Filters

[John]

Whenever I look at each form, I see it as a vast encyclopedia of knowledge. Obviously its a mixture of many things, but sometimes I like to break things down into pure filters, so I can examine and identify things, before I mix it all up again. For me, some of the filters I use to examine each form movement is:1) Pukuls/Strikes only. This is probably the easiest, since its the most obvious. HOWEVER, easy shouldn't be dismissed. I LIKE EASY. Easy indicates high percentage, short amount of time to be combat effective and proficient, etc. And here we could subdivide into punches, elbows, knees, kicks, body-collisions, head-butts, hip checks, knee knocks, etc.2) Kunchi's/Locks. Isn't it so universally wonderful that the SUPPORTING hand on the OFFENSIVE arm tends to make a Figure-4? Gotta love the art.3) Blade.4) Stick/Longer blunt improvised object5) Small blunt improvised object6) Flexible weapon. Again, isn't it so nice that the hand-positioning of covering high line and low line, if used to pull apart make an excellent hold for flexible weapons? Especially coupled with the circles in the art. 7) Targeting (and here we could make subsets depending on the weapon used...for instance nerve strikes, leverage points, etc)8 ) Trapping9) Trap escapes10) Combinations11) Throws12) Internal Mechanics13) External Mechanics (don't dismiss external! I'd take Tyson over most Tai Chi folks any day. But I'm a huge fan of Internal as a means of delivering short range power)14) Lock escapes15) Silk Reeling16) Chi Gung17) Blocks (again, requiring subdivision further into attacking blocks, passive blocks, redirections, parries, etc)18 ) Push vs Pull (focusing on the pulling motions...focusing on the pulling motions)etc etc etcObviously the # of filters we can apply are limitless and truly make the forms alone in the curriculum an easy lifetime worth of study.Due to limited time, I tend to prefer high percentage techniques. For instance, if I believe something can work against a trained martial artist, it will usually scale down to an untrained thug. The converse sometimes isn't true. So things that I feel won't work against a non-compliant, physically stronger person, with some skills, I usually table for later.

[Anonymous]

Very nicely broken down John! Thank you.

[Author]

Posts