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diadicic
diadicic's picture
Escaping Grips

Says something intresting about attack. Always attack attack attack.  

Kinda follows our understanding of how violents work.

Dom

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Totally agree there is a vital need to be proactive and have the enemy so busy dealing with your attacks that he has little opportunity to launch his own.

It’s a short clip so it can’t be all encompassing; but there is a need for “wrist grab methods” in-fight in order to further the mind-set espoused. For example, in being proactive I may seize the enemy’s throat, put my thumb in their eyes, etc. To stop that attack, the enemy may grip my wrist. At that point, to continue attacking, I need a method of freeing my wrist that enables me to most efficiently continue attacking i.e. if it’s not time to flee, I don’t want to retreat when escaping the grip. I want to be able to continue attacking – which I can’t if I don’t reflexively free my hand – in a way that creates greater advantage.

There are also other in-fight wrist grabs that can happen in grappling generally i.e. when creating openings (pulling arms down to open paths for strikes), executing arm-drags, etc.

We also have other pre-fight ones too. They are not always reaching for hands down by the side. I may have my arms up in “a fence” during dialogue stages and that can result in the enemy trying to pull the arm down so space can be effectively closed.

For self-defence there is also a need to be able to break grips (including wrist and lapel) so we can flee (we won’t / shouldn’t always fight to a “conclusion”). We need methods for that. It also becomes even more important when dealing with multiple enemies because if we get stuck with one enemy, the reduced mobility makes it easier for others to attack.

So I agree the first thought and instinct needs to be to go on the attack. But I would add that in order to continue attacking, and to permit fleeing, we also need simple ways to break grips.

This is totally in keeping with Itosu’s precepts too: “Enter, counter withdraw is the rule for torite” i.e. when gripped get in there, do damage, and then get out of there.

All the best,

Iain