Jo Sao

[Alan Armstrong]

Two Samurai face to face both waiting for the other to make a move, the wrong move hopefully, to capitalise on the moment, striking the enemy down in a single swift counterattack.

Or the classic version, of two Samurai face to face and they do not move, all the while the scenery behind them changes through the seasons.

Often in modern day bouts the referee shouts out to both opponents FIGHT! As there isn't enough contact or far too much inactivity.

Jo Sao, from Wing Chun is about making something happen, Bruce Lee capitalizing on this concept, very much in his JKD with adding feints and misleading movements to his arsenal.

As with Wing Chun, similar to the opening statement of counter attacking techniques the concept of Jo Sao is used to get the fight moving.

Similar to the game of "rock paper scissors", having the opponent commit to one of the three and using the appropriate other to win, which is called attacking the attack, with soft Yin, where paper wins over rock as opposed to using rock against rock, which would be a hard Yang approach.

In the extreme example, there are fighters that are far too active and energetic, that waste a considerable amount of valuable energy, trying to make something happen with Jo Sao and become very wasteful with their lack of skill and forgetting economy of motion altogether.

Thefore Jo Sao is an art and skill worth investigating and developing, perhaps you use it using a different name, if not Jo Sao is as good a name as any.

How do you make something happen when nothing is?