Block or run away?
Published: Mon, 05/04/15
Perhaps one of the biggest issues in Martial Arts training is whether to teach students to block or evade an attack. Blocking means meeting force with force and stopping an attack half way through. To do this effectively a student has to be tough and hard and get as strong and fit as possible to survive combat situations. If someone is in a hurry to learn how to fight and protect themselves this may be the best option. However blocking hard is going to hurt someone and may actually escalate an already bad situation.
The opposite extreme to blocking is evasion and again this is a perfectly good strategy when no other option is available. However evasion is effectively running away. Running away is fine so long as, a. You don’t get chased by something or someone faster than you. b. There is somewhere to run to. or c. You are not abandoning someone or something you care about to their fate.
The midpoint between these two responses is interception where the defender turns the energy of the attack to their own advantage. Learning to intercept correctly is never going to be easy but it is highly effective when the principle is mastered.
The theory behind using interception is found in the web of Orlog. Each line eventually meets a nexus point of several other lines, any one of which can be used at that moment in time and space. Successful interception requires the ability to intuitively see the lines and act at the meeting points. These can be called chaos points because these are when anything can happen and at these points it most easy for you to influence a change of direction which suits you. To use a dubious example, if you were going to hijack a car you would not attempt to take over the vehicle while it was travelling at 70 mph on a straight road. The time to do the deed would be when the vehicle had stopped at the lights about to turn left or right. Transition points are when everyone is most vulnerable. Transitions happen all the time and can be exploited if you can see them. Obviously a decent person does not take unfair advantage of a vulnerable
individual. Think of a first day at school or in a new job, who do you believe as you get to know the ropes? But in a self-defence situation being able to exploit the vulnerability created by the chaos points in the web will even the odds and may make the difference between life and death.
This concept of seeing the web and intercepting rather than blocking has been inherent in Stav training since I began with Ivar over 20 years ago and obviously goes back much further than that. Even though I didn’t consciously realise it at the time I think it was the reason I knew that Stav had something special to offer.
I have been emphasising the concept of intercepting and how to train to do it in classes and seminars recently. This will be the theme in the training over the next month or so. Seminar in Sweden on the 23rd and 24th, Salisbury on the 30th and Crewkerne on the 6th of June. More details over the next few days.
regards
Graham