The Step-45, or Importance of Angling in Martial Arts

There are some ideas that crop up continually in our style (and I’m sure many other styles as well). One of them is the idea of moving your feet. You could stand toe to toe with an opponent but unless you’re bigger – why? Even if you are bigger, why not step off and get to their side or back where you have more weapons at your disposal and they have less?

To answer those questions, we ran through Mo Yee Do today in the Noon class. It’s an excellent form for developing strong, structured blocks. It teaches a student to stand firm and throw moves with all the power in their bodies. With that strength as a starting point, we then added a small step off as we blocked.

First: the power and structure to stand. Second: the ability to move. Yang then Yin.