I speedily came to much of these conclusions myself when I first read the write up,but it's good to see a person (whom I assume to be) a senior IKCA member and black belt speak so knowledgeably and reasonably about this particular technique.
My idea,as I stated previously and perhaps you weren't aware of,is to execute the primary movements of DTS (and whatever other technique I/we train) pretty much regardless of the (civilian) self-defense scenario I or my students or others observing might find our/themselves in. So I sought to apply the backfist and takedown to skilled opponents and not just in the circumstances called upon by the "Ideal Phase",and I sought to do this while sparring and facing resistance.The chaos of sparring immediately forced modifications in the technique,but I was already more than proficient in executing the movements and primary components of DTS as I saw it when faced with NON-IDEAL attacks (C&P,HWD manipulation,takedown/throw with osoto preferred but basically get him to the ground violently,stomptastic finish,sub,or escape) regardless of the circumstance.I did this against armed opponents too.
But thank you for the explanation,I learned something from it and I appreciate your post.
Oh,btw in closing I'd like to ask a question: What if something goes wrong with the execution? What happens if the block or the backfist or the osoto is thwarted? What happens if instead of stopping the bad guy's omg haymaker smashtastic hook of doom with the double inside block and stuff; what happens if we bob and weave under the hook and we run the whole series of techniques from OUTSIDE the arm? Is the technique in your opinion still DTS or is it something else? I am asking this with all due respect and I am genuinely interested in your response.Thanks ahead of time.
With respect,
THE ATACX GYM
I would offer this (even though some may find it abrasive): If you are trying to execute a technique in the Ideal Phase against
any incoming attack, you have missed the point of kenpo entirely.
Mr. Parker was a big fan of music and musicianship as an analogy/metaphor. One learns music by learning the language (ABCDEFG, treble, base, pianissimo, forte, 3/4 and 4/4 timing), learning the keyboard if they are a pianist, reading music, etc. One develops the skills of tickling the ivories by spending hours running scales. One learns which notes go together well -- and which don't -- by learning to play (from the ideal phase of the sheet music) classics. Bach; Beethoven; mebbe get some jazz guys in there too as your tastes start looking outside the vanilla box.
But when you pack up your keyboard and head to a jam session, and are in the middle of a rhapsodic riff, you don't go back to running scales or playing Ode to Joy in up-tempo. You freestyle; you take the knowledge you have learned, the skills you have developed, assess the key and skill levels of the other musicians you are jamming with, and go off on a solo that fits the situation.
One should never try to pull off DTS, or any other technique. One should have learned, by drilling it, position recognition for setting up into an Osoto, and how to insert a strike into the setup. Think about all the things you would get eliminated from a judo match for if you did them. What if you developed this really great setup into seoinage... once in gripping range, you busted the other guy in the nuts with a knee, freed one hand just long enough to stick a finger in his eye, regained your grip, then elbow smashed him in the throat. THEN threw him. Well... that's kenpo. Put them together and rehearse it as a sequence, and it's a kenpo technique.
Thing most folks miss is... lets say you're in a brawl now, and wanna seoinage the guy. But the knee you usually bust him in the balls with isn't a good positional choice, and the hand you usually use to finger poke him is occupied with something else. Improv time. Poke him with the other hand, elbow smash him in the throat as a form of kuzushi to tip him into one corner for an off-balance, then knee him in the nuts on the way to the seoinage.
The techniques are not meant to be done the way they are written. They are written that way to teach the student how certain moves fit and complement each other better than others from specific positional constraints. If you duck under the right, AWESOME!! Crack him in the head, kidneys, spine, or back of the knee with someother really hard hit, shoot on his ***, and dump him with another throw. If you had good training and a good instructor, you will spot targets on the hand, wrist, elbow, biceps and ribs as his arm swings over your head, and clip at one or more of them as a "take that home with ya" parting gift. Then, maybe thwack him on another target, depending on what you see. But you learned the targets -- and how to look for them -- by drilling techniques. You learned that dropping a hammerfist with some downward clipping spin on it onto that kidney that is now right next to you causes more stuff to go wrong for the bad guy, because you drilled it in a technique that had that hammewrfist in it. You knew to blow that near leg out with a side thrust kick, because you trained it a bunch in Leaping Crane. Then you abandoned Leaping Crane, and put his neck in a super tight hadakajime and squeeze until stuff starts squirting out of his ears, because you trained that heavily in BJJ. BUT!!! you avoid taking him all the way to mata leon, because he has some buddies a couple yards away. So you quick-contract your forearm into his throat to start him choking on a muscle spasm (then shove him forward to the gorund to either smash his face or cause him to put his hands out to stop his fall, putting him in a 4-point position), because you're gonna need your hands free for his friends that are walking up to help him.
It's all a freestyle jam once the SHTF. But the skills you use in the jam were developed training the techs.
I play once in a while with my buddies in Nor Cal, all of whom are competitive judoka from the well-known San Jose state team, from USJA, Kodenkan schools, etc. We do stuff that's not allowed in a match. Not just the dirty wrestling (grinding kimonos across open cuts and such), but striking while on the way to a setup. Meaning, as you step to Osoto, use that knee and drive it into his quads or nuts or hip bone and keep pushing until you break through to the other side of his body where you finally use it for the trip. Vertical uppercut him in the floating ribs before gripping his gi low, and see if you cant seal his breath before launching him.
DTS, in my opinion, is just there to indroduce dirty judo to a bunch of kenpo guys who may have never been shown the throw before, and if they have, are too nice about how they do it. When I do seminars or classes, I ask the question, "What does (insert the name of any technique) teach us?" Typically, people respond with the moves. "DTS teachs us the double block and backnuckle as a setup to an osoto", or some such.
I would argue, "No. It doesn't. It teaches us something judo and aikijujutsu guys already know about throws, and that is... they go better if you soften the guy up a bit first by beating the crap out of him a little, before trying to toss him anywhere." Then I give them homework that requires them to think about the idea behind the technique, and globalize the idea into a wider range of skills. "Pick 3 more throws, break off with a partner, and come up with some good inserts that recieve an attack -- any attack -- then soften the guy up, then throw him, then finish him. You have 15 minutes, then will be expected to demo your creations for the rest of the class from the front. Ready? Go."
Now we're not teaching them a technique. We are teaching them to think, along a theme. Which is what the techniques are supposed to prompt in the first place.
Windy answer. Hope it helped.
D.
