angles, evasion, and following

A big focus in many martial arts is 'getting offline', or 'taking an angle'. this is basically getting out of the way when someone attacks. once you upgrade your tactics a bit, you start thinking of it as 'evasion'. Sounds cooler, at least.

the usual result of 'getting offline' is a kind of random move forward and to one side or the other, while blocking or launching some counter. this is a fair start to things, provided you have a good sense of distance and timing. the angle part of the formula is usually expressed as '45 degrees'

when it comes to this model, there is a common mistake, or better to say, a common lack of understanding, which I pointed out years ago, and so was corrected at the fairport school. in these arts, when someone hears 'take an angle', or 'go 45 degrees' what they think of is the line down which they will move when attack. so when the uke steps in to punch, they will go 'that way', and that is what they call 'angle'.

this is the initial step, but not the actual goal. the actual point of attention here is meant to be on the opponents angle...i.e. his 'breakline' and 'powerline' respectively. the reason you 'step 45' is so that you can intersect with his breakline(generally). your action cannot be random, or vague, or 'sort of there'. no doubt, you can make stuff work just be 'getting offline', as it is a surprising thing to many people, but that is not the actual 'technology' being employed. it's a bit more sophisticated than that.

now those of you that can 'hit the breakline' understand exactly what I am saying. it's a matter of making distinctions in distance, timing, and angle. and you cant make that calculation about yourself unless you make it about your partner, at the exact same time. so your 'angle' is meaningless unless it properly intersects with his 'angle.

there is a silat formula called 'base, angle, lever' from the serak system, which is a heavy component of the Liu Seong system, that people took wrong, and still take wrong. what is means is that to execute a throw you need to have a stable base, attack HIS weak angle, and use opposite leverage. it does not mean simply to 'go offine'. so what is being referenced is repositioning, which is how you should frame it mentally. its not about a speedy escape to the side, although those do work usually, but about slipping into a position where you can take advantage, mechanically or otherwise.

let me back up a bit....

so there is this thing called footwork. when you start, it means how to step, place your foot, and other stance particulars that comprise basic solo training. once you start moving with another, interactive factors come into play. timing, distance, angle relative to a moving body require some way to distinguish the proper direction to move.

the first solution, or direction, is the obvious one. you just step straight in. and lots of people do just that, with varying degrees of finesse and ability there are several styles that are typically identified as angular, evasive, or non-linear that start out with straight line entries.* Liu seong has the chuan fa set that is basically square, but eventually proceeds to angular tactics. some styles of pakuachang, which is a spiral technique, begin training with the palm changes on a straight line.

the next step is to start moving to the sides of an attack. this is a magnitude of improvement over frontal engagement because it provides several benefits lacking in the straight line approach. it is a very sound rationale if you put it in a particular, but likely context. if you have to defend yourself, it will be against one of two people. they will either be as big and strong as you or smaller, or they will be bigger and stronger than you. against the opponent of equal size and strength, the direct entry can work very well. it's a bit riskier if you go headlong into someone who is heavier than you, has a higher shoulder base, greater strength, and longer reach. if they are fast to boot, this probably seals the deal in their favor. in this we are also assuming that the opponent has either training, or fighting experience, or both. by these lights, going off the sides starts to look pretty good, especially if you figure that you that have a high probability of ending up on the side anyways by virtue of your opponents superior strength and size. why not just go there in the first place?

once you have that figured out, bipedal angular stability comes to the fore, and then you focus falls on the breakline. its the best way to take someones balance (mechanically). take the flank and you dodge a bullet, and get to hit him at a weak spot.

so you gotten to the point where you have the understanding of moving offline to intersect the breakline. this puts you in a good position to counter and destabilize with your entry. after that the consideration extends to the subject of continuation, or what is normally called 'technique', or a 'combination'. to follow up your entry, you usually need to use more footwork. from this need we have the diagram, or pantjar. there are many versions of this basic concept, of varying complexity. this is a great tool to teach people footwork. invaluable in many cases, actually. even though it is not really what they ultimately want to focus on, it gives them a solid focus point to base their concepts.

once we have the pantjar, then we can have footwork patterns. these are different ways of walking the pattern, which is built on angular stability, so it is meant to approximate the positions you need to be in to execute various movements. and there are tons of these things. it like this old newspaper game where they give you a kind of long word, and you have see how many other words you can spell from the original word. that's how footwork patterns are. there are so many versions, it is mindboggling. that is just in the SE Asian end of things. there are tons of bagua patterns, things like destraza from Europe, and so on.

these are decent tools but they are also traps, if your not careful. they can result in a very linear thought process about footwork that ends falling short of whats required. there comes a dependence on the idea that if this langkah is practiced enough youll be able to just dodge attacks and drop people easily. maybe. but I wouldn't count on it. the problem is that this stuff is practiced in the frame a technique usually, and therefore its under controlled conditions. this is a necessary step, and can take you pretty far, but it wont take you all the way. not like you think.

although most people can do nice entries and takedowns on their ukes, you really don't see that when it's time to spar. it happens, sure, but if you notice it sure is a hell of lot harder to do a technique on somebody against their will. this is why I only put so much stock in technique, demos, and the like. its an integral part of training, but it is not the end of training.

of course, you have to freeplay to functionalize technique, and many don't, so they cant, at least not without serious difficulties. ime, people are rarely pleased with their performance in sparring, nor should they be. mostly its a big mess, and once in while someone gets lucky. woohoo.....

and this disconnect is the 800 pound gorilla in traditional arts. there is just like tons of cognitive dissonance around this little factoid. and the one about how there are not any professional gung fu fighters. why not? its pretty odd that most traditional systems, that tout special skills, usually end up producing fighters that look a lot like kickboxers. I'm mean seriously, wheres the eagle claw guys, bajiquan ramming experts, and such. there are lots of counter arguments to what I just said, some of which are true, but none of which obviate this apparent lack of skill development. if it works, it should work for more than just a few people.

lets pull it back from the professional realm and just consider dojo sparring. what you get there is not even close to the all the forms and techniques that are practiced. it's like everything just gets forgotten, and basic instincts take control. its not 'like' they forget. they do forget. and basic instincts, despite all the training to the contrary, exert their dominance, and bingo, your a kickboxer.

sparring happens, it definitely gets done. but it doesn't seem to help all that much, at least unless you do lots of it, for years. and lot of it needs to be full contact or your are just playing yourself about your abilities. but that's a hard road, and there are a few drawbacks. it does help eventually, but you take a beating in the process. and it is this taking a beating that is the problem.

fighting is relational. specifically you have to relate to the opponent and the distances, timing, and angles involved. the problem with going from technique to contact sparring is that there is no interim training in timing, distance, angle. and with the hurt or be hurt mentality in most sparring sessions, there is no room to work on what it is that primarily allows you to succeed and that is POSITION.

the reason why people cant make technique work in sparring even after years of training is multilayered, to be sure, but boils down to the fact they cannot enter, control, and maintain distance. especially not a dynamically changing distance, like in sparring. in technique, your target is fixed. they step in and punch and basically just stand there while you practice. not only that, you know what they are going to do, and where and when they are will do it. big surprise that you have difficulties if they are allowed to move around and hit back randomly.

if this lack of ability is addressed, it is usually the 'students fault' for not following instructions, or being 'too slow', or 'lacking spirit. this is taken to mean you don't train hard enough. again, this can all be true, but when trotted out as the fundamental cause of failure on the students part, its horsehshit.

what the failure is due to is a lack of dynamics positioning training aka FOLLOWING. its self explanatory. you learn to follow their movements, maintaining freebalance, and therefore viable position. its the taichi strategy of stick and yield. it is to move like his shadow, a relative mirror image of his action. doing so allows you to stay in the pocket, neutralize his force, and join him to execute techniques. it is a simple concept, that is trained in various ways, but one that lies at the basis of real skill.

techiques require the proper mechanics. and those mechanics are a product of the human body and relative positioning. most fighting and sparring you see is a result of absolutely terrible spatial skills. if you cannot maintain proper distance and follow an uncooperative partner, then you have little chance of executing technique in dojo, much less the str33t.

following is not a pancea, but it is a HUGE advancement is footwork training, far above and beyond even panjtar training. proper following negates many flaws, and allows one to actually use techniques, as they were meant. it may be more precise to say that following is the context in which techniques are meant to be used.








* thread....lurus, chune, FDM