Control your opponent's striking weapons

[Ian]

Too many abstract threads lately. I though I'll start a more concrete thread.

If you left hand grabs on your opponent's right wrist, your right hand grabs on your opponent's left wrist, you can temporary take your opponent's striking weapon away. Any of his intention can be sense through your Tinjin. IMO, this is more powerful than just "build an arm bridge" that your oponent can destroy that bridge anytime he wants to. This "control your opponent's striking weapons" concept is not popular in the striking arts but it's a very important concept in both the eastern and western throwing arts.

Agree.

Grabbing seems to be viewed as a low-level concept in some circles. But the simple fact is, when most people get grabbed by both of their wrists, they have a hard time regaining control of their arms.

Even worse is when two or more people are grabbing your limbs, one person per limb.

I also agree with Chris that you can still use your head, elbows, knees, feet etc. if someone grabs your wrists, but on the other hand, it will be hard against someone who's skilled at grabbing and tingjin.

[chimerical tortoise]

That said, it's acknowledged that getting grabbed is undesirable and you get out ASAP if possible;

If you feel the need to "get out ASAP", your opponent has already put you in defense mode and "temporary" take your offense weapon away. Even Houdini will need few seconds to get out of his handcuff. A lot of thing could happen in those few seconds.

Maybe. But "getting out" does not mean it has to be defensive. You can capitalise on the direction you use when getting out to attack. Meeks showed the other night though that the grabber has options too (i.e. letting go, or as a distraction to work something else), so either case, for this thread I've dropped my 2c, now all I can do is listen.

[RobT]

you don't know when I'm going to release my grip. The decision is on me and not on you...since you have to spend time to do that, you are already one step behind.

Those that play the board game Go may have come across the concept of sente/ gote and its importance. Sente literally means "before hand", the preceding move, the initiative: gote "after hand", the succeeding move. If I have the initiative (sente), you are responding to me (gote) and always a step behind playing catchup.

A grab is a way of seizing the initiative - so long as you don't stand there for too long and don't do anything with it... in which case the opponent does not need to respond and can ignore it (tenuki), and in turn seize the initiative/ sente for themselves by, say hitting you in the face with the other hand.

i.e. sente/ gote applies in a flow of move and counter-move, of pro-act and re-act.

Just to introduce another perspective.

[bruce]

If you left hand grabs on your opponent's right wrist, your right hand grabs on your opponent's left wrist, you can temporary take your opponent's striking weapon away.

If you do that you've just 雙重 'double-weighted' yourself, (or a better translation: 'created mutual resistance') hopefully you are larger, stronger, quicker, and smarter than the opponent, but if this is your attack then maybe we can cross out 'smarter'.


Bagua has a guideline: 二十。出手要一不要二，以多胜少要牢记，若能识得其中意，优势常存掌握中

"The outgoing hand must be one, not both, use the few to overcome the many...".



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how is that double weighting?

[johnwang]

so long as you don't stand there for too long and don't do anything with it.

You may just want to stay there for less than 1/4 second. This is the same as the bridge building.

- You build a bridge.
- You destroy that bridge ASAP and move in.

The reason is simple. Tinjin is a 2 edges sword. You want to be able to apply Tinjin on your opponent but you don't want your opponent to be able to apply Tinjin on you. In reality, it's not easy to build a bridge. It's even harder to be able to maintain that bridge for a short period of time (for example 1/2 second). If you don't destroy that bridge, your opponent will destroy that bridge for you. Whoever initials the "bridge destroying" will have the advantage.

"The outgoing hand must be one, not both, use the few to overcome the many...".

You can "use single to against double", such as use your opponent's leading arm to jam his back arm. You can also use "double to against single", such as guiding arm - use 2 hands to guide your opponent's single arm to a location that's to your advantage (wrestler has a special term for this but I forget what do they call it).

The single that you can see is not the true single, the double that you can see is not the true double.

This is the beauty of the Chinese language. It make you look and feel smart if you always talk like this (such as the Tao that you can talk about is not the true Tao - I still have hard time to understand what the true meaning of this).

The reason is if you can change from single to double and back to single in such a fast speed that your opponent can't even recognize the changing then the single and double don't real exist. Hope I have confused you enough so far (if I haven't confuse you, at least I know that I have confused myself already).

[D_Glenn]

how is that double weighting?

It's not double weighting in any way connected to what those words mean in the english language. It is 雙重. Which is basically two points of mutual resistance where the stronger person will gain the advantage. The way in the described scenario to not have 'mutual resistance' is to instead grab their right wrist with your right, when they attack with the left grab it with your left and cross their arms up in what's called the 'crossed-up' shape but both of your arms still have strength in them, then you can 'control both of theirs with one of yours', or in other words: 'not 雙重 '.


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[C.J.Wang]

How can I affect your structure if you grab me? Do you affect my structure instead (since you can shake me but I can't shake you)? Never heard when a police put handciff on a criminal, that criminal has more control over that police than that police has control over that criminal.

I must miss something very important here? Do you guys always assume that the person being grabbed always have better Tinjin than the other? I don't think that's a fair assumption at all.

Borrowing your analogy, grabbing an opponenet's wirsts with both hands is like putting a pair of handcuffs on a criminal WHO'S ALSO GOT A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS ON YOU. The situation can goes both ways.

If your grip is stronger and tinjin better, you will be able to subdue him with the grab and set him up for follow-up techniques; on the other hand, if the opponent happens to be better than you, grabbing him would be a big mistake because you've given him not only one, but two contact points to your body that he can exploit.

So as a general rule, when I am up against someone whose skill level is unknown to me, I prefer to simply build a bridge, apply pressure, and move in on him using my structure without commiting myself to a grab first. Depending on his reaction, I will then turn that bridge into various moves.

[everything]

I agree with everyone but I think I agree with CJ more, especially about the double handcuff analogy - the police analogy does not apply though I see the initiative point.

If someone is more skilled than me, they can quickly use my grab and I am in trouble. Now that I've been learning their various methods and others, I am starting to sometimes bait people so they will attempt to grab me where I want them to (vs. somewhere I don't) because immediately they will fall into my trap of "borrowing that energy". Maybe I want you to have your mind too occupied with grabbing my wrist so I can move your whole body. However, if we have no idea the relative skill level, I think I'd still prefer bridging for reasons CJ and chimerical mentioned - faster, dealing with strikes, more general (sorry to say "abstract") for various possibilities, etc.

[bruce]

why is it bad to use strength to control your opponent?

in my opinion strength and sensitivity need each other.

[johnwang]

joke deleted.

[C.J.Wang]

If we wish to continue the discussion logically, perhaps the level of sarcasm needs to be controlled.

[johnwang]

You are right! I have just deleted my joke. Sometime sarcasm joke can be disrespectful. Even funny joke may offend someone unitentionally. Thaks for reminding me.

Here are some opinion from the Aikido point of view. If you have to, "escape", "take control" against "full power" otherwise it will be "ineffectieness", you are already in "disadvantage" situation. By putting your opponent in disadvantage situation is by putting yourself in "initial advantage" position (force your opponent to escape and try to take control back). That's my whole point.

In KATAI training, the attacker establishes a strong grip on the defender's wrist, shoulder or other part of the body. The defender does not attempt to evade the attack, but allows the attacker to attain the initial advantage.

From this situation, the defender must perform a technique to escape from the attacker's grip and take control. The technique must be done accurately, or the defender will not be not be able to escape.

... because the defender is dealing with the attacker's full power, and any mistake will result in immediately obvious ineffectiveness.

Maybe I want you to have your mind too occupied with grabbing my wrist so I can move your whole body.

If I grab you and if you move me then do you move yourself too (since our bodies are connected by my grip)? What advantage do you have there? If you and I are clambling and we have a rope around our waists, I don't think you want me to fall off the cliff.

[bailewen]

Speaking of Aikido. . . .

I thought we were supposed to laugh at Aikido training methods because no one would EVER grab both your wrists like in an Aikido demo . . . .

[johnwang]

It's silly to grab your opponent's wrists if his arms are down and besides his knees (his wrists are not in your striking path). It makes sense to grab his wrists if he is "on guard"(his wrists are in your striking path).

[Andy_S]

Well, one of the first things I learned in Hapkido (hmmm...maybe the first) is to circle out of a wrist grab. This is equally basic to Aikido, JJ, etc, etc. So the advantage of of a grab may be immediately cancelled out by this countergrab technique. Funnily enough, the last time I used this 'soft' technique to completely turn someone was when a guy who is a very decent PH grappler grabbed me at Chenjiagou with a very hard grip...

BHassler nails it down for IMA, if you ask me.

If you can 'turn your opponent's corner' you have two hands against him and you have the attacking angle: He is turned and probably also offbalanced. This is a basic use of Bagua's SPH entry.

If you can 'cross' your opponent be getting one of his arms across the front of his body, you can do the same thing. Taiji uses this is great deal with its under-tricep arm drag, as taught in PH (think of the hooking arm in single whip). Works fine from the clinch.