Flow drills quote

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Dana Sheets
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Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2002 6:01 am

Flow drills quote

Post by Dana Sheets »

Ground Rules:
Rule #1 - no talking about exiting pre-arranged kumites
Rule #2 - see rule #1
If this starts into a pre-arranged kumite re-hash I will blip each and every post. We are not going to talk about what people shouldn't be training. We are going to talk about flow and closure drills, OK?

I know that sounds a little...pissy...for lack of a better word but I'm tired of people kicking that old, tired, dead, flea-bitten horse of a topic and would like to have some new discussions.
...deep breath...moving on...

But Takamiyagi-Sensei's dojo also includes a lot of flow and closure drills that are not tested, but are much closer to straight kumite than the pre-arranged set offers. They in essence go from yakusoku kumite (roughly equivalent to the kyu kumite's relative position on my "bridge") over to the "isle", and offer flexible, flowing, hard-charging alternatives - just shy of sparring.
The above was posted by Chris Long in 1999 on Bill G's forum. Bold face is mine.

A lot of flow and closure drills....hmmm.......verrrrry interesting.... :D

I want to talk about "a lot of flow and closure drills" that "offer flexible, flowing, hard-charging alternatives - just shy of sparring."

Anybody that's been to the Chatan dojo care to share? I know both Drew and Seizan used to train there before they transitioned to training with Mr. Toyama.
Did you show compassion today?
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Dana Sheets
Posts: 2715
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2002 6:01 am

Post by Dana Sheets »

flow drill:

stand both partners in left sanchin. one punches high then low. The other uses a motion similar to the centerline elbow strike (but smooth and fluid instead of hard and jarring) to receive and redirect the head punch and then uses the same hand to cirlce slightly down and redirect the body punch.

Obviously the drill isn't done at full speed. But it should be done with full intent.

The goal is to help the student see two levels of strike, to move to intercept lines of force in a relaxed and fluid way, and to develop coordination of movement from the center. An added bonus is mindlessness when the drill has been done many times.

Once the pattern is mindless students can break the rythm of the pattern and move into fluid, continous, free form flow.

This is a drill taught to my teacher by James Thompson.
Did you show compassion today?
wes tasker

Post by wes tasker »

I can't speak from the Karate point of view, but drills are used quite a bit in the Filipino martial arts. They are often misunderstood because you can find many practitioners who just collect drills and are really good at tapping sticks (or "buttering bread" as my teacher says...) but don't understand the essence of them. Basically any drill goes through 4 permutations:

low risk - high predictability
low risk - low predictability
high risk - high predictability
high risk - low predictability

By the time the practitioner is on the fourth stage it's just shy of sparring and they have the confidence and ability in the concepts taught to be able to apply them in sparring.

I hope this helps and is appropriate to the thread. If not, I apologize....

-wes
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