Accuracy with modified knife defense, roundhouse defense

Six students today. The gray weather brings them in.

Today I taught a non-knife version of Sifu Dean’s knife angle #1. We started with a step left 45, soft outward block with the left and eyepoke with the right. Then we moved to the attack (normally a high forehand slash to the head) which was a right roundhouse punch to the temple. Foolishly, I complicated things by adding the mirror image of both the attack and defense. In retrospect, I should have made the students do just the right side and get comfortable with it and then add in the left side.

For some inbetween non-martial accuracy training, the students passed a tennis ball back and forth. They started two feet away and with each successful throw, they both took a step back. If they dropped the ball, they had to come all the way back in, do 3 high five burpees and then start over again. Because we were doing both sides of the modified knife defense, they then switched to throwing the ball with their off hand and doing 3 reverse burpees.

Back to the modified knife defense (really a roundhouse defense), we then added the pass. The pass is scooping underneath your opponent’s striking hand and stepping to their outside. Here’s the point where at least one observant student asks “could you really do that? I mean, in a real fight?”. The answer depends on the efficacy of the eye poke. After the pass, I asked the students to throw a second eye poke. That would mean (going against a right roundhouse) the first eye poke would be with the right, the second with the left.

By the second round, everyone was getting the basic footwork of the drill – stepping off at a 45 degree angle and they were getting the idea that the closer hand (to the opponents striking hand) blocks and the further hand eye pokes.

For a second break, the students played the same toss game but this time instead of a tennis ball, they tossed a focus pad. Instead of using their hands, they used their feet. As a penalty, if they dropped the pad, they had to do 3 partner sit ups. That was too easy – particularly in comparison with the high five burpees from the previous round. After a couple minutes of the foot toss, they all had to switch to their “off” foot and do the same thing.

For the apex of the martial drill, we then switched to the full on knife angle #1. This meant picking up – (all this is phrased against a right roundhouse punch) blocking with the left & eyepoking with the right. Passing – with the right hand doing a soft outward underneat the opponents arm and then the left hand grabbing the tricep (with the thumb up). And then the final eye poke with the right.

To finish off the notion of accuracy with a conditioning drill, the students then partnered up. One partner had to do two laps of an animal walk while the other tried to hit a heavy bag with a tennis ball from twenty feet away. Once one partner completed two laps of the animal walk, the two would switch roles. The animal walks were (in order) snake, bear and shrimp.

The real question is, can people maintain accuracy under pressure? Hopefully the stressfullness of the conditioning drill helped folks answer that question for themselves.