Uechi-Ryu.com

ROTFLMAO!!!

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Life begins & ends cold, naked & covered in crap.

I agree with Stevie generally in the manner he describes the '40%/70%' _ He is correct.

And conditioning of the radius/ulna is a must because those bones will see engagement in a myriad of ways in the chaos of combat. But to keep in mind is that the ulna, as the smaller bone, can be easily broken even when conditioned to take hits. A fracture of the ulna bone is commonly referred to as 'a night stick fracture' _


And, yes, a gedan, perfect or not, might well save the day.

Then again, if the gedan results in a snapped ulnar in a fight for survival against a beastly opponent, the resulting loss of use of the arm in the fight, might seal our doom as we will not be able to proceed in our force continuum, such as having to reach for a weapon or other life saving tools and or engage in critical activities of the moment.

People with an ulna fracture typically experience a sudden onset of sharp, intense wrist, forearm or elbow pain at the time of injury. This causes the person to cradle the affected arm so as to protect the injury. At that point the fight is over.



Accepting and redirecting and redistributing the force is of course the way to train, but the fact remains that in doing so with a gedan against a powerful front kick, the ulnar must be in the way of that kick in the permutations, rearrangement _ of the application_ that might well result in a nasty fracture that might stop you from continuing to defend.


Then we have the possible serious complications of this fracture….. In addition to the fracture of the ulna, we may also suffer a Monteggia fracture a dislocation of the radial head within the elbow joint_ the Monteggia fracture being a variant of an ulna fracture of the forearm.

I am for better percentages in the application of Uechi techniques against habitual acts of street violence.

And here, I mostly look at our 'big three' as the mother of all Uechi techniques that work well in application.

And in our big three I don't see a gedan specifically for application against a front kick.

There is lots of receiving, redirecting of force in the moves that work well against front kicks…I have used them effectively out of instinct in tournament fighting.

A 'radius redirection' against a front kick…is much safer and more effective, in my opinion, a basic 'forearm smash' against the sides of the lower leg.

I am all for jamming the distance and shutting down the opponent's lines of force and directions. This is what I used successfully in tournament fighting.

One such example of it is how I trained my sparring class students of the 60's to deal against the deadly TSD kicks of Bobby Cheezic's fighters _

http://www.tangsoodoworld.com/whos_who_ ... heezic.htm

I had them practice our seisan jump_ in reverse…

Meaning to jump forward with the left knee up and into the path of any incoming kick, front, side, back, spins, roundhouse etc.

It worked wonders in 'suppressing' and 'redirecting' while unsettling the opponent and leaving him open for a counter punch.

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Van

Bingo! This is how I "bridged the gap" with Lloyd. It was all about executing that charge forward with the slant-legged crane stance. Once I had my paws on him, then it was my game.

You know you're on to something when two parties independently figure out the exact same thing.

- Bill

Right on Bill...we know it works and it works well...befuddling opponents.

This is how I won a tournament of champions...where ten first place winners of previous tournaments_ were put together by George Pesare of Rhode Island_ to fight 'round robin' _and they were all great fighters....

_ that 'reverse seisan jump' got to them all.

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Van

BTW...one 'beastly' front kick, some may remember, was owned by Shigeru Takamiyagi sensei.

Dan Kumite with him was indeed an adventure. Someday maybe Walter Mattson will give permission for me to post how he dealt with it once in Okinawa...

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Van

Another counter to spin/wheel kicks, you may also have practiced Bill, that worked fairly well for me _ if one had developed the high sense of reading incoming such kicks_ was to immediately lower in a 'squatting' position while executing a sweep/spin with one leg _ rotating into the support leg of the kicker and knocking the kicker to the ground.

It is a most pleasing 'eye candy' counter. One of my favorites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXBRV0XulKs

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Van

Wow, nice video clip!

Yes, I've played with this.

I do it slightly differently. I was taught it exactly as is done in this film, and found that the crouching position trashed my support leg knee. Given I was comfortable on the floor and was teaching lots of ukemi, I found a more stable position by dropping to the knee of the front leg (while rotating) and then basically sitting on the side of my flexed support leg. With left palm on floor and sitting on side of flexed left leg, I had a great base to push off of with that spinning hook kick. The spin gave me enough momentum to carry me right back up to the identical starting stance.

I have some graduate student interns from Emory University who have cajoled me into being their Mr. Miyagi for the summer. We were working out on a grassy bank of the Ohio River last night in the twilight of downtown Louisville. We even had some black kid come up and ask if we could please, please teach him. "Take your shoes off!" Fun stuff. I was teaching them the spinning hook kick at the end of the evening as a reward for all the Sanchin and kotekitae training I had done with them earlier. I've forgotten about this variation of the spinning hook. Looks like I'll have another "treat" for them in the next class.

- Bill

Yes, it is a better method,and I believe that is the one we should be teaching.

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Van

On the one hand, sure, with these types of discussions it is fairly common for them to wander into the realm of overthinking, often as a way of extending or focusing an analysis or discussion.

On the other hand however there is a reason Bill feels the need to repeatedly emphasize

and why there is a need for

and why Van emphasizes the need for operant conditioning the right techniques.

I have seen first hand the mentality I was focusing on in my previous posts, as there is a Uechi Ryu derivative school here in Lincoln that has focused almost exclusively on the hard side of 'half hard soft'. They rely on body hardening to be able to take and dish out punishment without softer receiving techniques or any tai sabaki. And I have seen several teachers teach elements of Kyu Kumite and Dan Kumite this way. So with these considerations I doubt I am overthinking it.


During the late 1990s and early 2000s I made a point of visiting every martial arts school in Lincoln and participating in at least one class, to both network with other martial artists and to learn more about other styles. When I visited a Hapkido class that trained at a rec center they happened to be working on spinning reverse kicks and I was put on the receiving side. I was supposed to move away when my opponent kicked but because of my Uechi training I naturally moved in to jam his technique, which frustrated the heck out the various ones I worked with and made them realize how vulnerable they could be during the spin. After the spinning reverse kicks we moved on to learning an effective Hapkido sweeping technique that I had not encountered before, which was my main educational experience from that night.


This is my main approach to all conditioning, not for 'hard techniques' (because I too prefer to receive/deflect) but because hard contact is inevitable when sparring or in a fight.

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Glenn

And as you well construe Glenn_ this is precisely the kind of the wrong 'conditioning operant' that will get such a practitioner killed in the street, as he will rely on standing his ground, literally, without even knowing it, as an adversary, instead of punching him…will stick him with a blade in a pumping motion_ or when he will come up against overwhelming force and momentum.

Training our students to remain rooted when about to be run over by a truck is sophomoric and down right grossly negligent.

It shows me totally misunderstood aspects of our sanchin kata.

We are all taught that the name Sanchin means three challenges_ spirit, mind, and body_ that represent softness -- relaxation_ timing/ spontaneous motion_ and hardness, as natural power coming last…with such hardness applied for a brief moment to avoid stiffness in motion and exhaustion in a confrontation, when the muscles under the adrenaline dump will stiffen.

It also shows me misunderstood aspects of the tenshin action we find from Kanchiwa and up…which should inculcate the critical concept of taikawashi application…something that I covered in great detail in my forum years back…i.e.,
the shifting of our body target _ as intended by the opponent_ out of reach or away from the attacker by moving the body out of the line of attack.

This taikawashi/sabaki concept is better understood by visualizing our body as a 'swinging door' _ most of my teaching these days 'revolves' around this critical concept.

One of the best visual impact examples of a ‘taikawashi concept’ is the ‘softwork’ approach by my good friend Scott Sonnon here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVgCO0lU ... annel_page

I believe he calls it response action drills.

Glenn, can you describe the hapkido sweeping technique?

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Van

The 'inevitable' aspect...is the one that needs much reflection...as in a fight many variables will occur...that will place us in that situation.

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Van

This didn't come out right, Van. I did a little investigative work, and found it.

.......... Scott Sonnon Softwork Fighting Martial Art

Cool beans! Looks like a combination of aikido, tai chi, and drunken monkey. Or as they say, great minds think alike!

My aikido instructor (who also taught me goju and was a former green beret) used to have us do these 3-on-1 drills all the time. At first they were very humiliating. But he'd "tap in" here and there and show us that "impossible" situations weren't necessarily that. Like dancing... after a while, you just get it. You still get hit (as Scott does in these demos) - especially since we only had black belts of various styles in our class. But you get to the point where it feels doable and occasionally winnable.

I realize that the "drunken monkey" postures aren't what Uechika are used to.* But much of the rest of it - even the stuff on the floor - is all within the realm of Uechi fighting. You just need to squint your eyes and look at the footwork, the hawk-chases-sparrow moves, the crane legs (standing and supine), etc.

- Bill

* Some of that absorb-and-rebound work seems within the general principles of movement of my more recent core additions to sanchin thrusting. So it isn't completely out of the grasp of the advanced Uechi practitioner who spends lots of time on core movement.

I could not find it in any Hapkido videos on YouTube, but it actually reminds me of Judo sweeps so I searched through those and found one that is somewhat close (at 1:14)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjppdwr6tPE
The one I learned in the Hapkido class had some differences however, which I will try to describe. In the Hapkido class the idea was that an attack is redirected and the defender and attacker end up hip-to-hip (we'll say right hip to right hip) with the defender's right leg behind the attacker's right leg in this case. The defender grabs the attacker's upper body and sharply slides his right leg back keeping the foot in contact with the floor (reminiscent of a backward Sanchin step) striking the back of the attacker's right leg in the lower-calf/ankle to loosen the attacker's right foot's contact with the floor, while at the same time the defender uses the hip-to-hip contact as a pivot point and twists his upper body to the left to throw the destabilized attacker to the left and down to the ground. I hope that description makes some sort of sense.

It worked well in practice, however the downside is that since both players end up hip-to-hip and both have right legs behind each other realistically there is an equal chance for each to sweep the other; the winner will be the one who acts fastest, decisively, and correctly.

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Glenn

I think this clip shows what you two are talking about
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxM6y1BlJJk
for example at 0:07 and 1:27

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Glenn

The movement is the same, Glenn, but the intent is different.

Neither of these guys can kick like my friend Lloyd could. Like Kiyohide or my student Bruce Hirabayashi, Lloyd could fall asleep in a lateral split. And Lloyd would bait you into charging so he could nail you with his side thrust kick. His powerful legs - which I once witnessed disembowel a heavy bag at the bottom seam - would hit while you were going forwards, thus adding to the energy of the collision. The charging crane stance (more-or-less done by this guy) shuts the kick down by deflecting and smothering it.

If you look at both 0:07 and 1:27, the opponent ducks down as if in a boxing match. Thus the charging crane (as opposed to jump back crane of Seisan) is actually a strike with a vertical trajectory. The knee goes right at the head of his opponent as he's ducking.

It happens in boxing as well. Back in the 1970s when there was intramural boxing at UVa, my peer in Uechi Ryu (Mack Fischer) was also a practitioner of Bando. He would go into the intramural boxing tournament every year and clean house. Two years in a row he won his division and got voted Most Valuable Boxer at the end of the tournament.

When he was training for his third year, he was sparring with a guy who had won the weight division below his the year before. His opponent threw a left hook, which caused Mack to duck and "answer the telephone" as in Seisan jump. Only problem was, the hook was a set-up. Just as he was ducking, his opponent threw a right uppercut. The collision broke Mack's nose. He did not enter the tournament that third year.

- Bill

P.S. Note the comment I left at the bottom of the video.