Footwork (1)

Imagine a triangle with the base in front of you, with two forward points: Point A is upper right, Point B is upper left and Point C is at the bottom, where you are standing. As you sidestep to Point B with your left leg, the right leg moves from Point C through the opponent's base and then sweeps back. This is the Osoto-gari from Judo, as an example.

The upper body (shoulder, elbow, palm) can ease the opponent to the triangle point where your right leg pushes. The upper body and lower body work together. In Japanese (in Judo) its called “kuzushi” and is defined as lifting, tilting, and rotating in order to break the opponent’s balance.

Its not technique-based, “if they punch like this, you do this. If they grab like this, you counter like this.” This is hugely limiting because you can only learn so many responses to specific techniques, and real combat gives you infinite variations. And remember the lock-flow.  Neither you nor the opponent has to “quit” because of pain or because your position isn’t optimal.

We don't memorize specific techniques for specific attacks. We use concepts to defeat techniques.

The same geometry is contained in Destreza, but you don’t execute sweeps (usually).