TODAY'S TIP: Remember that Body Unity is not just a power thing or a hitting thing. It must be present in every inch of your movement. If something changes, EVERYTHING changes. Body Unity protects your vitals as well. If you keep your body still and send out a strike with your arm, you are by necessity opening up vulnerabilities that your arm had previously been covering. However, if you move your whole body to bring the strike, you can stay safe behind the guard throughout the motion. You're still covered because your body stays behind the guard as your limb and body move together to strike.
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TODAY'S TIP: In general, when in doubt, SINK! In contact flow, if you feel like you're stuck, out of space, or about to lose balance, simply bend your knees a little more and sink your weight and release all tension, and let things just flow out from there. You'll find that the sinking gains you the additional balance you need to allow your body to loosen (remember it's tough to get loose if you're off-balance), and the lowering of the contact points on your body will gain you a little space to move within (because the hypotenuse of a right triangle is always longer than the other sides--this assumes your training partner is not sensitive enough to follow your sink in time). Sinking like this in slow contact flow is analogous to dropping at full speed, so do it often. It doesn't have to be deep, it could be less than an inch or even internal. Compare with the idea of absorbing all motion into your feet (see book “Attackproof, Second Edition”).
TODAY'S TIP (via John): One thing that advanced GC practitioners do to help them deal especially with bigger, stronger people is to disrupt the big guy's setup. Even a huge guy (unless he's well GC trained or freakishly naturally talented) needs to set up/rev up/brace himself to deliver his murderous power. We have to feel and disrupt that setup, not wait for his power to be generated. He won't have full power/balance at all moments; we need to take advantage of the gaps to disrupt, get in and end it. This requires high sensitivity as well as looseness and balance and body unity, as you need to be able to act instantly and decisively on these gaps and setups while moving to stay out of the way--while a huge monster (or several) is (are) trying to remove your head.
TODAY'S TIP: Remember that Sensitivity is at least as important on the ground as it is standing up. Balance is also--not only in the sense of rooting on various points (butt, hips, etc.), but also in developing your "internal gyroscope" such that you know exactly where you are in space at all times. This will allow you complete freedom of motion on the ground without becoming disoriented. John recommends that young children first learn swimming, then gymnastics to develop a good internal gyroscope. A good exercise for developing sensitivity and the internal gyroscope on the ground is to slowly roll around a furnished room with your eyes closed, feeling your way around and between objects in the room. Try to shoulder roll slowly through small passages in between furniture, feeling your way around things with your hands, legs (especially) and body. Take your shoes off to avoid damaging the furniture, and go slowly and control your weight to avoid damaging yourself. If there are lots of pointy baby toys lying around, even better. Stay loose. Of course, nothing can replace actual contact flow with other people on the ground.
TODAY'S TIP (via John 7/22/2010): To achieve formlessness and total freedom of motion, do Contact Flow just as if you're polishing the sphere and your training partner is washing your body. No resistance. No planning. No forming weapons. Nothing logical. Nothing set up. Completely intuitive movement. No defending or protecting. Just move into your training partner while polishing in his direction while your body moves with his movement as if it's being washed. Don't care about hitting or being hit. The goal is complete formlessness and elimination of conscious direction. Of course, to do this, you have to be able to do polishing the sphere and washing the body correctly, subconsciously, from your feet. If you can get it going, it's a very liberating exercise, and should inform all your contact flow practice.
TODAY'S TIP (via John 7/20/2010): In the instant you make contact, find a point of tension/resistance (or create it via pulsing) and use it to take balance just enough to move in and land killing blows. While doing this, stay offline by feeling where he's going and moving at angles to stay out of the way. While you want to remain disengaged and ghostly, sometimes you're forced to fight inside or head-to-head. In this case, it's useful to have the hand conditioning (via slam bag, horse shoe, dynamic tension, etc), looseness and sensitivity to severely damage anything you can touch with short, quick strikes with e.g. hammer fists, as well as to keep your body out of the way even with seemingly no room to maneuver.
TODAY'S TIP: Remember that EFFECTIVE hitting shouldn't "feel" powerful to you. If you feel a lot of "power" within your arm and upper body when your strike lands, you're KEEPING the power there and not releasing it loosely into the target. A good strike is like hitting a baseball with the sweet spot of the bat: It feels almost effortless, but your strike penetrates and has a huge effect.
TODAY'S TIP: A great way to get a feel for dropping is to have someone push you hard, trying to make you fly across the room. Most people would stumble away trying to get their feet under them. Your job is to stay loose and jam your feet into the ground as quickly and in as little space as possible. Instead of flying across the room, you peg yourself into the ground within a step or two. That's a basic drop. If you were really pushed by surprise, it should be a fright reaction.
I recently by chance came across a series of training tips I wrote back in 2010. Figured I'd gradually repost them here for students' benefit. Some of the tips have been restated or clarified more recently, but I'll include all of them to avoid painful editing time. ;)
TODAY'S TIP (via Al in a 2010 Tuesday evening class): You can train to disrupt even a big guy's motion by "getting there first": launch from your root to drop right on top of his limbs/body just as he begins to move, i.e. before his movement has developed much energy. Whatever he does from there, he's screwed, as you're in close and on balance in perfect striking position. This requires high levels of balance and subcortical visual sensitivity. Heads up: I'll be in Atlanta, GA Saturday, April 8, training with the http://atlantacombatives.com/ crew. Looking forward to it! If you're local, don't miss it! Or even if you're not local. . . . Rumor has it that some folks from https://www.facebook.com/trident.tactical may make an appearance! Good times. . . .
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