Just as a reminder, this is one of an occasional series of posts I’ll be writing in response to requests I cover some of the more basic material I taught when one of the coaches for the USA karate team at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Also, some of the coming material will be from what I taught our grass-roots (dojo) coaches while I was co-head of the national Coaches Education Committee. These were the people who produced the athletes who fed into the USA Karate Team pool from which we drew those who represented the USA in international competition.
This post continues my discussion of the subject of distance control.
The value of distance rests on the principle that if someone can’t reach you, they can’t hurt you. If you stay beyond their reach, and prevent them from ever getting any closer, you're safe. If they have a weapon and you stay beyond the reach or range of that weapon, they shouldn’t be able to hurt you with it.
Obviously, such a distance cannot always be calculated, created, or maintained, due to a variety of factors, such as when sucker punched, attacked while in a confined or restricted space, a long-range weapon is produced unexpectedly, etc. I’m not speaking about those times or locations, only situations in which you will be given sufficient warning and space – principally during competition but at times on the street as well.
In the old days, most competitors lined up within striking range of each other, often toe to toe. These were “quick draw” contests that were often won quickly. (I won matches in less than five seconds and lost others equally fast.) Contests were ippon shobu, one point matches back then, where the first person to score a full point – or two half points – was declared the winner. From that distance, where both combatants were within easy reach, speed was the major determiner of the outcome. The general rule from that distance was that the person to fire first usually won. So speed became a critical factor. The faster man usually won.
I tell my students that they never want to allow genetics or luck to determine if they live or die. (A loss in the ring generally represents a competitive death – unless it’s a round-robin or double elimination event.) We have no control over either genetics or luck. So to prevent our survival from resting in the hands of one or both of these, we must espouse tactics and strategies that enable us to control the fighting environment in such a manner that things get tilted as strongly as possible in our direction, taking it out of the hands of genetics (superior speed or reach) or luck. One of the major tools for achieving this is distance control.
You never want to discover that an opponent is faster or armed the hard way, which is likely to happen if you allow an opponent to set up within their preferred range.
You want to force them to always stay just outside the reach of their longest body weapon. If you allow them to setup close enough for them to lash out with a jab or punch or front kick, for example, there are people out there so fast you will never see them move. You will only feel the impact. From this range, they can hit you in one motion, before you (as the Japanese say) can say “ah.” By keeping them outside the reach of their preferred techniques, you force them to take a step before launching their techniques, force them to use techniques that are not their best, or force them to launch their favorite techniques but in a different manner – ie, overextending it, etc. – creating a weakness. By forcing them to take a step before launching, you turn their techniques into two-beat actions. From closer range, everything lands on a single beat. This gives you no warning. It’s their speed against yours. By backing up a bit, forcing them to take a step before launching, you get the first beat as a warning (the technique will land on the 2nd beat), giving you an opportunity to evade, block, hit them, etc.
I’ll go into greater detail on this in future posts. Some people always try to find some flaw in anything, some situation they can image to "prove" a technique won’t work. One young guy once asked me, after an explanation like that above, “But what would you do if he had an atomic bomb? Your distance control wouldn’t work!” He looked at me like he was serious and wanted a serious defense of my position. I told him to do what they told us to do in the army, if an atomic bomb was detonated over a place where we did battle. If it was to the right, we flattened out backs against the dirt wall of our trench to the right. If it was to the left, we sat against the left, using the earth to shield us. But if it was directly overhead, we were to put our arms under our knees, grab our ears, pull our heads down, and kiss our butts goodbye!
Techniques are like tools in a toolbox. No one tool fits every situation. That’s why a good, journeyman carpenter (and good, journeyman martial artist) has many of them, different tools for different jobs. This is just one of them, there to be used when conditions are right.
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