena. It seems to me that relatively few martial artists today practice "soft" blocks; ...

Very recently I have been doing a lot of "push hands". What is "push hands"? Well to start with, I prefer Chen Yun-Ching Shifu's term for it - "listening hands". Other terms used include "sticky hands". This is a form of 2 person training (a form of limited sparring, if you will) that is found in almost every traditional Chinese and Okinawan system of martial arts. A "listening hands" drill taught by Chen Yun-Ching Basically it involves setting up a rhythmical, cyclic sequence of movements with a partner. This cycle can then be interrupted at certain unpredictable moments with a technique - be it a push, a strike or a joint lock (qin-na). Accordingly it serves as a platform for applying techniques in a semi-free scenario; one where this a dynamic context (ie. one that occurs in the context of continuous movement) but not one that is totally unpredictable and chaotic. There is, instead, only one moment of "chaos" - ...

It was as a youngster in the mid-70s that I first considered the feasibility of the “holy grail” of the martial arts: a synthetic form that would combine all the best elements of the disparate styles into one cohesive, all-encompassing and succinct system: in other words the ultimate martial art . I pored over the various books listing various styles. I pondered the encyclopaedic, sophisticated variations of jujutsu locks and holds, the smooth flow of the myriad Shaolin styles, the brutal efficiency and directness of karate, the effortless efficiency of the internal arts. I wondered about the exotic arts I’d never seen such as pencak silat and bando or legendary arts such as Mongolian “go ti”. Then there were the popular and impressive schools of taekwondo, the no-nonsense effectiveness of Muay Thai, the ubiquitous shadow of the late Bruce Lee and his Jeet Kune Do, the bewildering Filipino arts of kali/escrima/arnis, the elegance and philosophical beauty of aikido, the “sweet scienc...