Hi, guys. I trust you are having a good week. Training is well, health is excellent, and family is very good. This week’s review is about incidental to defenses against low straight stab. Usually it’s surprising, straight stab towards the stomach.

First of all, I’ll remind you something, if you know it. If not, here it is. Defense against a stab with the stick, it comes from the military, defending a violent attack. This front side of the weapon is going towards the center body. When you’re ready.

What happens here is we have an inside defense. Slowly. Body motion, diagonally forward. Two things together at the same time: grabbing, counter attacking. Assuming that this is a long weapon, the first contact that we teach is the kick, and then staying out of the channel.

Now, we are talking about a straight stab. You can drop this one and … So, now we are talking … Just let me stab you for a moment. This is what we are talking about. A straight stab to the lower abdominal. When this happens, if I’m ready, relatively, if my hands a relatively high, when he stabs me, you saw, practically, I was using what we already know as that inside defense. I just drop myself, lower myself. Forearm is going down, elbow is going down, protecting myself very efficiently with an inside defense, body motion here, counterattack with lowering of the shoulder that we discussed.

However, because I was in this position, I could do it. I saw the low hand, I saw the low action, I dropped my silhouette down. Elbow was going inward and down. The question, what happens here? Imagine in this case, natural response. To see a natural response from here, how the hands are closing and moving forward while the pelvis is moving backwards. That’s a natural response. So, we should build something on this. We should build good technique on this beginning of the natural response.

Remember, the technique and the natural response are not the same. The beginning of the natural response is the beginning of the technique. That’s what it really is. So, when he stabs me like this, … Let’s do first few attacks.

So, what happens here is this. He makes the attack, I make the body defense. Instead of moving back, that maybe I’m still in the line, and if he’s advancing, I’ll be in the line, and I’ll get hit. Need to move out from the line and then channel. The hand defense, this type of a slap, the pinky is down, the thumb is up. That’s the defense.

If I had enough time, meaning I was not so scared moving backwards, I meant to transform the defensive response very early to a more efficient response with also the body sideways, and with the weight a little bit more forward. It’s very easy for me to hit him.

So here, what we are doing is this. We are making the hand defense diagonally forward. We are sending the body to the outside. Let’s show it from here. In the beginning, we don’t grab. Trapping, grabbing takes long time against something that is moving. It’s dangerous if we meet, especially. From here, the shoulder goes low so I can hit him well. If the shoulder is high, I cannot reach him. Shoulder goes low. I have a good angle of 90 degrees that we discussed few times, and I can reach diagonally forward. That’s really the idea.

So, I can reach long, strong, strike, good angle between the chest and the arm, 90 degrees, and here, continue with moving diagonally forward, and continue with striking. If you grab later, it’s no big deal, but in the beginning, don’t think about grabbing, think about deflecting and staying with the open palm.

So, if you look at this technique one more time, if you just do this, it’s not enough, yes? If we do something like this, and then immediately kicking at the last, last moment … which is okay in part of the curriculum … it’s good, but please remember that now, you’re still in the channel. So, if the kick is not strong enough or not long enough, we will have a problem of the person attacking again. If he will be attacking again from here, now, I have no problem, because I can deal with him, but if he’s attacking again now, before I kick, then I’m in trouble. That’s the minus of this technique, going backwards and then forward, so we’re trying to move away from channel, and attack immediately. That’s the idea. So, it needs a bit more of preparation, bit more alert, and early.

In the point of view of responses, it is quite similar to this one. The benefit, please, of the forearm, it’s large. The benefit of the palm, it’s a natural response from this position. That’s why we have this technique. Last time. A little fast attack one time. That’s the idea.

From here to grabbing this arm, it’s possible. If I do from here, and then go to that one, so I switch from the inside to the inside, inside defense with the palm to inside defense with the forearm, it is possible to do. However, it’s the finishing mode. When we talk about the essence of the technique, that’s the essence of the technique. After that, you can attack more. You can kick, especially with the back leg, or do the front leg. Puts you much more behind the weapon. Or, you can also go with the low forearm. Continuing in this, you can do usually when he’s not so active. Move to a forearm continuation of this technique, which is safer, and better controlled. That’s the essence of the inside defense.

In the next time, we’ll talk about another situation, which is a low strike … A low attack, please. That is an outside motion. Why do we have an outside motion? Why do we have an inside motion? This we will discuss in the next session. This was the subject of defending with the palm, stretched palm, against a fast, low stab, when the natural response started from the hands down, and that was it. From here we can do the technique, and how connected it is with the inside defense with the forearm.

Thank you so much. All the best, guys. Have a great week.