Van
I think we are converging here for a number of different reasons.
You say <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>And to the sweeping, here are my views:
I came to Uechi Ryu from Judo. I was taught to sweep my opponent on the way in to me when his weight was not settled down and I could use his momentum against him.
I was told not to attempt a sweep once the forward foot landed as his weight settled, or I would be sweeping my dreams mostly, besides spraining my ankle and knee when using the inside of the foot for a sweep.
Sure enough, in my randori matches, and later, in my karate sparring matches, the opponents caught on the way in would tumble like duckpins. This is the same technique Bob Campbell uses to a great advantage.
Once a strong opponent, well versed in Tobikomi, lands his weight, you will have a difficult time sweeping him. It is easy to find this out on the Dojo floor.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> and I said <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote
The art of sweeping isn't executing as they land, it's executing the technique a fraction of a second before they stick it.
It appears we are in 100% agreement. As you said, it's easy enough to find this out on the dojo floor. I started working more with this after numerous exposures to this (Bob Campbell, a local judo guy, Ron Fagen). Like you, I came to the same conclusions. We now have this as a semi-regular exercise in our class.
From a practical standpoint, I learned that one does need to anticipate the attack to pull it off, or at least have the sweep so well conditioned that it happens without thought (like a simple parry). Bobby certainly had that down, and Bobby was one of those guys who seemed to know what you were going to do before you did it. Something about those "stealing eyes"...
Now that we are in agreement there, the point I would make here is that: 1) it (front foot planting) does present vulnerability (although there will
always be something), and 2) one can train to attack with a quick delivery to negate this whole vulnerability thing. This sort of thing takes a long time to show, even in a classroom. I won't attempt to expound upon it here. The elder Shinjo taught this to Marty for sparring, and I've seen others either consciously or subconsciously do this. I've seen Gary attack this way when he spars, and I even commented to him about it. He just looked at me and nodded, like it was either obvious to him or he never really thought about it.
Now, on to other issues...
Last night I tried a few things in the dojo and slept on some of these issues. I played with the whole front foot thing. I take back some of what I said about the front foot not being productive in the attack delivery, but as I reasoned through what was going on, I realized that others haven't really quite defined it properly either.
I keep my premise that one can choose to "focus" (ippon) at ANY point in the whole process of driving forward with the legs. That's a good thing for a number of reasons. It creates choices. It allows one to emphasize one advantage of an attack over another, given the need. It allows someone to immediately adjust to changing distances and still pull off the focused ippon where all muscles contract at once and all motion seems to freeze for an infinitesimal moment.
Now as to what's going on with the back foot, front foot thing, I came up with a Newtonian physic explanation and some analogies. I realized I had stated it before, but didn't really give the second leg due emphasis. Basically if one chooses to have this back foot, front foot thing, we can break the physics down into three major phases:
Phase I: Attacker loads and then explodes off the rear leg. This generates translational momentum.
Phase II: Attacker plants (loads) front leg and creates a solid pivot rod from foot to shoulder. I really don't like the idea of a stomp, but I see the point. It's VITAL to have a very stiff rod on the end opposite from the attacking hand. This means we must turn the extending front leg and that whole side of the body from something like a chain to something like a car axle in a fraction of a second - hence the notion of a "stomp." Then one rotates around that pivot rod anchored by the front foot. This is converting the translational momentum generated in phase I to angular momentum. Similar things happen when a baseball pitcher throws a ball (a driving leg and a pivot leg) and when the batter hits the ball (a driving back leg and a pivot point on the front after planting foot). Actually there's a little bit of a subtlety going on with the fellow in the mpeg file. He starts with a very long lever when he plants the foot because of his extraordinarily long lunge. He then narrows the length of that lever as he continues to come forward. Conservation of angular momentum dictates that the fist will speed up as he does that, just like the ice skater spins faster when pulling in towards the center.
It should also be noted that in phase II, one is doing more than just converting translational momentum to angular momentum. Using a good twist of the body, one can add to the energy in the same way a batter does that when pivoting on his front leg. By doing a bit of a stomp on the pivot, one can create a bit of a plyometric response through the body that adds to that. I've seen batters and pitchers both do rotational plyometric work with a medicine ball to train/enhance that effect.
Phase III This is where one touches target (or imagines doing so in a kata) and must change from no load to high load. Everything in the body must stiffen at that point; it becomes like an isometric contraction. That further triggers the neuromuscular reflexes in the body, and gets the electric juices flowing (literally) that add more contraction to the motion. By definition when one is hitting an object that isn't going to move much, all motion does seem to cease. However more energy is being generated and transferred to the target. The isometric (same position) contraction - when done properly against a heavy target - can be quite violent. The only way to really get this down right is to hit things. It's the "time on contact" thing that Jimmy Malone likes to talk about when doing his pressure point seminars.
OK, that being said, here is my comment on this specific mpeg.
1) The fellow pretty much hits the jaw before he gets much done in phase two. It looks like he would have put more into it, but the dummy he was fighting sort of walked into the punch. This is precisely what I mean when I say one should be able to do that focus (phase III) at any point. Sometimes you intentionally shorten the early power generation phases (eliminate the plant before punching) to take the sweep or counterpunch away from your opponent. And sometimes distances change and you take what you can get. I believe the latter happened with this guy.
2) The whole concept of the Okinawan focused punch is somewhat irrelevant in this particular instance. As I understand history, the focused punch was most practically applied to the body, where you needed to hit very hard to exact the kind of damage that you desired. Furthermore, its need was necessitated by the fact that some of their opponents wore bamboo armor, so one needed to send a power shockwave through that and into the body. Going at the jaw is really a whole other thing. To start with, one really doesn't need that isometric contraction phase as the jaw and head are going to snap back (a good thing). Instead one wants a kind of follow-through motion best done with techniques like your classic haymaker seen on the street. This also explains why something like a spinning hook kick - applied with motion through the target - is so deadly to the head. It's like a batter swinging through a ball, rather than a batter hitting someone's ribs on the street. Furthermore, the smart Okinawan wouldn't be
punching the face, right??
'Nuff said.
I hope you appreciate what I am going through here, Van, and I hope you understand how much I appreciate the patient approach you have taken to all this. I am getting a lot out of this. Thanks.
- Bill
