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Dillon
Dillon's picture
Playing around with gedan barai

Hey gang! My training group was playing around with the application of gedan barai in different contexts  last night as part of a project we're working on to use karate as a bridge into range for our wrestlers (my current playgroup is heavily based in judo/jujutsu). One of our crew decided she wanted to do an impromptu film session, and we wound up stitching some of the clips together. Let me know what you think! 

Edit: I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what the appropriate format for linking the video is- if there's something I should change please let me know! :)

Mark B
Mark B's picture

Nice work, thanks for sharing. I particularly liked the way you moved around your applications, and each made sense, and to my particular preference for keeping it very simple (for street worthy situations) I thought they worked well. As you said at the beginning of the piece the Gedan Barai /Oizuki sequence is common through many forms. My one query would be the first Oyo you shared. It looks good, and it works well in that light training environment - but - several years ago I introduced the same to my students as part of my study of Wanshu kata. As with yours it worked really well. As we were practicing to the same scenario you show - grab & punch - we decided to ramp it up by having the attacker wear a boxing glove on his right hand. We also increased the aggression in the lapel grab. The result was incredibly disappointing!! This was because now the attacker was grabbing with aggression his arm was locked at the shoulder, so when I attempted to disrupt his posture he hardly moved. Add to this the punches he was landing at will into my face as I messed around with the grabbing arm and we had a real let down. The size of your partner on this clip makes me wonder how sound that particular option is for that scenario. Please don't take that as criticism, I tried the exact same thing myself. Have you found a different outcome if the attacker grips with a strong arm and hits into the face with something like real force?

Regards Mark

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Dillon wrote:
One of our crew decided she wanted to do an impromptu film session, and we wound up stitching some of the clips together. Let me know what you think!

Thank you for sharing! It’s always good to see people’s takes on thing. For the less experienced people it gives them “as is” things to take back to the dojo and play with. For the more experienced people it gives them “thought fodder” too which can help open up alternate lines of thought, or help them tweak existing lines of thought. Because you quickly show a variety of differing types of application, I think the video is great in both regards and will be most useful for getting people to consider alternative functions of the motion.

Dillon wrote:
Edit: I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what the appropriate format for linking the video is- if there's something I should change please let me know! :)

That’s perfect! You post the link and then I’ll come along with my “moderator powers” and embed it as I’ve just done.

All the best,

Iain

PS I first thought your uke was wearing a gold belt … and then I realised it was a utility belt! That need to be on the ranking system somewhere ;-)

Dillon
Dillon's picture

Mark- that's definitely a concern. What we've found is that like anything else, it depends. If you let them get a firm grip and they know what you're going to do (which happens with dojo inbreeding sometimes when you're pressure testing techniques) it becomes very difficult, and we stress the importance of being able to adapt in those cases. For example, it doesn't tend to work terribly well in free sparring when your partner is a judoka ;). If it comes just after the grab as a surprise (i.e. the person you're working with doesn't know to expect that technique) I've gotten pretty good results, although nothing is perfect. In a situation where we're not trying to isolate the part of the movement that looks like gedan barai, the initial offline would usually happen with a hit to the face, and if they still have a grip, the hand returning from the hit does the sweep. This video happened largely because we were playing around and the topic of applying some of the kihon came up, and we decided to play with the way the basic movement pattern could be expressed in a couple of different contexts. One of my training partners decided to video, and another decided to stitch it together, so it's not presented "whole cloth," or intended as an instructional video.  The feedback is appreciated, and useful. For example, I learned that the way it's shown I wasn't clear enough with something I was saying during the bodylocks at the end. I was trying to explain that the bodylock works with an s-grip or a gable grip, or whatever your preferred gross-motor grip is, but that interlacing your fingers is a bad idea. I had it pointed out that the clip makes it seem like I was suggesting interlacing your fingers, which is a terrible plan. It's useful to know what came off the way I intended vs not. 

Mark B
Mark B's picture

The fact that your partner (or mine) knows what I'm going to attempt to apply is a very good point. That may have been part of the problem when I looked at that motion, it was a good few years ago, all I now remember is getting punched in the face :-), thanks for reminding me of that possibility.

Dillon
Dillon's picture

Mark B wrote:
The fact that your partner (or mine) knows what I'm going to attempt to apply is a very good point. That may have been part of the problem when I looked at that motion, it was a good few years ago, all I now remember is getting punched in the face :-), thanks for reminding me of that possibility.

This always makes some part of the pressure testing hard, since when it happens it starts to be the partner working to beat the defense they know is coming. Either way when we play this sort of thing in a live context, before doing the sweep my left hand would normally "check" my partner, either in the right shoulder, or as a palm to the face. That way pre-gedan barai, the left arm is disrupting the opponent and covering your head to a degree. That said, sometimes it's like hitting a brick wall when you go to move them with the sweep. If that happens and I get hit, I usually shift into a clinch and work from there. 

Mark B
Mark B's picture

Yep that's exactly what I did. Self preservation does tend to kick in. Lol

Marc
Marc's picture

Nice ideas, well presented. Like your uniforms. Thank you for sharing.  

dhogsette
dhogsette's picture

Mark B wrote:

several years ago I introduced the same to my students as part of my study of Wanshu kata. As with yours it worked really well. As we were practicing to the same scenario you show - grab & punch - we decided to ramp it up by having the attacker wear a boxing glove on his right hand. We also increased the aggression in the lapel grab. The result was incredibly disappointing!! This was because now the attacker was grabbing with aggression his arm was locked at the shoulder, so when I attempted to disrupt his posture he hardly moved. 

This is an important question, as it comes up in a similar application in Wanshu that I try to work. I'm not sure if we are speaking of the same point in Wanshu, but I'm thinking of the part that many people view as a fireman's carry/throw, in which the left hand is in open hand "high block" position and the right hand is in open hand "low block" position, followed by a shooting in/thrust and pivot. I don't do the fireman's carry/throw very often due to my back (if I perform it, I prefer to drop to my knee before executing the toss, so I see it more for sport/fighting/fun in the dojo); so, I try to work a lapel defense in which the "low block" is used to distrupt the grip and twist the body, and the open hand high block position protects against accidental (or purposive) head butt. I then use the thrust forward and pivot as a take down (the left grabs face or exposed throat and pushes down as the right hand pulls upward, along with the pivot, should take him down).

Ah, but the problem Mark raised--if someone has that really strong lapel grab and is wailing on you with punches, it's difficult if not impossible to use that low block motion to disrupt his position and grip. But, in my version of the kata (matsubayashi-ryu), there are a series of "chest blocks" prior to this segment. I interpret those as uppercut strikes. So, if the attacker manages to grab hold of the lapel and starts punching, cover up, and as he is pulling his punching arm back, immediately execute several uppercut strikes to the chin/head. That will certainly take him off his plan, disrupt his attack, and possibly give you opportunity to now make that application work. Of course, it's difficult to pressure test that safely, but throwing a few uppercuts gets the person's mind off his punches and his grip, and that may be enough to allow you to work that application. But, if the attacker is much larger and stronger, then a different tactic would be advisable, it seems to me. 

Hope that helps a bit. 

Best,

David 

mike23
mike23's picture

75 Down Blocks was a nice book for a start.

http://www.amazon.com/75-Down-Blocks-Refining-Technique/dp/0804832188

 
Dillon
Dillon's picture

I've had that book mentioned a ton since I posted this clip. I will have to check it out. I thumbed through it in a bookstore years ago, and all I remember is seeing a bunch of pressure point stuff, which I don't put much stock in. I'll take another look.