►Neutral Bow or Lunge Stance◄

[Celtic_Crippler]

And the "dirty" parts of fighting are normally not taught in the dojo either but are learnt the "hard" way anyway.

LOL... that reminds me of the first time I saw Master Berry's "kenpo" syllabus...

I was a little taken aback to see things like "biting" and "gouging" and "fish hooking" actually listed as testable subject matter. We were quite litterally being taught to fight "dirty". ROFL

He wanted to make sure you understood there was no such thing as a "fair fight" and promoted the use of any and all weapons one had at their disposal. I saw a lot of folks come and go and some of them actually couldn't swallow this stuff and/or see themselves doing such awful things to another person.

To me... I reiterate TO ME... that's related to the "...pray forgiveness if forced to use it" portion of the creed. These strategies and methods aren't things a normal, civilized human being would consider doing to another person; it's animalistic and contrary to the concept of being civilized; however, if one never considers these things beforehand then one would not be AS likely to consider them if and when an occasion might call for it in the interest of self preservation.

[MarkC]

I think I am a bit too late with this comment, but whenever the "boxing/ muay thai/ mma has rules but the street has no rules" thing comes up, I like to remind people of the Kano paradox.
In case you're not familiar with that paradox, here it is:
Kano took jiu-jitsu, removed the "dangerous" techniques from it and called the result judo.
But when competing against jiu-jitsu guys the Kano people always won. It was said that the reason was that the judo guys could perform all their techniques in full speed and with full force against an opposing partner in training, while the jiu guys couldn't do this. They had to restrict themselves during training so the Judo players had an advantage.

A finger poke to the eye might be forbidden in boxing, but it's basically the same move as a strike to the head which a boxer has learnt to avoid. If you cannot touch the chin of your opponent, I guess you won't be able to hit his neck either.

And the "dirty" parts of fighting are normally not taught in the dojo either but are learnt the "hard" way anyway.

While I won't disagree with you, I will say that not many boxers manage to avoid getting "touched" on the chin all the time!

[sjansen]

In wrestling you always try to stay on your toes. I thought the same was so in kenpo, but I must be mistaken. If bringing your heal up changes your technique that much, then why do boxers, phillipinos, and karatekas use it? You should be able to set your center while both feet are off the ground. If you can learn to center no matter what your stance, then you can use any stance that works to give you the opportunities that you need for a certain situation. Or are double kicks out of the question as I have seen in kenpo. This would mean that you never kick or hit while in the air. While not good for a neophyte, once you learn to center yourself, stance is an informality when you are centered in you body, mind, and spirit.

[Lenny]

While I won't disagree with you, I will say that not many boxers manage to avoid getting "touched" on the chin all the time!

If they fight other boxers. From my experience, they manage to dodge punches from a martial artist w/o boxing or other contact sparring experience pretty well.
That's why I recommend looking for a good boxing coach and taking some lessons.

[Dr. Dave in da house]

This thread had me remeniscing (sp?) with an old friend, student, and kenpo training partner... also in this mix for more than 30 years. Neither one of us had any problem with boxers, because we fought them on kenpo terms. Managing range and target selection; making their guard a target (breaking their hands or fingers with snapping reverse punches, honed in speed, candle-extinguishing, and makiwara drills); chopping their legs out from under them with shots to the knees, shins, and thighs; snap kicks to the groin to drop their hands, followed by trapping-hands and pinning check combos. One of my old buddies in high school was a very talented fighter. Only got to purple in the system, but had a rep for dropping guys twice his size and rank through clever application of his tool set. Him dropping a boxer and football player in front of another football player was the cause for the second player to get into the martial arts in the first place...my current buddy I'm recounting the past with.

Had a running feud with a local Thai boxing stable. Neither I nor any of mine ever lost a fight to these guys. Note: FIGHT, not match. They kept starting problems at keggers, and we kept finishing them. Championship stable, too. One gent started a rear-led roundhouse; I only faded to the negative end of his swing and countered with a snap kick to his medial knee, while it was weighted and torqued. Ugly things happen to knees under such circumstances. One of my students had a slightly different time dropping a GG guy at a club he bounced at, out in the parking lot: Pull-drag side-thrust to the lead knee, land forward with a pinning check with the lead hand (pushing on the guy pretty hard with the momentum), horizontal punch over the top, landing on the bridge of the nose. Thing made a popping sound like cracking, wet popsicle stick, and sprayed blood in a dozen different directions. Fight was done; boxer down.

Spent years thinking the boxing and thai-boxing guys were smoking their own dope too much, and too heavily invested in their own self-confidence. Changed my mind from "all of them" to "some of them" after bouncing with a couple of Benny's guys. Liked what they did, so I banged at the Jet Center for a spell. Good ****. But still, not a match for a kenpoist with contact experience in a drag-out beat fest. They practice jabs ad infinitum. We practiced eye rakes ad infinitum, executed from a siezing technique, which was preceded by low-line attacks & positional or pinning checks.

If "kenpo" guys are seriously considering matching their skills to a boxers by considering how their closed hand techniques match up to the boxers in that range, then they haven't been studying kenpo. Something not covered in "the system" all that well, but which Mr. P. was fond of emphasizing was "change the subject". If a guy has you in a two-hand choke, don't get tunnel vision on trying to break the choke; focus on breaking his feet, or his windpipe, or his ribs, or whatever. If you're up against a boxer, don't be foolish enough to play their game by their rules on their court; use your toolbox to change the rules and provide stimuli the boxer is not condiotioned to respond to. He throws a jab? Don't try to answer it by throwing an equal or better one -- jabs are his territory, not yours: That's just ego getting in the way of common sense... playing to his strengths instead of yours. Check it off, and answer with a side kick to his knees, or a front thrust to his pubic bone!

Regarding heel up or down, Neutral or Lunge/Wide Kneel, I know my preferences and why. I'm a body surfer; have been since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. When the waves are tumbling around pretty hard with a lot of turbulence, digging my feet into the sand by kicking out my heels into a Neutral Bow locks me into place against the shifting directions of the water. There's a stability I don't have until I lock it down. The waves knock my torso around in several different directions in short sequential bursts, but I can hold my ground. In my opinion only, kenpo -- in it's highest form of execution -- has the arms whipping, snapping and popping in all sorts of different directions, in short, tumultuous, sequential bursts. Locking in my stance before launching an offensive blitz provides me a stable launching platform from which to strike, and have better force transmission from the ground, up. I don't lose anything in 3-to-5 shot blasts that have my arms counter-balancing in all sorts of odd windmilling, swim-stroke-looking sweeps. I use the lunge to get to my attacker (big believer in attacking the attacker, instead of waiting for them to get to me), but once I'm in engagement middle range (the range, IMO, in which kenpo is at it's strongest), I kick out the heels, lock in my neutral bow, and let the ordnance fly.

There are also biomechanical reasons for the beneficial effect of locking in a bow stance; I use them in transfers with chair-bound patients, where I have to be the solid object in the physical field of reference for them to borrow stability from. Teach them to kinesiology majors on rotation, so they can improve their own transfer skills. Oddly, it takes the weight off the medial quads, and transfers the bearing to lateral thigh muscles and hip rotators (outer part of the buttocks mass). This frees up the waistline at the lumbo-sacral level to twist like doing the hula.... getting the torso in on the directional harmony gig. Weight on the center of the thigh extensor mass (middle quads) with the heels NOT kicked out also causes the glutes and low back erectors to fire concommitantly, limiting waist recruitment in torso-rotation. Meaning we lose the ability to get "momentous expansion" in our circularly orbited weapons that bomb the guy with thunderous effect from all directions.

Guess it just depends on what you wanna do. Once I start throwing, I want firm rooting, so I can launch bigger shots out of my canoe. The body is designed to sacrifice stability for mobility, and mobility for stability. One, but not both. Darting in and out, I want mobility. Once in place, I want cannons, and big booms necessitate solid foundations as launching platforms. In my experience, anyway.

Regards,

D.

[bdparsons]

If "kenpo" guys are seriously considering matching their skills to a boxers by considering how their closed hand techniques match up to the boxers in that range, then they haven't been studying kenpo.

Thank you. I'm amazed at the amount of kenpoists I run into that have the ability but no concept of how to use it. Not only no strategy going into a fight, but no tactical knowledge of application. Not their fault, their teacher didn't know either.

Respects,
Bill Parsons
Triangle Kenpo Institute

[MarkC]

Nice post, Dr. Dave.

[MarkC]

If they fight other boxers. From my experience, they manage to dodge punches from a martial artist w/o boxing or other contact sparring experience pretty well.
That's why I recommend looking for a good boxing coach and taking some lessons.

That's the key.

(BTW, How do they do against murderous ninja monkeys?)

[Lenny]

That's the key.

(BTW, How do they do against murderous ninja monkeys?)

Well, I tend to get better
But since we normally play by there rules, I am sometimes quite frustrated because they have some really quick guys in the gym. But, as I said, I see some progress

[DavidCC]

it takes the weight off the medial quads, and transfers the bearing to lateral thigh muscles and hip rotators (outer part of the buttocks mass). This frees up the waistline at the lumbo-sacral level to twist like doing the hula.... getting the torso in on the directional harmony gig.

thanks D!

[J Ellis]

This thread had me remeniscing (sp?) with an old friend, student, and kenpo training partner... also in this mix for more than 30 years. Neither one of us had any problem with boxers, because we fought them on kenpo terms. Managing range and target selection; making their guard a target (breaking their hands or fingers with snapping reverse punches, honed in speed, candle-extinguishing, and makiwara drills); chopping their legs out from under them with shots to the knees, shins, and thighs; snap kicks to the groin to drop their hands, followed by trapping-hands and pinning check combos. One of my old buddies in high school was a very talented fighter. Only got to purple in the system, but had a rep for dropping guys twice his size and rank through clever application of his tool set. Him dropping a boxer and football player in front of another football player was the cause for the second player to get into the martial arts in the first place...my current buddy I'm recounting the past with.

Had a running feud with a local Thai boxing stable. Neither I nor any of mine ever lost a fight to these guys. Note: FIGHT, not match. They kept starting problems at keggers, and we kept finishing them. Championship stable, too. One gent started a rear-led roundhouse; I only faded to the negative end of his swing and countered with a snap kick to his medial knee, while it was weighted and torqued. Ugly things happen to knees under such circumstances. One of my students had a slightly different time dropping a GG guy at a club he bounced at, out in the parking lot: Pull-drag side-thrust to the lead knee, land forward with a pinning check with the lead hand (pushing on the guy pretty hard with the momentum), horizontal punch over the top, landing on the bridge of the nose. Thing made a popping sound like cracking, wet popsicle stick, and sprayed blood in a dozen different directions. Fight was done; boxer down.

Spent years thinking the boxing and thai-boxing guys were smoking their own dope too much, and too heavily invested in their own self-confidence. Changed my mind from "all of them" to "some of them" after bouncing with a couple of Benny's guys. Liked what they did, so I banged at the Jet Center for a spell. Good ****. But still, not a match for a kenpoist with contact experience in a drag-out beat fest. They practice jabs ad infinitum. We practiced eye rakes ad infinitum, executed from a siezing technique, which was preceded by low-line attacks & positional or pinning checks.

If "kenpo" guys are seriously considering matching their skills to a boxers by considering how their closed hand techniques match up to the boxers in that range, then they haven't been studying kenpo. Something not covered in "the system" all that well, but which Mr. P. was fond of emphasizing was "change the subject". If a guy has you in a two-hand choke, don't get tunnel vision on trying to break the choke; focus on breaking his feet, or his windpipe, or his ribs, or whatever. If you're up against a boxer, don't be foolish enough to play their game by their rules on their court; use your toolbox to change the rules and provide stimuli the boxer is not condiotioned to respond to. He throws a jab? Don't try to answer it by throwing an equal or better one -- jabs are his territory, not yours: That's just ego getting in the way of common sense... playing to his strengths instead of yours. Check it off, and answer with a side kick to his knees, or a front thrust to his pubic bone!

Regarding heel up or down, Neutral or Lunge/Wide Kneel, I know my preferences and why. I'm a body surfer; have been since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. When the waves are tumbling around pretty hard with a lot of turbulence, digging my feet into the sand by kicking out my heels into a Neutral Bow locks me into place against the shifting directions of the water. There's a stability I don't have until I lock it down. The waves knock my torso around in several different directions in short sequential bursts, but I can hold my ground. In my opinion only, kenpo -- in it's highest form of execution -- has the arms whipping, snapping and popping in all sorts of different directions, in short, tumultuous, sequential bursts. Locking in my stance before launching an offensive blitz provides me a stable launching platform from which to strike, and have better force transmission from the ground, up. I don't lose anything in 3-to-5 shot blasts that have my arms counter-balancing in all sorts of odd windmilling, swim-stroke-looking sweeps. I use the lunge to get to my attacker (big believer in attacking the attacker, instead of waiting for them to get to me), but once I'm in engagement middle range (the range, IMO, in which kenpo is at it's strongest), I kick out the heels, lock in my neutral bow, and let the ordnance fly.

There are also biomechanical reasons for the beneficial effect of locking in a bow stance; I use them in transfers with chair-bound patients, where I have to be the solid object in the physical field of reference for them to borrow stability from. Teach them to kinesiology majors on rotation, so they can improve their own transfer skills. Oddly, it takes the weight off the medial quads, and transfers the bearing to lateral thigh muscles and hip rotators (outer part of the buttocks mass). This frees up the waistline at the lumbo-sacral level to twist like doing the hula.... getting the torso in on the directional harmony gig. Weight on the center of the thigh extensor mass (middle quads) with the heels NOT kicked out also causes the glutes and low back erectors to fire concommitantly, limiting waist recruitment in torso-rotation. Meaning we lose the ability to get "momentous expansion" in our circularly orbited weapons that bomb the guy with thunderous effect from all directions.

Guess it just depends on what you wanna do. Once I start throwing, I want firm rooting, so I can launch bigger shots out of my canoe. The body is designed to sacrifice stability for mobility, and mobility for stability. One, but not both. Darting in and out, I want mobility. Once in place, I want cannons, and big booms necessitate solid foundations as launching platforms. In my experience, anyway.

Regards,

D.

Where have you been, sir? You're missed when sitting silently in the corner.

Thank you, as always. Copied and pasted. Keep the good stuff coming.

Joel