Upper Block Training

I actually cringed (Experience an inward shiver of embarrassment or disgust) a little as I typed the title however knew if I typed Upper Forearm Strike 99% of the Protection Art World would have no idea what the heck I was ranting about.  

People know this technique by many names; face, face cover, head, head cover, upper block, high block, et cetra.  All of these tend to make the end use feel that this is a block or a cover and that is not really how Taika used it.  We call them forearm STRIKES to make the student envision them as a little more aggressive rather than the passive 'defense only' image that pops into the head of someone when they hear the word 'block'.  Taika used these in many places over the years, in anything from a defense against a bear hug to a simple forearm strike to the neck.  He showed repeatedly in various exercises which included "single, double, head", that the 'head' motion was just rolling the opponent's arm around to reposition yourself inside or outside of their body. 

ALL of Taika's forearm strikes (single, double, head) have a rotation element of the forearm.  What I mean by the rotation element can best be visualized without pictures by doing the following;

• Place your arm out in front of you palm down

• Rotate your arm until it is palm up

You have just completed the rotation element I was talking about.  So the forearm rotates as the arm in its entirety moves towards its target.  This is a striking multiplier of sorts as you have the normal kinetic energy of the entire arm coming towards its target, plus the forearm is spinning on its axis adding yet more kinetic energy.    All of his forearm related strikes (blocks) have this.  So let me describe what many people call an upper block, once again without the aid of pictures and only focusing on the single arm (though in reality there is a whole lot going on with the other arm).

• Arm comes out at about a 45 degree angle out past your belly button, mostly palm up (almost parallel to the floor), but slanted just a little towards your body because 100% flat would feel all tight and awkward.

• Arm begins rising, and in the last part of its upward rise, rotates out - palm out.

So in that description, the beginning motion is pinky side towards you, and it ends pinky side up and out.  OUT.  Did I mention out.  The forearm, ulnar bone, is rotating forward and up.  

Where my rant comes in two play now are two things I've noticed lately in personal accounts as well as on various facebook postings.  I keep seeing people who are either a) not rotating their forearms to get the extra kinetic bonus points, b) not going forward with the strike, or c) all of the above.

a) Please try this for yourself and you will see just how important it is.  If you do the age old, stereotyped karate chop where you align your ulnar bone to point down (pinky down thumb up for the bone nomenclature impaired), and chop exactly straight down with no twist on the partner of your choice, you probably can get a decent reaction depending on far too many variables to detail here.  BUT, if do the same motion and let the forearm rotate, you will get a significant amount of extra bonus points a kinetic energy arriving into and through your target.  So as you have your hand up before you chop down, have it palm up and then as it is dropping and impacting something fun like your buddy's forearm, it rotates to the point of impact and beyond.  And that is how little people get the great strikes.  Taika I believe was 5'4".  He used every little trick possible to get these strikes to be as effective as possible.

 

b) Abe Lincoln could not do backward Upper Blocks and look cool, so why should you?  Ok, what the heck is Lee talking about now?  Well, I see people doing these strikes and instead of going forward, it is like their arm is frozen at every single joint except the shoulder.  So they let their arm lock into place, and just pivot it on the ball socket type joint of the shoulder, letting it raise up with a forward and then backward arc, that would knock their pretty little top hat off if they were wearing one.  This is a forward moving strike, not a knock my hat off rearward one.

I recently had the misfortune to watch an instructor teaching a series of moves containing the upper block.  Each time he did it, he neither rotated his forearm and just knocked his imaginary hat off.  The really sad part was his original instructor was there as well doing the same patterns and was performing the upper block correctly; out, rotating and forward.

So now the question; How are we getting students in these bad habits?

 Banana Attacks

I think the main thing we are doing is bad formation training and paired dances at their early stage of development.  I have been guilty of the first one myself.  In the past I would have the beginning warm up in class with students in horse stance doing requirements.  Warming up by doing hundreds of blocks, punches, et cetra.  When they would do their Upper Blocks, I would sometimes have a foam stick and to illustrate that they were not high enough, I would drive the foam stick down towards their head.  I've seen people in other styles doing this as well as three step sparing (which we have thankfully have never done) in which the uke steps forward three times with various banana style downward attacks and the tori retreats doing Upper Blocks.  Well, an upper block is a horrible response to a downward move with a knife, bat, banana, rodent, or anything else.  I won't get into proper responses at this point but I think instructors create that problem.

Solution?

First, be a good target.  For the formation upper blocks, I may still walk around with my padded stick now, but what I NOW do is I hold it out in front of the student like it is the opponents neck.  Now when I call off the count they are having to strike forward to hit the neck, pencil neck that it is.  So my students begin visualizing forward motion.  I put it just enough in front of them that they have to go forward with it.  Then when I start to do movement drills, it is forward motion, not retreat that I'm doing.  So I have the stick out of range and they have to shuffle into it.

Second, stop calling them blocks.  If the whole damn world jumped off a cliff would you?  No Mom!  It is a purely mental thing but block has the connotation of, "Oh crap, get me out of here, retreat!!!!!!"   Or maybe just, "Run away, run away!"  Taika would do single, double head or the turtle exercise and that upper block was actually navigating the opponent's arm out and around to switch him from being inside to outside.  He would do a neck strike with it.  He would use it for a bear hug defense.  Yes, these are defensive motions but none of them are running away.  They were motions that exploded forward.  I really believe that changing the name puts a more forceful spin on it and makes the students push harder to defeat rather than retreat.

Of course, you probably have other good ideas so feel free to share them.

Lee