mook jong man
Senior Master
BASIC FOUR CORNER DEFLECTION
When people started at our school some of the first techniques they learned was how to stop a circular punch to the head and a punch to the stomach these are common attacks used frequently on the street.
The deflections used to stop these strikes are the dai sau and the chit sau.
Basically for any punch or grab trying to come around the outside of my guard to my head or throat i raise my dai sau to deflect the strike.
for a punch coming underneath my guard ( uppercut style , their inside forearm is up. ) aimed at my stomach i use the chit sau to deflect the strike
HOW TO DO THE DEFLECTIONS
DAI SAU
The easiest way for me to explain the dai sau is to say you raise your arm from the guard, maintaining the angle in your arm, driving the elbow up , the pivot point is your shoulder, and keep a straight line from from the forearm to the end of the fingers, keep the fingertips on the centerline.
It comes from the first part of the form where you have crossed your wrists low and then you drive them up , that is the mechanics of the dai sau , except you rotate the blade of the forearm outwards and keep fingertips on centerline , but keeping the optimum angle and driving up from the elbow is the same action.
CHIT SAU
The chit sau is the very first movement of the form where the wrists are crossed down low it is also found at the last section of the form just before the punches where one hand slides down over the other forearm ( which is also an arm grab counter i might add).
STARTING OFF
Normally these deflections would be done with a counter attack in accordance with the principle of lin sil die dar ( simultaneous counter attack ) but for now we are only trying to get a feel for the movements and do them correctly.
DAI SAU - Facing your partner with your guard up , the height of the guard varies with people , i have seen people with high guards and low guards.
As a general rule i aim my guard at the persons shoulder line because it protects my face and throat and it is roughly where his most direct strike will come from.
Get your partner to throw a slow circular strike at your head , wait for it to come in and then raise your arm so that your forearm makes contact near his wrist . Upon contact keep raising the arm so that his strike is redirected up and away from your head .
We are aiming for a shearing type of action that spreads the force over your whole arm.
When you are doing them half decent on one side , change over to the other side , your lead hand will be a little easier because it is already in the optimum angle
TESTING - get your partner to put two forearm pads on one arm and turn them around so that there inner forearm is protected , get him to start off with slow swings at your head with the one arm gradually he builds up the power and speed to where he is hitting as hard as he can .
If you are fearful of getting hurt get him to change it to a slap or wear head gear , but you should be okay as he is doing it in a constant cadence.
After you are satisfied that you can deflect real power , get your partner to take one of the pads off and put on his other arm so that both arms are padded up , still staying in the one position we havent added footwork yet.
Now get your partner to attack you with random timeing and with random left or right punches but with control
The next stage is to do the sequences above but with the addition of the punch , one arm deflects while the other strikes.
CHIT SAU - Your partner throws a punch at your stomach underneath your guard with his inside forearm facing up like an attempted uppercut to your gut ( not a straight punch to the gut like karate style , for that we use a different deflection) . As the punch comes in if he is using his right harm we use our left arm.
Our hand drops down and we use the blade of our hand and forearm to saw across his wrist and inner forearm , make sure you maintain the optimum angle in your arm and with this deflection our wrist is on the centerline, your force is aimed slightly down and towards opponents centerline, in advanced stages it can become a punch.
Go through the same progressions as you did with the dai sau and working to the point where you can do it random and with the counter-punch
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Assuming you can do the above deflections fairly correct and random you can now start doing FOUR CORNER DEFLECTION
Start off with this sequence HIGH LEFT STRIKE , LOW LEFT STRIKE , HIGH RIGHT STRIKE , LOW RIGHT STRIKE continue with this pattern for a couple of minutes and then reverse the sequence.
make sure your own punch is snapping out nice and sharp and aimed at the head or solar plexus ( obviously the strikes are pulled back to the head , chest you can use moderate contact )
Now try HIGH LEFT STRIKE , HIGH RIGHT STRIKE , LOW LEFT STRIKE , LOW RIGHT STRIKE do this for a while then reverse the sequence
Try out different sequences and at various speeds , sometimes fast so that you can hardly keep up and other times slow.
After you are comfortable with defending high punches to the head and low punches to the stomach get your partner to throw random punches at your head and stomach
ADDING FOOTWORK
By now your reflexes should be good and your movements pretty efficient we will start to add footwork .
When you practice the above drills start stepping into the opponent , it adds force to your strike , it intimidates the attacker and gets us into our preferred range which is very close.
so if i do a left dai sau and a right punch i step in with my right foot
if i do a right dai sau and left punch i step in with my left foot , the same goes for the chit sau deflection
the general rule is step in on the same side as your punch later on when your stance is good it doesn't matter what leg you step in with
FACING A MOBILE OPPONENT
Being able to defend against random punches to the head and gut , and being able to co-ordinate our step and punch and get into range is good, but like the gun turret on a tank we have to be able to move our weapons to face the attacker.
If he moves to either side of us we adjust our stance by moving one heel back and pivoting on the support foot
If he moves to the left of me i move my left heel back so that i am facing him square on and still in my stance
If he moves to the right of me i move my right heel back so that i am facing him square on and still in my stance
FINALLY
At this stage you should be training with your partner who is highly mobile trying to attack you from different directions
He comes in throwing random combination attacks or single attacks at realistic speed , and you are stepping in to meet the attacks.
Later on i will get into stopping straight punches , karate punches and backfists etc.
When people started at our school some of the first techniques they learned was how to stop a circular punch to the head and a punch to the stomach these are common attacks used frequently on the street.
The deflections used to stop these strikes are the dai sau and the chit sau.
Basically for any punch or grab trying to come around the outside of my guard to my head or throat i raise my dai sau to deflect the strike.
for a punch coming underneath my guard ( uppercut style , their inside forearm is up. ) aimed at my stomach i use the chit sau to deflect the strike
HOW TO DO THE DEFLECTIONS
DAI SAU
The easiest way for me to explain the dai sau is to say you raise your arm from the guard, maintaining the angle in your arm, driving the elbow up , the pivot point is your shoulder, and keep a straight line from from the forearm to the end of the fingers, keep the fingertips on the centerline.
It comes from the first part of the form where you have crossed your wrists low and then you drive them up , that is the mechanics of the dai sau , except you rotate the blade of the forearm outwards and keep fingertips on centerline , but keeping the optimum angle and driving up from the elbow is the same action.
CHIT SAU
The chit sau is the very first movement of the form where the wrists are crossed down low it is also found at the last section of the form just before the punches where one hand slides down over the other forearm ( which is also an arm grab counter i might add).
STARTING OFF
Normally these deflections would be done with a counter attack in accordance with the principle of lin sil die dar ( simultaneous counter attack ) but for now we are only trying to get a feel for the movements and do them correctly.
DAI SAU - Facing your partner with your guard up , the height of the guard varies with people , i have seen people with high guards and low guards.
As a general rule i aim my guard at the persons shoulder line because it protects my face and throat and it is roughly where his most direct strike will come from.
Get your partner to throw a slow circular strike at your head , wait for it to come in and then raise your arm so that your forearm makes contact near his wrist . Upon contact keep raising the arm so that his strike is redirected up and away from your head .
We are aiming for a shearing type of action that spreads the force over your whole arm.
When you are doing them half decent on one side , change over to the other side , your lead hand will be a little easier because it is already in the optimum angle
TESTING - get your partner to put two forearm pads on one arm and turn them around so that there inner forearm is protected , get him to start off with slow swings at your head with the one arm gradually he builds up the power and speed to where he is hitting as hard as he can .
If you are fearful of getting hurt get him to change it to a slap or wear head gear , but you should be okay as he is doing it in a constant cadence.
After you are satisfied that you can deflect real power , get your partner to take one of the pads off and put on his other arm so that both arms are padded up , still staying in the one position we havent added footwork yet.
Now get your partner to strike in this sequence LEFT , RIGHT , LEFT, RIGHT and so on after a couple of minutes change to RIGHT , LEFT ,RIGHT , LEFT it might seem boring but we are ingraining muscle memory and reflex.
Now get your partner to attack you with random timeing and with random left or right punches but with control
The next stage is to do the sequences above but with the addition of the punch , one arm deflects while the other strikes.
CHIT SAU - Your partner throws a punch at your stomach underneath your guard with his inside forearm facing up like an attempted uppercut to your gut ( not a straight punch to the gut like karate style , for that we use a different deflection) . As the punch comes in if he is using his right harm we use our left arm.
Our hand drops down and we use the blade of our hand and forearm to saw across his wrist and inner forearm , make sure you maintain the optimum angle in your arm and with this deflection our wrist is on the centerline, your force is aimed slightly down and towards opponents centerline, in advanced stages it can become a punch.
Go through the same progressions as you did with the dai sau and working to the point where you can do it random and with the counter-punch
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Assuming you can do the above deflections fairly correct and random you can now start doing FOUR CORNER DEFLECTION
Start off with this sequence HIGH LEFT STRIKE , LOW LEFT STRIKE , HIGH RIGHT STRIKE , LOW RIGHT STRIKE continue with this pattern for a couple of minutes and then reverse the sequence.
make sure your own punch is snapping out nice and sharp and aimed at the head or solar plexus ( obviously the strikes are pulled back to the head , chest you can use moderate contact )
Now try HIGH LEFT STRIKE , HIGH RIGHT STRIKE , LOW LEFT STRIKE , LOW RIGHT STRIKE do this for a while then reverse the sequence
Try out different sequences and at various speeds , sometimes fast so that you can hardly keep up and other times slow.
After you are comfortable with defending high punches to the head and low punches to the stomach get your partner to throw random punches at your head and stomach
ADDING FOOTWORK
By now your reflexes should be good and your movements pretty efficient we will start to add footwork .
When you practice the above drills start stepping into the opponent , it adds force to your strike , it intimidates the attacker and gets us into our preferred range which is very close.
so if i do a left dai sau and a right punch i step in with my right foot
if i do a right dai sau and left punch i step in with my left foot , the same goes for the chit sau deflection
the general rule is step in on the same side as your punch later on when your stance is good it doesn't matter what leg you step in with
FACING A MOBILE OPPONENT
Being able to defend against random punches to the head and gut , and being able to co-ordinate our step and punch and get into range is good, but like the gun turret on a tank we have to be able to move our weapons to face the attacker.
If he moves to either side of us we adjust our stance by moving one heel back and pivoting on the support foot
If he moves to the left of me i move my left heel back so that i am facing him square on and still in my stance
If he moves to the right of me i move my right heel back so that i am facing him square on and still in my stance
FINALLY
At this stage you should be training with your partner who is highly mobile trying to attack you from different directions
He comes in throwing random combination attacks or single attacks at realistic speed , and you are stepping in to meet the attacks.
Later on i will get into stopping straight punches , karate punches and backfists etc.
