Tag: evasion

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In my articles “Evasion vs. blocking with evasion” and “The “guard” in karate” I have mentioned what I call the “melee range”.

This is the range you're in when you're both swapping blows furiously - half a step in to elbows and knees, half a step out to a fully extended kick. In other words, wherever you step, you face a blow. Most other martial artists I know feel very uncomfortable at this range: for them it feels like the “no-man’s land” in tennis – the mid-cou... Read More

I have often been confronted with the argument from modern or eclectic martial artists that karate or other traditional martial arts are deficient because they use what I call "blocks" [ie. parries or deflections] as their primary means of defence rather than purely evasion (as in boxing).

[In relation to the effectiveness of blocks, note my article "Why blocks DO work".]

As I said recently on the fightingarts.com forum, it seems that the above article has at least shifted the deba... Read More

Further to Part 1 of this article...

I discuss how tenshin/taisabaki has been used as the foundation of our "embu" or 2-person forms in the article "Muidokan embu: 2 person forms for karate". That tenshin is a vital, yet largely forgotten, skill is something that I highlighted in Part 1 of this article.

Yet recently the value of tenshin (and accordingly our embu) has been debated on an online forum (in relation to our gekisai embu in particular). The argument is a considered and s... Read More

"Taisabaki" means body movement. Most schools however use this term to refer to a type of body shifting the goal of which is to move in relation to the attacker both to avoid a blow and gain a position of advantage. Certainly that is how we used the term “taisabaki” when I was first taught in my "home" dojo.

However, translated literally the term “taisabaki” or “sabaki” might mean any kind of body movement – including stepping up and down the floor in zenkutsu (forward stan... Read More