Diabetes Nutrition

After push-hands class today, one of my students asked about why she couldn’t get a technique such as ikkyu on the advanced students, particularly the ones who have cross-trained in other arts.  The advanced students have developed the sensitivity to reverse or otherwise get out of most arm or wrist locks before they even happen.  And even if a lock can be applied, they rely mostly on the person’s reaction to pain.  Advanced students tend to take pain rather nonchalantly, and so with her relatively weak hand grip, she is no match for them.

I explained the use of the Tai Chi principle lift-release in regards to wrist locks.  You can get by with a lot less strength using lift-release timing.

It occurred to me that the correct timing is a lot like the timing of whip-snapping a towel.

A regular person just uses one steady amount of force when trying to apply a technique.  If the other person’s strength is greater than that pressure, then the technique won’t work.  But if a weaker person utilizes the lift-release principle properly, they can turn that lock on a stronger person. 

Say your strength is measured in units, with ten being as strong as you can possibly be.

Butt against the opponent’s resistence with nine units of your strength, then immediately and completely go to “zero” with the timing of the towel-whip-snap, go right back with ten units, or all of your strength.

Now the way the student has been using strength in a gradual way, starting with 6-7-8-9 units of strength, announcing her intent to put an arm lock on her partner.  And then, on the release part of the cycle, descending through 9-8-7-6 and gradually again down to 1, never completely reaching Zero Touch.  That won’t work because it gives the partner too much tactile feedback of her intent, and then can be easily neutralized.  If instead, she were able to bump against the partner’s strength with 9 units, then go immediately to zero touch, then back to 10 without any transition, it would require a lot less strength to apply the technique.