Feb 25 2009
Attack Power vs Attack Duration
OK, this is one of the hardest concepts which I have encountered to explain in words.
The more powerful the attacks the less of them you can string together without reseting yourself. Take a side kick vs wing chung chain punches for example. The same person doing the techniques, obviously one side kick is much stronger than any one of those punches.
This creates an interesting situation when fighting, you might argue that through experience wait for your opponent to reset then respond. But this is not true. If you were analyzing an opponent that you were fighting in a sport then you might have that time. If you had hours of tape to review might be able to scope him out and know what his skills are. In a self defence situation you don’t have a lot of time to do this.
So how does this knowledge help then if you can’t use it against your opponent? But you can, it’s just you must do some self examination. Know your attacks, know how they can be put together. Understand how you can switch from attack to defence.
When you are outside fighting, it’s not like a kung fu film and it’s not like a UFC event there is no time. No long fights where you finally overcome your opponent by personal growth while you are fighting. No rounds and referees which guarantee you will be fighting one opponent at a time with no surprises.
You need to know what your limits are, if you bring out your game breaker punch realize it will take you a while to recover from it, that attack better land. If someone is throwing jabs and you are doing a huge uke nagashi, your timing better be good.
I am still thinking about this so I will leave you at that. Next post will probably be on facing jabs, a fitting end to the month of striking. This is also a question which Bujinkan members ask far too much because we train it far too infrequently.