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Author: Phillosoph

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Phillosoph

Dreaming Again!

A somewhat restless night, but some interesting dream fragments.
Generally it is advisable to attack or defend against an enemy from their outside gate. This train of thought naturally got me to thinking about ways to handle being on the inside gate. This train of thought evidently occupied the deeper parts of my brain and my sleeping mind had some insights.
According to my dream, part of the body can be viewed as a sort of arc shape. This runs from one hand, up the arm, includes the shoulders and head and goes down the other arm to the hand. These body areas constitute the most accessible targets if fighting on the inside gate. Certainly the arms need to be controlled or dealt with to facilitate access to other target areas on the rest of the body.
The second image I got had the defender viewed from above with his arms out straight holding the attacker away. The perspective changed so the defender could be seen to be actually in a crouch, hands about waist level on the attacker. At this stage my sleeping mind was drifting off into thinking about vampires. Against an attacker whose main weapons are his teeth crouching down out of reach and holding him at arm’s length does have a certain logic I suppose. There is a Capoeira technique where one squats down under an attack and then springs up and kicks with both feet. Perhaps my dreaming mind was thinking of this
Before my mind drifted into a dream about an Irish actress being interviewed about a movie, it provided one more martial technique. The straight arms on the waist were swung up, the hands pointing upwards to strike with the finger tips in spear-hand form. Obvious use was to strike up under the jawbone and attack the throat. I had recently seen straight-arm double upward strikes in some Wing Chun manuals. These tended to hit with the upper wrist or backs of the hands. Using upward angled spear-hands like this was a new idea to me.
As stated, these were things from a dream so how logical they are remains to be seen. Perhaps these ideas will inspire someone.
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Phillosoph

You Might As Well Jump!

As I mentioned in a recent post, jumping is something that has occupied my mind recently.
While I was writing the bayonet (or rather, bayonetless!) sections of Crash Combat, I came across suggestions that a soldier should jump to change facing, or even to move around. If terrain is uneven jumping has obvious advantages over the shuffle step often suggested for martial arts or bayonet training.
Joseph Wayne Smith’s book on Wing Chun notes that jumping up and jumping down from heights is a good exercise for a martial artist. He doesn’t make the logical leap that jumping may be part of the solution to some of the deficiencies in manoeuvre that he identifies.
Other than some rather cinematic techniques such as flying kicks, jumping is something that many martial arts overlook.
In Viktor Suvorov’s book “Spetsnaz” he relates how spetsnaz puts great emphasis on a soldier’s legs and jumping ability.
“And there is good reason why the training of a spetsnaz soldier starts with the training of his legs. A man is as strong and young as his legs are strong and young. If a man has a sloppy way of walking and if he drags his feet along the ground, that means he himself is weak. On the other hand, a dancing, springy gait is a sure sign of physical and mental health. Spetsnaz soldiers are often dressed up in the uniform of other branches of the services and stationed in the same military camps as other especially secret units, usually with communications troops. But one doesn't need any special experience to pick out the spetsnaz man from the crowd. You can tell him by the way he walks….I shall never forget one soldier who was known as `The Spring'. He was not very tall, slightly stooping and round-shouldered. But his feet were never still. He kept dancing about the whole time. He gave the impression of being restrained only by some invisible string, and if the string were cut the soldier would go on jumping, running and dancing and never stop. The military commissariat whose job it was to select the young soldiers and sort them out paid no attention to him and he fetched up in an army missile brigade…. The officer commanding the spetsnaz company noticed the soldier in the missile unit who kept dancing about all the time he was standing in the queue for his soup….”
This energetic soldier was there and then immediately recruited into spetsnaz.
“The long jump with no run has been undeservedly forgotten and is no longer included in the programme of official competitions. When it was included in the Olympic Games the record set in 1908, was 3 metres 33 centimetres. As an athletic skill the long jump without a run is the most reliable indication of the strength of a person's legs. And the strength of his legs is a reliable indicator of the whole physical condition of a soldier. Practically half a person's muscles are to be found in his legs. Spetsnaz devotes colossal attention to developing the legs of its men, using many simple but very effective exercises: running upstairs, jumping with ankles tied together up a few steps and down again, running up steep sandy slopes, jumping down from a great height, leaping from moving cars and trains, knee-bending with a barbell on the shoulders, and of course the jump from a spot….. At the end of the 1970s the spetsnaz record in this exercise, which has not been recognised by the official sports authorities, was 3 metres 51 centimetres.”

Where I work is a popular area for Parkour training. As well as the more spectacular techniques I also observe apparently more mundane drills such as jumping from post to post.

Parkour itself has been described as a non-contact martial art. As originally conceived it placed considerable emphasis on self-discipline and humility. That is something a number of sportsman and modern martial artists would be advised to emulate. Like many martial arts parkour is in danger of having its core values diluted by pressure to create a sporting, competitive form
Parkour has a number of things that the modern martial artist can learn from.
A fate would have it a movie featuring Parkour/ Freerunning was on the other night. The athleticism and coordination was impressive as always, but I was also struck by the realization that the techniques themselves were relatively simple.

I noticed that two landing techniques were often used. One was obviously an adaption of the parachute landing fall. As owners of my first book or Crash Combat will know, I include this technique alongside more traditional breakfall techniques. It use in parkour is logical. The second technique commonly used was the shoulder roll variant of the forward breakfall. Some websites on parkour have some nice sections on how to perform this technique. If the forward breakfall is something you need to improve you could do worse than have a look at how the parkour community learns and practices it. They are making it work for 20 foot jumps down onto concrete, after all!

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Phillosoph

Striking with Both Hands

Today I thought I would look at several techniques where both hands apparently strike at the same time.
The targets and techniques given in this article are potentially lethal. They are only to be used in life-or-death situations.
The first technique will be familiar from my book.
It is “arn” from tai chi. “Arn” means “press down” but is often translated as “push”. Indeed, it does look like you are trying to push something.
One of the maxims of tai chi is that you should never be “double weighted”. You should never have your weight equally distributed between your feet and your hands should never be equally yin or yang.
Arn seems to violate this principle. The common explanation is that arn is in reality two palm-strikes arriving in quick succession. The hands are hitting rather than pressing or pushing, and one strikes just before another.

Arn can be a powerful attacking technique. In a frontal attack the hands strike the dim-mak points around the pectoral muscles or use the springiness of the foe’s own ribs to bounce him away.
It is directed upwards against the chest and downward against the stomach/solar plexus. Strikes to just below the pectorals may be made upward or with a spiralling inward twist.
In combat, the hands of Arn may be used at different levels, for example, one pushing down an arm and the other striking the front of the shoulder or nipple. The palms may also hit a pair of centreline targets.
As I have said before, this is a fighting technique that is overlooked by many other styles.
A number of combat styles do not share tai chi’s aversion to being double-weighted and include simultaneous striking techniques
Another thing to remember when interpreting forms is that if two hands are doing the same thing in a form, that is not necessarily how they are intended to be used in combat.
A form may have, say, double spear-hands but in reality one spear-hand would be a feint while the other hand was used to parry or readied for a more powerful follow-up.
The second technique we will look at comes from chuka, phoenix-eye fist.
Both hands are held palm upward in phoenix-eye configuration. The wrists or forearms are crossed, the lead hand being underneath. Both hands punch at once, the hands rotating palm down. The lead hand strikes low, the rear hand high.
I regard phoenix-eye and one-knuckle fist as soft-tissue weapons so primary targets will be above the suprasternal notch and below the xiphoid process.
The xiphoid/solar plexus region (CV 14) and a palm-width below the navel (CV 4) is another pairing. Combinations of CV 22, CV 17, CV 14 and CV 4 may be used.
A similar simultaneous attack is the double-dragon palms, sometimes called butterfly-palms.
This is a double-palm strike with one hand above the other.
The upper hand has its fingers up, the lower hand fingers down.
This can be used on the same targets as the double phoenix-eye punches.
Palm strikes are a weapon for both hard or soft body areas so this technique can also be used directly against points on the sternum such as between the nipples or the sternal angle.

If you are using both hands to attack, it implies that you have less need to parry or control. Sometimes the technique will be pushing a foe's attack or guard to one side or down.
Such attacks are therefore a more likely option when on the outside gate. So far we have considered frontal attacks. How might the above techniques be targeted if to the side of an enemy?
Double palm strike (po pai and other spelling variations) is used several times in wing chun’s advanced-level wooden man form. Palm striking is rather common in this form, in contrast to the snap punches used in earlier forms.
Wing chun students may like to ponder why this is so.

The last technique returns us to tai chi. It is shown in “How to use Tai Chi as a Fighting Art” by Erle Montaigue and is used as a counter to double dragon-palms.
One hand is held above the other, palms flat and fingers towards the enemy. The hands come in from the side to push the dragon palms off course.
The finger tips then thrust forwards to attack the body beyond.
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Phillosoph

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

The following scenario, or something similar, may have occurred in your past.
You are out for the night with some friends. One of your male friends, or maybe yourself makes as comment. One of your female friends responds by playfully slapping or punching the male.
Male: “OWWW! That hurt!”
Female: “Oh, don’t be such a wimp! I barely touched you”
Male (muttering) “I DID hurt…”
What has happened in this familiar scene is quite interesting. The lady did not intend to do any real damage so she did not put much muscular effort into the punch/ slap. Probably she used no more muscular effort than was needed to raise and move the arm. Because it was very relaxed the hand was moved very fast and thus acquired lots of energy. Paradoxically, she hit harder because she did not intend to hit hard.
A punch or similar strike can be taken to have three phases. There is the cast or throw, where the hand is moved towards the target. There is the impact. And there is the withdrawal.
Momentum is mass x velocity. Kinetic Energy is mass x velocity2. We cannot make our arm and hand heavier. so if we wish to increase a strike’s momentum and energy we must move everything faster. Or looked at another way, we need to minimise those factors that may slow the system down.
The arm does not need muscular tension when a punch is being thrown. This would slow the arm down. Likewise we want the withdrawal to be fast too so that our arm is not grabbed or counterattacked in some other fashion.
The only time we need the muscles tensed is just before and during the moment of impact so that the energy goes into the target rather than being used to bounce our strike off. In fact a good punch or blow has something of a snapping action to it. It transmits a portion of its energy and then withdraws before some of this energy can reflect back into the hand. This is what Chinese arts are often talking about when they talk of fa-jing. You are probably more familiar with this effect than you think. If you swing a towel at someone it has very little effect. If, however, you make the towel end snap as it makes contact the effect is quite different.
Getting the correct timing of this relaxed: tense: relaxed cycle for a punch becomes quite labour intensive for some martial arts students. There is also the added complication of ensuring that the bones of the hand and arm are correctly aligned on impact to avoid hand injury.
Things become a lot simpler if you use a palm-heel strike instead of a closed fist. You still need to relax your arm and add a snapping action but tensing and aligning the hand seem to take care of themselves.
Let us consider another familiar action. Clap your hands like there is a big, fat, nasty, blood-sucking mosquito before you. That noise your hands make is energy being converted into sound. There is a lot of energy because you don’t tense up before you clap your hands. You just do it so the action is fast and relaxed and consequently quite powerful. There are a number of combat applications for hand-clap actions in my books. Today I am going to ask you to think of a hand clap as being a model for two palm strikes. If you can bring two hands together with such speed and force why can you not use the same principles to bring just one hand in contact with a target?
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”  The answer is that of a palm-strike hitting your enemy.
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Phillosoph

Dream Martial Art

I had a very interesting dream the other night. Some of it is still with me.
The inspiration for this train of dreaming was probably that I was reading about pak hok chuan.
In its early form, pak hok had eight punch techniques, eight kicks, eight finger techniques and so on. Eight was doubtless chosen because of a connection with the I-Ching.
In my dream, I was considering a fighting style.
It would have numerous offensive techniques and very few defensive ones.
Another key point in the dream was a stance with the palm held out. My dreaming mind told me this was in fact four related stances and that they were somehow connected with crescent kicks.
A Great Variety of Attacks
This part is fairly easy to interpret.
Readers of this blog and my books will know I consider the palm-heel and the hammer-fist as primary strikes. Some targets and some techniques work better with other body weapons, however.
The knife-hand is ideal for striking the crease of the elbow. Some punches work better with a one-knuckle or phoenix-eye fist than a palm-heel or conventional fist.
Likewise, I can think of at least half a dozen families of kicks, and each has a particular application or something to teach.
A fighting style needs a whole kit of body weapons it can select from.
Few Defensive Techniques
This bit is also quite logical.
It is better to have just a few defensive techniques that can deal with a great variety of situations.
This cuts down on decision time, hesitation and makes a defence more reflexive.
If you are holding a quarterstaff there are only really two defensive techniques.
If an attack comes from one side you parry it inward, if from the other side parry it outward. Readers of my first book will know that I suggest something similar for unarmed defence using a p’eng hinge/ SPBK posture.
I think this is where the bit about the four stances with the palm forward fits in too.
Bagua/Pa-kua and some other styles try to do most of the parrying with the forward palm. That palm would have to move to defend four different quadrants: high outside, high inside, low outside and low inside.
A crescent kick hits with the inside or outside edge of the foot. A defending palm would make some of its parries with the knife-edge or ridge-hand edge of the hand.
That is my best theory so far as to why that bit was considered so important, but it was a dream, so logic may not be relevant.
Manoeuver
Evasion is more important than parrying, so the dream had something about ginga, Pa-kua stepping and other movement techniques.
Jumping was flagged as an ability. I’d been reading some stuff on how jumping and landing from jumps was a very useful exercise.
Clapping
Clapping, as a method of rapid hand movement, was also present in my garbled thoughts.
The martial applications of this is something I have been meaning to write more on.
This dream is not a Xanadu moment.
A new fighting style has not suddenly sprung fully formed from my subconscious. The dream has, however, drawn my attention down some interesting routes.
I hope it does something similar for you.
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Phillosoph

Hammer-Fist and Single Whip

Sometimes you search for something only to discover it was close by all along.
A case in point:
In my recent book, Crash Combat, I reflect that the hammer-fist is a somewhat underappreciated weapon in martial arts. I may have made this assertion in my previous book too.
Reading Joseph Wayne Smith’s book on Wing Chun, he makes a similar statement.
Hammer-fist can substitute for the chop, back-fist and even some closed-fist punches. It is much less likely to result in self-injury than some of these techniques.
Hammer-fist is easy to perform correctly and can deliver powerful blows to both hard and soft targets. Along with the palm-heel, it is probably one of the best hand strikes that we have.
Naturally enough, I was experimenting with some hammer-fist attacks the other day.
I’d been looking at the rapid 270-360° turn that is possible by using the “closed step” of Pa-kua/Bagua. (See my book for details).
This could be used to power a spinning back-fist to strike a foe in the outside gate. But a true back-fist can be fiddly, requiring a terminal flick of the wrist and impact with the first two knuckles.
A spinning hammer-fist is more logical and for most fighters more powerful.
I notice that if I bend my wrist inward a fraction my hammer-fist seems a little stronger or more stable at the moment of impact.
I also note that this mode favours a sort of “snap”.
I can throw the technique with a relaxed arm and hand and snap into a clenched hand just before impact.
This, of course, lets the arm and hand acquire more initial speed and produces a more powerful attack with less muscular effort.
From a variety of positions, I can just flick my arm and have it land in a hammer-fist. This curve of the wrist seems a technique worth cultivating.
And then it dawns on me!
This is the hand form of horse-foot palm from tai chi’s single whip.
I have written about this as a parrying technique and even as a form of punch. I have probably even written about hammer-fist-like strikes with this hand form.
But I had not grasped one of the other important things that posture was trying to teach: that a relaxed, slightly bent wrist gives you a very efficient hammer-fist.
As always, experiment for yourselves.
Can you use hammer-fist instead of your other strikes?
Can you relax more to make it faster and more powerful?
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Phillosoph

Cross Stepping Post: Part Two

It occurs to me this morning that the previous post on “the Post” needs a little more information.
Some of you reading that post will not be familiar with tai chi, bagua or have read the relevant parts of my book.
If you are only familiar with hard, external interpretations of martial arts you may find the seemingly simple movements of the Cross Stepping Post surprisingly difficult.
The essence of the Cross Stepping Post is the cultivation of stability and balance. Your upper body needs to be relaxed and your weight down in your pelvis. Since we are not performing the arm movements at this stage your arms should hang down by your sides, relaxed like hanging vines. If you are used to putting lots of muscular tension into you stances this will probably be one of your first problems in performing the Post.
1. Sinking of shoulders and dropping of elbows.
2. Relaxing of chest and rounding of back.
When you attempt the movements of the Post, your upper body should be as relaxed as possible, having slightly hunched shoulders look that comes from a lack of tension.
The other useful thing to remember is that in martial arts movement generally comes from the waist.
Don’t attempt those kick-like foot movements just by moving your leg.
You will need to rotate your waist/hips to swing them around.
I hope that helps. Persevere and I will post some more information on the exercise soon.
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Phillosoph

Cross Stepping Post: Part One

Recently I have been looking into a concept that Erle Montaigue called “the Post”.
Erle described the Post as being an abstract way to learn very practical things. He as even gone as far as to say that the Post contains two exercises that give every thinkable internal body movement for self-defence without having to think too hard, and are probably one of the most valuable training aids ever.
Certainly, this apparently simple sequence has much greater depth than is first apparent.
I am going to devote a few blogs to this topic and invite the reader to try it with me.
What Erle calls the Post is actually two sequences, one from tai chi and the other from bagua. The tai chi one is called “Stepping over the Gate” and the bagua “Cross Stepping Post”. Initially I am only going to deal with Cross Stepping Post.
If you dislike long complicated katas, you will be pleased to hear that Cross Stepping Post has only four different steps.
These are mirrored on the left and right sides so there are actually eight steps and two linking sets to change sides.
Complexity of the arm movements varies. Performing this exercise without the arm movements is very beneficial since it lets you concentrate on your balance and foot movements.
You can go through the foot movements anytime that you are standing around, waiting for the bus etc.
In his main video, on the post (MTG54) Erle demonstrated a very simple set of arm movements.
In MTG55 he also details the post and there demonstrated a more varied set of arm movements.
On this video Erle points out that what is actually going on internally is actually more important than the actual physical movements. Bear this in mind as you practice.
Both videos are available as downloads or DVDs from http://www.taijiworld.com
I am going to introduce the Cross Stepping Post gradually.
For this first blog, I am going to suggest learning just two of the steps. They are similar, and once you have some grasp of these you will have learnt half the necessary moves.
Just practicing these two steps will also probably reveal to you that your balance and stability is not what they might be.
The first move we will learn is actually the second move in the sequence. I call this the “Forward Foot Kick/Step”, although you must keep in mind that this foot action and the others have many other applications than the one immediately apparent. It is not just a kick!
Your feet are close together and your knees are probably brushing against each other.
As the lead foot heel withdraws past the other heel, the foot straightens up so the toes point forwards. The foot goes back about a foot length and swings in an arc to the forward position. Heel and toe are placed down at the same time and you should be in balance for the entire movement.
Cross Stepping Post actions are performed without obvious shifts in weight such as leaning.
The second move is the fourth, a “Back Foot Kick/Step”.
Position of the feet is similar but a little more natural in that there is some space between the forward and rear foot.
The feet are close enough for the knees to brush. In all these moves the toes always point forward or to the outside. That is, if your right foot is pointing at an angle it is to the right, and to the left for your left foot.
The beginning of this step puts some torsion on your waist and hips. You utilize this by moving the back foot in an arc and placing it down.
The toes of the forward foot point forward or inward. This is a very similar movement to the Forward Foot Kick but uses the rearward foot and has less initial backward movement.
No arm movements yet. Work on your balance and footwork
Experiment with these two movements for a couple of days. See if you can improve your internal balance.
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Phillosoph

Complete Wing Chun

           One surprise about writing this blog is that I have written many less book reviews that I expected.
A few weeks back I did come across an interesting trilogy of books on Wing Chun by Joseph Wayne Smith.
Many martial arts have a degree of secrecy, mystery and mythos. Historically there was sometimes good reason for information control. In the modern world, however, such practices can be counterproductive.
Smith is very interested in the biomechanics of Wing Chun, and why somethings may work better than others.
Those of you that have read my first book will know that I endeavoured to explain the mechanics behind a number of martial arts and self-defence techniques.
There was not room to teach every Judo throw so instead I taught the concepts that are common to the majority of such throws.
Smith’s books concentrate on wing chun and are aimed more at the student who has some familiarity with the basics. It is not a “how to do it” book, more a “why this works” book
The three volumes give a detailed analysis of the various forms including those for the weapons of wing chun.
There are sections on such techniques as pushing hands and sticky leg.
The second volume has an interesting discussion of how the techniques of wing chun might be complimented by those of muay thai and white crane (pak hok pai) kung fu.
I hope to expand a little on some of these concepts in later blogs.
Word to the wise:
The three volumes are collected together as “Wing Chun Kung Fu a Complete Guide”.
Naturally, I did not notice this until I had brought all three volumes separately.
Buying the collected version will save you a few pennies so you can buy one of my books as well.
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Phillosoph

Crash Combat Goes Electronic.

           For anyone who missed my recent announcement in other places. “Crash Combat” printed out looking exactly as I wanted it to. The bad news is that my author spotlight page is playing up recently and only showing “Attack, Avoid, Survive.” If the title(s) you want are not visible if you use the links below please use the search engine  on that website and that should take you directly to the book's own page.
           Crash Combat is also now available in electronic format! Due to some rotten information on the publisher’s site converting the manuscript was considerably more hassle and work than writing the entire thing in the first place! It is probably unlikely that there will be electronic copies of the other titles any time in the near future.
           The ebook of Crash Combat can be brought from here: