kempoinfo.com

So my genius put itself on display recently…About 20 years ago I was told that good core muscles would help my back pain. Naturally, i went to work with sit ups and what not to work my abs. However, it was not until recently that I learned (not even figured out) that I need to engage those muscles as I move in order to protect my back! Pure genius.
Well what does this have to do with a kiai? I never had problems with my back while training. I think the reason is that through the kiai we engage our core muscles and therefore protect our back. Almost as good as the magic of qi!!

The use of the knees in kicking holds a particular importance to my thinking and practice. In order to generate power in most kicks the movement of the knee is key. Without the knee exploding from a chambered postition towards the plexus most kicks will lack the force they could deliver. By using the center of your body you use your whole body, neglect this and you exponentially dimininsh what you want to do for almost every kick in the system. The non kicking leg maintains your root (especially with impact) and cannot be locked. the knee must bend and even sink with the kick and not striaghten out or lock. The return to the crane afterwards re indexes the spine and brings you back to center alignment and equilibrium…bring the knee back to your center. the further you move from these prinicples of the knee the less effective your kempo becomes.

Since Mr. Dwire mentioned it, I thought it deserved its own plug. Every year he comes back raving about the Saratoga Martial Arts Festival, and I can see why. It’s a two day extravaganza of training, and done from a cool perspective. This year, they are trying to emphasize their concept of ‘100 styles flow into one’ by having teachers from disparate styles share seminar time on various topics.

Sometimes I think that combination 13 is a sort of silly ‘extra’ in the SK system. Why include one ‘belt’ technique along in a (bloated, but that’s another story) group with 107 other empty hand responses to a step through right hand punch? I just had a great conversation with Jesse Dwire of Dragon-Phoenix martial arts about how he’s improved how he did 13 lately, and it paralleled my experiences with it as well.

Some folks might remove it, as it’s a distracting detail, a one-off, almost a party trick. That would probably be a mistake. I know it seems strange given my penchant for blog posts that could essentially be replicated by a filter that just substituted ‘Trim!Simplify!’ over and over again for whatever I went on about that I’d want to keep this blip that doesn’t fit in with the rest, but here’s why.

It’s a doorway, and a hint at some roots. First, combination 13 appears virtually identically in the beautiful book Lua: Art of the Hawaiian Warrior. I’m not certain that’s the whole story, but it is nice to see. It’s a hard book to get your hands on, but it’s a real beauty.

More likely, and probably more indicative of the real roots in our system, it’s a doorway into the flexible weapons training of the Filipino martial arts. I trained in some kali at one point, and the instructor was well versed in the use of the sarong as a weapon. Weighted ropes, belts, and even t-shirts became tools of self-defense. After that, the seemingly useless combination 13 gained new life in my eyes, and the variations and expressions blossomed.

Now as one of 107, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Why do one technique? However, if you trim the redundant combinations, it becomes a significant part of the repertoire. One of 25 is 4%, small but significant. Think of it as a reminder to do variations of uses with flexible weapons. It’s a bookmark in the training syllabus that says, “Spend some time on flexible weapons”. Just get some knowledge of the principles and apply from there.

Here’s a trailer for a seminar in Italy, but it replicates many of the Kali / Silat techniques I learned. I have no idea about the person teaching the seminar, but if I were in Italy, I’d certainly check it out.