4 quadrants drill
Tonight we did the 4-quadrants drill (just made up that name, don't know if it has a name otherwise).
There are 4 techniques in the beginning levels that all play off the same general idea. The defender steps back with the left foot, presenting the right side, and handles the defense and offence primarily with the right side. These 4 techs have initial blocks / parries that cover each of the 4 corners, facing the bad guy. This means that one tech covers the upper right quadrant, another the lower right, and so forth.
Putting them together, the student has 4 techs to do that remove much of the doubt and conflict that might hinder the response time of a beginner. Specifically, all step the same way (roughly), and have the right arm defending. So, the defender just has to step back and stop whatever hit is coming. By that time, the defender will be falling back on their training (based on repetition), and can do the rest of the tech as needed.
So, for the drill, everyone pairs up. They take turns in some manner (lots of ways to do this -- tonight we did 2 attacks, then 2 defense, then 2 attacks, etc, and using a "musical chairs" kind of process to switch up partners). The "bad guy" will either swing a right roundhouse punch or a left roundhouse punch (taking up the 2 upper quadrants), and the defender must read the attack and defend with one of the 4 self-defense techniques. Then, after a bit of this, we add in a kick for the lower quadrants. The defender has to "read" the motion of the bad guy to determine what is coming, and react immediately, meaning the drill forces the defender to not process information consciously, but rather rely on training and trust their own reflexes and "position recognition". This is why it's so important that they need not decide how to step -- that decision is a big complication for beginners that can't easily be handled yet.
For beginners, we make the reading easy, a clear step in with the punch, cocking the punch first, etc. For more experienced students, there is less warning, better control of "tells", faster and harder punches, etc, until a point where the bad guy is doing his best to foul up the defender, and throwing some solid strikes.
The drill develops ability to read, reaction time, below-conscious processing, trust of the body's reactions, trust of the training, confidence, comraderie, and lots of other stuff. It's not a bad drill.
We also did variations on wrestling described in a post below. These were also interactive (1-on-1 and competitive, specifically), and teach some of the same lessons as above, but also how to manipulate the opponent, throw or off-balance someone, keep one's own balance, etc.
Peace,
SGB
There are 4 techniques in the beginning levels that all play off the same general idea. The defender steps back with the left foot, presenting the right side, and handles the defense and offence primarily with the right side. These 4 techs have initial blocks / parries that cover each of the 4 corners, facing the bad guy. This means that one tech covers the upper right quadrant, another the lower right, and so forth.
Putting them together, the student has 4 techs to do that remove much of the doubt and conflict that might hinder the response time of a beginner. Specifically, all step the same way (roughly), and have the right arm defending. So, the defender just has to step back and stop whatever hit is coming. By that time, the defender will be falling back on their training (based on repetition), and can do the rest of the tech as needed.
So, for the drill, everyone pairs up. They take turns in some manner (lots of ways to do this -- tonight we did 2 attacks, then 2 defense, then 2 attacks, etc, and using a "musical chairs" kind of process to switch up partners). The "bad guy" will either swing a right roundhouse punch or a left roundhouse punch (taking up the 2 upper quadrants), and the defender must read the attack and defend with one of the 4 self-defense techniques. Then, after a bit of this, we add in a kick for the lower quadrants. The defender has to "read" the motion of the bad guy to determine what is coming, and react immediately, meaning the drill forces the defender to not process information consciously, but rather rely on training and trust their own reflexes and "position recognition". This is why it's so important that they need not decide how to step -- that decision is a big complication for beginners that can't easily be handled yet.
For beginners, we make the reading easy, a clear step in with the punch, cocking the punch first, etc. For more experienced students, there is less warning, better control of "tells", faster and harder punches, etc, until a point where the bad guy is doing his best to foul up the defender, and throwing some solid strikes.
The drill develops ability to read, reaction time, below-conscious processing, trust of the body's reactions, trust of the training, confidence, comraderie, and lots of other stuff. It's not a bad drill.
We also did variations on wrestling described in a post below. These were also interactive (1-on-1 and competitive, specifically), and teach some of the same lessons as above, but also how to manipulate the opponent, throw or off-balance someone, keep one's own balance, etc.
Peace,
SGB
posted by Scott Bonner at 9:36 PM
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