Counter Striking as Kung Fu
Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 11:28 am
It seems to me that, if you really look at what is necessary to have a successful technique in combat, attack and defense have to be threaded together in such a way as every attack of the opponent can become the opportunity for your own successful attack. Every attack of the opponent that takes place with out being defended against and countered is an unacceptable danger. If you only defend you are overwhelmed, if you only attack you stop responding to the opponent and miss opportunities.
Modern martial arts allow you to just defend or just attack. You can shell up and dodge, or throw punches and kicks. Counter striking is understood as a higher level meta-discipline. Traditional CMA requires that you counter strike at every opportunity, that your intention is constantly holding defend and attack together, turning defense into offense in an instant. This requirement for countering at every opportunity, becomes a life long study of movement. How to counter punches, kicks, grabs, locks, throws, etc... How to weave defensive action into offensive action in a near-infinite amount of variations.
I think this is a reason why traditional techniques cannot be easily understood by modern people. Modern marital arts tends towards being more discrete: a punch is a punch, a guard is a guard, etc...
Traditional techniques tend towards being continues movement from defense, moving into position, and attacking, lacking hard boundaries between each phase.
My last thought on this is why sparring is not as common in traditional martial arts. Putting aside the many cases when sparring is avoided for business reasons, ignorance, lack of ability etc...
Sparring tends to move towards a less than ideal mentality when it comes to counter-striking. When people spar they tend to allow the opponent to attack a certain amount, defending for
a few movements before switching to offence, with these roles being traded every few seconds. Alternatively, people can become insistent on countering their opponents every move, which tends towards escalation towards an unfriendly situation.
When I look at something like Aikido, which uses an attacker and defender paradigm, I understand the reasoning. To my mind, the issue with attacker and defender practice isn't that the roles are pre-defined, the issue
is that the attacks are often lacking realism in speed and intent. Pressure testing is necessary and helpful, but it should be directed towards building up effective counters towards challenging, realistic attacks.
If our techniques are truly effective counters, containing both defend and attack in one, and able to adjust to near infinite variation, I feel that a good standard can be kept by TCMA.
The challenge is in holding oneself to such a standard, where your defense has to create opportunities for your attack, where your intention and body usage is challenged to weave together timing and power,
reaction and action, where you can truly counter act your opponent.
Modern martial arts allow you to just defend or just attack. You can shell up and dodge, or throw punches and kicks. Counter striking is understood as a higher level meta-discipline. Traditional CMA requires that you counter strike at every opportunity, that your intention is constantly holding defend and attack together, turning defense into offense in an instant. This requirement for countering at every opportunity, becomes a life long study of movement. How to counter punches, kicks, grabs, locks, throws, etc... How to weave defensive action into offensive action in a near-infinite amount of variations.
I think this is a reason why traditional techniques cannot be easily understood by modern people. Modern marital arts tends towards being more discrete: a punch is a punch, a guard is a guard, etc...
Traditional techniques tend towards being continues movement from defense, moving into position, and attacking, lacking hard boundaries between each phase.
My last thought on this is why sparring is not as common in traditional martial arts. Putting aside the many cases when sparring is avoided for business reasons, ignorance, lack of ability etc...
Sparring tends to move towards a less than ideal mentality when it comes to counter-striking. When people spar they tend to allow the opponent to attack a certain amount, defending for
a few movements before switching to offence, with these roles being traded every few seconds. Alternatively, people can become insistent on countering their opponents every move, which tends towards escalation towards an unfriendly situation.
When I look at something like Aikido, which uses an attacker and defender paradigm, I understand the reasoning. To my mind, the issue with attacker and defender practice isn't that the roles are pre-defined, the issue
is that the attacks are often lacking realism in speed and intent. Pressure testing is necessary and helpful, but it should be directed towards building up effective counters towards challenging, realistic attacks.
If our techniques are truly effective counters, containing both defend and attack in one, and able to adjust to near infinite variation, I feel that a good standard can be kept by TCMA.
The challenge is in holding oneself to such a standard, where your defense has to create opportunities for your attack, where your intention and body usage is challenged to weave together timing and power,
reaction and action, where you can truly counter act your opponent.