REAL KNOWLEDGE

 by Phillip Starr

There is a Chinese saying that tells us, “Real knowledge comes only through direct experience.” This is, I feel, very applicable to martial arts. It's not so much a question of how a given technique or combination is to be applied; rather, it's more applicable to just HOW a given technique or movement is to be done and WHY it is done in such and such a way.

Simply learning a given technique isn’t enough. You may be able to do it in a basic way, but you don’t truly KNOW how to do it. And you won’t know that until you CAN DO IT! Seem like a bit of a quandary? It is…

A good example of this is my senior student, Hiro Misawa. He became very interested in finding the most efficient way of executing a lunging punch. Generally, this is presented to novices as a simple forward step and thrust with the fist…and no instruction beyond that is provided. But there’s more. Lots more.

Although any technique or movement will suffice, we’ll use Hiro’s lunging thrust (known as “oi-tsuki” in Japanese, and it may be called “sudden chasing thrust: - 突追招 tu zhui zhao –in Chinese, which means the same as the Japanese translation), with which Hiro is enamored at this time. He has seen me as well as other teachers (such as the famed Naka sensei in Japan) do it and has seen Kuroda sensei (the best swordsman in Japan) virtually vanish before his opponent, and he determined to learn how to do it.

He’s previously trained with the legendary Hino sensei and he reflected on Hino’s words as well as those of Kuroda sensei and another revered teacher who wrote down his ideas many years ago. He understood that before anything else, he’d have to eliminate all unnecessary tension before executing the movement, and study – in minute detail – just how certain joints had to move (such as the elbow, shoulders, and knees) without creating tension. That required several months of introspection and feeling what was happening inside his body as he moved. We would talk and bit by bit, he came to understand the ultra-fine and subtle changes that had to be made to his posture and balance, and the timing of the thrust. After about a year, he began to truly understand how the lunge punch is to be done.

For starters, the lunging thrust is an ATTACKING technique. It generally isn’t applied as a counter-punch. So – if it’s to be used as an attack, how do we apply it with any chance of success? You rarely see anyone use it as an attack nowadays…they’ll tell you it’s too slow and your opponent can easily see it coming and either evade it and deliver a quick counter. The real translation of this is, “I don’t know how to do it correctly.”

In teaching this technique at many seminars, I can see the disbelief on the faces of participants when I tell them that I can easily use this technique successfully and there is no defense against it; by the time my opponent sees it, he’s been hit. They still don’t buy it, so I invite a couple of their top fighters to spar…and I demonstrate the truth of my claim, even at my advanced age. It is a fine example of not truly KNOWING until you CAN DO it.

But there’s more; catching “the right moment” is also crucial. Understanding and FEELING this concept of distance and timing (which, he came to realize, are the same thing) takes more time. And the whole movement must be made just so; if done correctly, an opponent who is standing in front of you cannot see the technique coming! Understanding how to do it is one thing, but everything changes when you actually CAN do it! Real knowledge and understanding comes about ONLY through physical practice. Many like to intellectualize about how something is to be done, but very few comes to actually KNOW how it’s to be done; most people just won’t put in the required time and arduous physical practice.