I would argue that in the picture you have attached you are at no advantage over your opponent. You are in range for him to head butt you... he is facing you... his legs are open to kick you freely... The only advantage you may have here in real life is that you know martial arts and hopefully the aggressor doesn't, in which case you should have the upper hand.
I disagree. Since the defenders arms are on top of the aggressors it make it very difficult for the aggressor to kick. The kick would be immediately telegraphed through the arms, and a swift push down would stop the motion immediately. It is in fact not only possible but easy to do this with your eyes shut.
The aggressor doesn't have the same advantage as to stopping the defender's kicks though ...
A headbutt or grappling is a danger, but closing the gap is difficult since the arms can be turned to the side, or pulled, neutralising such an attack. This takes more skill though in my experience.
You have to understand that this range is all about feeling the aggressor's moves rather than seeing them, and it is what the 'Southerny' Kung Fu styles excel in.
I don't mean to sound all preachy or anything, BTW, your objection was certainly valid, and shed a lot of light on the variations in style of the posters to this forum, and I have really enjoyed this thread so far.
Personally I like to be in even closer, because I am a judo man now, but even in full on grappling, the moves I mentioned above work well to control your opponent's whole body through the use of his arms alone.
On the subject of the forward tackle the defence depends on how low your opponent is and how fast he is coming at you.
If you cannot sink fast enough to get under him, and this is a real possibility, then you have to push him down sprawling a little. You may be able to strike down too, but I have never practiced this. I've never seen anyone push up from here, and I imagine striking or kicking up would be difficult. Even if you connect with an upwards kick, knocking him out even, you may still get bowled over. Correct me you kickers if you've had success this way.
I constantly push my opponents head into the mat in practice, when someone tries a surprise tackle, and this skill was very simple to learn. You don't really need to sprawl too much, but if you don't you have to move around your opponent, which is learned very quickly and instinctively.
If the person comes at you higher, then pushing down will be of no use, but you can get underneath him or move around him. I've found this sort of response harder to learn, because a low charge or leg grab is just that, and nothing more, but a bit higher up and there is a lot more variation, the whole gamut of fighting techniques in fact.
I'd like to see what the strikers and kickers have to say about the tackle. Are any of you allowed to do low tackles in sparring? I think the tackle is one of the most basic types of attack - i.e. heavy, long, force coming straight at you, so the response to this sort of attack should shed a lot of light onto the variations in style.
