Smashing and smearing eggs into the chest

General discussions on Wado Ryu karate and associated martial arts.
Locked
wadoka
Site Admin
Posts: 696
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 10:38 am
Location: Bournemouth, Dorset, UK.
Contact:

Smashing and smearing eggs into the chest

Post by wadoka »

Last night I was trying to explain the process where in our ippon kumite or kumite gata, after a gyakuzuki counter attack, we try to neutralise the opponent's arm that they are holding across their chest. We punch and then we push/pin the opponent's arm to reduce the risk of their counter attack.

When we first start this, we tend to end up doing the punch, then pull the hand back to then push in. There is a momentary gap or opening there.

I tried to explain it like holding an egg, smashing it into the opponent's chest and then smearing it downwards until it rests on top of the opponent's arm. Our counter should be heavy and loose, into the opponent, with a little forward body shift to commit to the strike and not just a touch and push with the hand.

Well, that's just one take on it.

Any other strange ways to explain stuff?
kpettersson
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:10 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: Smashing and smearing eggs into the chest

Post by kpettersson »

Hi Gordon!
Very low activity on the forum nowadays.
One reason why you have not gotten any respons to your posting may be that not everyone may be able to relate to kumite gata or Ippon gumite. Maybe if you refrase your finding refering to kihon gumite, a larger audience could relate?
--
Carl Pettersson

Wado Kokusai Suzuki-Ha
和道国際鈴木派
Sweden
wadoka
Site Admin
Posts: 696
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 10:38 am
Location: Bournemouth, Dorset, UK.
Contact:

Re: Smashing and smearing eggs into the chest

Post by wadoka »

The only place where it could be related in Kihon Kumite is for Number 1, but that only depends on whether you aim your last strike above the opponent's defensive arm that is place across the chest. If so, then the egg dribbles down...
claas
Posts: 186
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 4:39 pm

Re: Smashing and smearing eggs into the chest

Post by claas »

Hi,

When I was teaching more, I tried to explain as much as possible in a way that either gives a somewhat objective analysis of what is happening or tells the students what to do at this point at the training session. I like the latter one more. Explanations are usually too difficult to get, if you haven't first gained some repetitions and maybe even felt some of the stuff being explained. Sometimes you need to first appreciate the difficulty, but even then, while gaining this experience, a direction what to aim for is important.

Having said that, I personally like metaphors too. Maybe it was Larry Bird, who said on one hand where to look (what to do) while shooting in basketball and on the other hand, he's thinking of his hand following the ball all the way inside and through the ring (metaphor). The good thing of this metaphor, is that everyone will get that it's a metaphor and not a physical analysis or task. When you mistake one for the other, problems might arise.

(Especially, since for the vast majority, even the most fundamental Newtonian principles are almost impossible to understand and are replaced by something called "common sense concepts about motion", which vary from person to person and could probably be expressed as something in between metaphors and Newtonian physics, and also just being plain wrong.)



Because we are alive and our bodies also react to what they collide with, metaphors very often give a tool for us to get the body to perform or to train some stuff that would be mechanically very challenging to explain. Also the mechanical explanation very often takes you nowhere, while the metaphor gets your body to perform better. Just think about changing Larry Bird's metaphor to a detailed analysis of how the parts of the body should move together and so on... Some aspects are broken down like this and a lot of the coaching tips for a basketball shot comes from this biomechanical tradition, but you can't effectively replace Bird's metaphor with biomechanical explanations and neither should you.

Sometimes metaphors might take you to the next level. You might find some new aspect or simplify a previous model that was too complex to think of. Metaphors also give you another perspective, which is good for learning and might strengthen your previous knowledge or make you abandon irrelevant or harmful models.



My personal metaphors usually come extempore and are specific for the problems I want to solve. Or then I express something that I've been thinking about myself lately. I borrow all the metaphors that I hear, feel are good for me and that I'm able to rephrase. I usually have to do that already because I learn mostly in English and teach mostly in Finnish, but I feel that for a borrowed metaphor to become a good tool for your own teaching, you usually have to process it yourself and be able to rephrase it.

Would love to share some metaphors, but I don't remember my own. If Gordon meant a kind of punch that remains heavy, pushing and relaxed after the impact, this is just such a thing that there are numerous metaphors for, for the very good reason that they seem to be needed in order to teach the body and mind for the task. Physics, which is my specialty, probably gives you very little in coaching to perform the task or getting you on the right track of the lesson.
Lasse Candé
Helsinki, Finland
Locked