It was good to get back to drills last week. In a confrontation, responding to an assault has to be automatic,,, a delayed response will end the fight very quickly,, and not in a good way. Thinking about the choices may be good for training, but the response needs to be engrained into our minds and bodies so that thought is not required. The main way to achieve this automated response is through the use of drills during training. And one of the most important automated responses that we all need to develop is blocking. The important thing to remember about blocking is that it is not just stopping or deflecting an attacking arm or leg, it will become an attack on the limb that was donated by the attacker. The human body is fairly tough and protects its weak areas. But an arm extended towards us opens the attacker to a variety of attacks both on the donated arm and the now unprotected body. So, as we have trained in earler sessions,, we destroy what is presented to us and then move in to center line attacks. The Bicep, elbow, forarrm, blood vessles and nerves on the medial part of the upper arm, ribs, shoulder, collar bone, neck, jaw throat and eyes all become exposed each and every time the attacker donates his arm by attacking us with it. So we train,, we use drills to automate the response that will stop the attack, destroy the donated arm and attack the exposed weaknesses. But there are other weaknesses exposed when the attacker moves closer to us. The legs are often ignored when considering how to disrupt an attackers body. Feet, ankels, shins, knees, lateral and medial parts of the upper legs and hip joints are all exposed to attack when someone decides to move within range. Not only can the legs be attacked with dramatic results, but we can also affect one of the major componenets of a fight,,,, the balance. We can control the movement of the legs, placement of the feet and weight distrobution on the legs. by doing this we control the ability of the attacker to maintain balance and move. When we combine this with what we are doing to the arms, upper body, neck and head,, we can become very effective at discouraging any continuation of an attack.
The drill explanations are somewhat boring and repetitive but what we did was explore the affects of attacking the inside and outside of a donated arms. and then did the same for the legs. Some bruises were shared as these are usually unavoidable and the bones were definitely sharpened as we hit bones against bone. Yes this hurts a bit but will help develop the tools we need to become more and more affective and defending ourselves.
As always, YHC is thankful to these fine men that come out and train each week.
Stay strong
Tick Tock