2025-05-19
Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.
We continued with the sparring drills we’ve been working on recently, namely:
- Start with one-step sparring, both sides in free stance, using the 7 attacks listed above, plus mawashi-geri.
- Next do them in any order.
- Then do them at half speed, without announcing them.
From there, we added two new variations.
- Going at half speed, without announcement, but with each side taking turns instead of doing all 8 and then letting the other side do all 8.
- Do the same thing, but without regard to whose “turn” it is. (And if that sounds very much like jiyu kumite, good. 😂)
This was only the second time we worked with mawashi-geri, and my “go-to” defense is shifting away from the kicking leg and using gedan-barai (assuming a chudan-level attack). But that prompted questions because some people noticed that they’re not really getting out of the way of the attack, but rather just retreating down the line of the attack … and that’s true. Defending against mawashi-geri is different for a few reasons.
- You never know if it’s going to swtich from high to low, or vice-versa, in the middle of the kick.
- If you can’t shift to the side far enough to get out of reach, you may still be in the way of the attack, but the farther you go the less energy the kick will have by the time it gets to you.
- Because the dorsiflexion of the ankle makes the attack “hook-shaped” it’s possible to block the leg but still get kicked by the ball of the foot, but rotation towards the attacker while shifting away can solve that problem.
But, in general, the rules for avoiding injury from an attack, once launched, remain the same:
- Dodge: If you can remove yourself from the path of the attack, do so.
- Disappate: If you can’t avoid the attack, put something less valuable in the way, or move where the attack will be less effective (which may mean getting closer.)
