Four Shades of Black by Gavin Mulholland

Author:Gavin Mulholland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summersdale Publisher
Published: 2011-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

For Gekisai-Dai-Ni, however, we need to make this a little more realistic. So, for example, we might start with the two guys facing off. The attacker comes in with a classic left–right combination. The defender parries the left punch inwards with the covering (right) hand while moving slightly to the right. As the right punch comes in the defender blocks the attacker’s swinging right arm with his left arm.

In this instance the circular motion of the hands puts the attacker in a momentarily bad position and creates an opening right in front of him. As this gap will clearly not be there for very long, the defender must immediately go into offensive mode and once again power through that opening with total attack-and-smash aggression.

Notice that in the first instance, our attack was almost instinctive and was more or less a straightforward reactive drive into the attacker. In the second instance we set ourselves up with positioning and evasion before launching a devastating counter attack. Both could work well but the second has a greater chance of success owing to positional advantage gained early on in the encounter.

So while the kata moves may be identical, one is utilising a much higher level of skill to deliver the coup de grâce and that is the forte of Gekisai-Dai-Ni.

PADWORK DRILLS

At this stage we still need to be focusing on power and impact; however, we need to incorporate elements of ducking, slipping and generally evading before, after and during strikes.

As the student has presumably progressed over the last few months he should already be hitting harder. As such, correct alignment of the hand, wrist and forearm are essential if injury is to be avoided. There are four key areas where the correct fist can be developed.

Firstly, careful attention must have been paid to the structure of the fist during kihon. Basically, unlike boxing, the karateka is aiming to impact with the first two knuckles of the punching hand. Kihon in the early stages should emphasise the correct alignment of knuckles through forearm to shoulder. This is one of the primary uses of kihon. There is an awful lot wrong with punching in mid-air; however, you do have a snapshot in time with which to assess and fine-tune the alignment of the fist before making the student hit something heavy. Once a student has progressed to hitting solid objects, however, these minute adjustments during kihon are all but redundant.

Secondly, the solidity of the fist structure can be developed via correct use of knuckle push-ups. Again, we are working towards a system and all the pieces of the jigsaw must fit together. While we do use push-ups to develop strength and stamina, this is not their main purpose. Push-ups are used in Karate to develop the never-give-up muscle, to strengthen and align the wrist–fist combination, and to ingrain a dynamic stretch reflex that releases a fast, powerful punch. The first objective is easy – just do lots of them. The second and third require a little more attention to detail.

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