From a TCMA perspective all the muscle groups in your arms and shoulders are relatively weak and therefore are only for aligning your arm. Techniques should be powered by your core, not your arms.
Applies more to the comments that an arm technique driven largely by the rotator cuff is too weak to work. Indeed many of the quick throws from Shuai Jiao largely rely on the rotator cuff to move the arm (such as arm lift (biu jong in CLF)), but that's not what powers the throw.
I agree with this partially but not fully. When you learn to fight in something like boxing, kickboxing or MMA there is not one set guard. Guys who fight and train to fight know how chaotic and imperfect a fight is and will be in all manner of positions depending on what's going on....one hand down,one up,.... both up,.... both down...Philly shell....neck turtled..etc,etc. All can happen at any moment and good fighters train these fundamentals. They also use the shoulder to cover the chin at all times during these guards and also try to align themselves using angles to attack and defend as best they can. My point is that if a threat is sensed or perceived,theses fundamentals can be applied in a real world situation at any time. If I sense a threat I can align myself with out making it obvious to best defend or hit....if I'm waiting at the bar for a drink or in a Que, just in case,I can too. Im ready so I can immediately cover my chin with my lead shoulder and maybe go to a Philly shell type guard ...or immediately strike but put a defense or anticipation of being hit in the strike....etc etc. So I get your point that it's not realistic to put a guards up like a duel but am making the suggestion that there are subtle guards and fundamentals and defenses other than the obvious two hands up, that come out of boxing, kickboxing, MMA that can be help. Of course a conscious effort has to be made to apply this to SP and SD.
Indeed you did miss something Simon. The key word was "surprised". I wasn't talking about a fight situation where I am aware of who and where my opponent is such that I can prepare to defend which is what a guard is. I was talking about being caught by surprise where my only option is to cover up and try to regain balance or position so I can counter attack. Hence I used the words "boxing guard or something similar". The point though is that depending on what is happening my hands may end up in a variety of different places. Regardless of where they are I can effect a correctly aligned movement that will deflect or strike or trap or lock as needed because in practicing the large kihon technique my hands and body have passed through or recognize how to move from the position I find myself in.
I appreciate that, but as a Karateka I would have thought your flinch response would take you back to a guard from your Karate. I would have also thought that as you are training sections of kata under pressure you'd be able to deal with surprise attacks from a Karate position, rather than a boxing one.
Lol. Simon that stuff is lovely in theory and who knows, maybe I would go all Jacky Chan as you suggest, but for the purpose of setting up a hypothetical situation to illustrate how my hands may not be in a standard position, I am completely comfortable with the idea that I might just cover up after getting hit. The reference to boxing was just so you'd have a similar picture with fewer words. If it makes you happier I would cover up more like 6th movement of Nijushiho kata - (let's hope the non Shotokan folks aren't feeling too alienated). For the record though I am also completely comfortable with the idea that in a situation where you've been hit three times before you know you're fighting, which is what I envisioned, most everyone will have to react by covering up first of all. Also as Hannibal pointed out early on, something as simple and natural as throwing your arms over your head to protect it, is common to so many arts and even so much of humanity in this case, that you can't really give credit to boxing for owning it.
so you get sucker punched, get hit three or four times maybe whilst covering up, then when you get space revert to traditional karate stance?
well, thing is, there isn't a "karate guard" (unless you count the monstrosity that is the sport karate guard posture). there are postures and techniques the name of which ends in 'kamae' (which is a term we use for postures, dunno exact translation, with 'kamae-te' referring to a hand position, used by some to refer to hands up guard postures), but it's the same deal as the uke-waza (the "blocks"; the name is simply a label for the technique, potentially (my interpretation/suspicion) as an artifact of everything needing to be standardized and having similar but subtly different motions all lumped under the same name and having the subtle differences eliminated so that they end up being the same formal technique. an example is 'koshi-gamae' or "hip guard/posture/whatever", which i simply having both hands by one side of the torso. the hands are there because you did something that, in the air (and also for the sake of 'tidy' techniques) ends up with your hands there, but i'd say it's rather a matter of common sense that even though it's a "kamae", it's not a posture that you stand in while duelling someone also re: boxing guard and similar: going back to my initial post in page one: nothing says that you're not doing karate if you put your hands up with fists closed, and while the guard is ubiquitous in boxing because the gloves make it an even more useful defensive tool, it doesn't have any sort of monopoly on simply keeping your hands up so you don't get smacked on the nose. hell, back when i started training, right from white belt we were made to do techniques in free-flow standing in a natural stance and with our hands up. was that a karate guard or a boxing guard?
Fighting in stances are or sparring/fighting in the cage/dojo, it has nothing to do with realities of civilian violence. People don't take up a right or left fighting stance and start bobbing up and down with their hands in a guard when when they are mugging you or shouting at you becasue you have spilled their beer. As for covering up against sucker punches, there is more than one kata which shows you how to deal with this and then gain back control.
In terms of guards these days I pretty much go by the maxim... Better up than down, better active than up. Hands are generally better "up" (in a protective guard) than "down", but even better "active" (actually doing something combative) than passively "up". For me a boxing type guard is a default position but I'd far rather be controlling, grabbing, ripping, unbalancing, trapping etc. A hand that is merely guarding when in range to do other things is a missed opportunity to do damage or work with it IMHO. But if I'm not in a position to know what work it should do (because I've been hit, the fight is in transition, I'm disorientated, etc) then it'll be up by default (that being the most productive "work" it can do at that time). Even boxers use "active" hands rather than a guard when they hand trap, clinch, parry etc. Just watch any Foreman fight and you'll see him hand trap (making his hands "active") rather than keep his hands up as a guard.
As a general explanation for having my hands up around my head? Sure why not? Although as a reverse nitpick, be careful about using "stance" in a discussion about "guard". As David Harrison pointed out earlier, once you've reached a certain point, you're never not employing your chosen art. Covering up, locating your assailant, regaining balance, deflecting or jamming the next attack, counter attacking - all are based in the mechanics you've spent time ingraining, be it karate or kick boxing. If you are training for self defense, you are not training set patterns because they reproduce exactly when the fight happens. No boxer throws a right at his shadow in the same way he throws a cross at the guy who has rugby tackled him into a wall. But he is a boxer so his punch is a boxing punch. Equally if I got sucker punched, the posture I land in will be a karate posture because I am a karateka and karate is a part of how I move.
Those are not be scenarios I set out. The scenario I set out was specifically "if someone attacks you with a haymaker and a few punches, do your hands go up to cover yourself, and then go down when you have made space?"
Chadderz, a common karate guard has the hands forward not down. Were I in the situation described I would probably move to a non threatening fence. The fighting guard is for sport, not real life. That is assuming it was not more prudent to take direct action. Simon, I'm sorry you felt patronized, but what do you expect to happen when drilling into a fictional scenario dreamt up in half a second to illustrate a point. You will need to find another opening to press your agenda as this one is closed.
So now I have an agenda? Please, after more than 12,000 posts someone accuses me of having an agenda. I don't do Karate, so would be interested in your applications in certain scenarios. Open up a little and share. It's what helps promote discussion after all.
I am having a "Shining" moment All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off.....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off.....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off.....All theory and no praxis makes Hannibal laugh his sack off
Fair enough, I shall take you at your word. What kind of scenarios would you like to discuss. Perhaps you should start a new thread to invite more contributors?
That's probably a good idea. This thread has already gone way off its original topic. This latest discussion does make me think of the truth within the saying 'there is no kamae in karate'.
