May 2014 FIGHTING DISTANCE

Fighting Distance 5/2014

The main thing is to keep calm, and when you are in a calm state of mind you really see what is going on. This helps you to understand what you need to do.

Even a trained person can lose himself in the action, it is almost like you are out of your body and just watching yourself react. I have years of training in karate basic so this helps me to just “do” with out a feeling of being mad or afraid , also with this type of training you won’t get tired or winded. I feel this is a really big thing, and the fact to be able to just “do” is what it is all about.

In my job I have to control and keep order with high risk high school kids, While this is hard to do, it makes me use what ever I can to stop them from hurting me or themselves. When a fight starts it seems to go about 90 miles an hour, and a lot of the punches never hit there target. Untrained people are just throwing lots of punches in such a short time, not really worrying about what they are doing, just being in the moment. One of the reasons that they don’t land is because of their distance.

Distance is one of the most important things that you are able to control in a fight, it seems that most of the untrained people don’t even think of this. When all you have to do is take a half step in or back so that you are in the right range to land your punch or kick.   To close the gap is one of the hardest things to do (mentally) because you know that you are in range to hit or to get hit. But by being the hardest thing, that is what makes it the most important thing that you can do.

In our Karate dojo, we work on this a lot. I always stress how this is the key to winning a fight. It doesn’t matter if you have a strong punch, if you can’t get close enough to land it, what good is it? Don’t worry about trying to do some special stepping technique just move in 5 or 6 inches, try not to over step or put yourselves in an awkward position and hit, keep your feet under you in a comfortable and natural stance, this way you can move freely and just hit. Moving training is the time to really get the feeling of where your feet are and what they are doing. That’s why it is so important to be natural, your everyday walking stance should be your fighting stance.

Fighting should be as natural as walking, we don’t think about walking we just walk, and this is the way real fights should be handled (just do what needs to be done) . Remember we don’t really want to fight we just need to stop the other person from hurting us in what ever way we can.   This is the whole gist of the matter, to be in control of yourself so we can control the situation at hand.

When you have other people involved and you know that they have your back is a great feeling, but what is a better feeling is when you know you have their back, and you will do whatever it takes. Keep training in the basic so you can and will react…

see you in the dojo

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US Branch of Japan Keishinkan Karate