A useful exercise in slow Contact Flow to get a feel for this: Reverse the standard "Puppeteering" drill. Instead of controlling your feet with your hands, control your hands with your feet. Your right hand or elbow cannot move unless your right foot moves correspondingly below it. In realty, your movement doesn't have to be this robotic with a 1:1 foot:hand movement ratio, but this exercise can give you a feel for hitting with your whole skeleton and using your feet/body to move your limbs.
TODAY'S TIP: Most martial arts training will give you the impression that your arms and legs are the weapons, and that you shoot them out like rockets from your more or less stationary body, which is the launch pad. In GC, your whole skeleton is the weapon, and the striking ridges on your limbs are simply the parts of the weapon that happen to make contact. If you want e.g. your hand to hit his head from where it is, do NOT simply extend your arm. This will be easy for him to feel (due to the obvious muscular change), it will open you up to counters, and it won't pack much wallop. Instead, move your whole skeleton to "carry" the relaxed hand/arm to the target.
A useful exercise in slow Contact Flow to get a feel for this: Reverse the standard "Puppeteering" drill. Instead of controlling your feet with your hands, control your hands with your feet. Your right hand or elbow cannot move unless your right foot moves correspondingly below it. In realty, your movement doesn't have to be this robotic with a 1:1 foot:hand movement ratio, but this exercise can give you a feel for hitting with your whole skeleton and using your feet/body to move your limbs.
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TODAY'S TIP (via thoughts from John 8/24/2010): The EGO is the #1 obstacle to learning Guided Chaos, for ALL students (especially if you don't think it applies to you). It can manifest in many detrimental ways, from wanting to "win" or be the "top dog" in training to wanting to please the teacher or "show" your knowledge or improvement. Even the briefest ego-driven emotional response to hitting or being hit in training can devalue that training. Simply put (and it ain't simple), ego clouds perception of truth--and lucid, detailed perception of absolute truth moment by moment is required in order to adapt to the chaos of violence. As in AA, the first step is admitting you have a problem. Then you can identify the problem and work on it. We must know ourselves honestly in order to perceive the truth about others. Sounds "out there" but John can make it feel pretty darn concrete.
TODAY'S TIP: One way to think of RHEM (Relationship of Human Energy to Movement drill) is slow Tai Chi forms training without the form. Move with balance, looseness, body unity and proprioception (internal sensitivity), but no/minimal conscious direction. Pure moving meditation. If this is difficult at first, string together pieces of various exercises (rolling ball, washing body, polishing sphere, ninja walk, hacky sack, etc.) as you move. Should feel comfortable and energizing. Most difficult is ultra-slow, which really brings the sweat. Remember to breathe deeply.
TODAY'S TIP: One way to judge your progress in contact flow is by how "comfortable" you feel doing it. The fewer moments of feeling stuck, off-balance, effortful, emotionally aroused, frozen, resistant, etc., the better. The better you're flowing, the less effortful and uncomfortable it will feel, until it's as natural and comfortable as walking down the street or waving hello. Higher speed and more skilled/experienced training partners will tend to reduce your comfort. A goal is to push and expand your comfort zone. Do not judge your progress by things like how many times you hit or get hit or how much you can control your training partner, as these miss the point of the exercise and detract from your learning. Remember that contact flow should be one of the most comfortable and relaxing things you do all day, NOT the most effortful, combative or adrenalizing (except in some variations under the control of a high level instructor).
TODAY'S TIP: In contact flow, try constantly stepping on the point on the ground directly beneath your training partner's center of gravity. You're placing your (balanced) mass right where his needs to be in order for him to gain balance and be effective. If your balance is good, even if you're smaller, you can keep him way off balance with hardly any effort by doing this, leaving your arms free to adapt and hit. Of course, you need to be loose and sensitive enough to get there without stopping yourself with your own resistance; you need body unity to get there all at once; and of course you need to get there with better balance than he has in order to make it work.
TODAY'S TIP: When flowing, don't move with what you're afraid the other guy might do to you. It doesn't exist! Moving with something that doesn't exist always makes you vulnerable. Just be rude and bring the chaos to him and trust your body to move with whatever he may try to do, when he does it--not before.
TODAY'S TIP: Regarding "knife defense": Remember that there is NO reliable unarmed defense against anyone committed to killing you at close quarters with a good blade, despite what anyone may try to sell you. This is because it is impossible to reliably catch and control the movement of the blade such that it cannot cut you in vital areas while also dealing with everything else he can do. You must keep your vitals out of range of the blade, via movement or obstacles, and SHUT DOWN the attacker(s) as quickly as possible, reducing their opportunities to do you grave damage.
This points to the advantages of 1) awareness, to detect and avoid the impending attack before the attacker gets within range; 2) longer-range weapons, such as guns, canes, and perhaps even pepper spray (although this is unreliable) to damage the attacker before he gets close enough to cut you; 3) BALANCE for effective long-range kicking to try to again create damage before the blade can reach your vitals (steel-toe or otherwise hard shoes certainly help too!); 4) going to the ground in some circumstances to create more distance between the blade and your vitals while allowing you to dish out serious damage with both legs; 5) the Dog Dig tactic to keep the blade away from your vitals while you try to get distance and damage him; and 6) LOTS of good contact flow practice and hand training to enable you to SHUT HIM DOWN as quickly as possible at close quarters while staying away from his weapons. Finally, remember that in a lot of real assaults, the victim is not even aware that a knife is in play until it's too late. That's why we always reiterate that you can't take any violence lightly, you never know whom (or what) you're dealing with, avoid violence at almost all costs, and if you must go hands-on, END things as quickly and decisively as possible. Wasting time trying to "control" the uncontrollable or second-guessing yourself can spell your doom. TODAY'S TIP: In all your footwork exercises (box step, switch feet, across line, etc), strive for maximum smoothness, quietness and precision. Your feet need to land exactly where you need them, no pivoting nor adjusting after landing. You should sink into your legs so that you can fully isolate your leg movement so that you can change your feet without the other guy's feeling the change. Head should be level and steady, not bouncing around. You maintain your sink and root throughout the step, so that there's no point in the movement where your balance is vulnerable.
TODAY'S TIP: If you're having trouble getting your conscious mind out of the way during contact flow, note where your eyes are looking. Your central focal vision (using the "cones" in the retina) tends to draw the attention of your conscious, thinking mind, while your peripheral vision (using the "rods") does not. Your peripheral vision, tuned more to subconsciously detect movement than to consciously analyze and identify stuff, is less likely to draw your conscious attention to what it sees. Therefore, it's easier to stay in the flow without conscious interference if you do not look directly at what's going on.
Try looking at something on the other side of the room over your training partner's shoulder. This way, you're still observing and absorbing information with your peripheral vision, but your conscious mind is less likely to interfere with the experience through your central vision. A student today who was having trouble getting out of his own head during flow got great results from this, to the point where he told me that every time he allowed himself to look directly at me during flow (as opposed to past me or to my side), his body froze as his conscious mind started to take over, like that overeager child who wants to speak up and take over even though he doesn't know what he's doing (that's one of John's analogies). Had a great time yesterday in Atlanta training with the folks from Atlanta Combatives and Trident Tactical Martial Arts (SC)! See their Facebook pages for photos and videos:
www.facebook.com/trident.tactical www.facebook.com/Atlanta-Combatives-520542848033103/ |
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