Naihanchi (Tekki Shodan) Clinch and Elbows

Hi all,

Great clip that Iain. The interesting aspect for me is once control was estabished on the inside, flowing immediately into blitzing elbow strikes, the receiver was unable to jam or disrupt in time( and this is a trained competitor) before impact put him down, as you say it is necessary to drill clearing obstructions but it was interesting to see how many techniques landed before he started to respond, and how a conditioned athlete in the fight game was rendered almost helpless. If we apply this to self protection where the aim is to keep it quick and simple to allow escape then that was on the money. 

The entry to gain control of the inside, jamming the opponents shoulders to further disadvantage their ability to respond is exactly the way we train our response to someone throwing the first punches in a more pragmatic scenario, but we are forced by safety to pull the elbow strike, even with head protection. This clip demonstrates perfectly the effectiveness of the technique.

All the best

Mark

I've just been watching UFC 144 that was on over the weekend. Yushin Okami vs Tim Boetch. We've been talking on this thread and on the thread on Heinan Yondan about the head hold and elbow strike. This fight ended in what I would regard as being an unorthodox way using Heian Nidan / Pinan Shodan.

One of Iain's interpretations for the "double blocks" at the start is to use the rear arm to lift the attacker's leading (guarding) arm and uppercut. This and the next two movement show three ways of hitting the jaw to illicit KO. What Tim Boetch did was use the same arm position but used the rear hand to hold the back of the head and uppercut. The head hold facilitated a proprioceptive strike (a "datum setting" if you like) which was the uppercut. At the point of the strike the position had the body much more rotated than in the kata, but the position was definately there and there was no arguing with the result. Several unanswered uppercuts later and Okami was being rescued by the referee.

If there isn't already, I'm sure a YouTube clip will surface. This was a hell of a KO that showed principles demonstrated in the kata, including the elbows that we've talked about here.