Thursday 22 October

We started with a group working for the first hour on traditional Jujutsu waza.

This involved responses against grabs to the gi collar.

This training comes from a traditional Jujutsu ryu and goes back centuries. We are able to give it a modern application as the 3 most common attacks in a street fight are:

1. Collar grab and reverse punch
2. Reverse punch
3. Double collar grab

Obviously people don't wear gi these days. But in winter you will most likely be wearing an overcoat or a leather jacket. If I am standing outside a nightclub at 11pm in November I certainly will be.

So I dress accordingly.
So I expect my collar to be grabbed
So I train accodingly

Make sense?

Against the grab and punch - using the back stance - kokutsu dachi - we gained control and then responded with a ken kudaki (not a block) and then variations on the basic wristlocks kote gaeshi and kote hineri.

Against the double collar grab we used two techniques to lock the shoulder and takedown or throw.

As we had time we also looked at Crane - an application from Bassai kata against the collar grab - striking to various kyusho pressure points including uchi jaku zawa, yako, and areas such as the ribs and sternum.

Seniors also practiced the ude kansetsu kyusho in the grab, and came to appreciate the usefulness of REAL pressure point fighting.

We then bifurcated the class into karate and kobudo where I was able to drill the paddies in karate ABCs for sparring, and drill the woodies in sinwallli and bokken.

There was sparring for all at the end during the freeplay.


POINTS TO NOTE:

There are 3 Points of View in a fight.

The attacker
The defender
A third person watching

It is important to view the fight from all 3 POVs to completely understand it. We cover this reguarly in STMA training.

Pressure points are one of the most misunderstood and exaggerated areas of MA.

Kyusho is the Japanese word.
PSNA stands for Pressure Sensitive Nerve Areas, an American anacronysm.

People who don't know about them claim there are anywhere between 25 and 360 and they do various things. You can buy lists and charts showing all kinds of alleged PSNA. Most of these do nothing. The ones that do something are meaningless unless you are shown how to apply them in combat in real tme.

For example, we punch to the chin for a KO. A groin kick will stop an attacker. But to actually land these shots you need to train for them, not just know them theoretically. So it is with PSNA.

I teach a primary list of 54 PSNA for use in combat.
(One for each week of the year more or less!)

I do not give out lists and charts to be memorised. You learn these PSNA in context, in the dojo, and you remember them.

There are 3 kinds of PSNA:
ones you strike
ones you press
ones you rub

What I NEVER want to see is people in class trying to explain to each other what PSNA are "There's one there", "there's one there", things like that. You learn these at the proper time in the proper context, not from some chart or book, or what "a mate who does Jujutsu showed me".
Practice, not theory!

Keep I mind you can strike and grind these points with stick as well as your "body tools".

Torite is the art of seizing limbs and locking joints.
It also covers kyusho - Pressure Points.

In Chinese this system is called Chin Na.

Although it is a subset of Jujutsu, Karate, Kung Fu, Kali, etc, it is also a complete MA system in it's own right if developed to a high enough level.

In class, you may hear me refer to Chin Na or Torite in context, or that we are having a "Chin Na" session.


Most Martial Arts teach you HOW to do a technique, how to punch, how to kick.

So do we - it's the basics.

But most MA have no idea WHY you do that technique or WHEN in the fight you do it.

WHY do you do a cross there?
WHY do a kick that particular way?
WHY use that throw or that lock?
WHY use that counter to that attack?

WHEN do you do it?
You can have the fastest punch or strongest kick in the world, but without a sense or proper timing you'll never land it. Without the proper sense of distance you'll never be in range, always too near or too far.

We don't just teach the HOW at STMA, we teach the WHY and WHEN.