the basic uke blocks - are they of any real use?

[cross]

Heres some interesting articles on defence in general:

http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2007/03/best-defense-part-i-weak-ones.html

http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2007/03/best-defense-part-ii-foundation.html

http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2007/03/best-defense-iii.html

[sonofkanga]

Would you consider writing a book or anything with only Capital letters?

The basic blocks are just that,basic.They are intended to teach you full movement and full utilization of body power.most of them need adaption to work with a non compliant partner.

To continue with your analogy... Do people spend 3 years writing only in capitals before they are allowed to use lowercase letters?

Its the same with combat. Why spend 3 years doing blocks that need to be modified to actually be of any use? Sure you learn body movement etc, but practice the actual technique how it will be used and the lessons learnt will be much more applicable.

Yeah,probably why i study KYOKUSHIN.

Combat application and adaption from day one,with consistent training in the basics.

Kyokushin baka ichi dai

[edited for spelling errors]

[swdw]

Okay- warning, this reply may raise some hackles, but keep in mind I'm a traditionally trained Goju stylist. I know what I've learned works and because of that I believe n the traditional techniques when USED CORRECTLY.

hi all

Been wondering for years now why we spend so much time on age uke, uchi uke etc when they seem so slow and completely irelevant during sparring, and therefore I presume, a real defence situation.

Actually they work very well when use with angular movement and remembering to use BOTH hands. Funny you bring this up. This topic occured on another site and I gave up trying to explain the answer. Cuz a pictures worth a thousand words I did a short video and posted it on youtube, link is below. It just so happens I was using age uke as the example.

I was hoping that as I got further along the karate route, this would become clear, but at 2Kyu, I'm still no wiser (although I admit I'm still very much a Karate 'beginner') Are they really strikes as well as blocks? Or maybe i'm simply not quick enough as yet to make these count? Or are they just a training excercise?

See video and try it. The more you do it the more natural it becomes, but I can't stress getting OFFLINE and the use of the crossing/pulling hand enough.

During sparring most of the blocks are open hand covers, or 'slaps' to simply and quickly evade an incoming kick or punch. Theres not a chance I could use any of the traditional blocks during sparring - just too slow.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

thanks

Neil

This is a HUGE misconception that sparring and fighting are the same- they aren't. Go find some of the sites that have videos of street fights. You won't see a game of tag. What you'll see are committed attacks, rushes, grabs. Sometimes theres a couple of jabs at the beginning to see if the other person will back down, but then comes the real attack. Basically everything you DON'T see in a sparring match.

I've had my students practice classical blocks against such attacks and guess what? They work, and the work a heck of a lot better than slapping.

Most sparring is a straight line game so you bounce back and forth and make slight angle changes. Think about it from this perspective. Do you ever get worried that your opponent will rush you and take a shot coming in so he can knock your head into next week? I'd guess no. Are you in a defense situation that would allow you to get run over or flat out tackled if you keep backing up and don't get out of the way? Probably not.

Classical blocks don't work well sparring because they were designed to be used against committed attacks like you see on street videos. The distance is different, the timing is different, and the threat is different. I threw a committed attack at a student last night and he upended me with an age uke. But he moved in and offline at the same time to do so, not backwards. He then jammed a roundhouse punch and shoved me to the floor. He didn't know which punch was coming either time. This was done at full speed and full power. BTW, he's only a 7th kyu, so you can learn early on how to use these blocks. Kinda funny to see a 7th kyu do this to a yondan.

Anyway, go here and be sure to watch BOTH parts as there are different responses discussed ( I had to break it into 2 parts because it was over 10 minutes long )

http://www.youtube.com/swdw973

As far as slapping goes, there are 2 reasons people do this

One- they don't consider the attack a real threat. By real I mean you will be injured (not hurt- injured) if it gets through, and

Two- like you, they don't have faith in the classical moves so they fall back on a more natural response.

I've worked out with senior practitioners and have students with previous experience that have tried the slapping they were used to in sparring when we did jyu sanbon and they were shocked to have me blow right through the blocks and overwhelm them. One student with several years previous experience told me he'd never been steamrollered like that. He lost interest in point sparring after that and started training for street defense. A friend with 28 years in Shorinji ryu realized the same thing and is now tickled that his traditional training DOES work.

[Elky]

In my opinion anything designed for self defence purposes should be able to be picked up and used effectively in a short period of time.

I disagree with this point. In a short course of RBSD seminars, this should be the guiding principle, but in a martial art you can train your body to create new reflexive movements rather than relying on the old ones. This is the case in just about every MA.

I think this is often forgotten these days because people want to "get in there and fight fight fight", but karate has never been about a quick fix. It's about meticulously training your body.

[BT]

swdw,

That would have to be the most sensible post I've read on any forum about basic blocks in several years.

I've not long switched over to Goju-Kai and you've just increased the things I can extract from jodan age uke by about five-fold . Not a bad video for "off the cuff."

I can also see how that same approach can work with other basic blocks as well.

[marie curie]

I find myself using variations on the basic blocks, and they are quick and effective because they use the same muscles and movements as the basic blocks that I practice so much.

[cross]

As far as slapping goes, there are 2 reasons people do this

One- they don't consider the attack a real threat. By real I mean you will be injured (not hurt- injured) if it gets through, and

Two- like you, they don't have faith in the classical moves so they fall back on a more natural response.

but in a martial art you can train your body to create new reflexive movements rather than relying on the old ones. This is the case in just about every MA.

I see using a more natural response has a huge advantage. When it comes to a self defense situation and your body bypasses all cognitive proccessing your left with gross motor skills and your bodies natural reflexive response, trying to override this with technique is never going to happen because your flinch isnt something that is learned, its already existing in all of us.

To use a real life example. Think of the times when your driving your car and you always use correct "technique" when slowing down, you gradually apply pressure to the break and maintain your steering in a straight line to gently pull to a stop. All fine motor skills are being used.

Now picture a high stress suprise situation (like any self defense situation). Your driving along and all of a sudden a kid runs out in front of a car. In a split second you slam on the brakes, swurve to the side of the road and narrowly avoid hitting the kid. This is your bodies natural respose taking over, all traditional(gentle braking) technique goes out the window and your left with your bodies pre-programmed defense mechanisms. Only once the treat it gone or the shift from prey to predator has been made will you be able to regain access to your fine motor, well practiced skills.

[pers]

[

To use a real life example. Think of the times when your driving your car and you always use correct "technique" when slowing down, you gradually apply pressure to the break and maintain your steering in a straight line to gently pull to a stop. All fine motor skills are being used.

Now picture a high stress suprise situation (like any self defense situation). Your driving along and all of a sudden a kid runs out in front of a car. In a split second you slam on the brakes, swurve to the side of the road and narrowly avoid hitting the kid. This is your bodies natural respose taking over, all traditional(gentle braking) technique goes out the window and your left with your bodies pre-programmed defense mechanisms. Only once the treat it gone or the shift from prey to predator has been made will you be able to regain access to your fine motor, well practiced skills.

Good example ,but we are not born with this ability .driving a car and how it becomes like second nature is a skill that we learn and through practice get better and better until it beomes like the way you describe it .

Do you remember how you started your first time dirving a car and how it was comparing to the way you drive now ?

[swdw]

I'd like to address cross' response in reverse order:

To use a real life example. Think of the times when your driving your car and you always use correct "technique" when slowing down, you gradually apply pressure to the break and maintain your steering in a straight line to gently pull to a stop. All fine motor skills are being used.

Now picture a high stress suprise situation (like any self defense situation). Your driving along and all of a sudden a kid runs out in front of a car. In a split second you slam on the brakes, swurve to the side of the road and narrowly avoid hitting the kid. This is your bodies natural response taking over, all traditional(gentle braking) technique goes out the window and your left with your bodies pre-programmed defense mechanisms.

I believe this is a flawed analogy. Let me explain why, and respond with a real world example or two.

When I took up riding motorcycles, I was tutored by friends that had been through the BMW R.A.T.S (riders advanced training school) and others that had been to the California Superbike school. It just so happens that braking was the first thing they had me work on. As you said, I learned how to brake gradually and use the right force on both wheels. This is akin to doing a basic technique at moderate speed to learn it. Once that skill was developed, they had me practice emergency braking. The idea was to lay into the brakes as hard as you could w/o causing a skid and stopping as short as possible while maintaining control. This practice possibly saved my life on 2 occasions (definitely kept me from being seriously injured) and because of the TRAINING, the responses I had ingrained took over and I stopped correctly without thinking about the mechanics at all.

Later, I worked with a friend of mine in the same way. He was run off the road into a shoulder that was coming to an end and he stopped w/o dumping the bike or going over the shoulder into the 15 foot drop. And he accomplished this stopping on gravel.

This points out that HOW you train is as important as what you train. Had we only practiced gradual stops, we'd both be dead- or hospitalized at the least. In anything, you react how you train.

I see using a more natural response has a huge advantage. When it comes to a self defense situation and your body bypasses all cognitive processing your left with gross motor skills and your bodies natural reflexive response, trying to override this with technique is never going to happen because your flinch isn't something that is learned, its already existing in all of us.

Only once the treat it gone or the shift from prey to predator has been made will you be able to regain access to your fine motor, well practiced skills.

First, the idea that classical blocks require fine motor skills is a recent misconception because of people not training correctly or being taught correctly. The whole idea behind a classical technique is that it should work in the absence of fine motor skills. However . . . the more fine motor skills you are able to retain the more effective the technique becomes. Kinda like the bonus points on a test. The basic techniques in goju are that, basic skills training gross movement. As time goes by you add more refinement to the technique, both practicing alone and then being willing to face a practice partner that will push you to your absolute limits so you can become accustomed to user finer skills w/o thinking. (trust me, braking a motorcycle w/ independent front and rear brakes takes a heck of a lot more skill than braking any car).

Instead of limiting this to just my opinion. let me quote a passage from Okinawan Goju_ryu II by Seikichi Toguchi

"There is a difference between sports movements and budo.

 

I believe the movements in sport karate are not very different from the movements of everyday life. Many of the punches and kicks used in karate jiyu kumite (free sparring) are easily copied and executed by children who have never studied the discipline. There is no consistent training required to execute these techniques. If you are big and forceful, you have an advantage in this type of sparring. If you can also execute swift attacking techniques, you can generally win.

 

The techniques of Japanese budo however, are quite different from sport. When fighting with techniques of the martial arts, you are not necessarily big and swift. Instead of using only your own speed and force, you are required to also utilize your opponent's power and speed. In doing so, you have to move in ways that are rarely found in everyday life.

 

In the kory kata of goju-ryu, for example, there are many strange movements to which our bodies are not accustomed."

 

"This training method is similar to that of playing a musical instrument. In playing the Okinawan shamisen (Guitar-like stringed instrument), for example, the fingers of both hands move in different directions at different speeds simultaneously. We do not our fingers this way in our daily life. So, as beginners, we learn a variety of fingering techniques and scales which we must practice everyday. When our fingers can move smoothly, we are ready to learn to play music. This is exactly the same principle when learning goju-ryu techniques.

 

In this regard, there are some problems in the present karate world. Some karateka change kata of their styles into simplified movements. In other words, they transfer the kata's particular budo movements into those of daily life. By doing so however, one can no longer condition oneself for budo techniques."

As another example my Sensei was invited to a seminar where a senior Okinawan Sensei was visiting. (I'll have to ask him the name, it escapes me right now, but I think he was shorin-ryu- will get back on this part).

Part way into his class, the Okinawan Sensei stopped, walked up to some senior black belts and asked them, "Why are you doing common movement? Karate is uncommon movement. You should be practicing uncommon movement until it becomes common movement for you."

That statement sums it up pretty well.

If you read through this whole post, thanks for taking the time.

[cross]

Thanks for the reply swdw, it raised some very interesting points.

i agree the driving analogy is not the best way to relay something combat related. But i still find it far more practical to find out what your own bodies natural response to a surprise random attack is and enhance that reaction, has opposed to trying to completely relearn how to react when its already built in.