Applying the Blade

Tonight in class we ran through numerous drills, all while focusing on keeping our torsos bladed – turned 45 degrees relative to our partners. The night culminated in some slow speed monkey lines.

How important is it to keep yourself bladed? Is it the MOST important thing you need to do? For this week it is. As always, we work on one thing at a time and see how it fits into our game. Judging from what students had to say about playing with blading (“it felt weird”) it is something that will help most people both offensively (giving you a lead and rear hand) and defensively (makes your rear side further away and thus less available as a target).