Wado technical – More on stances.

How to turn yourself into the human Intercontinental ballistic missile.

A reminder; this is another of my series on technical matters.

On this premium section of my ongoing Substack project, I thought it was time to share some ideas and opinions on technical Wado.

Free subscribers will continue to get the weekly (Tuesday) posts, but to access the bulk of the premium section you need to be a paid subscriber.

There are other advantages of going beyond the paywall; the most important being that you have full access to the previous, more in-depth articles, which include historical Wado and the technical background of Wado karate.

For these new pieces, free subscribers will see the opening section of the post (as a taster) and if your curiosity is excited then, by all means, do upgrade to the premium section.

In this latest piece:

· The need to be stable versus the exaggerated Superman punch.

· How all that power potential has to be traded off against something. The compromises we have to make.

· Biped versus Tripod.

· The judo/jujutsu challenge.

· The bipedal position through martial arts stances.

· Stances as caricatures.

· Having your stance position tested.

Boil it down to the most basic of objectives:

How to put the most of your body weight behind a punch. Even if you are 45 Kg or 95 Kg how can you transfer all of that weight (and energy) into an opponent?

Don’t worry, I am not going to go all Isaac Newton on you; I will leave that to the experts.

One simple, but crude, answer; just throw yourself at the assailant with your fist coming out. Total ‘feet off the ground,” a kind of insane version of the Superman punch. With no regard for what happens to you afterwards, even if you miss. Who cares if you just end up as an ugly splat on the floor, your dignity and poise just left hanging in the wind? The intention was there, right?

It’s a gamble; you could dress it up with the idea that you are executing a Sutemi Waza… (Sacrifice technique) where you just go full on ‘muck or nettles’, and leap into the void. Sounds heroic but the cost of failure is ridiculously high.

A spurious excuse to put in this video about Yves Klein’s famous ‘Leap into the Void’. (warning; this film features nudity and judo – but not at the same time). Yes, Klein was a judo guy, training at the Kodokan in 1953, but even so, no amount of ukemi experience is going to save you from this.

This is where stances in martial arts comes in.

You have several priorities, trade-offs and compromises to negotiate:

· You want to be able to generate all that energy, but not without a back-up plan.

· You do not want to supply an opening to an opponent, but by the very act of throwing out a limb (be it arm or leg) you are opening the door to a canny fighter who will take any opportunity available.

· You need to be mobile and be able to change your position quicker and more economically than your opponent.

· Whatever position you find yourself in you owe it to yourself to have the ability to run attacks together (not desirable, but often necessary).

· To not overstretch or over-reach; this will leave you vulnerable (why the mad version of the ‘Superman punch’, described above, is such a dumb idea).

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