Hey. Ando here from SenseiAndo.com and Happy Life Martial Arts. Standing
outside today with my old friend Sensei Alec. Sensei Alec runs The Mat Martial
Arts in Austin, Texas. So, if you're looking for quality martial arts
instruction in that area, I'll put a link below. Check him out. We're just outside
doing a little bit of training ourselves and we started to talk about how people
defend punches. The way we defend punches versus the way students defend punches.
And what was one of the observations that we were coming up with? >>Well, we were
noticing that a lot of the intermediate and the advanced students that we have
are still holding on to habits they learned in the early stages, and they're
not changing things with the level that they're moving up in. They're actually
working harder than they need to. The goal was to find a way to make them work
smarter instead of harder. <<That's great. So, if you're an intermediate or advanced
martial artist, today, we're gonna help you figure out how to get rid of some of
those beginner habits. Let's get to it right now.
Okay. So, if you're watching students on the mat,
how do you know who the beginners are and who the
intermediate or advanced people are? What's, the beginner doing? >>Well, in a general sense,
a beginner is doing more gross motor movement. They have less trained skills,
so things are based off of what feels most natural, and if they don't have much
experience of something coming after them, it's gonna be a very grand motion
of some kind. >> Okay, so... >>For example let's take a straight punch. It's super easy to work
with. >>Yeah. >>As this is coming through, they're gonna do something really large
to get out of their way. Two hands, one hand, something that's a very large motion
so that they can really make sure that they're safe. Just think about a fly
coming after you. You don't snap the fly, you swat the fly. >>Right. >>Same concepts.
>>Because there's probably some panic involved and just, you don't know what to
do. So, it's just natural to try to get things away from you. Get away from the
danger. >>Exactly. So, we use that in the early stages of training to say,
hey, let's just make that better for you. So it's more deliberate. So, as it's a
big motion, you're bringing it off to the side and you're learning how to rotate
your body with it. So then you have open targets or exit strategy depending on
what your goal is. >>Fair enough. All right. But that's also a problem as
you get to a more advanced level, against a better fighter or multiple attackers,
what are the problems with this big, gross motor blocking or deflection?
>>Put it simply, the bigger motion I make one way, the bigger motion I have to make
the other. Some form of retraction has to happen
for me to run or to attack, counter, whatever you want to call it. So, when
I start to have more honed training, I don't want to move as big so that I can
respond with less motion back, adding quickness, adding a little bit
more body tension, adding some options for striking, as opposed to so big over
here. I really only have that one giant motion to use back. I'm not gonna do one
punch, one kill concepts. >>Okay. So, as you get more advanced your movements should
probably start becoming a little more subtle, a little more sophisticated, a
little harder to detect, which means you have to have more confidence in this
pocket, because-- what was that phrase you were using before about wanting and
needing? >>So, the concept is as I learn to not get hit, I don't want to get
hit. And I don't want to get so bad that I'm gonna move things way over there.
>>Right. The reality is I only need to not get hit that much. I may not be
comfortable with that close, so I will have to figure out between the
initial want and the more honed need what is the buffer that I'm comfortable with
doing. That's where the intermediate training comes in, is to understand how
to streamline that want-to-need ratio. >>Okay. And that puts you in a better
position by only doing what you need to do. If you let me shave you with this,
boom, like throwing the knives you talked about. Like we're in a circus and the
knife is coming right there, if you allow that, then you are in a better position
to begin your counter-attack or running or whatever. >>Correct. Because I no longer have to
worry about centering my body to you. I'm already centered. I can stay located in a
specific area that, I can stay behind this punch and have options for
myself. >>Right. What do you say, when you see people move out to the side,
they may not just be shooting out their arms, they may also be sacrificing some
of their posture and their eye lines. >>Yeah. It's a frame change. Your skeletal
structure rotates or tips or dips and moves out of place in a way you're
losing efficiency in whatever motions you're going to do. >>Could you show us
the way it should not be done? >>So, you don't want to be able to have your
shoulders tip over, you don't want to be crossing your arm across your whole
centerline, you don't want your head to tip over your heel line, you want to keep
everything pretty upright and pretty standardized in terms of a carousel
horse shape. A carousel horse, with that post going through my body, I can
rotate, I can rise and dip, I can move my body in and out if I need
to... >>And even your eye line. >>The eye line doesn't change either. That way I don't
have to worry about readjusting the visuals of what my brain is calculating.
So, it keeps things simple. >>So, overdoing bobbing and weaving, and
slipping, and all that stuff, can put you in a worse position to counter-attack or
to escape because you're just doing too much. Again, you're working too hard. >>Right.
Okay, so the problem is pretty simple to understand--doing too much.
That's it. Just working too hard. So, how can we start chiseling away to become
more efficient and effective in our fight? >>Well, the first thing is to talk
about what are the limits of the needs. >>The limits of the needs.
>.The limits of the needs. So, I don't have to worry about over-complicating it.
So, the width of my head or the width of my shoulders. That's the two spaces that I
have to worry about. >>This is all you have to worry about defending. You don't have to
defend over here, up here, or around you. You only need to
defend your skeleton. >>Right. If I perceive that you're hitting to the
center of one of those places. My center line doesn't change. If it's up high, it's my head.
I only need to miss enough that the outside of my head is no longer being hit.
If it's the center of my body,
if I rotate my body, that's enough to not get hit anymore. >>Right.
But it's gonna be closer than most people are comfortable doing, so we're
gonna use our arms to redirect something but still use the shoulders to influence
that motion. And as you do that, it's gonna keep everything at a nice,
comfortable distance from that hand, so that you can keep things close to your
body. I don't have to extend my arm. I feel pretty comfortable relaxed.
And then I can move forward or strike forward, whatever is nice to feel from there.
>>And again, you don't like using the word block. I have a video, I'll
put the link up, about how I'm not a big believer in blocks if you don't need
them. They're kind of instinctive. So, they're gonna happen anyway. But really,
you should keep your focus on attacking and getting to positions where you're
dominant. So, you don't like to use the word block either, because this-- would you
consider this a block? >>It's not a block. Actually, a block, by definition, is I'm
stopping something. And I'm using some force against a force. >>Like a beta blocker.
You would say something like that. >>A beta blocker or a linebacker.
Anything where you block and stop something from happening. You're meeting
force with force. And this is not happening. I'm redirecting the
energy and I'm just letting my body's motion be natural while your energy goes
elsewhere, so that I continue back in this direction. >>So, I'm wasting energy.
I'm inefficient where you're putting yourself in a position to be efficient.
>>Correct. So, the inside defensive motion is not a block, it is a redirection of
energy. >>And so the less energy that you use to try to stop me or push me away is
more energy that you have to now come back at me to either fight or run or
whatever you want to do. >>Correct. And that's where the wants and needs concept comes back in.
Because if I use more energy to redirect yours, I have to use more energy to bring
it back, versus staying compact, but safe, and then not have to work hard to
come in. >>Exactly.
All right. So, let's talk about a simple drill that you can add to your practice
time to help you become a little more efficient and a little more effective in
your punch defense. What would that be? >>Well, let's talk about connecting
everything in one piece as much as possible, so I'm not moving all these
different parts at one time. So, I'm gonna use the hands as a guide to guard,
to make your hand go elsewhere... >>So, get a partner... >>Get a partner. You're gonna
have them throw slow punches back and forth, left and right,
and I'm gonna use the same side that it's coming in for now
and I'm gonna rotate my shoulders and use my arm just to be a
guard. I'm not moving my arms to make this happen. If you want to do a palm
version of the block, that's fine. You want to do a fisted version, you
want to use your forearms instead, none of that really matters so much.
Just let the shoulders do the motion for you. >>So, even though your arms are making
contact, you're not thinking about your arms. You're actually just thinking about
what you need to do, which is move the body. For right now, these are like
training wheels just to get you to feel comfortable right now with these
punches in front of you, right? >>That's correct. >>So, then you could move to
the next level, which would be to just take the arms away. >>Take the arms out
of the way. They don't even exist for now. >>Heads up! >>Put your hands down.
I mean, obviously, you're gonna want to keep your hands up as some form of
protection. >>Be safe. Of course. But generally, what the goal would be, if you
had no arms and I was just feeding you punches, and you're just trying to slip
and look at these punches, and of course, I could be more random and faster, that's
up to you and your own training partner, but you're just trying to figure out how
to--aghh!-- how to slide these punches and feel comfortable here, because once
there's less panic and you're breathing, and you're seeing, and you're feeling
what's going on, you can always add hands back, you can always add more movement
if something is going wrong, but you want to try to boil this exercise down to the
pure essence of just do what you need to do. Just make sure the fist doesn't hit
something vital and then everything else, the rest of your focus, should be on
your counter or your escape. Is that fair? >>That's very fair, yeah. >>All right.
So, there's your challenge. The next time you're entering into some partner drills
or doing some sparring, see how little you can do to get the results that you
want. Right? >>Yeah. I mean, pay attention to how much you actually move by response
and then see what you can do to minimize that movement so it's less and less each
time you do it. Right. It's funny because maybe in the beginning, you move in big
movements out of panic, and then your ego might want you to start moving big as
well. You might want people to see how you can do these moves, and they're big
and they're strong, you grunt and you sweat, and you're out of breath. It makes
you feel proud of yourself as you're working hard and everyone sees that you
know what you're doing. But that's beginner mindset. That's beginner ego.
As you get better, I think things should start becoming invisible. Nobody should
see actually how good you are. They just know that they can't hit you.
Don't you think that's a good goal? <<It's a very demoralizing experience. << It's demoralizing.
That's our goal. We want to demoralize anyone who wants to hurt us. Fair? <<Fair enough.
<<All right, sir. Well, thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us. <<As always. <<If you'd like to
train with Sensei Alec, I'll put the link below. Check him out in Austin, Texas.
Until next time, keep fighting for a happy life.