by LaoDan on Fri Jun 15, 2018 1:16 pm
Since you practice somewhat differently than I would (e.g., almost immediately collapsing the arms to come into torso contact rather than trying to maintain contact/control primarily at the forearm distance and working techniques from there), I’ll just compare you to your coach, and I’ll assume that he is closer to the ideal that you are striving towards.
What I see that makes you vulnerable to his knee disruptions, is that you are just using your legs for bracing (or pushing back), rather than for receiving. Notice how you almost always are pushing your hips away from the ground vs. how your coach usually retains a degree of “springiness” - able to lower his hips by receiving your force into his legs and into the ground. He can change heights, while you appear to mostly just push yourself higher (unless you take a long step back).
This is difficult to fix since we do this from the first time that we push something as a toddler and throughout our lifetime, unless we train to do it differently. Most TJQ practitioners still brace, resist, lean into, and meet force by pushing against the ground... This long established habit is difficult to change!
Because you do this, it is fairly easy for your coach to disrupt your “brace” by using his knee against your leg. He can do this with his own knee because he does not need to rely on that leg as much for bracing. Rather than his leg needing to devote all of its oppositional force to counter your force by using his leg to push directly into your mass (committing the leg to a linear, force against force, component), he is able to use some of his force sideways against your leg instead.