December 30, 2011 by Chris Ranck-Buhr
A singularly misunderstood element of TFT is the fact that we preach slow practice.
It’s easy to dismiss what we’re doing at a glance since everyone knows that violence happens at full speed, right?
And, unfortunately for us, it requires several layers of explanation and then a fair amount of hands-on experience to get what we’re up to.
The two things you need to make injury the most likely outcome are accuracy and correctness. You need to strike a part of the body that can actually be broken (and gives good results when that happens) — but you also need to strike it hard enough and with enough follow-through to actually break it.
If you miss, nothing happens. If you hit it but not hard enough to break it, nothing happens. The problem is that accuracy and correctness cannot be learned with speed in the mix.
read this entry »
December 22, 2011 by Chris Ranck-Buhr
Hitting < Striking < Colliding
The most common mistake I see in training to wreck the human machine — beyond poor targeting and worse tools — is people lashing out with their arms and legs while they leave the belt buckle behind.
For most of us, our center of mass rests behind our belt buckle — if it holds still, or worse, moves away from the strike, then your mass is not involved. You’re hitting with the strength and mass of the limb alone. And while it is possible to cause injury doing this, a debilitating injury is not the most likely outcome.
Hitting, or limb-only punching and kicking, is not nearly as good as striking, where you move your entire mass through the target.
read this entry »
December 7, 2011 by Chris Ranck-Buhr
Frank Z. writes:
“I expect the idea of being able to condition oneself to take a real hit and continue as if nothing happened is BS. But I have seen people so unbelievably sensitive to pain as to render them helpless for a short time. I have developed a high pain threshold over my life by enduring pain. Not because I tried to endure pain but because I was in pain at times. I look at my grandsons, who have never even felt a lick on their butt and tell them to avoid a fight at all cost as the first hit will wilt them the other guy will beat the crap out of them.
“This bothers me as I can’t condition them to fight through pain. In high school boxing we got hit and learned to continue, no matter what. So many children now are so sheltered that they have felt very little pain. Consider that as a kid, I didn’t get novocaine to get a tooth drilled. Now I avoid the numb feeling as I prefer a short term pain over hours of numb mouth. Try to find a dentist who will drill without the needle!
“Yes, pain hurts but sometimes you have to ignore the pain and fight through it.
“I have taught my grandchildren all of the age-appropriate self defense I can, top of the list being avoidance. But if they ever have to mix it up I don’t think they will come out on top.
“I would like to see you address this.”
Chris Ranck-Buhr responds:
read this entry »
