Tag: White Belt Lessons

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 13 Chair Defense Against a Rear Choke

On By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Hakko Goshin Jutsu, Kakuto Goshin Jutsu, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Self Defense Techniques, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment
Pvt. Abdulla Rasheed, quick reaction force I, ...
Republic of Maldives (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chair Defense Against a Rear Choke (十級格闘護身術)

Welcome to the first of many situational self-defense moves. This moves deals with an attacker coming up behind you while you are sitting down. The scenario is not one where you are just sitting at your office or in a classroom (most likely), but rather revolves around sitting in public areas – park bench, restaurant, train or bus, etc…

The first thing about this movement is to refer back to the situational awareness lesson where discuss the need to be aware of your surroundings and not put yourself in a situation where you need to defend yourself. When you go into a restaurant or other area, try and sit with your back against the wall with visibility to any doors (including doors and entryways leading back to the kitchen). If this is not feasible, then try sitting close to a window seat or against the wall so you can at least position yourself to prevent people from sneaking up behind you. In the situation, there will most likely be multiple attackers, the first attacker is grabbing you in the choke hold to immobilize you while the other attackers either are there to beat you up or are trying to steal your possessions. Usually these situations resolve themselves relatively quickly – grab the target, get their goods, and get out.

Instructions

  1. As the attacker grabs you from the rear, use both hands to grab the attackers arm and turn your chin into their elbow.
  2. Using your body weight and leverage that the chair behind you provides, lean forward and downwards loosening the attacker’s grip.
  3. Using the chair as your physical block step off to the left then cross around to face the attacker, stepping out of the range of attack and moving yourself to safety.

Breakdown

The main key in this movement is reaction – you do not want the attacker to be able to lock their arms or hands together, but need to react quickly so that they are unable to complete this locking mechanism. The second key is tucking your chin into their elbow to prevent them from crushing your windpipe. The third key is getting your arms between your neck and the attacker’s arm to give you maneuverability in the technique. Finally, you will use the obstacle behind you to your advantage by leaning forward and dropping your body weight, thus causing the attacker to overextend their arms and limiting the amount of strength they have against the movement.

You will then cross outward to ensure that you are out of harms way, and since their single arm is in the way, you will use the motion in the opposite direction to escape. This movement is designed to escape the initial attack and allow you to get yourself to safety rather than being a complete movement (as expanded on in the Purple Belt). Because you are not “stopping” the attacker, but rather evading the attack, you may be required to press onward with your defense using other techniques you have learned thus far. The idea with this technique is not focused on destroying the attacker, but focuses on getting you out of the immediate harm’s way. The main emphasis needs to really be on situational awareness so that you don’t place yourself in a situation where this is likely to occur, and if you do, you take the appropriate situational awareness precautions as outlined above.

Things to Work On

Reaction timing and leverage are your two main points to focus on when practicing this movement. Have your partner come up behind you, with your eyes closed, and allow them to attack you. Let them complete the motion and lock their hands in place so you can feel the difference in the grab, as well as allow them to squeeze slightly harder so you feel how your body is going to react if you do not properly perform the movement. Next focus on getting your arms into position and turning your chin into their elbow and see how much more difficult it is for them to fully grab you at this point. In addition, see how the timing of their grab translates into how fast they can lock their arms together – giving you an idea of how fast you will need to react in order to be successfully.

Next, practice the leverage piece, using the chair as an obstacle to allow you to pull yourself out of their grasp by overextending their arms. Have them try to re-grab you or hold on to you while you overextend them and see how the difference in both hand positioning and your motion affects their reaction and ability to lock in the motion. Finally, practice the crossing outward and have your attacker continue to both try and grab you as well as re-grab towards you after you escape the move. After practicing this move enough times, start adding more dynamic levels into the practice by adding additional attackers, having the person go around the obstacle and try choking you (parting wings??), introduce a weapon into the mix, and try and simulate the encounter as realistic as you can. In addition, don’t forget to use your command voice and karate breathing during the movement so that attention can be drawn to your situation and additional help can hopefully be summoned.

Concluding Thoughts

No movement or self-defense technique is 100% effective, however, practice, practice, and more practice will increase the likelihood of you being successful in your self-defense movements. In addition, without the proper feedback and coaching, there is great risk that the movements that you are practicing are incorrect – so make sure to send in your review videos so we can help you along (or better yet go to an in-person lesson). If it hasn’t been emphasized enough – situational awareness is key (in this and all other self-defense techniques), so make sure you are not neglecting this important aspect of defense over rote memorization.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 9 Weapon Self Defense

On By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Hakko Goshin Jutsu, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Self Defense Techniques, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment
Skull and crossbones
Skull and crossbones (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Weapon Self Defense

Before I even go into the lesson today, I wanted to share the following video. Take some time to watch it and fully understand its message.
Martial arts are not some magic pill that gives you super powers, unlike some of the Shaolin demonstration teams would have you believe. You are not going to catch bullets in your teeth, and the likelihood of being able to successfully disarm a gun someone in a split second without something going wrong during a self defense encounter are not as good as you would want to believe. In a controlled situation, everything looks all fine, but in reality (see the video above), things couldn’t be much farther than the truth.

We talk about red flags a lot when discussing other styles and systems and one of the biggest red flag you should watch out for is someone or some style claiming that their self-defense technique is 100% effective and works all of the time. Especially when it comes to weapon self defense. When you are facing an attacker and in a “fair” fight, being trained in self defense gives you a gigantic advantage and if you’ve practiced enough, you should feel confident that you should be able to defend yourself in most situations.

However, when it comes to weapon attacks and defenses, the entire situation changes. Your outcome goes from “very good” to “serious trouble”.

Defending Against Weapon Attacks

Colt M1911A1, description for parts of handgun.
Colt M1911A1, description for parts of handgun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first thing you should do to defend yourself in a situation involving a weapon is NOT defend yourself. It sounds counter intuitive, but for the vast majority of individuals who would accost you, the mindset is simply – easy target, get in and get out. They are not looking for resistance, and most are not looking to go out there and kill someone. When it comes to gang violence, organized crime, and mentally disturbed individuals, it’s a completely different story, but in general compliance with the requests of the attacker is usually the best course of action. Give them your money, your wallet, your keys, cell phone, car, house, whatever they want.

There are two exceptions to this rule:

  1. The person asks/forces you or others to come with them somewhere, or get into a vehicle.
  2. You feel that the threats that the person is making against you for physical harm are more than just threats.
    1. This comes down to environmental awareness. A good example is being in a neighborhood where there have been a bunch of assaults with a deadly weapon lately leading to homicide, and the person accosting you fits some of the descriptions of the suspects.

In these situations, this is where your training needs to kick in, and you need to react in such a way to get yourself to safety or completely immobilize or control the attacker. This is why we advocate for training in a realistic situation. While wooden weapons are a good starting point, you should start training with real weapons as soon as you feel comfortable.

As soon as you start defending yourself the chance of the attacker actually using the weapon against you goes from 50% to 100%. And your chance of serious injury also goes up exponentially.

This is the one area where your level of training can actually backfire. Let’s say you’ve been training for years and are an expert in weapon disarms and feel completely confident in all situations. The problem with weapon defenses is that there is always a chance of being countered and always a chance of not working. There is never a 100% surefire way to defend against a weapon other than not being in a situation where you need to defend against a weapon. Too many stories out there of martial arts getting shot because they assumed they could handle the situation.

This is why, we can not stress this hard enough, in a situation involving a weapon, don’t try and defend yourself unless absolutely 100% necessary as described above.

In any self defense situation it’s not about winning or loosing, its all about LIVING or DYING. You need to make the decision that you are going to survive and do everything in your power to make sure of that outcome.

Why study weapon defense at all?

Why get the flu shot every year? Why have a first aid kit handy? It is all about being prepared for situations you might encounter. Knowing how to handle yourself when faced with a weapon is an important skill to learn. As we say, the way you train is the way you will perform. If you have trained to defend yourself against a gun attack, you are going to be that much more calm and collected in the situation, and are much less likely to make mistakes which end up with you getting shot. Practice makes perfect, and knowing how you are going to and should react in a violent situation only helps you prepare for the situation. Every situation is different, and your reactions can mean the matter of life or death.

This being said, your first reaction should be to try and talk the attacker out of the assault and comply with their request for any and all of your possessions. In 2014, there were somewhere on the order of 1.1 million assaults and robberies in the US. Compare that to only 14,000 homicides. Doing the math, if we assume that all those homicides are a result of the assault, we are left with something on the order of less than 1% of assaults leading to homicide. The actual rate is closer to 0.05% (homicides by felony type).

So putting this together, your chances of someone trying to kill you during an assault are 0.05% if you do not try and defend yourself, and 100% if you do.

White Belt Weapon Self Defense

There are really two schools of thought out there:

  • The hard core old school stylists who say that weapons defenses should never be taught until a student has mastered the basics and has spent years of training
  • The realistic self-defense schools who know that many self-defense situations involve weapons and want to prepare their students from the start

Here at CMATOS, we fall into the latter category. We want our students to be confident in their self defense situations, and so we teach weapon defense from the very beginning. Our mantra is do what works, and if you are going to be involved in a weapons altercation, you can’t say to your attacker – “hold on a second, I’m only a white belt, I won’t learn how to defend against your attack for another 4 years, so come back some time then and we can pick up where we left off.” You are going to need to defend yourself, but more importantly you are going to need to understand how you will react in these situations so you can be prepared for the worst. Hopefully you will never be in those situations, but the worst thing is for a student to be faced with a situation they didn’t prepare for because the instructor was “withholding” information from them.

We start off with some basic techniques that can be used to disarm an attacker. Are these 100% effective. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Can you sit and study the video lessons and practice a few times and then go out there confidently knowing that you can stop any attacker. NO. They are designed to be the building blocks to further techniques in the system, and need a high level of practice and confidence to execute safely. So then why do we teach these now and not wait for everything to be complete – because we want our students to start getting exposed to various situations so they get a feeling for how they will react in a life or death situation. Can these skills be effective defense against an attacker – absolutely, but the chance of any technique against a weapon has a high chance of failure – especially when you are just starting out. There will be plenty of situations where the techniques learned here will be sufficient, and thus are relevant to being taught at this level. At the same time, there are a million other situations where they won’t be effective.

Again, we repeat for the umpteenth time – in a situation involving weapons, comply and walk away first.

Assessing the Severity

In terms of severity, your weapon attacks can be thought of in the following sequence:

  1. Blunt hand held objects (e.g. brass knuckles)
  2. Slashing objects (e.g swinging a knife)
  3. Swung blunt objects (e.g. bats and clubs)
  4. Stabbing objects (e.g. stabbing a knife)
  5. Long barreled projectile weapons (e.g. shotgun, rifle)
  6. Hand held projectile weapons (e.g. handgun)

Blunt hand held objects are the least sever, as most of the self defense techniques you study work equally well in the situations. The concern is that getting hit now has a much higher probability of injuring or stopping your defense. Slashing knives are the second most severe – it may seem scary, but by and large unless the person is wielding a katana, the thickness of most of your normal clothes usually should be sufficient to prevent serious injury, however you are at a greater risk of serious injury if they do happen to slash to certain areas of exposed skin. The next level of danger comes from swung blunt objects – timing and distance are a huge key here, get the distance and timing wrong on these, you are at risk of a quick trip to the hospital. Stabbing objects are then considered, as they have the ability to penetrate clothing and cause some major internal damage. Finally we get to the guns – rifles and shotguns, while seemingly scary, aren’t as commonplace, and provide greater leeway for mistakes as they are harder to maneuver. Handguns, however, become the most dangerous because they are easily maneuverability, and hardest to secure.

The Golden Rules of Weapon Self Defense

Here are some things to keep in mind when working on your weapon self defense techniques.

  1. When practicing NEVER hand the weapon back to your partner. Alternate and have them disarm you.
    1. After you feel confident with the basic maneuver, add more realism to the scenario through role play.
    2. After feeling confident with the techniques, start practicing with actual weapons (unloaded and/or dulled) – pellet guns are a good tool for speed reaction drills.
  2. Attack the attacker, never the weapon
  3. Comply and walk away before trying to defend yourself
  4. If you do need to defend yourself, be sure that the attacker is completely incapacitated

Final Thoughts

 

 

 

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 15 – Horse Stance / Toe to Heal

On By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Fundamentals, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment
"Mabu posture". Also called "Ho...
“Mabu posture”. Also called “Horse stance” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Horse Stance / Toe to Heal

Horse Stances

One of the primary training stances in all martial arts is some variation of the horse stance (kiba-dachi 騎馬立ち). Kenpo Budokan Karate is no exception. When you are training, or performing your forms, you should strive for a low, solid horse stance. In a self defense situation, you’re not looking for low horse stances so much as you are lowering your center of gravity – which is why many kenpo styles don’t emphasize the low stances. We’re not looking for perfectly parallel legs forming right angles at the knees. What we are looking for is strong solid base movements to the extent of your physical capabilities.

So what does having a low horse stance do for us? It kills your leg muscles and works on strengthening your core muscles. When you practice the stance – let’s say as you are doing the Master 8 Fold form, or are going through Short 1, you are working on these muscles creating a very powerful base for your techniques.

Riding the Horse

  1. Step out with your feet about twice shoulder width apart.
  2. Turn your toes inward, dig into the ground with the side of your feet.
  3. Bend at the knees and try to bring your legs parallel to the ground, with your shins perpendicular to the ground, so that your knees form a right angle.
  4. Hold this position for a minute and tell me that this is not an effective way to train your leg muscles (then try holding it for 30 minutes or 3 hours….)

Some things to note, whichever direction your toes are pointing is where your feet are going to go. Imagine doing a horse stance on a slippery floor. If your toes are pointed outward, you feed will start sliding outward until the next thing you know you are in a full split. Dig in with the side of your feet for proper grip and balance. This also serves to help solidify your base and gives you additional power and balance in your stance.

If you are down in a horse stance and can sit there for more than 5 minutes without feeling the burn in your legs this means that you already have very powerful legs, or more likely, you aren’t sinking deep enough in the horse stance. If this is the first time you are doing a horse stance, you legs should really be shaking after 60 seconds in the stance, if not, then you’re not doing it correctly. Try and increase the time you can stay into a deep horse stance for as many minutes as you can. Use this time to focus on isolation of your punches or blocks, do the master 8 fold form, etc… Build up your strength until you can comfortably do 15 minutes without dying (you may be in pain, but not dead, and not having to flex your legs to get relief).

Super Low Stances and Super High Kicks

Back in the day, your martial arts competitions was divided into forms (empty hand and weapons) and sparring (point and full-contact). Today, go to any modern day martial arts competition and you will see that they’ve divided the forms into traditional and modern sections (along with a dozen other divisions) – with the modern forms incorporating a lot more gymnastics than actual martial arts movements. The idea was that these more modern forms were highlighting athletic ability and gymnastic prowess more so than traditional martial arts movements – and as such they pulled them out, so that only forms considered traditional in styles would be allowed to compete in the traditional forms division. Unfortunately, over time, the judges started to expect stances to be low to the ground, and kicks to be perpendicular – and thus your competition training began.

Low stances aren’t a bad thing, and are very useful for training purposes (and for competitions). Some low stances are useful in some self-defense situations (lowering your center of gravity to assist your technique). However, by and large, if you try and get low, low, low to the ground in a self defense situation, you not only make yourself that much more vulnerable, you are much less maneuverable, and more prone to getting stuck. The same thing goes for high kicks. Kenpo kicks all attack targets of opportunity with most kicks usually never going above waist level. When you start kicking higher, the chance of loosing balance or being countered increases exponentially. This is not to say that high kicks aren’t effectual – they can be very effective. The issue is, that at this level (10 kyuu), trying to kick too high is only going to get you in more trouble than its worth. Come back in a a couple of years and then start talking about getting your kicks high in a self-defense situation. I’m still waiting for someone to show me how a “scorpion kick” can actually be effective….

Toe to Heal Alignment

The rule of thumb here is where ever you are facing, the toe of the foot in front should align with the heal on the foot in the back. Why is this?

First, when in a self defense situation, you want to limit the exposure of your targets to your attacker, and by turning your body to the side you limit the vulnerable targets to you head. Putting your hands into the guard position limits this exponentially. Your groin and stomach are exposed to swings from the side, but proper positioning limits the attacker’s ability to reach those targets.

Secondly, it provides a strong base from which you can attack from. If you stand face forward feet together, you have very little balance against pushes from the front or the rear. If you remember the self defense techniques from this level, the first thing you did was step, with the goal of getting your body into proper alignment and giving you the power and balance needed to properly execute the technique.

Thirdly, it allows for proper power and reach for your attacks. In the ideal world you could stand perfectly toe to toe and would have the world’s best balance against lateral shoves. The problem, is that standing toe to toe reduces your ability to provide power behind your strikes. Do this as a practice. Stand in a horse stance and reach your one arm across your body and try to hit a target on the other side. While you may have some muscular strength in your arms, your power is severely limited. Additionally, your reach is restricted to how flexible your torso is in twisting. Next, get into a proper toe to heal stance and do the same exercise. You should notice a lot more power behind the punches as well as a lot more range of motion and reach.

So why not heal to toe? Because this would leave you with part of your back exposed to your attacker – which is something you want to try and avoid as much as possible. You can only defend against that which you can see.

The first time you encounter this is really within Short 1 Kata. As you move through the form, you are stepping in such a manner that your stances align all along straight pathways, and you are in proper toe to heal stance. As you progress through the levels, you will find that the toe to heal stance is the base that you keep coming back to. Focusing on proper foot placement now will save you a ton of headache down the line.

Slow Tension Practice

One of the practices we recommend for your training sessions is a slow tension exercise. You go through the technique as normal, but at an extremely slow pace, keeping your muscles tensed through the whole movement or form. While you do this practice, you should focus on your proper hand position, but more importantly, watch proper foot placement to ensure that your stances are low, and your feet are facing the proper direction. If you do this correctly, not only should this be a great practice for focusing on your techniques, but you should also have a great full body workout as a result.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 14 – Short Form 1

On By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Forms, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment

Short Form 1

Every martial arts system has their own beginning form, and Kenpo Karate is no exception. Although we have the Master 8 Fold form as our form of the ages across all ranks, Short 1 is the basic introductory form. Unlike the latter forms (Short 3 and later), Short 1 (and Long 1, Short 2, and Long 2), are considered fundamental forms. These introductory forms focus on basic techniques and movements. The first 2 – Short 1 and Long 1, focus on 90 degree angle movements, straight forward and straight backwards, along with basic stances, basic blocks, and some basic strikes. Short 2 and Long 2 now take modified versions of some self defense techniques and movement off on 45 degree angles.

The focus of Short 1 is on basic blocks, horse stances, and the basic L movement. Throughout the entire form you will be stepping backwards, so drills and motion we learn in the Master 8 fold form all come into play. The first half of the form follows a repeatable pattern, step back once block, step back a second time block, transition to the next section. The pattern of blocks follows the pattern from the Master 8 Fold form – Inward, Outward, Upward, and Downward. All pretty basic stuff. The second half of the form is essentially the mirror image of the first half of the form, stepping back with the right leg instead of the left leg and blocking with the left instead of the right. Just like the Master 8 Fold form, it can be done on a continual basis, circling through the form to gain additional levels of proficiency and competence during each cycle.

The keys here are ensuring you have proper foot placement, and your movements are fluid and not block. I’ve seen the form done beautifully with very low horse stances – and if you are going to be performing this form in a competition, that is what you want to shoot for. When doing the form for performance for CMATOS, we just need to see that the stances, footwork, and hand coordination are present and at a level proficient enough for this level. As you come back and review the forms at each stage of your journey, you can review how far you have come. Keeping a journal of your journey, or even video record of your performances is a great way to keep track of where you have been and where you are headed. Make sure to also take advantage of our mentoring and review so we can point you in the right direction and ensure your form is up to the level of proficiency needed to advance to the next rank.

Instructions

Opening

  1. Kenpo Salute to Ready Stance
  2. (Optional) Step out with the left leg to a square horse stance

First Half

Section 1 – Inward Blocks

  1. Step back with your left leg as you execute a right hand inward block.
  2. Step back with your right leg as you execute a left hand inward block.
  3. Head transfer to the left

Section 2 – Outward Blocks

  1. Step up slightly with your right foot to ensure you are in proper toe to heal position
  2. Outward block with the left hand
  3. Step backwards (in the new direction) with your left foot as you execute a right hand outward block
  4. Head transfer to the left

Section 3 – Upward Blocks

  1. Step up slightly with your right foot to ensure you are in proper toe to heal position
  2. Upward block with your left hand
  3. Step backwards (in the new direction) with your left foot as you execute a right hand upward block
  4. Head transfer to the left (should be facing the back side of where you first started)

Section 4 – Downward Blocks

  1. Step up slightly with your right foot to ensure you are in proper toe to heal position
  2. Downward block with your left hand
  3. Step backwards (in the new direction) with your left foot as you execute a right hand downward block
  4. Head transfer to the left

Transition

  1. Step up to a square horse stance facing the front again

Second Half

Section 5 – Inward Blocks

  1. Step back with your right leg as you execute a left hand inward block.
  2. Step back with your left leg as you execute a right hand inward block.
  3. Head transfer to the right

Section 6 – Outward Blocks

  1. Step up slightly with your left foot to ensure you are in proper toe to heal position
  2. Outward block with the right hand
  3. Step backwards (in the new direction) with your right foot as you execute a left hand outward block
  4. Head transfer to the right

Section 7 – Upward Blocks

  1. Step up slightly with your left foot to ensure you are in proper toe to heal position
  2. Upward block with your right hand
  3. Step backwards (in the new direction) with your right foot as you execute a left hand upward block
  4. Head transfer to the right (should be facing the back side of where you first started)

Section 8 – Downward Blocks

  1. Step up slightly with your left foot to ensure you are in proper toe to heal position
  2. Downward block with your right hand
  3. Step backwards (in the new direction) with your right foot as you execute a left hand downward block
  4. Head transfer to the right

Closing

  1. Step up to a square horse stance facing the front again
  2. Finish with the Kenpo Salute

 

Breakdown

Hand positioning and foot positioning are key in this form. For students just starting out in their martial arts journey, the foot position and hand positions are usually the most complicated bits to master. Once those have been ironed out, then the rest of the form becomes relatively painless. The basic motion of the form and though is that you are defending against a punch or a kick as you are moving backwards – primarily a defensive movement in nature. The basic pattern of the form, is represented by an L shape. You step back twice, then turn 90 degrees to the left, step back twice. At this point, you retrace your steps, going back up the L you just created. In the second half of the form, you are simply mirroring the first half of the form and making an opposite L.

An easy way to do this form is in a room with 4 different walls (or in a place where 4 directions are clearly indicated). You start off facing the north (or the front wall, or the tree, or something straight ahead), turn to face the west (90 degrees from the first direction), turn to face the east (180 degrees from the previous direction), turn to face the south (90 degrees from the previous direction), and finally turn and face the north (180 degrees from the previous direction) to finish the form off. When performing the form you don’t need to face the actual directions, but you do need to be facing 4 different directions, 90 degrees from each other.

Foot positioning needs to be in proper toe to heal form. Which ever direction your face is facing is where your “toe” in the toe to heal should be positioned, and the foot behind you, should align with the heal. Additionally, you need to make sure that your feet are turned inwards on the horse stance, knees bent like riding a horse. If you need work on your horse stance, see the lesson on horse stances later in the white belt series.

Things to Work On

One of the things I love about doing forms, is that their practice can be a great workout in and of itself, and you should use this as an opportunity to help increase your overall level of physical fitness. As we discuss in other lessons, you need to have some level of physical fitness in order to be able to successfully defend yourself in a serious situation. Performing forms is one way of helping to raise that level of physical fitness.

During my daily martial arts practice I’ll go through all my material (self defense, forms, etc….) as well as practice and focus on the specific topic or form or technique I am currently working on for that time period. I will usually go through each technique and form 3 times before moving onto the next one.

  1. I start off going through the form at a slower than normal pace to ensure that I am doing each movement correctly
  2. I go through the form doing it in slow tension, ensuring that I am focusing on as much power and tension as I can manage
  3. I finally go through the form at its normal performance level speed to ensure that I not only capture the skill, but the speed necessary to be successful

You may want to space out your practice – work techniques on one day, forms on another, and then do a combined practice once a week. You might also want to focus on a single technique or form for an entire week or several days, just to make sure that you get the material down solid before going on. Again, this is not a sprint, but a marathon, the pace you pick something up is going to be largely dependent on your own individual circumstances. On, average, I would say that it takes the average student 1-2 months to successfully bring short 1 up to a level proficient enough to be considered for the next belt rank. Add in another 1-2 months for the rest of the material, and you wind up with students taking anywhere from 3-4 months during the first belt level practicing, and re-practicing their material until they have it down in their sleep.

Don’t rush this. It will only come to bite you in the butt, as you will need to continue to practice and perfect this form all the way up through all belt ranking levels. If you don’t perfect it now, you are going to be spending more and more time as you go through the ranks trying to re-learn and remember the previous material. Don’t do this, but rather, stay focused on this level until you are sufficiently confident with your material that learning the new material is 1) not going to confuse you and 2) not going to cause your previous material to become less effective or out of practice. To be truly successful in the martial arts requires a level of consistent practice for the rest of your life – this is why you hear many martial artists refer to what they are doing as not just hobbies, but a way of life.

Performance Cadence

Without seeing the form in action it’s a bit difficult to describe. Your cadence for the form should be about one move per 1-3 seconds. Too fast and the form just looks sloppy, too slow and it doesn’t look like a performance. Regardless of the pace you set for the form, you should be consistent in your timing between movements – each section should be done at the same speed, and every movement and technique should be uniform in its power and delivery.

Concluding Thoughts

Now granted, not everyone is going to find martial arts as their passion, but as they say, the amount of effort you put in is going to correspond to the amount of results you will see in the long run. The more you practice, the better you should become. When you first start working on Short 1, it can seem a bit overwhelming (especially if you haven’t studied any martial art before) – so don’t be afraid to reach out to us for assistance and guidence.

Kenpo Budokan Karate: White Belt: Lessons: 12 Stick or Club Swung to the Side of the Body

On By masterkenpodragonIn 10 Kyuu - White Belt, Belt Requirements, Hakko Goshin Jutsu, Kenpo Budokan Karate, Lessons, Self Defense Techniques, Tanbou Goshin Jutsu, Techniques and FormsLeave a comment

Stick or Club Swung to the Side of the Body (十級短棒護身術)

While knives and guns have their own level of issues which may arise, clubs and sticks are a bit more prevalent and therefore much more likely to be seen in a self defense situation. The goals with this technique are to get you comfortable with the mechanics of club attacks, as well as understanding how best to defend yourself in these situations. You’ll see, just as with the other attacks, the goal of the technique is to ensure you have proper range to the target and are moving in such a manner as to give you the best possibility of success.

Unlike the gun and knife attacks to this point, this attack is the first dynamic attack you see within the CMATOS system. You meet force with force, and use your distance jamming the attack to your advantage. You need to be fully committed to this technique and ensure that the attacker is fully committed to their attack motion to prevent unintentional injury to yourself or others during the movement.

Instructions

The base attack is for a baseball like swing coming from the left (swinging to the attackers right).

  1. As soon as you notice that the attacker is committed to the swing, close the gap by diving into the attacker and jamming their ability to fully swing the weapon.
  2. Quickly drive several knees to the attacker’s midsection or groin to drive them off balance
  3. Drive an elbow to the back of their head
  4. Grab the club out of their hand and escape outwards

Breakdown

Range is very important in this technique as well as your timing. When someone is swinging a club at you, you have three choices – 1. Move out of the way. 2. Move into the attacker. 3. Get hit. As we talk in the environmental awareness lesson, you only should move where you have visibility – which means stepping backwards to avoid the swing is highly advised against. You may trip over something, stumble, or walk into a wall – preventing you from avoiding the attack. In addition, in a self defense situation, especially involving moving parts, it’s very difficult to judge the length of the weapon being used, so judging how far you have to move backwards is a problem. You do know the distance between you and the attacker and can visually judge the distance between yourself and them. If the attacker is close enough to hit you with the club (swing), they should be close enough for you to be able to close the distance during the swinging motion.

The next thing to understand about this technique, is all about jamming the attacker. If they are using 2 hands to swing the club, you should now be in a position outside their body with the front of the body facing you – exposing a plethora of targets on the opponent. Just as in previous lessons, you should use the targets of opportunity here when striking. The attacker is not likely to try and stay in a single place for long, so you must quickly move into the knees to start breaking down the attacker’s defenses – this is followed up by an elbow to the back of the attacker’s head. Striking hard enough in this area will knock out the opponent. If they aren’t knocked out with the strike, the strike should be enough to daze them sufficiently to allow you to re-grip the club and escape out of the grapple with limited trouble.

Be mindful that this move and technique must be done at full speed and at full power in order to be effective. Don’t practice too long slowly, but move to the reactionary part of the practice as soon as possible.

Things to Work On

You are not looking to grapple the opponent in this move, and should avoid getting yourself in a grappling situation when executing this movement. If they have used two hands to swing against you, you should be relatively safe from this as you will be outside both of their arms. On the other hand, if they drop the club, they could quickly transition into a grapple or a tackle, so you need to be mindful of their movements and reactions during the technique to prevent any complications. This is why you need to move quickly into the offensive with the knees so that the attacker is forced to assume a defensive posture rather than being on the offensive.

Other things to consider are the threat of multiple attackers. In many situations involving a club or stick, the attacker may not be alone, but because they have the most imposing weapon, they are usually the ones to strike first. If this is the case, you should make sure to position the attacker between yourself and the other attackers so you are not caught blindsided by other attackers in the mix.

Concluding Thoughts

Although this move is relatively straight forward, there are a lot of things that can go potentially wrong when dealing with an attacker with a weapon. You need to practice as much as possible, and more importantly you need to have your techniques reviewed by a trained instructor to ensure that your positioning, footwork, and technique are adequate. We don’t want students who just watch the video and practice a few times to go out there and get injured because they weren’t well prepared to deal with the situation. This is why we stress not only working with a partner, but also making sure you are getting regular checkups with your instructor to make sure any issues you have in performing the technique are addressed. Although we provide online distance learning lessons, we highly recommend training with us or with another instructor in person as the immediate and meaningful feedback you get during these sessions is going to be much more valuable than just watching videos on the internet.