Tai Sabaki

[JusticeZero]

Tai sabaki is, essentially, using footwork, yes?

I'm not a karateka, but the art I do is based primarily on movement/footwork.

Go through all your kata and find all of the transitional stance changes that involve stepping. Now start chaining them together so that you can move across the training hall using only those transitions. Go through all of them, mirroring and adjusting to move around the space with each one.

Go forwards, yes. Then go sideways to cover the whole distance staying directed at the side of the room. Both left and right. Get to the point where you're able to race across the distance naturally. Maybe from one end of a football field to the other for each, say; you want chaining transitional steps to cover ground to be natural and second nature. Don't do anything that isn't starting and ending in a stance and staying at the same level, guarded, all the way through.

Now take a folding chair and circle completely around it in transitions, staying guarded against the chair as if it were an attacker. Reverse and circle the opposite direction. Work through all your transitional steps, even attempting the ones that don't immediately seem useful - sometimes an easy adjustment can cover space. Don't show your back or the space behind your lead leg.

Now do the same exercize, but use a VARIETY of steps. Don't repeat yourself or let yourself use a pattern. Use every movement you've got all at once in a chaotic riot of stance transitions and variations. Pay attention to your distance from the chair.

Now start chaining them together to wander around a space filled with obstacles. Take some folding chairs or traffic cones and put them in a very ragged line or large circle.

Weave around them; as you pass one, the next becomes your enemy. Don't show your enemy your back! Don't step on the other 'defeated' 'enemies'. But use the transitions that you pulled from kata and training to weave and shuffle your way around the space. Cover the space quickly, but with solid form. Make sure you have a solid defense aimed directly at each one of your 'opponents' at all times.

Are some of your techniques linked to, or usable as part of, a step? Drill, but this time, if you do a kick, don't put your foot down in the same place as you started. Mix every movement with a step. Now shadowbox circling around the chairs like this.

Now do the same thing, but with your blocks. Even changes that don't seem to move much can be useful if your weight shift can be used to slide your foot into a new position.

Once you don't have to think too hard to do these, go back to class. Spar. Instead of just focusing on beating your opponent, you'll be scoring differently.

Focus on not being beat too badly, yes. Block out a small, possibly irregular 'ring' in which the spar will happen. If you go outside of the space you're working in, you will lose a point. When you start, look at the space directly under and behind your opponent. That space is worth a point. Once you're standing over it, wherever they're at now or directly behind it is worth a point. You may not simply push them out of the way; you have to make them retreat or just move past them. Now see how high a score you can rack up.

Once it is second nature to be able to move wherever you want, whenever you want, your ability to simply move in response to events such as an attack is just a minor detail of seeing an application of it.

[sojobo]

Tai sabaki is, essentially, using footwork, yes?

Tai sabaki means "body management" (foot work is usually called ashi sabaki (foot/leg management)).

Good advice though JZ.

Sojobo

[JusticeZero]

If someone tries doing it, if they could reflect on how it went, i'd be curious to know. While this material is standard stuff for us, we aren't even ALLOWED to stand in a static posture, and our stances are different.

Still, I saw some taiji stuff on a video once where people were absolutely blown away by the idea that they could just use their stance transitions to take a step, instead of changing into some boxing shuffle. I suspect that people just don't.. DO that for some reason, which is probably some variant of "It just never occurred to me".

I end up giving the advice that I gave in that longer post all the time, and i've yet to hear any feedback on it from the Asian martial artists, that I can remember seeing. I don't know if it's an existing training method, or if there are some things to pay attention to that I don't have the language or knowledge to express, or what.

[MasterPain]

Sounds like standard movement drills to me. Though there is nothing wrong with a boxing shuffle. People use it because it's good.

[JusticeZero]

Right, it seems like they would be standard movement drills.. but I don't know that they are, or that the 'standard drills' are pulled out in enough quantity to be very useful.

My commentary on the "boxing shuffle" persists because it has what I, coming from a mobility based art, consider "mediocre mobility", yet is regularly considered the ultimate in martial mobility. Sure, boxers can move, but so can everybody, right? The main thing that's remarkable about the boxing shuffle is that they move while remaining in a single rigid static stance that isn't even the one that other martial artists use.

Most of the things that we do for mobility actually have unassembled analogues in other arts, so the rationale for that amazement confuses me a bit. It seems as though boxing shuffle mobility should be reasonably unremarkable, if other artists were more accustomed to moving around. How hard can it be to step?

In any case.

If tai sabaki is "body", not "foot", which seems like an odd dichotomy for an art that asks for the spine to remain vertical to contain, then I have to admit to being somewhat hazy on what it is supposed to be. When I google "tai sabaki", I get footwork charts. That's stepping through stance transitions.

[sojobo]

If tai sabaki is "body", not "foot", which seems like an odd dichotomy for an art that asks for the spine to remain vertical to contain, then I have to admit to being somewhat hazy on what it is supposed to be. When I google "tai sabaki", I get footwork charts. That's stepping through stance transitions.

Where are you seeing that the spine needs to remain vertical?

Sojobo

[JusticeZero]

Because relative to me, very few arts do NOT feature a vertical spinal position.

[Kuma]

Tai sabaki is more than just footwork. It's more about using angles and body movement to simultaneously avoid an attack while putting yourself in an advantageous position for a counterattack. As I learned it, you are also moving to your opponent's blind spots and attacking from there.

Some of our Ashihara or Enshin karateka can explain that even better.

[Dobbersky]

Tai sabaki (体捌き) is a term from Japanese martial arts and which relates to 'whole body movement', or repositioning. It can be translated as body-management. It is a term used widely in kendo, jujutsu, aikido, judo, karate and ninjutsu. Tai sabaki is usually used to avoid an attack, such that the receiver of the attack ends up in an advantageous position and it is often wrongly referred to as evasion.

An example of tai sabaki is 'moving off the line' of attack using irimi and tenkan movements rather than to 'move against' the attack. This implies the use of harmony rather than physical strength.

Tai sabaki is related to ashi sabaki (footwork) and te sabaki (handwork).

What is Sabaki?

Sabaki is a unique method of meeting an attack by combining defence and offence into one. Sabaki uses one of four fundamental circular movements in response to an attacker's thrust. These movements carry the defender to the outside- left or right of an attack, moving either slightly forward or backward. In each case, the defender move's to the attacker's back side. This limits the defender's exposure to frontal attack. In addition, it allows the defender to develop a "blind spot" in the attacker's position. Once the defender has developed this "blind spot", he/she can take strategic advantage of this position by entering that "blind spot" and countering effectively with various combinations of punches and kicks. No matter what the distance - short, medium or long - this strategy of moving outside and to an opponent's "blind spot" is essential. In Ashihara Karate the practitioner learns to be aware of three types of distances and the Sabaki that applies to each.

What does Sabaki mean?

Sabaki is a difficult concept to translate from Japanese. Broadly speaking, Sabaki refers to movement, often involving a concept of control, sometimes implying preparation for a subsequent movement. For example, Sabaki can be used in reference to training a horse. The rider performs certain movements in an effort to control the animal, in order to make the animal behave as he/she wants it to.

Alternative spellings: taisabaki, tai sabaki, tai-sabaki, sabaki

IRIMI (MOVING IN). From Migi Hanmi (Right Freefighting Stance), slide your front foot diagonally (about 40 degrees to your right). Bring your back foot up to resume your stance. Your left foot will still be at the back of your right foot.

ISSOKU IRIMI (STEPPING THROUGH). From Migi Hanmi, step through with the back foot, diagonally off the line of attack. Your back foot will now become your front foot. Bring the other foot in behind to resume your stance. When you have completed the movement, you should have changed your stance to Hidari Hanmi.

TENKAI (PIVOT). From Migi Hanmi, pivot 180 degrees on the balls of your feet to end up facing the opposite direction. If at the starting position, you face north in Migi Hanmi, when you have completed the movement, you will be facing south and be in Hidari Hanmi.

TENKAN (TURNING). From Migi Hanmi, step slightly forward and off the line of attack with the front foot. Turn in the direction of your back 180 degrees by bringing the other foot around behind. You will now be facing south and still in Migi Hanmi stance.

IRIMI TENKAN (STEP THROUGH & TURN). (This movement is also commonly known as "kaiten") From Migi Hanmi, perform Issoku Irimi, that is, step through with the back foot. Then pivoting on the ball of the new front foot, turn 180 degrees in the direction of your back. You should now be facing in the opposite direction and in the opposite stance (Hidari Hanmi) to when you started.

HANTA TENKAN (STEP THROUGH & HALF TURN). From Migi Hanmi, perform Issoku Irimi that is step through with the back foot. Pivot on the ball of your front foot (left foot), then turn as if performing a tenkan but only 90 degrees (to your right). Your back should be facing west and you should now be facing off to the side of your original direction (your front body will now be facing east)in Hidari Hanmi (that is the opposite stance to when you started).

Practice Tai Sabaki often to make the movements second nature.

Thanks Wikipedia (lol)

Can’t really add to this although a good example of the uses in Ashihara Karate is represented in this Video From around the 2 min mark (Kancho Ninomiya has a Cameo appearance in this Video as he was still with Ashihara then)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nZQcWG4Guo

I also found this

Also variants of Sabaki is Kyushu as used in Judo/Jujitsu and Mikiri (Absorbtion)

[Kuma]

I was hoping you'd chime in, Dobbersky. Thanks for your insight (and Wikipedia's).