Analytic Martial Arts

Book Review: Keeper Of Light And Dust

2012-02-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

Against my better judgement I picked up a copy of Keeper of Light and Dust by Natasha Mostert, a novel about an MMA fighter, a chi vampire, and the woman who loves them. As a work of fiction it doesn't amount to much: the characters are lightly-penciled archetypes, the plot is predictable¹, and the computer bits brought to mind nothing so much as the worst hacking scene of all times. At least it kept me entertained on the plane.

However... the book merits discussion for reasons apart from its plot. It contains a lot of concepts related (sometimes tangentially) to the martial arts, many of which I'd never been exposed to before. Being the kind of person who collects verbiage like other people collect shot glasses I'm compelled to research these terms and present them for your amusement. Additionally, Mostert brings in a lot of real-world research throughout the work which putatively supports the existence of chi. Since one of my stated purposes in running this blog is to take the woo out of the martial arts this presents an excellent opportunity to critically review this research. This, in turn, will lead to some general criticism of the book's presentation of chi and the scientific method.

Interesting MA Terms From The Book

The first item is a cluster of 3 concepts: seme, haragei, and kobudera. I've run into seme in the past while reading Miyamoto Musashi: His Life And Writings², but the other two are completely new to me. Seme is hard to articulate; it's attacking without actually attacking, the projection of something which impairs the ability of your opponent, but the nature thereof depends on who you're asking. In the book what's being projected is chi, though I'm inclined to go with the more materialistic explanation that seme is the art of letting your opponent psyche eirself out. Anyone who's sparred before knows that you can sometimes get a sense of how good someone is just by the way they walk and hold themselves. Or you may have seen that person spar before and know exactly how good they are. In any case when it comes time to spar you may find yourself thinking "I'm toast" (or "Ey's toast"), which can have a definite impact on your performance. Seme would then be the art of engaging in that set of behaviors most likely to engender the reaction "I'm toast" in your opponent.

Haragei and kobudera are a pair of opposing ideas somewhat related to seme³. While seme is essentially the projection of the appearance of skill, haragei and kobudera are, respectively, the detection and concealment of intent. These words correspond (more or less) to the clumsier, but more familiar, English concepts of "reading your opponent" and "not telegraphing". Mostert takes some liberties with both, transforming them into chi-based skills that work at a distance.

Another interesting conceptual cluster revolves around various "dim". There's dim mak, which has been done to death and I won't get into here, but the book also mentions "dim ching". The Internet is, of course, rife with inaccuracies, but if this thread is to be believed then dim mak and dim ching comprise, along with dim hsueh (not mentioned in the book), a tripartite system of pressure-point-style attacks. One term corresponds to nerves, one to arteries/veins ("blood gate"), and one to chi flow, though there seems to be some disagreement on the 'tubes as to which is which. There is also a mention of "12 dim mak katas" which seems to have some basis in reality; a search for "dim mak kata" on Google mostly turns up references to Dim-mak's 12 Most Deadly Katas: Points of No Return⁴ by Erle Montaigue. Since Mostert references another one of Montaigue's works (The Encyclopedia of Dim Mak) in the postface I suspect Montaigue is the ultimate source of the kata reference. In any case, next time some fool starts going on about "dim mak" now you can say "Actually...".

Moving on to more esoteric territory we come to gogyo (aka wu xing), a mnemonic/philosophical system centering on the 5 traditional Chinese elements (earth, wood, metal, fire, and water) which is translated variously as the Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, and/or the Five Steps/Stages. The gogyo system finds multiple uses in the context of the martial arts:

In Taijiquan and Xingyiquan the 5 elements are used to denote directions and footwork patterns.
The 5 elements can be interpreted as representing processes or stages of combat; in this context to speak of one element transmuting into another is a way to map out the overall evolution of a confrontation.
In the context of ninjitsu (as its used in the book), each element refers symbolically to a class of butsu associated with that element.

It's interesting to note that the elements are never interpreted literally; contrary to popular belief gogyo (and its counterpart godai) is not an alchemical system.

Research Supporting The Existence Of Various Supernatural Phenomena

Normally I'd be (mostly) inclined to give the science presented in Keeper a pass; its a work of fiction and there's generally no reason to suppose that an author endorses all the words ey put in eir character's mouths. However, given some things she says in the book's postface⁵ it's clear that she's a true believer and (probably) intends the material presented to be taken at face value. As I noted above, the plot centers around a ninja-like figure who is killing MMA fighters by stealing their chi, which provides Mostert with ample opportunity to reference the work of various scientists (some fringe-y and some not) while nattering on about biophotons, meridians, and that sort of thing.

Mostert mentions the work of five scientists⁶ throughout the course of the book: Robert Becker, H. Henrick Ehrsson, Celia Green, Fritz-Albert Popp, and Elisabeth Targ. With the exceptions of Becker and Targ (which I'll get to) these are legitimate scientists doing legitimate work, which would seem to lend credence to any claims which Mostert makes, right? Wrong... in no case does the research which she references come anywhere near supporting the things she implies it does.

Let's start with Fritz-Albert Popp, the progenitor of biophoton theory. It turns out that biological systems emit photons. This is not terribly surprising; we've known for quite some time that atoms, be they organic or inorganic, emit photons when they transition from one energy level to another. There's nothing magic about this, no need to invoke chi or any other supernatural phenomenon to explain it. Even if we accept Popp's (highly debatable) thesis that these emissions are a form of intra-/inter-celluar communication we're still miles away from energy-and-meridians territory. As this gentleman points out there's zero support for the notion that these photons form some sort of coherent energy field responsible for the health of the body.

We find a similar pattern when we look at the work of H. Henrick Ehrsson and Celia Green. Both researchers are mentioned in Keeper in the context of astral projection, but neither provide any reason to believe that such a thing exists. Ehrsson asked a question which is so obvious as to be overlooked: Why does our consciousness perceive itself as situated within our bodies? Well, it turns out that we make use of visual cues in conjunction with our other senses to "localize" ourselves; once he figured this out he was able to induce out-of-body experiences in a laboratory setting⁷. As with Popp's biophotons there's no need to invoke supernatural causes; this is just the brain being fooled by a clever set of artificial stimuli. Much the same can be said of Celia Green's work; she saw no supernatural significance in out-of-body experiences.

Which brings us to Robert Becker. Becker is an orthopedic surgeon who seems to have done a fair amount of reputable work on the use of electrical stimulation to accelerate healing in various tissues. Keeper, however, mentions some later work he did in which he identified areas of low electrical resistance corresponding with the body's acupuncture meridians, the idea being that the current flowing through this secondary system corresponds to the flow of chi in TCM. The various searches I did to try to find more details on this research all lead back to The Body Electric; as I don't have access to a copy I can't say anything about the validity of his findings.

Last, but not least, is Elisabeth Targ, who is famous for conducting a trial that demonstrated the efficacy of remote healing. What's less well know is that she went fishing for significant results after the fact; I'll let XKCD explain why that's a bad idea. A larger, follow-up study published posthumously found no effect.

In conclusion, with regards to the science in Keeper:

Biophotons do not imply chi.
Out-of-body experiences do not imply astral travel.
Who knows what's up with Becker.
There's no evidence that remote healing does anything at all.

On Chi And Empiricism

The last thing I want to do is tackle head-on the mind-numbingly inane discourse on the scientific method that pervades the book. It's replete with misconceptions and crude caricatures, the worst of which is the following statement which Mostert places in the mouth of Ashton (the chi vampire):

"The Western medical mind has difficulty with the concept of chi. It cannot be dissected under a microscope and does not fit the empirical model. You can't exactly cut through an artery wall and look at it."⁸

Lord-o'-fucking-mighty! You can't cut open a battery and see electricity either, but science still accepts that electricity exists because we can observe its effects on the world around us. The "empirical model" is nothing more than the systematic study and analysis of observable effects. To say that something doesn't fit the empirical model is ultimately a self-refuting claim; how can you possibly know that something even exists unless it leaves some tell-tale trace in the physical world? Recognizing again that this is a work of fiction, but Ashton's statement is idiotic even in the context of the book. Here's how you apply an "empirical model": You line up n MMA fighters and observe that, when Ashton pokes them in a particular fashion, they keel over and die in short order. That doesn't demonstrate chi per se, but it definitively establishes that something unusual is going on which warrants further investigation.

Of course it's never that cut-and-dried in the real world; the chi crowd doesn't typically make claims which are so easily tested. What they mean when they say that something "can't be studied empirically" is that their assertions either aren't falsifiable or are, in fact, demonstrably false. As Tim Minchin so elegantly puts it, it's "either not been proved to work, / Or been proved not to work.". People needing further convincing should read Orac's collected writings on TCM.

And don't get me started on the whole "Western medicine" trope. Establishing correlations between cause and effect is not some sort of Western cultural artifact. The recipe for gunpowder didn't just land in the lap of the Chinese; they figured out through repeated observation that when you mix a few things together in the right proportions it makes a lovely big boom.

Anyhow, that's my $0.02. Keeper is marginally interesting as a source of MA esoterica, but not good for much else.

1 Barring the eventual fate of the aforementioned vampire; that's actually an unexpected twist which I'll not reveal here.
2 Notes 145 and 199. Chapter 12 also has an interesting discussion of kizeme (seme practiced at the highest levels) in the context of a duel between kendo masters.
3 Which raises the question of whether there's a word for the opposite of seme i.e. the concealment of skill. In many competitive situations there may be a tactical advantage in having your opponent underestimate you (see "shark, pool"); I see no reason why this wouldn't be the case in the martial arts as well.
4 Which I'm sorely tempted to buy just to see what's in it. If I do I'll make sure to post a review here.
5 "Increasing your chi sensitivity is central to the discipline of martial arts.", p. 307.
6 Six if you count Edison, but he's only mentioned in passing in the context of out-of-body experiences.
7 The paper is behind a paywall, but you can get the gist of it by reading the responses to the paper.
8 P. 102. I also think it's bad from a literary standpoint; I find it implausible that an MD of Ashton's ostensible intelligence would make such an easily-refuted assertion.

A Simple Grammer For Describing Forms

2011-12-03T07:26:00.000-08:00

After talking with Scav about notation variants I thought it'd be super useful if there were some generic format for representing a form than could then be displayed in whatever manner suited the user's fancy. It turns out not to be terribly difficult¹, the main challenge being the development of a grammar that is both concise and unambiguous at the same time.

When writing forms down for typesetting what I've done to this point is to put the symbols into a .csv file in the same way I want them to be displayed on the page and then run the file through a fairly simple formatting script to turn it into a table. That .csv file looks something like:

RP SK,,RP
,BACK DDE,
SS,,

This format has the benefit of being extremely concise; every character sequence is short and absolutely necessary. However, if I need to do any complex typesetting for something like a grapple it suddenly becomes an effing disaster:

<div>(LOW)<br/>&#x21c8;<br/>BB</div>,,
,,BS HP
IB,FORWARD,
,NS,

It's no longer concise; the use of HTML for typesetting introduces a lot of extraneous characters which interfere with human comprehension. Additionally, in doing so I've committed the cardinal sin of mixing meaning and representation, making the file basically useless except in one particular situation. And I still have to do a lot of manual touchup of the resulting HTML so that things align properly. Wouldn't it be peachy-keen if there were a way to write down the meaning ("forward bird break against the opponent's left, outer wrist" in this case) in a easily typeable, easily readable fashion?

Turns out that the system I've been using is almost comprehensible to a computer as is. There is, however, an unresolvable ambiguity that arises from the use of direction ("forward", "back", etc.) to denote both the motion of the body and the direction of a strike. Consider the sequence

FORWARD RP

That could mean one of two things:

Move forward while executing a reverse punch.
Execute a forward reverse punch.

If I'm a human I'm going to look at the greater context to figure out what's going on. For example, if it appears on the left or the right it's a targeting instruction, since all movement glyphs appear in the middle column of a line of notation. It would be simple to teach that rule to a computer. But consider the following technique:

,LEFT DDBF,
SS,, 
TK,JUMP FORWARD,
SS,,

Does "LEFT DDBF" mean "move left while executing a double downward backfist block" or does it mean "left double downward backfist block"? I know which interpretation makes sense, but making that distinction is beyond the capabilities of a computer. That being the case we need some simple way to let the computer know that the direction is a targeting modifier and not a movement. Here's what I've come up with so far:

start → line*
line → blankline | actionline
blankline → [ \t]* '\n'
actionline → left ',' center ',' right '\n' 
left → atom*
center → atom*
right → atom*
atom → direction | jump | turn | action
direction → 'BACK'|'LEFT'|'RIGHT'|'FORWARD'|'FORWARDLEFT'|'FORWARDRIGHT'|'BACKLEFT'|'BACKRIGHT'
jump → 'JUMP'
turn → 'TURNLEFT'|'TURNRIGHT' turn_modification_clause{0,1} 
turn_modification_clause → '(' \d+ ')' 
action → symbol modification_clause{0,1}
modification_clause → '(' modifiers+ ')' 
modifiers → direction | grapple | symbol
symbol → [A-Za-z]+ 
grapple → 'GRAPPLE'

What this works out to in English is

A notation block is composed of carriage-return-delimited lines.
All lines are either blank, or have three fields (left, right, and center)
Each field is composed of multiple atoms.
An atom can be:
- A direction, indicating motion.
- A jump.
- A left or right turn with an optional modification clause. The modification clause can be used to provide a number of degrees; when omitted 90° is assumed.
- An arbitrary symbol indicating a strike/stance with an optional modification clause. The modification clause can consist of a direction, a symbol (indicating the target), and the keyword "GRAPPLE" indicating that the move is a grapple. The usual defaults are assumed if no clause is supplied.

This seems to be pretty compact; in most cases it won't be necessary to type anything more than short symbols and commas. I suspect that as I work with this I'll probably expand it a little bit to account for things like comments, but this is the gist of it. Thoughts?

1 Those interested in the technical details can look here.

Left-To-Right Version of MA Notation

2011-11-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

Scav has put together a sample of a left-to-right version of the MA notation system. It looks interesting and may have long-run potential.

Studio X: Sparring Techniques: Rank 2

2011-10-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Key

BSw: Back Sweep
DDBB: Double Downward Backfist Block
DFB: Downward Forearm Block
HBS: High Bird Stance
IB: Inward Block
KH: Hook Kick
MG: Monkey Grab
OB: Outward Block
OSH: Outward Sidehand
RP: Reverse Punch
ShS: Shuffle Step
SK: Snap Kick
SS: Sparring Stance
STK: Side Thrust Kick
TS: Twist Stance

6

RP
SK
BSw
	↑ ShS
SS

7

HK
TS
	↑
SS

8

RP		2
FSw		1
IB	(ROW) ⇈ OB/MG
SS

1: This is a short sweep; the defender is trying to hook the attacker's leading foot forward to get em to overcommit eir weight onto eir front foot.
2: There's a slight syncopation to the rhythym here; the punch doesn't follow immediately, but rather waits until the attacker has settled the bulk of eir weight on eir front foot. The monkey grab from the preceeding action is maintained at this point; the defender should pull back on the grappled arm while executing the reverse punch, effectively pulling the attacker into it.

9

	← DDBB
SS
STK	↑ ⊙
SS

10

HBS OSH
	↑ ShS	DFB
SS

Studio X: Sparring Techniques: Rank 1

2011-10-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

Key

CS: Cat Stance
DBB: Downward Backfist Block
DDE: Double Downward Elbow
FS: Forward Sweep
KT: Knee Trap
OB: Outward Block
RP: Reverse Punch
SK: Snap Kick
ShS: Shuffle-Step
SS: Sparring Stance
STK: Side Thrust Kick

1

Yup, first technique is just a punch:

RP
SS

2

RP SK		RP
CS
	↓ DDE
SS

3

RP
SK
KT
	↑ ShS
SS

4

RP
STK
FS
	↑ ShS
SS

5

SK DBB	⊙
RP
		RP
OB
SS

Studio X: Short Forms: Rank 4

2011-09-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Like the rank 3 short forms these all have two sides, left and right. Right goes first and starts with a right-handed attack.

Key

Strikes

BB: Bird Break
BF: Backfist
BSw: Back Sweep
CFSw: Circular Front Sweep
CS: Cat Stance
DBB: Downward Backfist Block
DDBB: Double Downward Backfist Block
DFFB: Double Forward Forearm Block
DDPB: Double Downward Palm Block
DPB: Downward Palm Block
E: Elbow
FSw: Front Sweep
HP: Horizontal Punch
IB: Intercepting Block
ISH: Inward Sidehand
LHS: Leg-Hanging Stance
NS: Natural Stance
RHK: Roundhouse Kick
RP: Reverse Punch
SK: Snap Kick
TH: Twist Hit

Targets

E: Elbow
W: Wrist

23

		SK DBB	Left
IB		HP
		BF
TH		IB
		BF
IB		TH
BF
HP BS
	↑	IB
SK DBB			Right
HP		IB
		BF
IB		TH
BF
TH		IB
		BF
		BS HP
IB	↑
	NS

24

HP BS			Left
	↑	IB
		CS RP
UB	↓
		BS HP
IB	↑
RP CS
	↓	UB
HP BS
	↑	IB
		BS HP	Right
IB	↑
RP CS
	↓	UB
HP		BS
	↑	IB
		CS RP
UB	↓
		BS HP
IB	↑
	NS

25

	↻	SK DBB	Left
BS UB→		BSw→ HP→
	↺	FSw
RSH		DPB→
		(ROW) ⇈ BB (RIH) ⇊ (LOW)
HP BS
	↑	IB
SK DBB	↺		Right
←BSw ←HP		←UB BS
FSw	↻
←DPB		RSH
(LOW) ⇈ BB
		BS HP
IB	↑
	NS

26

		RHK		Left
(RIE) ⇈ (OW) HP		(ROW) ⇈ (OW) HP	(1)
HP BS
	↑	IB
RHK				Right
(RIW) ⇈ (OW) HP		(ROE) ⇈ (OW) HP	(1)
		BS HP
IB	↑
	NS

1 Opponent's arm should be bent ~90° at the elbow, forming a convenient lever for application of force by the backs of the hands.

27

SK		RP	Left
TH		SK
IB BS		HP
	↺
	HS DFFB
	↻
HP BS		↓HP
	↑↺
LHS	DFFB
	↻
RP		SK		Right
SK		TH
HP		BS IB
	↻
	HS DFFB
	↺
↓HP		BS HP
	↑↻
	DFFB	LHS
	↺
	NS

28

SK		RP		Left
TH		SK
IB BS		HP
	↑
ISH CS		UB	(1)
	↓
HP BS		↓HP
	↺↑
LHS	DFFB
	↻
RP		SK			Right
SK		TH
HP		BS IB
	↑
UB		CS ISH	(1)
	↓
↓HP		BS HP
	↻↑
	DFFB	LHS
	↺
	NS

1 This is a low, inward sidehand which comes across the performer's knees to deflect an incoming kick. In reality this might also be executed as an open-handed parry.

29

	DDBB		Left
HP BS
	↑	IB
	DDBB
		BS HP
IB	↑
HP		CS
	↓	UB
		BS RP
	↻180°
RP BS
↓BF	↺180°
↓E		BS
	↓
	NS
	↑		Right
	DDBB
		BS HP
IB	↑
	DDBB
HP BS
	↑	IB
CS		HP
UB	↓
RP BS
	↺180°
		BS RP
	↻180°	↓BF
BS		↓E
	↓
	NS

30

		SK		Left
		CFSw
RSH		DPB→
		(ROW) ⇈ BB (RIH) ⇊ (LOW)
HP BS
	↑	IB
←DDBB	↺
		LHS
IS	⊙↻450°	OS
BS	DDPB
	↓↻180°
RP BS
↓BF	↺180°
↓E		BS
	↓
	NS
HP BS				Right
	↑	IB	(1)
SK			(1)
CFSw
←DPB		RSH
(LOW) ⇈ BB (LIH) ⇊ (ROW)
		BS HP
IB	↑
	↻	DDBB→
LHS
OS	⊙↺450°	IS
	DDPB	BS
	↓↺180°
		BS RP
	↻180°	↓BF
BS		↓E
	↓
	NS

1 This block/punch sequence is glue material between the left and right halves of the form; there is no corresponding block/punch at the end of the left side.

Studio X: Sparring Techniques: Rank 4

2011-09-16T12:23:00.000-07:00

Key

Strikes

BF: Backfist
BSw: Back Sweep
DFB: Downward Forearm Block
FSw: Front Sweep
HK: Hook Kick
IB: Inward Block
KT: Knee Trap
OB: Outward Block
OSH: Outward Sidehand
MG: Monkey Grab
RHK: Roundhouse Kick
SHK: Spinning Hook Kick
SS: Sparring Stance
ShS: Shuffle Step
TH: Twist Hit

Targets

F: Face
S: Stomach

16

Try to maintain as much rotational momentum as possible when executing this technique. The front sweep should flow naturally into the spinning hook, which should flow into the outward block etc.

RHK
TH
		SS OB
	↻180°	SHK↓
	^
SS			(1)
FSw	↻180°
	↑ShS
SS

1 Transitory, held just long enough to switch weight from one leg to the other in preparation for the spinning hook kick.

17

	BF
BF
	BF	(2)
	SS
	RHK
	KT	(1)
SS

1 Foot doesn't touch ground between knee trap and roundhouse kick.
2 These are rolling puches in quick successing, like hitting a speed bag.

18

Try to maintain rotational momentum as in 16.

RHK
TH
		SS OB
	↻270°	←SHK
	>
HS			(1)
BSw	↻
	↑ShS
SS

1 Transitory. Something of a cross between a cat stance and a high horse stance, held just long enough to transfer weight from one leg to the other in preparation for the spinning hook kick.

19

OSH
	↑ShS	OB/MG
IB
SS
(F) ↑ STK
	↑ShS
SS
(S) ↑ STK
	↑ShS
SS

20

		BF
DFB
		SS
	↑	RHK
		TH
OB SS
HK
	↑ShS
SS

Notation: Weapons I

2011-09-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I really like about Studio X is that weapons work is part of the core material and not an occasional adjunct. As a result I now have weapons forms to memorize, some of which are proving to be challenging. So now seems to be a good time to start thinking about developing a vocabulary for weapons forms.

There's good reason to be skeptical about the idea of a single, a unified vocabulary which encompasses the vast menagerie that is kung-fu weaponry. Even if we confine ourselves to only the most frequently used weapons there's a still tremendous amount of variation. That said I want to take a stab at it and see if we can up with something which is good enough for our purposes.

Based on my experience, when it comes to mechanics everything is ultimately a stick¹:

	Symmetric	Asymmetric
Solid	Staff, headless cane, escrima	swords, spears, kwon-dao
Jointed	nunchaku, 3-section staff	9-section whip

Some are one-handed, some are two-handed, some are sharp, some are not. Some slash, some stab, some bludgeon. But you can generally capture the motion of the weapon by accurately describing the position of the two ends through time. Moreover, its usually even simpler than that. Each weapon has a standard repertoire of strikes, so I suspect the vast bulk of the time you can get away with using standard symbol, the same as hands and feet. Where things start to get tricky, in my estimation, is in the notion of the return path.

Technically punches and kicks also have a return path, a motion that follows the delivery of the strike/block to prepare the limb for further actions. But it's almost always the case that there's only one correct return path for any given strike/block; the exceptions are so far and few between that they don't merit concern. With weapons, on the other hand, there may be a number of options, each of which has implications for which follow-up strikes are possible. Thus it seems to me that the first step in expanding the notation system is to find some way to represent the return path.

Recall that the complete grammar for a strike/grapple is

<identifier|(surface)><strike|grapple + direction>(<target>)

where the direction and target are usually implicit and thus omitted for the sake of brevity.

The logical extension of the above is to place a symbol after the target which indicates the type of return to execute, since the return happens after delivery of the strike. If we adopt this convention, however, it suddenly becomes necessary to specify the direction and target of every strike (even if these are otherwise implicit) for which we wish to indicate a return path. This may be required for the bulk of the strikes in a weapons form, leading to the inclusion of a lot of redundant data and unnecessarily decreasing the readability of the final form.

This argues that we should find a way to record the return path without necessarily needing to specify the direction or target. The solution which immediately springs to mind is to use the '+' symbol like so

where the return identifier is up to the discretion of whomever is using the notation.

Consider the headless cane; an overhead strike can be returned directly, using an inside loop, or an using outside loop. These could be recorded as "OHS+D", "OHS+I", and "OHS+O"; quick an easy.

I'm by no means completely sold on this, but I think it shows promise. I'm going to try to record a staff form and see if I run into any difficulties.

1 This generalization seems to apply across the bulk of MA weaponry, but there are obviously some exceptions: tonfa, wind and fire wheels, bench, tiger head shield.
2 While "inside" and "outside" are correct from a technical standpoint they're also relative directions; I'd probably use "left" and "right" in production to aid comprehension.

Notation: More Thoughts On Grappling

2011-09-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

One problem to which I've yet to find a satisfactory solution is the need to distinguish between the actions of the performer and those of the performer's opponents. Consider the following line from Short Form 18 which has been gnawing at my brain for awhile:

BB-(LOW)

That reads "bird break to the opponent's left, outer wrist" which, by itself, is clear enough. In the greater context of the form, however, the move only makes sense if you understand that the opponent has grabbed the performer's right wrist immediately prior. Ideally what I would like is to have some convenient way of indicating this action on the part of the opponent.

At this point we're essentially dealing with the problem of representing multidimensional data on paper. The solutions which most quickly spring to mind involve doing something to the notation text itself such as changing it's color or font to indicate who's doing what. That might work for publishing in HTML, but recall that we also want to be able to use this notation in the field with nothing more than pen and paper, which basically rules out any sort of fancy manipulation of the text.

One thing we could try is to changing its size since that's something which is easy enough to do in the field. For example, if I wanted to indicate that the bird break was immediately preceded by a grab on the opponent's part I might write

BB-(LOW)
Grab-(ROW)

Which reads as "opponent executes a left grab to the performer's right, outer wrist". I think there's merit in this idea; the change in size de-emphasizes the importance of the text, making it more of an annotation to the main action. However, I'm not convinced that this is a general solution to the problem of identifying performer and opponent, so let's see what else we can come up with.

Part of the motivation for telling one from the other is the desire to have notation which works for describing chi na (techniques involving holds/grappling) as well as strikes. We're partway there, but the notation we've been using for grappling so far lacks precision. When I write

Grab-(ROW)

what kind of grab am I trying to convey? There's only one that makes any sense in this context, but we can't always rely on that being the case. What I'd really like to be able to do is describe chi na in terms of the surfaces/targets which are brought together. Something like

(IH)-(ROW)

where "IH" is "inner hand" (or "palm", if you prefer). You see, however, that there's a bit of ambiguity here; which surface belongs to which person?

One solution which has occurred to me is somewhat baroque and may not work in the long run, but I want to get it down for posterity anyway. Suppose that we envision the performer as being in the center of a grid, surrounded by opponents, like this:

If we want to describe a particular configuration we can then write it in this grid like so:

Literally this reads "the performer's right, outer wrist is in contact with the left, inner hand of the opponent standing in front of em" from which we can infer that the opponent has grabbed the performer by the wrist. Now, things that I like about this format:

Ownership of limbs is fully established.
It's easy to convey the relative position of the performer and opponent. This is especially important for chi na since the opponent may attack from behind or the side.
We can do away with specifying "left" and "right" for limbs/surfaces by positioning them in the appropriate portion of the box. This has the added benefit of disambiguating "performer's left" from "opponent's left".
It's visually very appealing; I can tell at a glance that there's some sort of grapple involving the performer's right side and the opponent's left side.

Now, the cons:

It's not compact or efficient; there's a lot of empty boxes lying around.
It's difficult (if not impossible) to typeset in HTML.

Let's work on the compactness issue first. Suppose we eliminate all of the boxes that have nothing going on:

Better... we've increased the data ink ratio. But in removing the unused boxes we've lost our grid and, with it, the implicit identification of the performer as the person in the center. Can we de-emphasize the opponent's actions/position in some fashion like we did above by shrinking the font size? I think so:

It seems self-evident to me that the performer is the one in the solid box and the opponent is the one in the dotted box. Now, how about typesetting? Most of the elements can easily be done with HTML tables; the only thing that's at all complicated is the "grapple" line since it crosses two cells. We can work around that by creating DIVs containing the Unicode box-drawing character "│" (│):

		(IH) │
		│ (OW)

That takes care of the two big objections I lodged earlier, but it still remains to be seen whether this innovation can be coherently integrated into a complete form. Here's what Short Form 18 looks like when the note about the grab is added:

SK			Right
CFS
←DPB		RSH
BB-(LOW)
		(IH) │
		│ (OW)
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

My immediate objection is how prominent the grab is; it draws the eye and takes up the equivalent of four rows. It becomes the focus when it's really supposed to be more of an annotation to help the student understand the following action. More radical action is required:

		(IH)│
		(OW)

That screaming you hear is me abusing CSS relative-positioning to position the grappling line, but the result looks a lot better. Short Form 18, with the revised typesetting:

SK			Right
CFS
←DPB		RSH
BB-(LOW)
		(IH)│
		(OW)
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

Better, but still not quite what I'm looking for. I think this box-style notation will be good for chi na since grappling is the main focus of those techniques. But, even with reduced space consumption, the boxes are still too obtrusive to be used for the type of annotation which Short Form 18 seems to require. So let's return to the idea which we set aside earlier, using a smaller font under the main entry to denote what the opponent is doing.

Recall that the main problem is that, with the existing grappling notation, there's no way to tell which surfaces belong to which person. We could just adopt a convention based on position and say that the left side of the "(<target>)-(<target>)" formulation always belongs to the performer while the right side belongs to the attacker. But that's a sub-optimal solution since left and right are used to denote sides of the body everywhere else. Another thought which occurs to me is that we can use one type of bracket for the performer and another type of bracket for the opponent. We could, for example, use "< >-( )" where "< >" is the performer's action and "( )" is the opponent's. This would almost be workable except for the fact that "<" and ">" are already reserved for attention changes. Square brackets are reserved for preparation and delivery, which leaves use with curly brackets ("{ }") as the only common set of bracketing symbols which are still available. "{ROW}-(LIH)" is OK, but not great, since curly braces aren't particularly evocative of anything.

Maybe we need to go back and revisit the notion for grappling/targeting entirely? I like the notation we've developed for targeting; "<symbol>→(<target>)" just makes sense. Here's a thought... can we change the symbol we use to indicate "grapple" so that it's not symmetric? I was looking through the list of Unicode arrows and noticed that it contains some double arrow glyphs:

⇇ ⇈ ⇉ ⇊

If a single arrow means "strike" can we then take a double arrow to mean "grapple"? I like this solution a lot; it seems like a natural extension of the existing (and perfectly satisfactory) targeting notation. We can then also adopt the following conventions across the board:

"( )" means "target/surface".
"→" means "strike". The head of the arrow points to the person being struck (usually the opponent).
"⇉" means "grapple". The head of the arrow points to the person being grappled.

Let's return once more time to Short Form 18. Rewriting using the above conventions it becomes:

SK			Right
CFS
←DPB		RSH
(LOW) ⇈ BB
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

Note also that I rewrote the bird breaks to use the proper arrows/orientation; the way I'd written it before technically mean to do the break to the side.

That, I think, looks pretty good, but we still haven't solved the original problem of how to indicate what the opponent is doing. How about if I just put the opponent's action in a smaller font alongside?

SK			Right
CFS
←DPB		RSH
(LOW) ⇈ BB (LIH) ⇊ (ROW)
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

So now, next to the performer's action, there's a smaller block of text which reads "left inner hand grapples right outer wrist". This should be interpreted as the action to which the performer is responding/reacting. I went back and forth on the direction of the grappling arrows and finally decided that it was easier to understand if we just maintain the convention the performer's front is always the top of the page.

Comments on all of the above?

Notation: State Of The Onion

2011-08-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

After transcribing the latest batch of short forms I'm pretty happy with the way that the notation system is coming along. It's complete enough that I can concisely record complicated actions, which indicates to me that now's a good time to step back and evaluate the system as a whole. For example, consider Studio X Short Form 21:

UB CS		RP		Left
	↓
	Feint		3
BS
	↺
(G)←BF
	XB		2
←InB/TH	>HS
	⊙ ↓ ↻	OB	1
RP		CS UB		Right
	↓
	Feint		3
		BS
	↻
		BF→(G)
	XB		2
	HS<	InB/TH→
OB	⊙ ↓ ↺		1
	NS

(1) Blocking arm comes to rest in upward block position, wrist facing inwards, in preparation for cross-block.
(2) The cross-block is formed by continuing the motion of the inward block/twist-hit so that the arm comes to rest in upward block position, wrist facing inwards, on the outside of the arm which executed the outward block.
(3) The defender leans forward slightly, offering their chin as a target, in an attempt to bait the attacker.

What's the overall effect here? Is the transcription legible? Do all the various symbols work well together?

I believe the system as it stands right now works well visually. The division of the symbols into rows and columns imposes an order which makes them easy (or easier, at least) to parse at a glance. I also think we've also done a good job so far of preventing symbol proliferation; we don't have a lot of arbitrary symbols which have to be memorized.

It does take a little bit of practice to get used to reading/writing forms using this system. One thing that I've noticed is that I tend to get "lost" when reading; I can't always tell what part of the form I'm looking at based on a few lines of context. As an aid to navigation I find that it help to break long sequences up into short sections; in Short Form 21 above I divided the left and right sides by means of a heavy line and then noted which was which off to the side.

There's also the problem of dealing with "unique" movements which are idiosyncratic to a particular form. These movements don't occur with enough regularity that it makes sense to develop specific notation for them, but its still necessary to record them in some fashion for the sake of fidelity. Most of the time its possible to record an approximation of the movement using existing notation, at which point I can just add a footnote elaborating on the movement in English. When there's nothing close I just write down a word (like "feint") and explain it; that seems sufficient given that the primary purpose of the system is to server as a mnemonic device.

Now, shortcomings: I'm not wholly satisfied with the grappling notation that we've developed so far; I think we're on the right track, but I'm not sure its expressive enough to be accurate or useful in the long run. Additionally there is, as of yet, no good way to record what the performer's opponent is doing. These two items are related; finding a good way to record the opponents actions will no doubt help with grappling notation as well. I'm going to turn my attention to that problem next.

Notation: Jumping

2011-08-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

By executive fiat I've decided to borrow the "circle with dot" sign (⊙) to indicate "jump". This sign is commonly used in physics textbooks to indicate a vector "out of the page", so it seems apropos.

Studio X: Short Forms: Rank 3

2011-08-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Some things to remember regarding these techniques:

Each complete form consists of identical left- and right-sides joined together by an appropriate, step-through transition.
The right side is always performed first.
In general the first attack is on the same side as the leading foot. This is in opposition to the early forms (especially 1 - 10) in which the attack occurs opposite the leading foot.

Key

BB: Bird Break
BF: Back Fist
BS: Bow Stance
CFS: Circular Front Sweep
DDB: Double Downward Block
DFB: Downward Forearm Block
DPB: Downward Palm Block
G: Groin
HP: Horizontal Punch
HS: Horse Stance
IB: Intercepting Block
InB: Inward Block
NS: Natural/Neutral Stance
OB: Outward Block
RSH: Rising Side Hand
SK: Snap Kick
TH: Twist Hit
UB: Upward Block
W: Wrist
XB: Cross-Block

16

	DDB		Left
HP		IB
BS		HP
OB	↺
←HP	> HS
	↑ ↻	IB
	DDB		Right
IB		HP
HP		BS
	↻	OB
	HS <	HP→
IB	↑ ↺
	NS

17

HP BS		IB	Left
	↑
OB	NS	HP
	↑
HP BS		IB
	↑
IB		BS HP	Right
	↑
HP	NS	OB
	↑
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

18

		BS	Left
		SK
		CFS
RSH		DPB→
		BB-(ROW)
HP BS		IB
	↑
SK			Right
CFS
←DPB		RSH
BB-(LOW)
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

19

		BS	Left
TH		SK
BS
SK		RP
UB CS
	↺
←BF	> NS
	←	←DFB
←HP	> HS
	↑ ↻	IB
SK		TH	Right
		BS
RP		SK
		CS UB
	↻
	NS <	BF→
DFB→	→
	HS <	HP→
IB	↑ ↺
	NS

20

		BS	Left
	↑
TH		SK
IB		HP
BF
HP BS		IB
	↑
SK		TH	Right
HP		IB
		BF
IB		BS HP
	↑
	NS

21

UB CS		RP		Left
	↓
	Feint		3
BS
	↺
(G)←BF
	XB		2
←InB/TH	>HS
	⊙ ↓ ↻	OB	1
RP		CS UB		Right
	↓
	Feint		3
		BS
	↻
		BF→(G)
	XB		2
	HS<	InB/TH→
OB	⊙ ↓ ↺		1
	NS

22

UB BS		RP		Left
	↑
CS
InB	↺ →
(G)←BF	>
	XB		2
InB/TH	HS
	⊙ ↑ ↻	OB	1
RP		BS UB		Right
	↑
		CS
	← ↻	InB
	<	BF→(G)
	XB		2
	HS	InB/TH
OB	⊙ ↑ ↺		1
	NS

A Shout Out To Woodall's Custom Workshop

2011-08-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

A form which I'm learning requires the use of a headless cane, basically just a big rod that extends from the ground to a little past my wrist when I'm standing in natural stance. For me that's about 32" which, as I determined after visiting Seattle Martial Arts Supplies, is longer than a standard escrima stick but shorter than commonly available staffs. Thus I needed to get something custom cut.

I could have just gone to Home Depot and have something cut to length, but I didn't have a whole lot of confidence that the end result would hold up well. After much poking around on the tubes I found Woodall's Custom Workshop, which seems to have found a nice little niche making hardwood weapons for martial artists. So I sent them an email asking if they could fabricate my headless cane and, after a little back and forth on dimensions and materials, they produced a quote.

Anyhow, the cane arrived a couple days ago as promised. The craftsmanship is good and I'm generally pleased with my overall interaction and would recommend them to anyone else who needs a custom, stick-like weapon. Two caveats:

They're really backlogged at the moment; it took more than a month from the time that I ordered to the time the stick arrived. That doesn't reflect poorly on them; they told me as much before I placed the order.
My cane was a little on the pricey side for what is essentially a finished dowel. Some of that is because I had it made of bloodwood, but the rest is just basic supply and demand; custom weapons are expensive.

Notation: Targeting And Grappling

2011-08-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

I've run into a bit of a technical roadblock while transcribing the rank 2 sparing techniques. I need to convey the following: "Execute a left monkey grab, grabbing and holding the attacker's right wrist". To do this I need notation for at least two separate concepts, grappling and targeting, which need to be deployed in tandem to solve this particular problem.

Let's return to the concept of targeting. Awhile ago I speculated that NASA's scheme for division of the body into regions could, with a little modification, serve as the basis for targeting notation. Accepting that as given for the moment lets think about how we might integrate such specifications into the system under development.

Recall that the generic notation for a strike is simply "<symbol>", and that this symbol can be decorated with a directional arrow to indicate the angle of attack. In the techniques I've transcribed so far the arrow is usually omitted, implying that the default angle (i.e. forward) should be used. It seems to me that there is also an implicit target; if someone tells me to "reverse punch" I know the general area for which I should be aiming.

What we need is a mechanism to specify the target in case its non-standard or not implicit in the strike.It seems logical to me to terminate the directional arrow with another symbol denoting the target. So, for example, if I wanted to specify a horizontal sidehand to the jaw I might write that as

<jaw symbol>
↑
HSH

Does this make sense, and will it work well in the overall scheme? There's an intuitive appeal to this layout; it says "execute this strike, in this direction, terminating as this target". One minor concern is that it might be hard to read; there's the potential that it might parse as "execute this strike in this direction, and execute this other strike as well". The target symbols will need to be chosen such that they aren't easily mistaken for strikes.

On the whole I think this will work, which brings us to the concept of grappling in general. When I think of grappling I think of bringing surfaces into contact for some period of time. If we go with a targeting system based on NASA's body regions we'll have a suitable vocabulary of surfaces, which means we just need to figure out how to indicate a "grab".

How about this?

<grapple symbol>-<target>

I've stolen the '-' from chemistry notation to indicate a bond. does that make sense? We don't use it anywhere else, it's not another arrow, and it visually joins the defender and attacker together.

What about duration? Grapples, by definition, persist over time; we need some way to specify how long the grapple is held. I like a simple line heading up the page:

	|
	|
<grapple symbol>-<target>

Adopting this notation we can easily what's going on with the rest of the body while the grapple is held. It also helps remind the performer that the grappling hand is occupied. So, referring back to our motivating example, suppose I want to record the sequence "left monkey grab to the right wrist, right forward sweep, right reverse punch, let go". I'd write down the following:

       |		RP
       |		FS
MG-<right wrist>

Alright, so far so good. Time to turn our attention to targeting symbols. The abstract criteria for targeting symbols are as follows:

Compact
Simple to remember
Easily distinguished from strikes

So, how to proceed from here? The NASA model divides the body into regions and planes/joints; as we discussed previously each region/joint has one or more surfaces:

Bottom
Front
Inner
Outer
Rear
Top

Abstractly, a target is just a combination of region/joint and surface, with the additional simplification that many regions of the body has "left" and "right" flavors. In keeping with the use of letters for strike symbols I recommend that we do the same for targets, in which case I submit the following grammar for evaluation:

[L|R]<B|F|I|O|R|T><region designator>

Like the strike symbols I'm going to leave the region designators undefined; different systems may want to use their own region designations.

We still need some way to separate strike and target symbols. I suggest that we use parentheses for this reason since they've evocative of a circle which is, in turn, evocative of a target. Returning once again to our motivating example, and designating "W" as the designator for the wrist, we get

       |	RP
       |	FS
MG-(RFW)

Whaddaya think?

Notation: Simplifying Turns

2011-08-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

As I'm transcribing the forms I know I'm finding that most turns are 90°. Therefore, new rule:

All turns are assumed to be 90° unless otherwise noted.

This will make things simpler by eliminating a bunch of redundant "90°" from various things.

Oral Transmission And Student Instructors

2011-08-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

Studio X, as I think I've mentioned before, doesn't have much in the way of written materials. Which, given the instructional methodology of the system, I'm beginning to think is a pretty bad idea.

A lot of the instruction of the lower ranks is done by upper-rank students. The format of a typical class is warm-up calisthenics, a little bit of sparring, and then beginning students are broken up into groups by rank and handed off to a black-belt for further instruction in that group's material. Which is a good system, at least in abstract, given the amount of material (rather a lot, IMHO) that students are expected to learn at each level.

The problem is that the quality of instruction varies immensely depending on which black-belt is doing the teaching. Some of them don't have a good grasp of the material; they teach forms/techniques by wrote and don't understand the application which underlies the techniques/forms. Which is partly just a matter of quality control; the chief instructor needs to be more discriminating in who is allowed to instruct.

Even with better controls in place, however, things are going to get mangled in transmission. I offer, as an example, the comments associated with my transcription of the rank 3 sparring techniques. Scav asked about Jade Ring stance, so when I had an opportunity I asked one of the student instructors about the stances used in technique #12. This instructor, a 2nd degree blackbelt who generally has an excellent understanding of the system, told me something which didn't seem quite right, so I asked the chief instructor about Jade Ring stance explicitly.

The long and the short is that the 2nd degree has been doing technique #12 wrong for years. That's a problem because martial arts systems aren't necessarily self-correcting; ey's transmitted a broken #12 to who knows how many students. The only reason I caught the mistake is that the chief instructor had previously shown me the technique and I care more about the details of execution than the average student.

From a practical standpoint this is nitpicking; the version of #12 which the 2nd degree showed me works fine. But each technique, especially in the lower rank material, (allegedly) has a specific reason for being included in the curriculum. This obviously holds true for #12; it's there to teach students how to get under a guard using Jade Ring Stance and an Upward Block. You don't get that if you do it the way the 2nd degree showed me.

So what to do about this? The simplest approach, it seems to me, is to just write things down, but that happens less frequently that it should; of the three systems in which I've studied only one had a decent manual. I think that's primarily a function of effort; the system which had a manual was a large, multi-studio affair, while the ones which didn't were small and mostly-independent. It takes a lot of work, as well as writing and organizational talent, to get material down on paper in a systematic fashion. However, if I were a chief instructor, and my concern was the reliable and efficient transmission of basic material, I would absolutely spend the time necessary to do so on the grounds that it would improve the quality of the studio.

As a secondary explanation, however, I believe there's also a unconscious bias, in some branches of the martial arts at least, in favor of strictly oral transmission. Historically a systems' techniques were viewed as trade secrets which were at risk of compromise if they were put down on paper. "Secret techniques" might have once had a place in a more militant era¹, but they're unsuited to contemporary circumstances. If a student gets into a fight nowadays they're going to win because they understand basic concepts, not because they know the Five Point Palm. Which also argues in favor of writing things down in order to promote a solid understanding of the material.

1 Miyamoto Musashi carps about this in the Book of Five Rings. I don't have my copy in front of me at the moment to give an exact reference, but his take is that its better to just be an excellent martial artist than to rely on secret techniques that catch your opponent by surprise.

A Helpful Notation Tip

2011-08-08T18:57:00.000-07:00

I had to do some field transcription yesterday. We were having a special session to learn an "extra" form, one that isn't part of the canonical material for lower ranks. Since it was a one-time only affair I wanted to get it written down as quickly as possible to ensure that it wouldn't get lost.

Turns out that it's really convenient to do so using a clip-on pen and a piece of 8.5" x 11" paper. If you fold the paper into quarters it's stiff enough that you can write on it, plus each quarter is about the right width for use with the notation system. You can clip the pen to the paper and stuff the entire thing into the front of your gi (presuming you're wearing one, of course), which allows you to take notes on the spot without unduly disrupting things.

Are The Stick Figure Diagrams Useful?

2011-08-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get the world's thoughts on the stick-figure-ish diagrams I put together for the Rank 1 Blocks post. Way back in my original post on notation I discussed the limitations of photographs in this context, but didn't stop to consider whether those limitations applied to illustrations in general. Here are my observations in that regard after putting together the blocking diagrams:

Compactness: The 3D diagrams are only marginally more compact than photographs; I wouldn't want to use them to illustrate anything other that atomic actions.
Required equipment: I created them using my laptop (sunk cost) and Blender (free) whereas a camera rig to shoot from four directions simultaneously would be super pricey. In exchange you give up photorealism and geometric accuracy; the former it totally unnecessary, IMHO, for pedagogical purposes while the latter is mostly a function of my limited artistic abilities. I should also have added "a willing model" to the list of equipment required for photos, something which is not required for rendered drawings.
Depiction of transitions: The stick figure diagrams allow me to convey motion more accurately by overlaying pre- and post-action poses in a single frame. While this is technically possible with photos the barriers to doing so are insurmountable for a non-professional.

In general I found it nigh impossible to describe blocking techniques using English only; the addition of the diagrams helps eliminate the ambiguities which crop up in the written word. I also like the ability to annotate the diagrams with motion/momentum arrows. Again, this is technically possible with photos, but much more difficult.

So, thoughts? Should I gin up some more diagrams for punches/kicks?

Studio X: Blocks: Rank 1

2011-08-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

Studio X doesn't really have a systematized blocking system. Or, rather, they do, but they don't teach it as such. Instead, blocks just show up in forms/techniques and the student does them through imitation. In this regard they get less emphasis that punches/kicks since those are explicitly taught in a stand-alone fashion. I consider this to be a shortcoming of the system; learning how to block correctly is no less important than learning how to punch or kick. This post is the beginning of an attempt to record all of the blocks used withing Studio X in a systematic fashion. Since they aren't taught formally the material which follows is based largely on my own observations and previous experience in other systems.

The Rank 1 blocks can be loosely (and I emphasize the word "loosely") classified as "hard" or "soft":

Hard: Inward, Outward, Upward, Downward, Single/Double Downward Backfist
Soft: Intercepting, Downward Palm, Inward Palm

The hard blocks oppose force with force and include the "inward/outward/upward/downward" set that I first learned a long time ago as a white belt in a karate-based system. The soft blocks don't oppose the force of incoming strikes directly but instead seek to deflect/redirect the strikes away from the defender; in this fashion they're much like the blocking techniques I learned as a beginning 7-Star Mantis student. I don't have a sense at this point as to how this division holds up as the student progresses; I've seen both types of blocks in the additional material to which I've been exposed.

Intercepting Block

This is the first block which students encounter and is ubiquitous within the Studio X system. It is intended to intercept a chest-/face-level punch and redirect it over the defender's shoulder. As the punch (represented by the green arrows) comes in the back/outer edge of the defender's hand/wrist (highlighted in red) makes contact with the attacker's wrist, pulling it up and away from the center line.

This block is usually paired with a counter-punch (reverse or horizontal) executed more-or-less simultaneously by the opposite hand.

This strikes me as a very difficult block from a technical standpoint. Being able to intercept and redirect a punch coming at anything approaching full speed requires good reflexes. Additionally, this block makes use of muscles in the shoulder which are difficult to condition effectively without the use of a weight machine. Which makes me wonder a) why they teach this as the first block and b) how many students can actually execute the block effectively?

Inward Block

The inward block is similar to the intercepting block in that it is designed to redirect a linear strike aimed at the chest/head. The blocking arm comes up and back, as shown in the above illustration, and then sweeps down/across the chest, intercepting and deflecting the incoming strike with the edge of the forearm (highlighted in red).

This block is much easier to execute than the intercepting block for several reasons. It travels towards the center line powered by the action of the pecs/lats, muscles which are generally in better shape than those of the shoulder. Additionally, the blocking surface is larger and the necessary range of motion smaller, which means that this block is generally more forgiving of errors in timing and accuracy.

However, and this may be the reason why the intercepting block is favored by Studio X even though it is more difficult to pull off, the fact that the inward block crosses the center line makes it difficult to throw a simultaneous counter punch. The blocking arm gets in the way, as does a successfully-deflected strike, and any potential counter needs to overcome the angular momentum generated by the blocking process.

This block is often used in conjunction with an outward block executed by the opposite hand to clear and position the attackers arm prior to the application of a monkey grab.

Outward Block

The outward block, like the inward block, is intended to deflect a linear strike aimed at the chest/head. The forearm starts at roughly the level of the sternum, parallel to the ground and 8-ish inches away from the chest. It then pivots around the elbow, catching the strike on the edge of the forearm (denoted in red in the diagram) and pushing it away from the center line. The range of motion is such that the forearm/fist should just exceed the shoulder; any less means you're going to get tagged in the shoulder by the strike, any more is unnecessary effort.

The astute observer will notice that this block serves roughly the same purpose as the intercepting block, which raises the question of when you'd use one vs. the other? Based purely on my own experience I'd say it depends primarily on where's the closest bit of empty space relative to the incoming strike. If a strike is coming towards your face there's greater economy of motion in deflecting it over the shoulder (i.e. an intercepting block), whereas if its coming at the sternum its faster to deflect it to the side (an outward block).

The outward block is often used in combination with others strikes/blocks. As mentioned above, it is commonly used in conjunction with an inward block to clear a strike and setup for a grappling/chin-na technique. In this application the defender executes an inward block to catch the incoming strike, followed half-a-second or so later by an outward block. When performed correctly the two blocks mesh together; as the inward block pushes the strike towards the opposite shoulder the outward block sweeps up and skims along the outside of the opposite forearm, smoothly continuing the redirection. The outward block can then be turned into a grab by opening the hand and rotating/sliding the palm outward until it engages the attacker's arm.

Like the intercepting block it also leaves you in a natural position to throw a simultaneous counter punch, usually a horizontal punch.

Now, interestingly, there's a good case to be made that this block doesn't work as advertised. The shoulder muscles which power and stabilize this block (the teres major/minor I believe) are difficult to condition without the use of specialized equipment and, as such, aren't necessarily well-developed even in a relatively-skilled martial artist. In order to make the block remotely effective you've got to root yourself and really turn your hips/torso into it as well.

This might be taken as carping on my part, to which I'll respond that this isn't an original observation. It was first brought to my attention by a friend of mine who's a 4th dan in a system which teaches this block as part of the basic White Belt material. The way he put it was "If I can't do it after 15 years maybe its the block, not me".

As to why it's still hanging around? Tradition and lack of testing would be my guess. The mechanics of the block are plausible enough provided that you don't have to deploy it against a full-speed, full-force strike. Additionally there are situations, such as the inward/outward combo discussed above, where it does have utility. Who's going to drop the block from the official corpus given such considerations?

Upward Block

This is a simple block that is used to counter an overhead strike. The forearm is raised above the head and braced via the triceps/shoulder, applying a directly opposing force to whatever strike might be incoming. Note that the forearm is 15° or 20° from parallel with the ground; this encourages the incoming strike to slide off to the side, reducing the total force necessary to neutralize the blow. Two caveats to remember w.r.t positioning of the forearm which aren't adequately conveyed by the illustration:

The forearm has to be a little higher than the top of the skull to give an adequate margin of safety.
The hand should just exceed the opposite shoulder in order to provide complete coverage.

Downward Block

A natural reaction to having someone throw a kick at you is to try to block it with your forearm; it's a reflex I've seen any number of beginning students. Of course, they generally do it wrong: they lean over, they block with the wrong part of the forearm, etc. The downward block is simply this basic, defensive instinct given an effective form and execution.

In order to deflect a rising kick along the center line the defender first makes a fist, palm towards the chest, and brings it across to the opposite side of the body with the forearm roughly parallel to the ground. The forearm then sweeps down across the body, catching the incoming kick (ideally just above the ankle) on its leading edge and deflecting it away from the center line. It's important to leave a fair amount of distance between the forearm and the rest of the body so that there's sufficient time to deflect the block before it makes contact. The motion is complete when the wrist/forearm just exceed the knee.

A downward block can also be used to counter a circular kick such as a roundhouse. In this situation the motion is the same but the defender's forearm and the attacker's leg come into contact after the forearm has exceeded the torso/leg. The forearm is angled in such a fashion as to directly oppose the motion of the kick, neutralizing it if all goes well. My experience is that this variant is easy to execute but will leave nasty bruises; I prefer to drop elbows instead if possible.

Downward Palm Block

Th downward palm block (called the "downward pressing palm" in another system I've studied) is mechanically simple, easy to execute, and tremendously useful. It's a very strong block, being braced by the triceps/pecs, and so can be used to directly oppose a rising kick. At the same time the defender has a lot of fine control over its execution and so can use it to deflect a horizontal strike.

When blocking a rising strike/kick the defender positions their hand along their center line, 8-ish inches away from their body, palm down and parallel to their chest. They then push down vigorously while maintaining the hand's orientation, neutralizing the incoming strike via the application of directly opposing force.

When deflecting a horizontal strike the blocking hand starts well away from the body, around the level of the sternum and a little off the center line. The idea with this variation of the block is to match the speed and trajectory of the incoming strike as closely as possible, bringing the blocking hand in towards the torso and center line while simultaneously pushing down. This will redirect/dissipate the strike's momentum; in the best-case scenario the defender ends up momentarily trapping the striking limb, leaving the attacker wide open for a counter with the opposite hand.

Two bad habits that I've noticed of myself when making use of the block:

I get lazy and don't keep my fingers/thumb back, which has lead me to jam them something fierce on more than one occasion.
I look down at my hands; always a no-no.

So, lead with your palm and make sure you keep your eyes up.

Inward Palm Block

The inward palm block is used to deflect a linear strike to the area between the sternum and navel. The forearm starts (mostly) parallel to the ground with the hand held near the lower ribs, palm facing inward and perpendicular to the ground. The defender then pushes the palm across the lower abdomen, intercepting and redirecting the incoming strike.

I'm not entirely sure why this block exists; it's not something I find myself executing naturally. I generally prefer to drop elbows or use some variant of a downward pressing palm. One thing that I've noted, however, is that this block shows up almost exclusively in combination with an upward block executed by the opposite hand, which suggests that there might be some subtle, mechanical reason for the pairing. Dropping an elbow when one arm is already committed to an upward block is certainly awkward, but using a pressing palm seems natural since the application of downward force nicely opposes the force of the upward block. This is something that I'll have to ask about.

Double Downward Backfist Block

This block is fairly simple, executed by bringing the arms together and down to oppose a rising strike. But as I was putting the above illustration together I realized that I don't have a great grasp of when, and against what sorts of attacks, it would actually be used. There are some techniques where its executed directly on center and others where its executed at 45° off the center line; the types of attacks that it can counter differ in each case. I've also had at least one person describe this block to me in a way which makes me think its a stand-in for a couple of different techniques.

What I believe is going on, based on other elements of the system to which I've been exposed, is that the "double downward block" that shows up in various techinques is a stand-in for the following:

Double downward elbow
Double downward block (w/ forearms)
Double downward backfist

The first of these would be most effective against a rising kick delivered along the center line, while the second and third would, when executed 45° from center, be effective against circular strikes/kicks.

Note that there is also a one-sided (i.e. single handed) version of this block that is mostly used to protect the groin when executing mid- and high-kicks; I'll refer to this variant as a Downward Backfist Block.

Studio X: Sparring Techniques: Rank 3

2011-07-30T15:57:00.001-07:00

CS: Cat Stance
DBB: Downward Backfist Block
DFB: Downward Forearm Block
IS: Inward Smash
JRS: Jade Ring Stance
OB: Outward Block
RP: Reverse Punch
SK: Snap Kick
SS: Sparring Stance
STK: Side Thrust Kick
UB: Upward Block
VP: Vertical Punch

#11

                RP
DFB
SS

#12

                RP
JRS UB  
                RP
DFB
SS

#13

                DBB SK
                VP
VP
                VP
OB
SS

#14

SS
        ↑
                VP
VP
                VP
OB              SS
        ↑
                SK DBB
                STK→
                CS
        ↓
                SS

#15

                DBB SK
                VP
VP
                VP
SS OB
        ↺180°
↓STK  
                SS
        ↺180° IS
SS

Notation: Targeting I

2011-05-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

In which I lay out some preliminary ideas regarding the specification of targets.

I've reached the point where I need to transcribe some things which don't make sense without a way to denote a target, which means that it's probably time for us to tackle targeting notation. Rather than being a discussion of what bits of the human body make an effective target, which I've done a little bit of work on in the past (1, 2, 3, 4), this is going to focus on how to describe where on the body a blow should be aimed. Additionally, I'm going to set aside considerations of concrete notation for the moment and consider how we might specify a target from a more theoretical standpoint.

The other day, when I was asking an instructor "Where is this directed?", he answered "Oh, probably 23 and 24", referring to Ren Meridian points 23 and 24¹. Which got me thinking about using acupuncture points as the basis for a general targeting system.

Acupuncture points have some properties which would make them useful for the purposes of targeting: they're standardized (more or less), widely known, and each ones specifies a very specific bit of the human anatomy. Counter to this, however, are the following drawbacks:

Acupuncture points are too specific. The Ren Meridian, for example, has twenty-some points often spaced out no more than a few inches from each other. That's more resolution than is necessary or useful.
The meridian system as a whole is very complex, in part because there are just so many individual points. This would make the system difficult to memorize, which runs counter to our overall goal of creating an accessible notation system which can be used by students of all levels.
They provide incomplete coverage. While there are lots of points which correspond to typical targets there are also some obvious targets (like the inside/outside of the knee) which have no corresponding acupuncture point.

With regards to item 1, we want whatever targeting system we adopt to be lower resolution than the meridian system. It seems to me that a natural way to accomplish this would be to move away from conceptualizing targets as specific points and towards imagining them as two-dimensional areas. Adopting such an approach would also reduce (considerably vs. the meridian system) the number of items which have to be memorized, thus promoting general ease-of-use.

Building a system from the ground up, however, should be avoided if possible. Not only are we reinventing the wheel but it prevents us from partaking of any of the benefits of the meridian system such as standardization and distribution. So, I then asks myself, are there any pre-existing systems which have the properties we're looking for?

NASA to the rescue!

NASA didn't invent the terminology, but they're real good at making it accessible to non-medical types (like us dumb engineers). I like "Figure 3.1.2-5 Illustrative view of Body Segments and Planes of Segmentation in particular because it approximates (mostly) how I mentally divide the body into regions for the purposes of targeting.

Now, some questions for discussion:

Is it helpful to adopt the Latinate medical terminology? I'm going to say "no" here. I don't think its particularly burdensome to expect people to learn a few unfamiliar words; "ventral" isn't any more unusual than "dan tien". However, every MA system I've ever encountered already uses "front", "back"/"rear", "inner", and "outer" for the same purpose. Introducing another set of terms without any incremental benefit makes no sense.
Is the existing system suitable for MA applications? Almost; I think we'll need to subdivide the abdominal, thorax, and head segments a bit, but apart from that we're good.

So here's what I propose:

"Front", "back", "inner", and "outer" have their customary meanings.
In the case of the arms/hands, where orientation can be a little ambiguous, I suggest that we standardize on the relaxed/natural position i.e. finger-tips down, thumbs forward.
"Left" and "right" are interpreted from the performer's perspective.
We'll refer to "joints" rather than "planes".
Unless otherwise noted every segment and joint has inner, outer, front, and back regions.
Segments with special subdivisions:

The head has the following subdivisions: front, back, top, bottom (i.e. underside of the jaw), left, and right.
The thorax is divided vertically into thirds: Left, right, and midline. Each of these are divided horizontally into an "upper" and "lower" division. The usual modifiers (front, back, etc.) apply where meaningful.
The abdomen is divided vertically into thirds like the thorax. The usual modifiers apply where meaningful.

How does that sound?

1 Incidentally, this is really the only complaint that I have with my new studio. A lot of the upper ranks seem to be very much into Chinese Traditional Medicine, to which my only rejoinder is "Ummm... no". If I were a better person I'd call them out on it, but I suspect I should hold off on that until I've at least been there for a couple of months...

On Further Reflection...

2011-04-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote that it didn't particularly matter that my most recent promotion was not particularly rigorous. I'm still of the opinion that belts don't count for all that much, especially when making inter-school comparisons, but after some more thought on the subject I want to present an argument in favor of introducing physical/mental rigor early in the training process. If you'll indulge me for a moment I'd like to recount an event from my past by way of illustration.

The first school I ever studied at really made you work for your belts. Tests took a couple of hours minimum, even for beginning students, much of which was spent under the supervision of junior instructors whose job was to exhaust you as much as test your knowledge. One of these tests, either 2nd to 3rd rank or 3rd to 4th, I don't recall which, stands out in my mind as an event of fundamental importance in my life second only to marrying my spouse.

At one point during this test the instructor told us to pick a partner and tell them about ourselves, all while standing on one leg with the other knee in the air. After a brief period, long enough for our legs to be tiring out, he came around and started asking questions: What was your partners name? Where did ey live? What kind of a computer did ey use? And so on. At a certain point the questions got so ridiculous that I stopped and said to myself "Hey, wait a minute, he doesn't actually expect us to answer these, does he?". Following quickly on the heels of that question was the realization that, if he didn't expect us to actually have answers, the only reason he was asking questions in the first place was to harass/fluster us. Thus I would "win" simply by not allowing him to fluster me.

It wasn't quite satori, but it certainly was an epiphany. That realization, that there wasn't any point in getting angry, and that I had a choice about whether I would do so or not, was the kicked pebble that turned into an avalanche. I could choose not to be angry. And if I could choose not to be angry I could also choose not to be envious, or presumptuous, or any of the other negative mental states that frequently beset MA practitioners.

In time (years) it led to the cultivation of what I characterize as a "receptive ego": I recognize my own worth, but I also recognize where I can benefit from the experience of others. That mode of being-in-the-world has spilled out into my everyday life to great benefit. I'm a better person now, and I choose consciously how to react to events (most of the time).

Now, coming back to my main point... I recognize that my experience is unusual, but I think there's something to be said for stressing people as a part of the training process. Students can become better martial artists, and even better people, if they acknowledge their shortcomings and strive to make themselves better. It would be great if we could systematically induce them to do so, but it seems to me that this is one of those areas heavily influenced by personal idiosyncrasies. At best what we can say is that pushing students physically and mentally will help at least some portion of them enter into this dialogue for themselves.

Another Reason To Avoid Getting Knocked Upside Yo' Head

2011-04-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

Like you needed any more, right? There's a good article over at Moving Meat about the mechanics/effects of a punch/kick to the side of the head.

Belts... Meh

2011-04-20T15:58:00.001-07:00

I enrolled in a new school a couple of weeks ago and, much to my surprise, have already been promoted to the next belt level. On one level this makes sense; I've 5 years worth of study in a couple systems, so I'm not really a beginner. But at the same time it seems a little bit indecent; I mean, I'm still waiting for the gi I ordered to come in.

The testing and promotion process at this particular studio is no where near as rigorous (in a physical sense) as in other places I've studied. All I had to do was demonstrate sufficient mastery of the first-level material; the whole test took about 20 minutes. That contrasts strongly with another system I've studied where the test for promotion from first to second rank was a grueling, several hour ordeal.

This speaks, I think, to the whole notion that a particular rank has any meaning outside of a specific system. It took me 3.5-ish years to reach brown belt at a previous studio, and probably would have taken me another year or so to reach black. In my new school, however, people get to black in under 2 years. At the same time, however, there are clearly much different expectations for what it means to have a black belt in both systems: in my old school you were qualified (more or less) to run your own studio under the guidance of a more-senior instructor, whereas in the new school you've just gotten the preliminaries out of the way.

I do hope, however, that the testing becomes more rigorous/vigorous at some point. Any schmoe can memorize a bunch of forms, but there's more to it than just that. Good martial artists carry themselves a certain way and have a certain demeanour... they've internalized the mental and physical aspects of their art. I want the people above me to be better than I am if for no other reason than to serve as a goad for my own development.

I was initially concerned about all of this but, on reflection, I don't think it matters how hard it is to get to the next belt. Students and instructors can serve as exemplars, but improvement is ultimately a dialogue with yourself. You get out of it what you put into it. If you know what you need to do to improve the belt is largely immaterial at that point.

Studio X: Stances, Rank 1

2011-04-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

2011-05-06: Updated title to indicate these are stances for the first belt rank.

2011-04-20: Have corrected some items below on the basis of further discussion with instructors.

The first (of perhaps several) entries on the stances taught at Studio X.

Horse

This is a typical horse stance such as is to be found in nearly every kung fu/karate school. Formal criteria:

50/50 weight division
Feet point forward
Head/chest are erect
Hands chambered at the hips (or, alternately, held in guard position)
(Ideally) thighs are parallel to the ground¹

This is a training stance intended for improving the strength and flexibility of the legs.

The challenge of horse stance is to bend deeply while maintaining good form. The natural response to bending you thighs is to stick out your rear to maintain your center of balance. But if you do that it looks silly and (more importantly) makes it essentially impossible to keep your chest/head erect. Correct form involves shifting your center of gravity by tucking in your rear and bending more at the ankle to compensate. The strength/flexibility of the ankle is generally the limiting factor in how deep you can go. Note also that I've added a couple of joints to the spine to emphasize that the back is slightly curved in this position rather than being straight.

Bow

Bow stance is, like horse, intended primarily for training rather than practical application. It is designed to strengthen the legs and stretch the muscles/ligaments below and posterior to the knee² and to encourage the "rooting" necessary for delivery of effective punches. As such it serves the same purpose as the long, forward stances found in other arts. Formal criteria:

70/30 weight distribution
Both feet point forward
~~Rear foot trails leading foot by 2*(shin length+ankle length)~~
~~~1 foot-length horizontal distance between feet~~ Just enough horizontal distance between feet to maintain balance.
Back leg straight
Front thigh parallel to ground
Hips forward

Very few people are actually flexible enough to meet the formal criteria; the figure I've rendered above reflects the "correct" posture as it is seen in practice. In particular it is usually the case that the muscles/ligaments of the legs are too tight for the trailing foot to face completely forward, causing the following:

Trailing foot points off-center 25° - 45°.
Rear leg mostly, but not entirely, straight.
Hips point off center 15° - 45°

It's important to note that you don't straighten your rear leg completely outside of the formal context. Doing locks out your knee, risking injury, and also makes it difficult to move out of bow stance. Rather, in practice the knee is kept bent both for protection of the joint and to provide the power to move out of the stance gracefully.

I've rendered the figure with an outstretched arm to remind myself of an idiosyncrasy of Studio X. In the other arts I've studied you'd never leave an arm outstretched like that; you'd chamber it or put it on guard. The Studio X short forms that I've learned so far, on the other hand, all begin from (and some end in) this position. This seems to be a function of the following factors:

There's an implicit, unperformed "outward block, punch" at the beginning of each long form. This, in turn, seems to be related to the technique for turning 180° while in bow stance, which involves issuing the same block/punch combo.
The hands have to go somewhere. Studio X short forms, rather than having them chambered or on guard, simply keeps them in their initial (i.e. post-turn) position.

Sparring

This is the default stance for "practical" work and is analogous to the fighting/sparring stances found in other systems. It's designed to protect the body and make it easy to move. Points to note:

~~50/50~~ 60/40 weight distribution favoring front leg
Rear foot lags front foot by 2*(shin length - ankle length)
~~Feet ~1 foot-length apart~~ Just enough horizontal distance between feet to maintain balance.
Front foot points forward
Rear foot points off-center just enough to be comfortable
Hands are in guard position:

Hands make fists
Lead hand (hand on same side as leading foot) is on center line, slightly below eye level
Other hand "tucks in" below lead hand and slightly off-center.
Elbows on the narrow end of their natural range.

Unlike bow/horse, which are training stances designed to be uncomfortable to some degree, sparring stance should feel comfortable and natural. Disregard the implied hip geometry in the figure above; it's largely an artifact of how I rigged the figure. The hips, like the rear foot, will face just off-center enough to be comfortable.

Cat

Cat stance has a role in both formal and practical applications:

Proper form involves sinking deeply on the supporting leg, building strength and flexibility.
Weight rests on a single foot, making it easy to deliver kicks.
The stance is geometrically compact around the vertical axis, making it easy to turn; cat stance is often used to assist with direction changes in forms.

The stance itself doesn't require a lot of explanation:

90/10 weight distribution favoring rear foot
Rear foot and hips face forward
Sink as low as possible on supporting foot.
Trunk erect
Front foot essentially "floats" slightly in front of rear foot.

1 I've heard that in more than one place, but I'm not 100% convinced that its physically possible to get the thighs parallel while maintaining good form. In order to keep the center of mass within the box described by the feet (and thus avoid falling over) you'd need to either a) lean the torso forward quite a bit or b) extend the knees very far in front of the toes. The former is easily doable, but conflicts with the goal of keeping the torso upright, while I'm not sure its physically possible to bend the ankle enough to achieve the latter.
2 The plantaris? Gastrocnemeus?

Introducing Studio X

2011-04-14T13:24:00.001-07:00

I recently joined a new MA school which I'll refer to hereafter as "Studio X". It has no manual to speak of, just lists of forms, techniques, etc. which students are expected to learn. Students are encouraged to write down material as they learn it in order to aid in retention, serve as a reference, etc. Rather than scribbling illegibly in a notebook I'm going to write up this material here, since it'll give me an opportunity to apply the notation system I've been developing, experiment with other ways of representing techniques on paper, and generally kibitz about theory.

Commercialization of the Martial Arts in China

2011-04-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

The March issue of National Geographic has a brief, but generally good, article on the effects of commercialization on martial arts instruction in China. The long and the short of it is that in China, like the US, there is a tension between teaching an art for its own sake and teaching with an eye toward popularity and profitability.

China has developed what essentially amount to "kung fu mills". Dengfeng, home of the Shaolin Monastery, has 60 large kung-fu schools with 50000 students; these guys make the biggest US chains look like a bunch of pikers. One of the first thoughts which crossed my mind upon reading the article was to wonder what would drive someone to enroll in one of these behemoths? Part of their appeal seems to be that some segment of the Chinese public looks upon them as a form of vocational training:

These schools fill their ranks with boys, and increasingly girls, from every province and social class, ranging in age from five to their late 20s. Some arrive hoping to become movie starts or to win glory as kickboxers. Others come to learn skills that will ensure good jobs in the military, police, or private security. A few are sent by their parents to learn discipline and hard work.

This is a major contrast from how things are in the US. Very few people here participate in the martial arts thinking that they're going to be movie stars, and I expect that only a slightly larger number expect to use their skills in a professional capacity. Rather, they're mostly interested in self-defense, fitness, building personal discipline, and, finally, art for its own sake. Who in China is catering to those people?

That's where it gets really interesting. There are a bunch of smaller schools, more akin to what we have in the US, which coexisting uneasily in the shadows of the major institutions. Part of the article consists of an interview with a gentleman named Hu Zhengsheng who runs one of these smaller schools. He tells a familiar story about the difficulties of keeping the lights on and convincing students that high kicks alone don't make good kung fu. He might adopt a more commercial, mercenary mentality, but would risk losing something essential in his school if he did so.

Seeing how this plays out the same in China as the US makes me wonder whether there must inevitably be a loss of quality as a school scales up (and thus becomes more commercially viable). That, I think, would make an excellent question to pursue in a follow-on post.

Monday Morning Physiology

2011-02-21T08:54:00.001-08:00

PZ at Pharyngula has a good explanation of why muscles hurt after heavy exercise.

Notation: Complex Trasitions, Part II

2011-02-12T12:20:00.000-08:00

One place where a system of MA notation really has the potential to outstrip English is in the representation of simultaneous or overlapping actions. We've seen this already in my first post on complex transitions; its easy to convey stance changes and movements that occur by way of an attack using the notation system under development. Now I want to work on a more complicated example... consider the following:

[From Right Half-Moon Stance] Pivot counterclockwise 270 degrees on forward foot, moving only left foot, and left hand to right ear. End in left Half-Moon Stance facing 3 o'clock. Execute #8 Block¹.

That's from a beginning form, but its not at all clear to the beginner what's actually going on. It took me a long time to make the connection between the literal English instructions and the technique that they were trying to convey, in large part because the use of English forces atomic and simultaneous actions to be broken up into multiple, sequential steps. The underlying technique which the instructions above are attempting to describe is as follows:

The performer begins to turn and draw into left cat stance while simultaneously bringing the left fist up in preparation for the delivery of the #8 block.
The performer continues to turn through 270° while completing the transition from half-moon stance to cat stance.
Maintaining eir momentum the performer begins the transition from cat stance to left half-moon stance by stepping out with the left foot while simultaneously beginning the delivery of the #8 block.
The left foot plants, completing the transition to half-moon stance.
Delivery of the #8 block completes a half-second or so after the left foot it planted.

The performer is essentially "coiling up" like a spring, developing some rotational kinetic energy, and then "unwinding" by stepping out and delivering the #8 block. You'd never get that by looking at the English instructions that I quoted, but I think we can get pretty close if we're clever about our notation.

Before I start trying to get this down on paper I'd like to take a minute to discuss timing. Forms and techniques generally have an intrinsic rhythm which, as the above example demonstrates, English utterly fails to capture. This is easily observer when you watch a beginning and an advanced student performing the same kata: the beginning student will execute actions one after the other with a steady tempo while the advanced student, who has a grasp of the underlying bunkai, will generally have a highly-synchopated rhythm that mimics the look of acutal combat.

So how do we capture this timing on paper? Choreographics has the following to say regarding timing and abstract symbol systems²:

Stepanov doesn't have any way to indicate precise timings.
In Laban notation the beginning of a symbol indicates the start of a movement and the end of a symbol denotes its conclusion.
Morris and Benesh use a bow/phrase mark to indicate the beginning/end of a movement.
Eshkol-Wachman marks the beginning and end of a motion against an arbitrary running count.
Sutton uses a ligature system similar to Morris/Benesh.

One significant way in which the martial arts depart from dance is that the latter is almost always accompanied by a musical score which drives the tempo of the dance. This is not the case with the martial arts; I remember one instructor telling me that it doesn't matter how fast or slow you do a form as long as the internal timing is consistent. Which leads me to believe that we need must be able to accurately capture relative timings but needn't worry about conveying clock time. Additionally, I think its important to be able to specify relative timings with as fine a granularity as possible. In the example above its very important that the student understand that the block is delivered just after the left foot is planted, not before or simultaneously with.

Ms. Guest notes that "[t]he Laban system is very flexible, being able to pin-point both durations and the moment of departure and arrival"³, which is precisely what we're looking for. We're not going to be able to adopt the Laban notation for timing directly since it's intimately tied up with Laban's use of block-like symbols which are easily stretched and compressed as needed. But the core concept of marking the beginning and end of motion against an arbitrary-but-consistent timeline provides us with exactly the functionality we require. New rule:

Time flows at a constant (but undefined) rate from the bottom of the page to the top.

It follows from there that we just need some convenient way to mark the beginning and end of each action. My idea is to use something akin to error bars, in which case our example could be rendered:

 ┳
#8D  HMS       
   CS
   #8P     ↺270
                  HMS

And reads as follows:

From Right Half-Moon Stance
Transition to Left Cat Stance
While turning 270° counter-clockwise and preparing a #8 block⁴
Step out into Left Half-Moon Stance
And complete delivery of the #8 block shortly after the transition to Left Half-Moon Stance is complete.

In regards to the use of "error bars" I recommend the following default assumptions:

Timing is constant.
Actions on different lines are sequential; they blend smoothly one into the next.
Actions on the same line begin and end simultaneously.

1 The "#8 Block" is performed with the left hand. The performer's closed fist sweeps down from the right side of the head, across the lower abdomen, finishing with the elbow fully extended and the fist just exceeding the left knee. It's used to deflect/block low kicks and punches.
2 Pp. 173 - 174.
3 P. 176.
4 I've adopted "#8P" to mean "prepare for a #8 block" i.e. "bring the left-hand up to the right side of the head". "#8D" means "deliver a #8 block".

Notation: Directions and Angles

2011-01-25T18:28:00.000-08:00

Next on the agenda vis-a-vis notation is the consideration of how to represent angles and directions. So far I've identified three use cases for this type of information:

Rotation/change in direction
Change in attention
Direction of attack

So let's go through these one at a time and see what we can come up with.

Changes In Direction

Almost any form is going to require the performer to change the direction they're facing multiple times throughout the performance. Instructions for these direction changes come in two flavors:

Relative: "Turn right 90°".
Absolute: "Face front."

Which flavor(s) do we need to support? Given that we've adopted the convention that the top of the page is always the performer's front it is absolutely necessary that we have a way of marking down relative changes in direction.

Do we also need to support absolute directions? I think this is mostly a non-issue; I've rarely seen absolute directions used anywhere but at the start of a form. Provided you know what direction the performer was facing when ey started any absolute direction can be translated into a relative rotation. Additionally, most (all?) of the forms I know start facing "front", wherever that happens to be in any particular context. On those rare occasions where the performer begins facing elsewhere that fact can simply be noted in text at the beginning of the transcription.

Do we need to rigorously define what it means to "face" a direction? I think not; that's a "background knowledge" item akin to knowing how to assume a particular stance. The details of what it means to face a direction (where do the hips/shoulders point, where do the toes point, and so on) should rightly be left to the discretion of individual schools.

When changing their orientation the performer needs to know what direction to turn and how far to go. It seems to me that the easiest way to represent this type of information would be to use something resembling the following notation:

There's a lot of black there though. Maybe outlines would be better:

They're easier to write down than shaded figures. We can get more minimal still:

Though I'm not sure those are actually easier to read than the outlines.

However... up to this point we've been using only Unicode characters in order to aid computer entry, but that's going to prove something of a challenge when it comes to rotation. There are enough characters that we might, with a little bit of effort and ingenuity, handle rotations of 90°/180°/270°/360°, but I haven't been able to identify a palette sufficient for capturing multiples of 45°. One option might be to use arrows, which Unicode has in abundance, to convey rotation, but I'm reluctant to do that unless absolutely necessary. We already use arrows for translation of mass; using them for rotation as well could easily lead to confusion. We're also likely to use arrows, in some form, for changes in attention and/or direction of attack. I'm all ears if anyone has any suggestions in this regard.

Changes In Attention

A few of the systems described in Choreographics, most notably Eshkol-Wachmann, provide a way to describe the orientation of the performer's head, which yields some information about where the performer might be looking. The notion of attention in the martial arts, however, is more complicated than that; the region of attention represents that section of physical space from which the performer is trying to extract information at any given moment. This region is generally correlated with the direction of the performer's head/gaze, but the performer's other senses are involved as well. I can, for example, be facing forward and then shift my attention to what's going on behind me, a process which can be broken down into the following steps:

Mental reorientation.
Refocusing of hearing.
My eyes look as far left (or right) as is possible.
Rotation of my head to bring as much of the space behind me into my field of vision as possible.

The movement of the head is only the final step in a process which is largely invisible to the observer. Note also that steps 1 - 3 happen very quickly; less that a second would be my guess. Shifting attention is a very lightweight action in comparison to more physically-bound processes such as turning the body.

It seems natural to me to use arrows to indicate the area to which the performer should be attending at any given time. However, we're already using arrows to indicate translation, so if we're going to use arrows for attention as well we've got to find some way to disambiguate the two. Unfortunately, after some thought on the matter, I've been unable to come up with any satisfactory method of doing so.

As an alternative I'm considering the use of an open wedge shape to indicate the area of attention:

Forward  Behind  Left  Right
 ˅       ˄      ˃     ˂

This shape is evocative of the performer's field of vision, which makes it easy to remember what it means. We unfortunately run afoul of the same problem we encountered earlier with rotation: we can't get multiples of 45° using Unicode characters. I'm by no means committed to this; just going to run it up the flag pole and see who salutes.

Direction of Attack

I know for certain that I want to use arrows to indicate the direction of attack. The arrows will be decorations on the associated attack symbol. So if I want to record the sequence "half-moon forward into right half-moon stance and then deliver a left front punch to your right 45°" I would jot down the following:

   ↗
 FP
       HMS
     ↑
HMS

Man that's satisfying... that's so much cleaner that the English version.

Simplifying Conventions

Here are some conventions which I recommend adopting to keep things clean:

The area of attention is assumed to be the front of the performer unless otherwise noted.
The direction of attack is assumed to be directly ahead of the performer unless otherwise noted.

And I think that's it for directions and angles.

The Boxer Rebellion

2011-01-03T09:02:00.000-08:00

Update: Fixed broken link.

The Economist has a fairly interesting article on the Boxer rebellion, an interesting episode in Chinese history in which the martial arts play a prominent role.

Notation: Complex Transitions 1

2010-12-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

Scav and I have been trying to figure out how to denote complex transitions i.e. transitions between stances by means of other actions. In the discussion of my previous post ey noted the following problem:

I wonder about stance transitions that occur as part of an attack. In IAKSA kick-boxing (based loosely on Lau Gar Kung Fu), a front-leg kick usually coincides with a short hop forwards, landing in the same stance. A rear-leg kick can transition into the opposite stance or the leg can be brought back to land in the same stance.

The front-leg kick isn't much of a problem, but we don't yet have a way to cope with the issue raised by the rear-leg kick example. The performer needs to know what stance to assume following the execution of a kick. Experience tells me that, more often than not, the performer maintains the same stance after executing a kick. In which case we can keep the notation compact and efficient by adopting the following rule:

All changes in stance must be explicitly noted.

So, if I write:

    FP
    FBK
HMS

This is to be read as:

From left half-moon stance
Execute a right front ball kick,
Return to left half-moon stance, and
Execute a right front punch.

Now, how about a stance transition? I think we have most of the notation we need already. Given that we render

From left half-moon stance
Half-moon forward
Into right half-moon stance.

    HMS
   ↑
HMS

It seems logical to record

From left half-moon stance
Execute a right front ball kick and
Land in right half-moon stance.

    HMS
   ↑FBK
HMS

Combining the symbol for forward translation of the center of mass (↑) on the same line as the symbol for front ball kick (FBK) seems a natural way to indicate that these things should happen simultaneously. This, in turn, suggests the following general rule:

Simultaneous actions are recorded side-by-side on the same line.

Aight, that's enough for now. Comments?

Notation: Basic Conventions

2010-12-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

We've discussed the intent of the system under development at length; now lets try to write something down. I'd like to start with a simple example in order to get an understanding of fundamental issues which need to be resolved before moving on to something which approaches a practical application. Let's start with the following series of movements¹:

Start in horse stance.
Quarter-moon forward into left half-moon stance.
Half-moon forward into right half-moon stance.

What are the key pieces of information which need to be conveyed and what can be omitted to reduce redundancy? Let's look at it line-by-line²:

Start in horse stance: This is the first line in a sequence of instructions, so "start" is implicit; it's nonsensical to start anywhere except at the beginning.
Quarter-moon forward into left half-moon stance: Observations on this instruction:
- It's possible to move both forward and backwards out of horse stance, so the direction of movement must necessarily be included.
- You can move into any other stance from horse stance, so the desired final position must be indicated.
- Both left and right variants of half-moon stance are available, so the left/right designation needs to be retained.
- The "quarter moon" step is the only valid transition between horse and half-moon stances, so there's no need to state it explicitly.
Half-moon forward into right half-moon stance: Does the left/right distinction have to be maintained, or is it implicit that you would transition from left half-moon to right half-moon in this case? Both left → left and left → right are valid transitions; the former would be accomplished by a shuffling step, the latter by a half-moon. Having specified right half-moon stance, however, the "half-moon" step then becomes implicit.

The sample instructions thus reduce to the following, minimum form:

Horse stance
Move forward into left half-moon stance.
Move forward into right half-moon stance.

In order to capture these instructions we'll need notation for the following concepts:

Stance
Relative motion
left/right

Alright, now we're getting somewhere; we know what concepts we need to record, now we just need to decide how to get them down on paper. Turning once again to Choreo-Graphics, Ms. Guest categorizes notation systems into the following, broad categories³:

Words and word abbreviations
Track drawings
Stick figure (visual) systems.
Music note systems
Abstract symbol systems

Can we make any statements at this point about which of these approaches, if any, is likely to suit our needs?

Words and word abbreviations are unlikely to be sufficient by themselves; as we've already seen it's very difficult to efficiently capture the complexity of movement in space and time using natrual language alone. I'm also inclined to eliminate visual systems at this point given Guest's comments on their relative disadvantages:

Visual systems are based on the idea that all dance is visual, that movements are designed to 'make pictures'. This may have been true of classical ballet with its vocabulary of selected, clearly defined positions, but not all movement has 'picture-making' as its purpose, and to try to describe such action in those terms is to force movement into a straight-jacket and thereby change its nature.⁴

MA performances are first and foremost about the use of the body to evade, redirect, and/or apply forces in combat. Rather than existing for its own sake, the external appearance of a form/technique arises as a by-product of this more fundamental concern⁵. This strongly suggests that a visual system is inappropriate for the types of concepts which we're trying to convey.

Lastly, there doesn't seem to be be much reason to consider using a music note system. These types of systems arise in contexts where the intended audience is already familiar with the use of musical notation to convey timing⁶. There's no reason to assume that your average MA practitioners has such a background, which negates any benefits that such a system might have vs. a purely abstract system.

That leaves us with track drawings and abstract symbol systems, both of which show promise. I'm drawn to two systems in particular, Feuillet notation and the vertical staff variant⁷ of Laban Movement Analysis. Feuillet notation indicates left and right by placing symbols on either side of a center line. Given our relatively simple requirements at this point it seems like a reasonable way to make such distinctions.

Laban uses a vertical, multi-line staff which is read bottom to top, left to right. The staff is overkill for our purposes, but I think that reading symbols vertically has the potential to make the system much more intuitive. Let's suppose that we adopt the Feuillet convention for left/right and the Laban convention of reading from bottom to top. Further, let's stipulate that the top of the page always represents "front"/"forward"/"ahead" relative to the performer. Under such conditions symbols on the left of the (printed or implied) center line will always correspond to the reader's left, symbols on the right will always correspond to the reader's right, and reading from one symbol to the next will have an implicit association with forward movement⁸. Looking into the future a bit symbols for rotation, shifts of attention, and the direction of strikes/blocks can use the top of the page (i.e. the readers/performer's front) as the main point of reference, making it easy to render and interpret them. Having provisionally identified a field upon which to record the details of a performance, and a convention for left/right, the next step is to develop a means for conveying the two remaining concepts in our list, stance and relative motion.

Let's start by figuring out how to convey stance. I originally considered using an existing, ideographic language such as Chinese for rendering the names of stances and strikes on account of the fact that it would be more compact than using plain English. On reflection, however, this seems like a bad idea. Most MA practitioners are hobbyists and have neither the time nor the inclination to learn a new alphabet; if we want this system to be accessible to the average student we'll need to find a better approach than rendering actions in Chinese. Can we render actions using symbols which are either already known to the student or at least easier to learn than Chinese?

If that's what we're looking for, a compact, accessible means of assigning unique identifiers to stances, why not just use acronyms or abbreviations? The sample sequence that we want to record contains two stances, horse stance and half-moon stance; I see no reason at present why we can't abbreviate these to "HS" and "HMS". These are relatively compact representations and should be fairly easy to remember; if need be a brief key/glossary can be included with the transcription to help jog the student's memory. This approach need not be limited to stances either; it should work just as well for blocks and strikes.

So let's see what we've got given the conventions we've adopted so far:

Reading from bottom to top this reads: "horse stance", "left half-moon stance", "right half-moon stance". I've place the abbreviation for horse stance directly on the (implied) center line since it doesn't have left and right variants. So far so good, now we need to convey "move forward", which brings us to the consideration of transitions.

I expect that there's going to be a lot to say about transitions eventually, but right now I'm just going to concentrate on the basics. Before we get into the introduction of specific symbols lets think for a minute about how such symbols should be placed relative to the abbreviations denoting stance. Two schemes immediately present themselves; transitions can be denoted via

"Decorations" on stance (or other) symbols.
Dedicated symbols.

I believe that the latter is probably more appropriate in the long run. If transitions are made their own, stand-alone symbols it becomes easier to avoid ambiguity w.r.t. sequence; it's harder to intuitively understand the sequence of actions if transitions are associated with specific symbols. This also seems appropriate from a theoretical standpoint; moving correctly from one stance to the next is just as important as standing correctly. Indicating transitions by means of ancillary notation on other actions makes them "second class citizens".

If transitions are going to get their own symbols then it logically follows that, given our concern with intuitively conveying sequence, such symbols should be placed vertically between stances.

Now let's think about indicating movement. In the martial arts movement is fundamentally about displacing your center of mass/dan tien in a controlled fashion. This makes it somewhat different from dance which, per Choreo-Graphics, is concerned not only with movement from point A to point B, but also the style in which such movement is accomplished. The existing notation is intended to describe specific modes of movement (walking, jumping, gliding, etc.), which makes it overly complex for our present needs. We need to come up with some simple notation for conveying "move thataway".

I vote for using arrows for this purpose, since they're easy to draw and easy to understand. That would give use the following transcription of our sample:

This reads:

Start in horse stance.
Move forward into left half-moon stance.
Move forward into right half-moon stance.

I think that's good for now. Let's recap the rules that we've developed so far.

Symbols are read from bottom to top, left to right.
The top of the page always represents the performer's front.
Symbols are grouped around/on an implicit center line.
Symbols to the left of the center line indicate left-hand variants, symbols to the right of the center line indicate right-hand variants, and symbols placed on the center line indicate an action with only one form.
Specific stances, strikes, blocks, etc. are indicated using two- and three-letter acronyms.
Symbols for transitions are placed in between symbols for actions.
Displacement of the performer's center of mass is indicated via arrows.

That's it for this edition. Interested parties should comment at will.

1 "Horse stance" is common across a wide range of karate/kung-fu styles, but the rest of the phrases may need an explanation. Briefly:

Half-moon stance: One foot forward, one foot back, forming a stable base. Hips face forward, 50/50 weight distribution, hands on guard.
Half-moon forward: In half-moon stance the rear foot arcs inward, touches load-bearing foot, and arcs out again at a 45° angle to land in the forward position. The path traced by the moving foot looks like a half-moon/half-circle.
Quarter-moon forward: Half of "half-moon forward". In horse stance one foot comes in, touches the load-bearing food, and arcs out at a 45° angle to land in the forward position.

2 This analysis is tied to a specific style, but makes use of the general assumption I wrote about in my previous post that there's usually one "correct" way to execute a particular action. Note also that this assumption is probably only valid in the context of basic MA pedagogy; in advanced studies and/or the real world there may be multiple "good" ways to do something.
3 Pp. v - vii
4 P. 64
5 To a first approximation. The actual extent to which forms/techniques are driven by basic applications vs. appearance can vary widely from school to school.
6 P. 96
7 P. 121
8 I believe that the association between reading successive symbols and forward motion is beneficial since, in my experience, forward motion relative to the performer is far more prevalent than backwards or sideways motion.

Nunchucks (Provisionally) Protected By The 2nd Amendment

2010-12-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

The The Volokh Conspiracy reports that a judge in Placer County, CA, has ruled that nunchucks are covered by the 2nd amendment. The memorandom for dismissal and the defendant's reply to the DA's arguments in opposition make for interesting reading. The argument is as follows:

The 2nd Amendment applies to the states.
This includes the possession of arms in one's residence.
The 2nd Amendment is not limited to firearms.
Nunchucks are a type of arm covered by the 2nd Amendment.

Based on the defendant's reply it looks like the DA countered that the 2nd amendment is not unbounded and thus that the CA statute barring possession of nunchucks doesn't run afoul of the right to bear arms. The reply itself states that the legislature might, for example, ban possession of arms by felons, but that the categorical ban on possession by all persons outside of a self-defense school was overly broad.

The judge apparently bought that line of reasoning and ruled from the bench rather than issuing an opinion. Eugene Volokh assumes that the state will appeal, hence the "provisionally" in the title.

My $0.02: Felon or not, its ridiculous that California made simple possession of a set of 'chucks illegal. You gotta wonder how the legislature came up with its list of dangerous weapons; its a motley assortment of items, common and uncommon, which don't seem to be tied together by a common theme. I mean, really, are "air gauge knives" such a threat that they need to be called out for special treatment?

I wasn't able to find any material relating to the legislative history of the Danger Weapons Control Law¹, but the mere mention of something as obscure as an air gauge knife makes it look to me like the list was probably assembled retrospectively over time in response to particular incidents. Which is just an idiotic way to do things from a design standpoint; every time you arbitrarily ban a particular weapon you just encourage people to find ways to work around the law. For example, here's how "shuriken" is defined:

(11) As used in this section, a "shuriken" means any instrument, without handles, consisting of a metal plate having three or more radiating points with one or more sharp edges and designed in the shape of a polygon, trefoil, cross, star, diamond, or other geometric shape for use as a weapon for throwing.

Does that mean its OK to possess needle type shuriken, since they only have two points? Or what about two double-ended needles annealed together in the center to form a cross, since they really can't be characterized as a "metal plate". Wouldn't it just be easier to focus on illegal actions like stabbing people rather than quibble about what does and does not count as a dangerous weapon?

1 Though this article draws a connection between the 1974 NY ban and the release of Enter The Dragon.

Notation: Palingenesis

2010-12-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

After prolonged thought on the subject I'm inclined to give up what I've developed so far in the way of MA notation and start anew. The music-staff-like system that I've been contemplating has a number of shortcomings: its limited in what it can capture, the lines of the "staff" make it difficult to read the overlaid symbols, and much of the staff is often completely empty. This latter fact in particular strongly suggests to me that there may be a more compact, efficient, and readable way of conveying the same information.

Rather than reinvent the wheel this time it seems prudent to survey the field and see what's been done in the past. There's bugger-all in the way of notation specifically devoted to the martial arts, which is the primary reason that I took up this project in the first place, but there's been a surprising amount of work done in the related field of dance notation. In particular Ann Hutchinson Guest has written a book, Choreo-Graphics, which compares a number of historic and contemporary systems, thus saving me the hassle of trying to do that myself.

Intent

Early on in the book Ms. Guest makes the following observation:

What in one dance notation system is seen by some as an advantage is seen by others as a disadvantage. Is the aim of the system to be simple, providing a memory-aid for those who know the style of movement? If so, it is likely to be found efficient by those who need scientific accuracy. But if great care is taken to analyze and record movement precisely, many people may find such a system too complex, requiring that too much attention be paid to the nuances of movement and consequently too great a need to analyze. For an objective evaluation of any system, one must know the purpose that system was intended to serve. Different systems have different aims.¹

There is an unavoidable trade-off between completeness and complexity: a simple system may fail to capture all the necessary information, while a system which captures every detail may prove unwieldy. The appropriate balance between the two is determined by the ultimate aim of the system; what, exactly, is it trying to accomplish? I've got to answer that question before proceeding.

Rereading my original post on the subject of notation I believe that the intent of this hypothetical system that I'm devising can best be summarized by the phrase "be better than English". The MA books in my possession describe forms and techniques in English, occasionally augmented by pictures, but these descriptions suffer from various shortcomings that I lay out in the post. I'm trying to build a system which can do a better job conveying these forms/techniques to the same audience with an equal (or greater, if possible) level of detail.

Let's think about the audience for a second... who are they? The intended audience is a function of the topic under discussion. Manuals associated with a particular school/studio are directed at that school's students/staff. Books concerned with a particular style outside the context of a studio usually assume a reader with a generic MA background. The same can also be said for materials which deal with general MA theory.

What's useful to note here is that, while the assumptions regarding the audience's background may change, the level of detail with which techniques are presented tends to remain fairly constant. Few, if any, of the materials in my collection attempt to assemble a scholarly, scientific record which accurately captures every detail of a performance. Rather, they tend to follow a practical, "how to" format that assumes the reader understands how to execute specific actions, and focus instead on documenting the sequence in which the actions are to be performed.

It follows from there that, since the ultimate goal is to provide a superior replacement for these types of materials, I need not worry about documenting the subtle nuances of a performance. The system under development should assume that the audience understands the basic building blocks of a form or technique and should instead seeks to convey in as much detail as is feasible the means by which these actions are strung together. This approach, while seemingly optimal, necessarily hinges on an accurate understanding of the audience's background, which raises another question: What can the audience be assumed to know?

The Common Body Of Knowledge

A community of practitioners, of any discipline, shares a set of conventions, techniques, definitions, best practices, and so on. This common body of knowledge provides the informational background against which the community's activities take place; all members of the community can simply be assumed to know certain things. Ms. Guest notes how, in the field of dance, this fact can be leveraged to produce more compact and readable forms of notation:

An obvious device for anyone wishing to jot down rapid notes is use of a letter (or letters) for the name of each step. If the steps themselves and their manner of performance are widely known, such abbreviations suffice. All that needs to be recorded is the sequence in which the steps occur in the dance,¹

It seems to me that this holds true for the martial arts as well. Within a particular school or style phrases such as "front punch" or "roundhouse kick" represent well-defined actions with an ideal form of execution; they need no further explanation³. An MA notation system can be made more efficient by omitting such redundant details provided that the nature and composition of the shared body of knowledge is well-understood. So I ask again: What can we assume the audience already knows?

In my post on functional requirements I hypothesized that any form/technique can be broken down into a sequence of postures, strikes, and acts of attention⁴. I believe an MA system can safely assume that, within the confines of a particular school/style, each of the following types of performance elements have a preferred, "correct" method of execution:

stances
blocks
punches, kicks, and other strikes

Having set up this fundamental assumption we'll need to be vigilant for places where it may not hold, providing some mechanism for dealing with deviations from the rule as they arise.

Summary

In conclusion, this system which I've set about devising is intended to provide a practical record of forms/techniques targeted at the practitioners of a particular school/style. What I hope to develop is a framework that works well for any style which the practitioners thereof can then customize as they see fit.

1 P. xv
2 P. 1
3 Or, if they do, the directions for a form aren't the place to do it.
4 At least in the case of styles/arts centered on atemi waza. That's what I have the most experience with; I can't say whether my observation generalizes to arts which place more emphasis on locks/throws.

Notation: Conveying Posture

2010-10-26T10:03:00.001-07:00

In my previous post I asserted that a notation system must be able to describe the posture of the performer. It follows from there that we need to have a better idea about what we mean when we say "posture".

Most martial arts systems have a set of canonical stances, the existence of which I'm going to take as a given. We need not concern ourselves with the question of what, exactly, this set contains; it is sufficient to know that each stance has a label with which it can be uniquely identified. Stances, like strikes, are assumed to be atomic; the statement "performer in X stance" is assumed to need no further explanation.

"Posture", however, entails more than just providing information about what stance the performer is in. There's also the question of orientation i.e. what direction is the performer facing? Which brings us quite quickly to the question of coordinate systems and absolute vs. relative positioning.

Let's step back a moment and consider the fundamental purpose of this exercise, namely "describe forms better than English". Flipping through some of my manuals I see two themes when it comes to describing the orientation of the practitioner. Most of the time the orientation of the practitioner is given implicitly using relative coordinates e.g. "turn left", "turn right", "turn 180°". Less frequently there are instructions using absolute directions such as "face front" or "facing X o'clock",

It would seem, then, that there is a need for both absolute and relative positioning. It is necessary at the beginning of the form to provide some sort of absolute direction but, once an absolute position is established, all future orientations can be described using offsets from this initial position. This suggests the following features:

The initial orientation of the performer is specified using absolute coordinates. The specific absolute coordinates are up to the user; they need only be sufficiently understood/defined within the context of any particular school.
Transitions between postures are specified using relative offsets.

In order to specify relative coordinates we're going to need to adopt a specific coordinate system. W.r.t. atemi waza it seems like cylindrical coordinates make the most sense¹ since typical changes in relative orientation can be described using a single number.

Stance and orientation are sufficient to describe a static posture, so the next item to consider is how to describe transitions between postures. Here are some examples taken from one of my manuals:

Draw left foot into cat stance facing left.
Right foot half-moons forward.
Right foot steps into horse stance facing 9 o'clock.
Right foot steps back pivot clockwise 180 degrees and draw into right cat stance facing 3 o'clock.
Hop forward toward 1:30 o'clock on left leg, with right leg held in flamingo position.
Step out with left foot, jump and pivot 180 degrees, landing in low right twist stance facing 3 o'clock.

My heart is filled with dread and despair... those last couple look devilishly difficult. I'm not particularly worried abou the jumping and turning; those things, I believe, can be described fairly succinctly. What's going to be hard to deal with are all the fiddly bits about foot/leg positioning. Might it be the case that written English is the best medium for conveying such instructions?

Let's look at the first item in detail. Given what we've already discussed I believe we can readily handle concepts such as "cat stance" and "facing left", but we don't as of yet have any way of designating the left foot or conveying the action "draw into". We definitely need a way to designate limbs in some fashion, but I'm doubtful at this point whether its necessary to be able to convey a concept as complicated as "draw into". It would be sufficient, at least for a first cut, if we could render something equivalent to "turn counter-clockwise 90° into left cat stance by moving the left foot".

Based on the above the notation system will need some means of conveying the following concepts:

turn
left/right (hand, foot, version of stance)
clockwise/counterclockwise
(Change in) position of dan tien (low/lower, high/raise, very high/jump, move forward/backward/left/right)
Foot movement/involvement in transition between stances.

1 Whereas if we were describing throws spherical coordinates might be more apropriate.

Notation: Statement Of Functional Requirements

2010-10-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Someone is paying attention after all, which means I should take up the subject of notation from where its been sitting, collecting dust, for the better part of a year and a half¹. My last activity in this regard was to start thinking about Jesse Crouch's comment regarding the need to be specific about the target of a strike. This led to a series of posts (1, 2, 3, 4) investigating potential targets on the human body, also incomplete due to time having its way with me. A secondary aim was to see whether there was any evidence supporting the existence of critical/pressure/vital points i.e. targets which have effects above and beyond what can be explained by simple mechanics/physiology (short answer: "no").

So, what does that mean for the development of a notation system? My main takeaway from that line of inquiry is that its important to be able to indicate the target of a strike, but that specific targets are going to be a matter of debate/preference. So, rather than prescribing a specific list of targets, a useful system of MA notation will provide the means for unambiguously specifiying a target while allowing the user to fill in definitions for emself.

I have the feeling that my previous attempts to date have fatal shortcomings, so now is a good time to review the requirements that have been unearthed to date:

The fundamental problem which needs to be solved is how to represent a MA performance in 3-space in a compact, readable format.
The focus (for the time being) should be strictly on atemi waza; locks and throws are different enough that they might need another system entirely.
A notation system should be art-agnostic. There seems to be enough commonality among the various arts (at least with respect to atemi waza) that a single notation system can accommodate the needs of all without getting bogged down in specifics.
Individual strikes should be considered atomic; it's proven too cumbersome to try to describe the mechanics of a single strike in detail. If such description proves necessary there are pre-existing systems (notably Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation) which can be pressed into service.
A performance can (tentatively) be broken down into a sequence of postures, strikes, and acts of attention. Thus a notation system needs to answer:
- What is the posture of the body?
- What strikes are delivered?
- What are the targets?
- What is the relative timing of the strikes?
- Where is the performer's attention directed?
- How is the transition made from one posture to the next?

The focus, I believe, should be on answering those questions subject to the constraints outlined above. While it make take a little bit of doing to come up with a workable system I see no red flags at this point to make me think that such an endeavor is fundamentally impossible.

1 Funny how having a kid can really suck up all your spare cycles.

A Brief Meditation On Pain And Injury

2010-09-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

I watched Ninja Assassin last night. It was entertaining in an overwrought and hyper-violet fashion, but Rain gives one of the least convincing MA performances I've seen in awhile. All the money they spent on CG-enhanced fight scenes couldn't hide the fact that he handles a sword poorly; the numerous, nameless extras they got to portray the assassins-in-training were far more convincing.

But that's all secondary; what I talk about is the role of pain and injury in training. The movie's flashback sequences depict the routine infliction of non-lethal injury as a standard part of the assassins' curriculum. Much of what is shown would be, I suspect, counter-productive in real life (e.g. severely lacerating the soles of a student's feet), but it got me thinking about pain and injury in a more general fashion.

People, as a general rule, tend to avoid pain. This is true of martial artists as well; we may be more accepting of pain as a consequence of training, but we don't seek it out either. The question that arose in my mind, after viewing the film, is how much we avoid pain for its own sake and how much we avoid it as a harbinger of injury?

The typical pain of training is transitory; you'll feel fine half an hour after practice. Knowing this makes such pain easier to ignore, embrace, and/or endure since the pain is, in some non-trivial fashion, "all in your head". But the pain that accompanies real injury is more than that; it signals that you've damaged yourself to some degree and may not be fine when you get home. Injury has real, long-term consequences, so it's generally wise to pay attention to such signals.

The complication, from the perspective of training, is that there isn't a bright dividing line between pain that should be tolerated and pain that should be heeded. Instead there is a vast, grey swath of land that varies considerably from individual to individual, one which we tend to navigate, with good reason, conservatively. I suspect that most people never develop a sense of the amount of pain they can, or should, tolerate in practice. They don't know how much of a beating they can take (or deliver) and still come out OK on the other side.

As a consequence they may unduly restrain themselves, forgoing actions which might have been beneficial to them. Or, less commonly, they may overdo it and unintentionally injure themselves. Neither outcome is desirable, which demonstrates the value in being able to accurately judge the limits of endurance.

Which brings us back to the role of pain and injury in training. A comprehensive curriculum will assist the student in navigating the "vast grey swath" that I referred to above. For those who consent to it this could quite legitimately include the infliction of various degrees of physical injury. Such a practice would serve two functions:

Acclimatize the student to pain in general.
Assist the student in establishing the boundary between minor and serious injury.

It's not terribly difficult to see how this might be achieved in practice. The training regimen might, for example, include the use of makiwara, decreasing the amount of padding as the student progresses. Sparring could be made more realistic by reducing/eliminating padding and/or relaxing rules about contact. And so on, all with the idea of gradually increasing the amount of superficial injury to which the student is exposed.

Notes On Philosophy: The Permissibility Of Harm

2010-08-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

I promised y'all something more than book reviews, so here you go: Not so long ago I heard someone say, in relation to aikido, that the goal of self-defense was to "Put your opponent in a very comfortable chair that they didn't expect to be in". At the time this struck me as wrong, not in the sense that it's a mis-representation of the principles of aikido, but rather that it's the wrong position to take regarding the aims of self-defense for both theoretical and practical reasons. Now I want to chase that idea to ground and examine it more closely.

The first question, then, is whether the "comfy chair" comment accurately describes the gist of aikido philsophy in this regard? Consider the following:

[T]he aikido student may and should concentrate upon the neutralization of the attacker's action, without seriuosly injuring the attacker himself. And all of the techniques in the aikido repertoire can be applied with eas and efficiency to achieve that aim.

... Only through neutralization of an aggressive action, rather than the aggressor himself, can harmony of existence be restored and improved upon through that reconciliation which is impossible if one or the other of the individuals involved is seriously injured or actually destroyed.¹

So yes, the ultimate aim of aikido is to neutralize any attack without doing damage to the attacker. That's certainly a noble and laudable attitude, but I feel that something is missing from the above formulation.

What, exactly, constitute's "self-defense"? Is the concept to be interpreted literally i.e. "I have defended myself, therefore I have engaged in self-defense"? Or is there also a concern with long-term outcomes, in which case the aim of self-defense is to increase a person's overall safety/security?

To make the distinction concrete consider, if you will, an idealized aikido practitioner and assailant. An encounter between these two will go something like this:

The assailant attacks
The defender neutralizes the attack.
The assailant attacks
The defender neutralizes the attack.
...

The idealized defender, by design, does no harm to the attacker, leaving the attacker perpetually free to launch another attack; the idealized encounter never terminates. Furthermore ey has successfully defended emself, but hasn't reduced the threat to their wellbeing.

"Now wait a minute..." you're probably saying, "that's not how it works in real life". No, it's absolutely not; in the real world either the attacker gives up or has eir way with the defender. But the fact that an idealized confrontation has no terminating condition suggests to me that something is rotten in Denmark. This is compounded by the fact that, when I've asked various aikido practitioners about this particular issue, they've hemmed and hawed and generally said that it's a non-issue in real life.

This isn't an attack on aikido philosophy per se; the above observation applies equally well to any other art that espouses a doctrine of 'non-harm'. Rather, it is an attempt to illustrate the two different interpretations of 'self-defense' that I outlined above. The narrow interpretation is compatible with an ethic of 'non-harm' because it considers individual attacks in isolation. However, its questionable whether such an ethic is compatible with the broad interpretation, since the broad interpretation is concerned with the overall outcome of a confrontation.

It seems self-evident to me that a reasonable philosphy of self-defense should not require you to engage an attacker indefinitely but, clearly, thats not self-evident to aikido practitioners. The challenge is to formulate a theoretical justification for that proposition based on shared assumptions. So let's start with a fundamental shared assumption, the notion that one has a right to defend oneself at all.

What are the boundaries of the right to self-defense? You are entitled to defend yourself from immediate harm, that much everyone seems to agree upon. May you also defend yourself from undue infringement of your personal liberty? How about property... may you act to prevent theft? I'd answer both of those in the affirmative, but what Morihei Ueshiba would have to say is far from clear. Consider the following:

At that moment I was enlightened: the source of budo is God's love - the spirit of loving protection for all beings... Budo is not the felling of an opponent by force; nor is it a tool to lead the world to destruction with arms. True Budo is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect and cultivate all beings in nature.²

Much of what I've read of Ueshiba's writing resembles the above, broad statements of principle but not a whole lot in the way of detail. You tell me, does the directive to "keep the peace of the world" extend to preventing theft? I know not nearly enough about the metaphysical basis of Aikido (a Japanese synthesis of Shintoism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism³) to make a pronouncement regarding where it might stand on the issue. Absent any compelling evidence one way or another we must put such questions aside.

Instead I will assert that the right of self-defense extends to preventing unjust infringements of your personal liberty; when they come to escort you to the gulag you are not expected to go quietly⁴. In Western philosphy this is not a particularly contentious proposition; liberty of person is widely considered to be a natural right⁵. The indefinite pattern of attack and neutralization described above is an unjust infringement on the personal liberty of the defender since ey are unable to pursue any other activities while so engaged. It follows from there that the defender may legitimately take action above and beyond mere neutralization of an attack to conclude the confrontation if necessary.

In such a situation the focus will shift from neutralizing the attack to neutralizing the attacker⁶. Let's return for a moment to our hypothetical attacker and defender; how does the outcome of the confrontation changes if we permit the defender to respond by systematically escalating the damage inflicted on the attacker? At some point, though we know not when, the efforts of the defender will be sufficient to terminate the encounter. Though we would hope that such an extreme response proves unnecessary, if the attacker does not cease their attacks the defender will eventually inflict enough damage to kill em, QED.

In summary: Absent the ability to do harm to an attacker there is no guarantee that a confrontation between two individuals will ever reach a conclusion. Under a natural law interpretation of individual rights this situation represents an unjustified infringement upon the defender's liberty which they need not tolerate. Thus the defender is permitted, if need be, to do harm to the attacker in order to bring the confrontation to a close.

That's the theory... now let's talk about the real world.

The successful implementation of a "neutralization only" strategy is hard. You need to study for years before you have a reasonable chance of actually pulling it off. So what do you do in the interim if you need to defend yourself?

My gut tells me that a reasonable system of self-defence must make allowances for the skill level of the defender. This cuts both ways... skilled defenders should avoid using excessive force while, at the same time, beginners should have techniques at their disposal which give them a fighting chance in making it through an encounter. Failure to provide such techniques raises serious doubts about the practical efficacy of such a system. You may make protection of the individual subordinate to a particular theory of ethics, but what you end up with after doing so looks less like a system of self-defense and more like a religion/philosophy.

1 A. Westbrook & O. Ratti, Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere, p. 362.
2 Wikipedia, "Morihei Ueshiba".
3 A. Westbrook & O. Ratti, Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere, p. 361.
4 Alternatively, someone who adheres strictly to Ueshiba's system of ethics may conclude that the persons doing the escorting pose no immediate threat to eir physical well-being; violence can be avoided simply by acquiescing to be led away. Though, taken to its logical extreme, this position seems to require that you allow people to rob you as well, since you're in no immediate danger if you simply surrender your wallet.
5 Wikipedia, "Natural Rights".
6 That is how aikido works in practice; the defender neutralizes each attack in the hope that the attacker will tire and/or become discouraged before doing any damage.

Book Review: Secrets of the Samurai

2010-06-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Morning all... I know it seems like this here blog has turned into "The Martial Arts Book Review"; I'm currently finding it difficult to put aside time for more original writing. I promise that I'll put aside some time to do some non-bookish writing soon.

Anyway, my latest foray into the realm of MA literature has been Secrets Of The Samurai: A Survey Of The Martial Arts Of Feudal Japan¹ by Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook. I'm usually wary of anything with the word "secret" in the title, seeing as how such volumes are usually woo-filled, but such is not the case here. Secrets is a broad, scholarly survey of the martial arts of Japan's feudal period with a particular focus on the practices associated with the military class of the Tokugawa shogunate (1600 - 1867).

One of the problems that survey authors face is the tension between breadth and depth, keeping the scope appropriately wide while avoiding bloat and making the work interesting. Ratti and Westbrook have navigated that tension well; there were very few places where I found myself thinking that they needed to either excise material or include more. I could have done without the multi-page, piece-by-piece description of samurai armor, and would have liked more explanation of abdominal breathing (more on that later), but apart from those minor issues the book strikes an excellent balance in terms of amount of material and level of detail.

The first of Secrets' three sections deals with the martial culture of the time period in question. While, true to the title, the material presented focuses specifically on the samurai or bushi, the military class of feudal Japan, Ratti and Westbrook acknowlege that it's impossible to provide a substantive treatment of the subject without also discussing the larger society into which the bushi were embedded. This discussion, I think, is the most valuable part of the book at a whole.

There's a tendency in contemporary practice to see historic East Asia as a semi-mythical place populated by wise monks and valiant warriors; a benevolent fiction, perhaps, but one that represents a substantial impediment to understanding the development of East Asian martial arts. East Asia was not monolithic; Japanese culture was entirely different from that of China or Korea. Nor was MA practice limited to the bushi; various arts, both indigenous and imported, were practiced by most social classes. The continuous exchange of ideas across borders and class boundaries played an important role in shaping of East Asian MA as a whole.

An important corollary to the above is that the development of East Asian martial arts is transparent to historical investigation. Though the various schools liked to proclaim their unique origins, often complete with tales of noble founders inspired by ancient and forgotten wisdom, the truth of the matter is that they were all part of a thousand-year research program. They owe their existence to generations of practitioners all striving to answer the same question: Which techniques are going to save my ass when push comes to shove? This seems to have been doubly-true in the case of Japan; the bushi were highly, perhaps even obsessively, pragmatic, and largely uninterested in anything which didn't have immediate, practical application. Which is somewhat at odds with how we, their eventual heirs, do things now; how'd we get here from there?

Secrets provides an answer by way of an examination of the differences between jutsu and do. As noted above the bushi were historically interested in jutsu i.e. practical techniques; the practice of martial arts as an integrative discipline, as a do, was generally limited to the small group of elites at the top of the samurai hierarchy. Then came the Tokugawa shogunate; in the enforced peace that followed the bushi were no longer driven in their studies by the need to protect themselves on a day-to-day basis. As a consequence the various jutsu became stagnant, formalized, and suffered a relative decline in overall quality.

The modern era saw, for a variety of reasons which Ratti and Westbrook discuss at some length, a renewed national interest in the martial arts. From the ashes of the jutsu arose a variety of integrative disciplines which are familiar to us today: kendo from kenjutsu, aikido from aikijutsu, and so on. These do were more suited fo the realities of modern existence, focused equally on the development of moral/ethical persons as on the practicalities of self-defense. An important takeaway from the story is that the martials arts are fluid; contemporary practice is not necessarily better or worse, but it is significantly different than what came before.

The second section of Secrets focuses on the exoteric aspects of the martial arts, giving brief descriptions of the various jutsu of the era. It doesn't have anything terribly insightful to say about them, but it does provide a convenient overview whereby you might wrap your head around the sheer diversity of Japanese practice. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the origins of some of the more esoteric weapons, since its hard to find good information on the subject in general. They explain, for example, that the sai is a highly specialized type of jitte. That's blindingly obvious in hindsight, but I'd never made the connection. Or what about the pipe; how did a smoking implement get turned into a weapon? It turns out that non-bushi were often forbidden to carry weapons and so developed means of self-defense based on dual-use items such as farm implement, walking sticks, and long, heavily-reinforced pipes. Interesting stuff.

The final section of the book discusses esoteric practice, that portion of the martial arts which happens largely in the mind. Ratti and Westbrook compare the totality of martial practice to an iceberg; the external factors are the portion that's visible above the surface, while the internal factors are the much larger portion which lurks beneath. It's an apt comparison; physical prowess is only part of what is needed to become a successful martial artist, as anyone who has done any sort of competative sparring will undoubtedly tell you. Even if you're physically fit and technically competent you can still get hung-up on the mental aspects of competition; if you suffer from anxiety or anger it generally ends up impairing your performance.

I found this section to be unsatisfying in the end. They spend a lot of time talking about the hara (aka tanden or dan tien), a concept which you run into over and over when reading about the martial arts. But, like essentially every other work I've read on the subject, they don't really try to tease apart what seems to be a complex, compound idea. hara has a physical component, a mental component and, depending on who you ask, a metaphysical component. But these ontologically distinct aspects of hara tend to get muddled together, which makes it very difficult to take away anything concrete from the discussion. Even the physical component gets short shrift though, being fairly concrete, it shouldn't be difficult to explain. I've being practicing the martial arts for almost a decade and I still don't have a good feel for what "abdominal breathing" actually it. Ratti and Westbrook mention the practice a number of times, but never get down to the nitty-gritty of explaining what it actually is and how it works. Like I said earlier, I'd happy trade the exhaustive discussion of armor for a few pages of analysis.

The above criticism should, perhaps, be taken with a grain of salt. The discussion of internal factors is more balanced, comprehensive, and comprehensible than any other I've run across²; I'm more disappointed by the thought of what could have been. The discussion of strategic principles in chapter 7 comes very close to presenting the outlines of a unified theory of martial technique. In judo you "push when pulled" and in aikido you "enter when pulled"... why do both of those approaches work? Why why why why why? They've even got a chart comparing the principles of judo and aikido³ but then they don't do anything with it. Snarl...

Anyhow, those complaints aside, Secrets is definitely a worthwhile read.

1 I actually have the paperback version publisher in 1991.
2 Compare, for example, with the treatment of similar topics in The Bohhisattva Warriros, which goes from esoteric to inscrutable to incomprehensible in a matter of pages.
3 Chart 18, p. 438 in my copy.

Book Review: Miyamoto Musashi: His Life And Writings

2010-05-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

Jeeze it's been a long time since I posted anything here... small child + new job = no spare time. Anyhow, I just finished Miyamoto Musashi: His Life And Writings by Kenji Tokitsu and wanted to get my thoughts down on paper (so to speak). The centerpiece of the book is a new translation of the Gorin no sho, which I'll get to momentarily, but there is a lot of additional material regarding the development of Japanese martial arts which is just as interesting, if not more so. The punchline is that this is a volume with interesting things to say; details follow.

I first encountered the Gorin no sho (aka "The Book of Five Rings/Spheres") almost a decade ago sitting on a bookcase in my chief instructor's office¹. It was an interesting read, but it was obvious to me at the time that I was missing a lot. Some of the text made no sense and other portions, while comprehensible, were highly ambiguous. Which shouldn't be that surprising; a lot is going to be lost in translation due to the temporal and cultural distance between here and there. Additionally, as Mr. Tokitsu points out, the Gorin no sho is not a systematic exposition of Musashi's school but rather a set of notes intended for his students. It seems reasonable to assert that you need a lot of additional context in order to get anything useful out of the work.

If that is indeed the case then a good translator will try to restore some of that lost context, an area where Tokitsu really shines. His translation includes extensive commentary on the meaning of various passages, made more valuable by the fact that he's a martial artist of some depth and is thus able to explain them from a practitioner's standpoint. For example, he devotes a couple of pages to the Japanese term "hyoshi"², a word which is usually translated as "rhythm" or "cadence" though neither translation really does the concept justice. This compares favorably with the treatment of the same term in another version of the Gorin no sho in my posession which was prepared by a team of professional translators; they simply translate the term as "rhythm" and move on without further comment³. Tokitsu's translation is by far the most accessible of the one's I've seen and is definintely worth reading even if you've read others before.

In addition to his translation of the Gorin no sho Tokitsu provides a biography of Musashi and a discussion of Musashi's lesser-known works. The most interesting of these, in my opinion, is the Dokkodo, a list of principles for living which Musashi composed shortly before his death. It's one thing to hear someone say that Musashi was devoted to the study of the martial arts and quite another to get it straight from the horse's mouth. The Dokkodo presents an ascetic vision of life in which the practitioner discards as irrelevant most common comforts in order to better focus on eir practice. Presuming that it's not simply self-serving propaganda (and there's no reason to believe that it is) Musashi was devoted to martial study in a manner which really has no contemporary parallel.

Tokitsu recognizes this and uses it as a springboard for a discussion of the historic and contemporary practice of budo⁴. As he outlines it the problem with contemporary study, in both the East and the West, is that there is no longer a strong, extrinsic motivating factor driving each individual's study. Absent such motivation the practice of budo becomes less urgent; it's a matter of personal development rather than alignment with some cosmic scheme or the existing social order. I don't know that's necessarily a bad thing, but he definitely has a point.

I've a friend who is the chief instructor for a small chain of dojos. Pursuing/teaching the martial arts is his job and his livelihood; he spends far more time doing so than the casual practitioner. And yet there's not a snowball's chance in hell that he'll ever get close to the level of competence demonstrated by some of the individuals cited by Tokitsu. Why is that? Well, my friend has a wife, a kid, a mortgage, and so on; in short, he has a life outside of the martial arts. Even if he were inclined to do so he's not in the position to chuck it all and wander the Earth perfecting his practice.

Tokitsu's thesis in this regard, if he can be said to have one, boils down to "things aren't like they used to be"; I'm more or less in agreement on that point. He asks whether anything can replace the extrinsic motivations which used to exist and comes to the conclusion "probably not". My take is that, in Western philosphy at least, we used to have a strong belief in the perfectability of mankind, so perfectionism might at one time have filled this void. But that seems highly unlikely now; while we can support the idea of doing something for its own sake the idea of pursuing it exclusively is unlikely to find much popular or philosphic support. I really don't do his argument justice; go read it for yourself.

1 I believe it was this edition published by Shambala.
2 Pp. 342 - 343.
3 Pp. 24 - 25.
4 Pp. 302 - 335.

Amusing Tidbit For a Saturday Afternoon

2009-11-14T12:57:00.000-08:00

(Via The Volokh Conspiracy) Who knew that Penthouse was a hotbed of martial arts scholarship?

5-Year-Old Nominated For Nobel Prize

2009-10-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

When I saw the headline "5-year-old 'Karate Kid' earns black belt" my first thought was "How is that even possible?". It took me about 3 and a half years of continuous study to earn my brown; had I been able to continue in that particular system I would (hopefully) have passed the 1st degree black belt test after an additional year. From where I stood, and apart from any other considerations, the aforementioned 5-year-old had hardly even been alive long enough to get a black belt.

I had, of course, fallen prey to the same fallacy which no doubt prompted Alex Thomas to write the article in the first place: that the phrase "black belt" has some sort of fixed and universal significance. Hearing that someone has "earned a black belt" is analogous to learning that someone has been nominated for a Nobel Prize; it sounds impressive, but when you dig a little bit you find out that it doesn't mean all that much.

The CNN article provides little detail of what Varsha Vinod did to earn the rank; the cursory treatment provided there and elsewhere makes it sound like she learned a bunch of forms. There's not a whole lot more context to be had; neither her school (the KoInChi Academy of Martial Arts) nor her instructor (VZ Sebastian) have a web presence apart from passing mentions in articles about Ms. Vinod. So what we've got is an unknown instructor from an unknown school saying that he's awarded a blackbelt to a fairly young child. Fine, good for her; she may genuinely be a prodigy. But... well... meh... not newsworthy.

The interesting bit about all of this is not Ms. Vinod but rather the fact that people find it newsworthy. The rank of blackbelt has become something akin to Paris Hilton in the popular imagination; notable primarily for being notable. It requires hardly more than a cursory understanding of the martial arts to realize that a 5-year-old 1st degree is not going to have the same capabilities as an adult of the same rank; if they did that would be something to write home about. As such is obviously not the case here you'd expect a good journalist to stop and ponder that disparity for at least a paragraph or so.

Two morals to this particular story:

Journalists are insufficiently skeptical about the martial arts.
Saying that someone has a black belt means absolutely nothing without context.

Targeting: Musculo-Skeletal Gaps

2009-09-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

Alright... we've drifted a bit off-topic recently... shall we try to get back on track?

When we left off we'd just finished talking about the various bits of the human body that are easy to damage directly. The next set of targets to tackle are the various and sundry gaps in the musculo-skeletal system.

Let's start by clarifying just what we mean by "gaps" and why one would want to target them in the first place. The skeleton, in addition to being a rigid, jointed framework upon which to string muscle and tendon, carries around and protects the internal organs. This isn't simply a fluke of history and mechanics but rather an absolute necessity. The internal organs are fragile in comparison with muscle and bones; a design which doesn't protect them is simply incompatible with the basic rigors of daily existence. However, the human musculo-skeletal system, as good at it is at this task, isn't perfect. There are holes where the coverage is thin or non-existent; strikes which target these areas are more likely to hurt a lot, damage the underlying internal structures, and generally further the purpose of coming out on top in a fight.

Our task then is to look at the human body and identify these weak areas. For the purposes of this discussion I'm going to focus on the neck and torso; there's not much going on in the extremities and I have covered/will cover the head separately. The neck and torso can be regarded as an organ/bone/muscle complex has having three concentric layers: internal organs, then the skeleton, and then the muscle on top of that. The first two layers of this complex are shown below:

The first (fairly obvious) observation is that we should show a preference for those areas which aren't covered by bone. This is not to suggest that, as a practical matter, you can't achieve a decent result by punching someone in the ribs. The whole concept of "targeting", however, is primarily driven by concerns over efficiency; why go through bone when you can do more damage by avoiding it entirely? Thus good targets, if they exist, will be confined to the areas demarcated in red above, namely the neck and abdomen.

The Neck

We'll start by looking at the neck. Each side of the neck has multiple layers of muscle, the majority of which are located posterior to the spinal column. Anterior to the spinal column, however, there isn't a whole lot of protective padding. The sternocleidomastoideus provides some protection to important deep structures such as the jugular vein, vagus nerve, and carotid artery, but there are a number of other structures/organs which are essentially unprotected. Especially germane within the context of single combat are the larynx and trachea since these organs are an integral part of the respiratory system. In some individuals the larynx creates a surface marker, the "adam's apple", making it particularly easy to target.

A strike to the larynx, depending on the force applied, can be disabling or deadly¹. Having been tapped in the larynx more than once I can attest that even incidental strikes are really unpleasant. Moderate force can cause muscular tears, edema, and/or hematoma²; the accompanying swelling can cause constriction of the airway (stenosis), making it difficult to breath³. A large amount of force delivered across a small area⁴ can crush the larynx, resulting in asphyxiation⁵. The failure modes for the trachea are essentially the same. Moderate blunt force can lead to tracheal stenosis⁶; greater amounts of force can crush the tracheal rings potentially leading to tracheal collapse and eventual asphyxiation.

The thyroid gland and the esophagus can also be damaged by strikes to the neck, but as a practical matter there doesn't seem to be much reason to try to target them directly. I'm unaware of any surface landmarks by which you can identify the location of the thyroid gland, making it difficult to strike effectively. Moreover, thyroid injuries due to blunt trauma are rare and generally result in impairment of thyroid function^7,8, an effect which isn't particularly germane in the context of single combat. In order to get to the esophagus from the front of the neck you have to go through the trachea, so why not just target the trachea in the first place?

The Abdomen

The musculature of the abdomen is relatively complex in comparison to the neck, so the first step in identifying potential weak spots is to figure out how its all put together⁹.

The bottommost layer is comprised of the rectus abdominus, a pair of long, flat muscles anchored to the pubic bone at one end and the 5th, 6th, and 7th ribs at the other. The pair are encased in tendon (the sheath of rectus), which joins the pair together via the linea alba, creating a single, "v"-shaped sheet of muscle.¹⁰

The next layer is the traversus abdominus, so named because the fibers of which it is comprised are transverse (perpendicular) to the longitudianl axis of the body. Like the rectus this layer is composed of two sheets of muscle, joined at the body's midline via the tendons which form the sheath of rectus. The traversus follows a boundary roughly defined by the cartilage of the 7th - 12th ribs, the lumbo-dorsal fascia, the crest of the ilium, and the inguinal ligament¹¹.

On top of the traversus are the internal obliques. This layer is best characterized as a collection of muscle fibers radiating perpendicularly outward from the curve defined by the ilium and inguinal ligament. The fibers furthest anterior along this line (and thus closest to the pubic bone) are essentially horizontal and terminate in the linea alba. As you move posterior along the curve of the fibers take on more of a vertical character, terminating in either the sheath of rectus or in the cartilage of the 7th - 9th ribs. At the most posterior end of the curve, roughly coterminus with the apex of the iliac crest, the muscle fibers are vertical and terminate into the bottom of the three lowest ribs.¹²

The topmost layer is formed by the external obliques and is a structural complement to the internal obliques. The fibers of the external obliques originate along the bottom edges and exterior surfaces of the lower 8 ribs and proceed at a roughly 45 degree angle towards the midline of the body from their point of origination. Some of them terminate in the sheath of rectus/linea alba while the remainder terminate at the iliac crest or inguinal ligament¹³.

Analysis of Abdomen Musculature

So what to make of the diagram above? What does it tell us about areas of weakness in the musculature of the abdomen? What it reveals is that the majority of the abdomen is protected by a criss-crossing mesh of fibers (both muscle and tendon) several layers thick. It follows from there that weak points, if they exist, will be found on the periphery where the muscle attaches to the bone rather than in the center. The various sheets of durable tissue overlap less at the edges than they do towards the center of the abdomen. There's also less tissue in general as the muscles thin to form the aponeuroses by which they are attached to the bones of the skeleton.

But here we run into a problem as we try to move from generalities into specifics. I've not been able to find any information on the fine anatomy of these border regions. I can't characterize the relative muscle thickness, or look for actual gaps in coverage, or talk in any meaningful way about the durability of the associated connective tissue. If anyone has done any relevant studies they're locked away someplace where I can't find them. Thus we are confronted with something of a dilemma. This blog exists to combat woo and discourage the transmission of hearsay and dogma through the use of empiric evidence. Should I remain mute, then, when the evidence runs out, or should I try to soldier on based on anecdote and personal expierence?

In this case I'm inclined to carry on and simply note in BIG, RED LETTERS that what follows is based primarily on my personal experience and isn't backed up by much of anything else besides educated conjecture. That caveat noted, experience tells me that the following represent weak points at the periphery of the abdominal muscles:

The tip of the sternum (xiphoid process) and immediate surroundings.
The gap between the iliac crest (hip) and the lowest ribs.
The area immediately above the pubic bone.

Go ahead... tense you abdomen and compare the muscle tone of these areas with the tone around the navel. I'm doing just that as I write; here's what I feel:

sternum: The xiphoid process itself is noticeably flexible and has little or no muscle covering it. The gaps between it and the costal cartilage on either side feel soft, as does a small area immediately South of the tip.
gap between hip and ribs: Muscle tone is good until slightly posterior of the plane dividing the front and back halves of the body, but then drops noticeably thereafter. This seems to correspond roughly with the transition between the traversus abdominus and the lumbo-dorsal fascia.
above pubic bone: I can't even say that it feels noticeably softer, per se, but it feels like the underlying muscle has less endurance and might be prone to give out under stress.

For the following discussion we'll posit that I'm not completely making things up with respect to the above. This tells us that we should thus focus on the following locations:

So let's take an inventory of the bits of anatomy in each region and go from there.

Sternum

In the area around the sternum you have:

Diaphragm
Liver
Middle lobe of the lung
Assorted lymphatic vessels
The pericardium
Assorted nerve plexuses
Xiphoid process

Diaphragm

The diaphragm is essentially a big sheet of muscle whose primary purpose is to inflate and deflate the lungs. Blunt trauma can cause this sheet to rupture¹⁴, reducing its ability to fulfill this role, but the force needed to cause such a rupture is likely greater than what can typically be delivered in a combat situation. Much more common is the experience of "getting the wind knocked out of you".

Reading the Wikipedia article on the subject there seems to be some confusion regarding the exact mechanism of this particular phenomena. It is described as the result of "pressure on the solar plexus", with an accompanying link to the entry for the celiac plexus, suggesting that a strike somehow impairs the plexus thus preventing the diaphragm from doing its job. However, the following paragraph describes a mechanism whereby the sudden stretching of the diaphragm directly induces the spasm. I chalk this apparent contradiction up to confusion over terminology; "solar plexus" technically refers to a bundle of nerves, but is also commonly used to refer to the area around the xiphoid process. The discussion page for the article also includes a reference to a physiology book which suggests that a strike to the sternal region causes the forced exhalation of the lungs' residual volume. This has the potential to completely deflate the alveoli which, once deflated, take more effort than usual to refill.

Regardless of the exact mechansim there's no doubt that the effect is real and correlated with strikes to the sternum/abdomen. Getting the wind knocked out of you makes it near impossible to carry on in a fight but does no short- or long-term damage; this makes it an especially useful technique if you're simply trying to disable someone. As such targeting the diaphragm seems to be highly advantageous.

Liver

The liver is big, fixed, and fragile; blunt trauma can lead to hematoma, contusion, and vascular/bile duct injury¹⁵. None of these are immediatley disabling; there's no point in targeting the liver specifically.

Middle Lobe of the Lung

Blunt trauma to the lung most commonly causes pulmonary contusion (aka bruised lung) leading to decreased lung function¹⁶, but causing that kind of damage in the context of unarmed combat seems unlikely. The little chunk of the lung that's not covered by the ribs doesn't seem to merit special attention from a targeting standpoint.

Lymphatic Vessels

The lymphatic system is a series of vessels which carry lymphatic fluid, much like the circulatory system in many respects. These vessels are fragile and easily damaged; trauma can lead to lymphadema, the build-up of lymphatic fluid in body tissue¹⁷. Because the lymphatic system deals with low volumes of fluid it takes awhile for lymphadema to manifest itself; since the fight will long be over at that point there's no reason to care about the lymphatic system.

Pericardium

The pericardium is a fibrous sac that contains the heart and the ends of the largest blood vessels. Blunt trauma to the pericardium can cause a host of fairly serious injuries¹⁸ which, unlike damage to the liver or lymphatic system, have the potential to greatly impair an opponent. I was able to find several case studies indicating that such injuries can be caused by assault, suggesting that the heart/pericardium represents a viable target.

Nerve Plexuses

Nerves nerves nerves... there's a lot to say about them. Enough, in fact, that I'm going to postpone discussion of nerves altogether for the time being and dedicate my next targeting post to the subject.

Xiphoid Process

Yeah, you can break it and yeah, it's somewhat distracting. More importantly, its right out there in front just waiting to be punched. It certainly represents "low hanging fruit" from a targeting standpoint.

Hip/Rib Gap

This area has a couple of interesting features but is nowhere near as complicated as the area around the sternum. There appear to be two structures worth mentioning, the kidneys and the colon. Kidney trauma most frequently leads to hematuria ("peeing blood") and can, in theory, lead to general vital sign instability¹⁹. Getting punched in the kidneys hurts, but it appears doubtful that damage to the kidneys, in and of itself, can significantly cripple an opponent²⁰. Trauma to the colon can lead to bruising and perforation, resulting in hemorrhage and/or peritonitis²¹, but the latter kills slowly and I haven't run across any evidence that the former can be serious enough to matter in a fight.

Pubic Region

Lastly we get to the area right above the pubic bone; there's not a whole lot of anything here apart from the bladder. It's possible to rupture the bladder, especially if its full, but the affects of the rupture are subtle and might not be detected for days²². As such the bladder (and the pubic region in general) don't present a particularly efficacious target.

Closing Chatter

What we've discovered (or, perhaps more accurately, confirmed) is that most of the internal organs are well-protected. There are only a few gaps in the coverage provided by the skeleton and abdominal muscles which can be exploited for immediate effect. The throat is almost entirely free of bone and muscle, leaving the larynx and trachea vulnerable. Striking the area around the xiphoid process can cause sternal fractures, spasm of the diaphragm, and pericardial bruising. But other targets which initially looked promising, above the pubic bone and iliac crest, fail to pan out on closer examination. While getting struck in these areas is undoubtedly painful, damage to the associated internal organs is unlikely to significantly disable an opponent.

One glaring deficiency (and a fruitful area for future refinement) is that, while we've identified potential injuries and their effects, we've no idea how probable it is that such injuries will actually occur. Many of the case reports on which I have relied reflect injuries caused by high-speed collisions, falls, and similar occurrences, none of which match the conditions of single combat all that well. Absent more definitive information I've had to rely on my gut in judging the likelyhood of substantive organ damage. It would be very useful to understand both the range of forces which a typical martial artist can deliver and the range of forces needed to cause various injuries.

Finally, the discussion of the weak areas of the abdomen is heavily reliant on my personal experience and opinion. Rebuttal and/or better information is welcomed.

1 One of my instructors had a particularly pithy expression for this, something along the lines of "You can turn out the lights or turn them off for good".
2 http://www.bcm.edu/oto/grand/081299.html
3 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6487011
4 Such as might be generated by a shuto, leopard's paw, or ridgehand strike.
5 http://www.bcm.edu/oto/grand/081299.html
6 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/362175-overview
7 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BUM/is_8_81/ai_90869434/
8 http://www.jultrasoundmed.org/cgi/content/citation/25/7/943
9 My apologies if I make any mistakes in the following; the references that I'm using are hard to follow at times.
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectus
11 http://www.bartleby.com/107/118.html
12 ibid.
13 ibid.
14 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T78-4WJG8S3-1&_user=10&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2009&_rdoc=7&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%235052%232009%23999599990%231351075%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=5052&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=25&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9f3cc4648e56a30ad52b5d6dd0c8ab6e
15 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/370508-overview
16 http://www.trauma.org/archive/thoracic/CHESTcontusion.html
17 http://books.google.com/books?id=5Yl1LNe69lwC&pg=RA2-PA2361&lpg=RA2-PA2361&dq=lymphatic+vessels+trauma&source=bl&ots=7pngdfhncq&sig=rWFC9jKkNeFttt2wf9jzoulqNAg&hl=en&ei=22--SvT3J4SAswPToLE1&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=lymphatic%20vessels%20trauma&f=false
18 http://books.google.com/books?id=ooH1nH81_h4C&pg=PA402&lpg=PA402&dq=pericardium+blunt+trauma+assault&source=bl&ots=41TaOYEyk8&sig=jVNPH7lyiMyKrTr6Lng5izfzYIg&hl=en&ei=6d-_SvfsGpS2swPI6tk7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=&f=false
19 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/379085-overview
20 http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0090429504006995
21 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/364264-overview
22 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/441124-overview

Correction Regarding Martial Force, or, BP Web Design of Durham Engages In Questionable Business Practices

2009-09-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

Update: See here for a discussion of the redaction on this page.

The Director of REDACTED was kind enough to leave a comment on my post regarding someone spamming my blog. The perfidious individual is not REDACTED, as I previously speculated, nor even Martial Force itself, but rather BP Web Design of Durham.

You know the neat thing about the Internet? It brings such a wealth of information to your fingertips. For example, it tells me that BP Web Design is none other that Blaine Patton, a UK Sole Trader residing and/or doing business at

109 Front Street,
Tudhoe Colliery  Spennymoor
DL16 6TJ
United Kingdom
+44.1388810461
blainepatton@hotmail.com

What's even better is that you can figure out with whom he has a business relationship. For example, he's apparently some sort of web design for Allison Wall, owner of The Spotty Dog Shop. Like Ann and Russell from the original post, I'm sure that Allison is probably a lovely person, but she needs to know that she's outsourcing her tech to someone who's contributing to the downfall of the intertubes.

So, Allison Wall, aka alison@thespottydogshop.co.uk, here's a personal message just for you: If the Director of RS Creative Solutions is to be believed Blaine Patton is likely spamming blogs on your behalf and earning the ire of various and sundry individuals. I recommend that you give him the rough side of your tongue.

But wait, there's more! It seems that BP Web Design has also done work for the AFS Group, a vehicle financing firm of some sort run by one Lauren Turnbull. Lauren, same thing goes for you... Blaine Patton has been defacing my blog and generally making a hash of things. Are you sure you want to be doing business with him?

But you know what really makes me giggle? People leave their fingerprints all over the place. Did you know that REDACTED? Now, I know, it could be some other Blaine Patton... except for the fact that REDACTED. Coincidence? I think not!

And Jebus... would you REDACTED?

Targeting: The Breakable Bits (Part II)

2009-07-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last time we spent a great deal of time looking into the characteristics of long bones with an eye towards which ones make good targets. Let's continue the discussion and work through the rest of the list of easily-damaged structures which we previously identified.

Bridge Of The Foot

The bridge of the foot didn't show up in our inventory of breakable bones in Part I because none of the bones of which it is comprised are ideal candidates under the criteria we outlined. The metatarsals are thin, but they're also short and thus difficult to break. Similarly, the bones of the bridge proper (naviculus, talus, etc.) are thick and round, about the exact opposite of ideal. However, because the foot is the base of the pillar which is the leg, it spends a lot of time in direct contact with the ground. This makes the foot a good target for the following reasons:

Anyone with any degree of flexibility can strike the foot.
Gravity is on the attacker's side: Done correctly a strike to the bridge of the foot is backed by most of the attacker's mass.
It's hard to move the foot at will: Generally at least one foot must remain planted at all times.
The ground is the worlds best brace; it completely prevents the foot from recoiling from a strike.
It's really hard to fight with a broken foot.

That said, it's also important to note that getting in close enough to effectively strike the foot is dangerous business. As such it's a target of opportunity; go for the foot if you find yourself in close, but don't close in just to attack the foot.

There are two main types of injury which are typically inflicted by a strike to the foot, either a fracture of the metatarsals or a Lisfranc Fracture/Dislocation, depending on where the strike actually lands. The former is painful but rarely disabling while the latter, if serious enough, will prevent the foot from bearing weight¹, recommending that, if you find yourself in the position to choose, you aim for the bridge proper rather than the toes.

Interestingly, strikes to the foot are greatly affected by the type of footwear which one is wearing. In the classic case, fighting bare-footed, a strike to the foot is usually delivered via the attacker's heel³ which, since the heel is a blunt, rounded instrument, spreads the force out over a fairly wide area. Compare this with the scenario where you take after someone with the heel of your cowboy boots. The heel of a boot has a sharp edge and thus distributes the force over a relatively narrow area; it's going to do a lot more damage.

So what about the vital points associated with the bridge of the foot, the koori and uchi kuro bushi? Searching for "koori acupuncture pressure point" turns up two sources, here and here, though the latter appears to be a copy of the former. Reading the material presented on the koori should give you a good sense of why I took up writing this blog:

13. RESULT: Fainting , Senseless, severe pain to the foot and the loin, by stimulation to the inner foot nerve and shin artery and bone nerves, causing loss of motor organ.

Uh-huh... and than only happens if I strike a point 0.3 - 0.5 (in? cm?) deep between the first and second toes? A good strike to anywhere on the bridge of the foot will result in pain to the foot, could cause shooting pains up the inside of the leg, and may result in the foot becoming non-functional. And there's bugger-all in terms of body systems in that area, no nerve bundles or lymph nodes or anything else that could possibly cause unexplained, knock-on effects. Why invoke an "energy meridian" when the result being described is easily explained using basic physiology? And it gets better...

14. CURE: In the case of a light press (tread), massage then use ice pack. If hit heavily (crush) medical help will be needed.

Translation: "If someone steps on you foot, get an icepack. If someone really steps on your foot, get a doctor". Uh... duh? If the injury is caused by a disruption of the flow of chi doesn't that imply that the appropriate remedy is to undue the disruption, maybe by humming or something? Anyway, it's the same deal with the uchi kuro bushi... the only relevant results for a search on the term are this blog and pressurepointkarate.com. I love the description they provide:

15. RESULT: Certain, long term slow death.

16. CURE: None, what so ever.

Let's stop and think about this claim for a second. People get sick and die all the time whether or not they've been jabbed in the foot. It would take a tremendously large number of observations to establish a correlation between being struck in the uchi kuro bushi and "certain, long term slow death". I'll go so far as to say that there's absolutely no way that anyone has actually observed such a correlation; any support that can be mustered will be anecdotal and likely subject to selection and/or recall bias. So, as far as the uchi kuro bushi goes, I'm going to call bullshit and chalk it up as one more example of the credulous transmission of dogma.

Tailbone (Coccyx)/Bitei

The tailbone (or coccyx) is a vestigial structure left over from when we used to have tails. It's not load-bearing nor does is serve any secondary function; it's basically just hanging out not doing much of anything. If you fall on your backside hard you might end up breaking it, which will probably hurt and may impair mobility, but that's about it.

In my humble opinion it makes a piss-poor target. You can only reliably strike the coccyx if your opponent is facing away from you, but if you find yourself in that position there are lots of targets to go for that'll get you a better return. Even if you do manage to fracture someone's coccyx it's likely not going to slow them down all that much, so don't bother.

So let's look at the associated striking point, the bitei. A google search on the words "bitei striking point" does turn up a number of relevant hits, the majority of which simply define "bitei" as "coccyx" without further discussion, though it's more specifically defined as the tip of the coccyx here and here. The Pressure Point Karate people give this description:

11. RESULT: Long term pain in any case, due to pressure, fracture or breaking to the tip of the Coccyx. The length of time of pain in any case can last from weeks to years.

12. CURE: The tip of the Coccyx, is one of the bodies shock absorbers, and can be easily broken. May or may not heal on it’s own, unless broken, In the case of a complete break, medical help would be necessary.

Again, I'll point out that they aren't describing any effects that can't be explained by "dude, you broke your butt".

The Ear And Related Bits

I had initially thought to treat the hinge of the jaw (aka "mandibular condyle"³), the ear, and the mastoid process separately but I realized that, from the standpoint of target selection, they're basically all the same thing. If you aim for any one of the above you may very well hit one of the others given that your opponent will generally present a moving target. So it's probably better to treat the entire area around the ear as one large target and then talk about the different ways it can be damaged.

A blunt-force strike to this area can result in any of the following:

Rupture of the eardrum (tympanic membrane) and/or longitudinal fracture of the temporal bone, both of which can lead to hearing loss and possibly dizziness⁴.
Fracture of various portions of the jaw (mandible), usually the condyle or mandibular angle⁵, leading to jaw pain and/or numbness.
Swelling and hematoma of the ear proper (pinna)⁶.

It's also possible to punch someone hard enough to fracture their cranium⁷, but it would be extremely unusual for that to happen in the context of typical standing combat. Note that I've said nothing about any knock-on (pardon the pun) effects such as concussion; I'll deal with those later in a separate post.

There's not much cause to go after the jaw or the ear itself. A fractured jaw is an annoying distraction, but its not going to put someone out of commission. Likewise, having your ears boxed is unpleasant, but its the type of injury that you might not even notice until after the fact. The real winner here is the eardrum; an open-handed strike which cups the ear can increase the pressure in the outer ear to the point where the eardrum ruptures. Such a strike is close to ideal from a self-defense perspective: it doesn't take a lot of strength or flexibility to execute and can cause significant, but short-term and reversible, disruption to your opponent.

Eye/Seidon

Not much to say about this; the eye is soft and easily damaged. Strikes to the surrounding bone and tissue can lead to a black eye which, if severe enough, will effectively force the eye closed in a very short time. Poking the eye itself can, in the most extreme cases, rupture the eye leading to blindness. As far as the seidon goes it looks like more of the same; it basically amounts to "strike the eye hard enough and you can cause unconsciousness". Well... duh again.

Nose

Last, but not least, is a mass of cartilage and a little bit of bone that you and I know as "the nose". Of all the facial bones the nose is most often broken because it is a) fragile, b) protuberant, and c) situated right in the middle of the face where someone is just bound to come along an punch it⁸. Between the accompanying bleeding and the swelling a broken nose can be, in the very least, somewhat distracting; a really severe fracture can prevent you from breathing through your nose entirely. There's zero question that the nose is a highly effective area to target though, contrary to popular belief, hitting someone's nose isn't going to drive spikes of bone into their brain.

1 http://www.rushortho.com/ot_foot.cfm
2 The ball of the foot can be used as well but, because the foot pivots at the ankle, that will always be less effective than striking directly with the heel.
3 Which I've previously referred to as the "capsular ligament", though that designation is slightly inaccurate. The actual hinge of the jaw is the condyle; the capsular ligament connects the condyle to the skull.
4 http://www.utmb.edu/otoref/Grnds/Trauma-ear-021023/Trauma-ear-021023.htm
5 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/84613-overview
6 http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1283150-overview. This type of injury leads to cauliflower ear in the long run.
7 http://www.astm.org/JOURNALS/FORENSIC/PAGES/JFS2002024_482.htm
8 http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec21/ch312/ch312d.html

Targeting: The Breakable Bits (Part I)

2009-06-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

So, let us talk for a spell about the breakable bits of the human body. Yes, I can hear you raising an objection already... "All the bits are breakable"... and I'll grant you that's true. But some of them are much more breakable than others; we're here to figure out why that's the case. So let's dig into the subject of breakability a little more and see what we can come up with.

Cortical Bone Structure and Fracture Mechanics

At the smallest scale cortical bone is composed of tiny (~15 μm long and 50-70 nm in diameter) collagen fibers which are bound together with apatite crystals to form larger lamellar (plate-like) structures oriented longitudinally (e.g. parallel to the long axis) within the bone. These fibers don't tear easily under load, resulting in a material which is relatively resistant to transverse (e.g. perpendicular to the long axis) fractures¹. A picture is probably in order:

So why do we care? Barring a few notable exceptions, strikes will result in the point application of force in the transverse direction. Both ends of the bone are fixed, so the application of a transverse force generates equal and opposing torques which generates a strain on the far side of the bone at the point of impact. The collagen fibers provide a counterforce to this strain, thus reducing the likelyhood that the bone will fracture. But the composition of the bone is only one variable; bone geometry also plays a significant role.

Consider for a moment what its like to break a stick across your knee. A thin stick is easier to break than a thick stick; the same thing is true of cortical bone. The force required to fracture a bone is (with some minor caveats) proportional to the cross-sectional area at the point of impact where the force is being applied². Why is that the case? The cross-sectional area is proportional to the number of fibers resisting the applied force; the greater the number of fibers the smaller the strain to which each fiber is subjected.

Continuing with the stick analogy: long bones, like long sticks, are easier to break than short ones; the amount of force required to break a bone is inversely proportional to its length³. This is due to basic mechanics; the application of force to a bone fixed at two ends exerts a torque at the point of impact. Torque, in turn, is proportional to the length of the lever-arm with which it is applied, in this case the distance between the point of impact and the end of the bone.

Target Selection

All of the above indicates that long, skinny bones make the best targets. A quick survey of the human skeleton provides us with a short list of candidates:

clavicle
radius
ulna
fibula

There are a few other long bones, the humerus, femur, and tibia, but I feel safe in excluding them right off the bat. They didn't show up in any of the target lists that I found, and my personal experience suggests to me that they're simply too thick to fracture in the context of standard, unarmed combat⁴. But of the four bones on the list above only one, the clavicle, shows up on target lists. What's going on with the other three that make them look like good candidates on the basis of bone geometry but not-so-hot in real life?

If you look at the analysis above there are a couple of subtle assumptions which should be called out:

Both ends of the bone substantively oppose movement.
The strike applies force at a discreet point.

These items explain why the radius, ulna, and fibula are relatively difficult to break. The radius and ulna, in particular, violate assumption 1; neither the wrist nor elbow naturally provide substantial resistance to movement. If you strike someone in the forearm the entire arm will generally recoil from the strike; the force of the strike is translated into rotational motion rather than causing strain at the point of impact. The ends of fibula, on the other hand, do offer a fair degree of resistance; the knee can only move so far without your opponent falling over (in which case you've won anyway) and a properly planted foot is damn near immobile. But the fibula violates assertion 2; it is encased by muscle,front and rear, which protects the bone. The muscle serves as a cushion; a strike to the tibia will be dissipated over a relatively wide area by virtue of the presence of this muscule. This is true, to a lesser degree, of the radius and ulna as well; the various flexors and the brachio-radialis do a decent job of covering both bones. In order to effectively break one of these bones you need to anchor them and/or strike with a tremendous amount of force. Various grappling techniques use the former approach, while the later can be achieved through the use of weapons.

Compare this with the clavicle:

The clavicle screams "Break me! Break me!". It has no protection to speak of; there's just a thin layer of skin between it and the outside world. Additionally, both ends of the bone are fairly immobile. A downward strike to the clavicle is (mostly) transmitted to the spinal column by way of the sternum, scapula, and ribs. The spine is specifically configured to oppose this type of compressive force and provides exactly the kind of resistance needed to make such a strike effective.

But Wait, There's More!

Funny enough, we've gone through all of this dicussion but only crossed one item off the list from my original post. What about all of the other targets that were listed? I've got plenty on those as well, there's just too much for one post. Stay tuned for Part II, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Striking Points And Targeting (Introductory Thoughts)

2009-05-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

The discussion resulting from my most recent post on notation made me realize that I needed to think more about targeting. Specifically, in order to translate the next piece of the form I'll need some way to indicate the target of a strike. There was also a comment about striking accupuncture points, a practice which I really don't know anything about. So now seems an appropriate time to look at targets/targeting in more detail.

First step, lets see if we can put together a list of common targets on the human body. A quick search via Teh Google reveals that the web is awash in sources:

There's also a striking points poster that a huge number of people seem to be selling, but for which I haven't been able to track down the original source.

Here's a consolidated list based on the contents of the above sites (plus a couple that I've been taught but didn't see listed anywhere), grouped by region of the body:

Head: pterion (temple or kasumi), eye (seidon), nose/nasion, philtrum (jinchu), mastoid process (dokko), underside of chin, tip of chin (genkon), ear (mimi), capsular ligamaent (hinge of jaw), inion, top of skull (tendo), midline of cranium above hairline (tento), midline of forehead (uto), auricular point
Neck: hyoid bone/thyroid cartilage/cricoid cartilage (mikazuki and sonu), third cervical vertebra (keichu), trapesius/sterno-cleido-mastoideus/platysma (shofu), clavicle, top of the sternoclavicular articulation (hichu)
Upper Torso: infrasternal notch (solar plexus), lowest (floating) ribs, upper spine (1st through 5th thoracic vertebrae), lumbar region
Arms: elbow (kote), wrist, lower anterior portion of shoulder joint capsule
Lower Torso/Abdomen: the gap between the floating ribs and iliac crest, the midline of the hypogastric region (kinteki), groin, tailbone (coccyx or bitei)
Legs: ankle, knee, bridge of the foot (koori and uchi kuro bushi), inside of thigh (yako), outside of thigh, achilles tendon, hamstrings (fukuto), anterior crest of tibia, medial surface of tibia (muyo)

I'm making no claims at this point regarding any particular item above making a "good" or "effective" target; I'll get to that in future posts. Rather, we should treat the above as an ontological inventory that will form the basis for further analysis. But this inventory isn't particularly useful as is; it's just a list of points that various people claim make effective targets. It would be much better if we could impose some sort of order on the chaos and perhaps start to figure out what it is about the above that (ostensibly) makes them good targets.

To do that we need to go back to basics and ask ourselves "What is the purpose of striking someone?". Seems like a pretty straightforward question, yes? But my first 4 or 5 attempts at writing down an answer were unsatisfactory; they didn't really capture the essence of what a strike seeks to accomplish. After putting some more thought into it I believe that the most complete answer is that "The objective of a strike is to reduce the current capabilities of the target". This reflects the fact that a strike can be a distraction, can be painful but do no permanent damage, or can cripple/kill.

Defined that broadly, however, any point on the body becomes a legitimate target. The fact that we have a concept of "striking point" or "target" at all suggests that we have a shared understanding that some parts of the body are inherently more vulnerable than others. This, in turn, tells me that the list I've given above should be viewed through the lense of "vulnerability" i.e. what is it about these points that makes them particularly vulnerable to attack.

Suddenly things start to fall into place in a systematic fashion:

Structures that are easily damaged by strikes: bridge of the foot/koori/uchi kuro bushi, tailbone/coccyx/bitei, clavical, capsular ligamaent/hinge of jaw, ear/mimi, mastoid process/dokko, eye/seidon, nose/nasion
Gaps in the musculo/skeletal system: area between the floating ribs and iliac crest, lumbar region, solar plexus, sternoclavicular articulation/hichu, hyoid bone/thyroid cartilage/cricoid cartilage/mikazuki/sonu
Places that cause disproportionate pain when struck: anterior crest of tibia, groin, auricular point
Joints: ankle, knee, wrist, elbow/kote
Areas that shield/affect important internal structures: hypogastric region/kinteki, 1st through 5th thoracic vertebrae, upper spine, floating ribs, trapesius/sterno-cleido-mastoideus/platysma/shofu, third cervical vertebra/keichu, midline of forehead/uto, midline of cranium above hairline/tento, tip of chin/genkon, underside of chin, philtrum/jinchu, pterion/temple/kasumi, inion
Mechanical necessities: hamstrings/fukuto, achilles tendon
Targets that lack an immediately apparent benefit: medial surface of tibia/muyo, outside of thigh, inside of thigh (yako), shoulder joint capsule, top of skull/tendo

There's a little bit of arbitrariness in how I categorized these targets; there are good arguments to be made for putting some of the above into serveral different categories. S'alright, I wouldn't dwell on that, since there's enough meat in this particular discussion to span a number of posts..

Book Review: The Bodhisattva Warriors

2009-05-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

I've noted a number of times before it's hard to find good, well-researched works on the martial arts. As a consequence I'm always on the look-out for quality titles; when I ran across The Bodhisattva Warriors¹ at Powell's I thought that I'd found a winner². On casual review it looked to have a lot of interesting information that I hadn't encountered elsewhere, which is what compelled me to purchase a copy, but a thorough reading ultimately left me disappointed.

A large part of this disappointment stems from the fact that the book fails deliver on the promise in its title. I would expect that a work which dealt with the "origin, inner philosphy, history, and symbolism" of a martial art would spend a fair amount of time on the art itself; it's hard to discuss and analyze a thing unless you've defined it first. But the author, Shifu Nagaboshi Tomio (aka Terence Dukes), spends surprisingly little time discussing specific current or historical practice.

The section of the book focused on physical practice ("The Mandala of Movement") starts with a brief but lucid description of the arts of the Ksatreya caste of ancient India, focusing specifically on Vajramukti (the system of unarmed combat) and nata (roughly equivalent to form-based training). That portion is interesting, and certainly relevant to a discussion of the origins of Buddhist martial arts, but the book then goes off the rails in attempting to make a connection between Vajramukti / nata and Buddhist thought/practice.

The biggest weakness of this book is that Mr. Dukes is an apologist for Buddhism; he doesn't make a serious effort to critically analyze received wisdom. So, when it come time to talk about what Buddhists actually did in ancient India, he says the following:

Buddhism has a long and extensive influence within India, its teaching spreading far into China, Malaysia, and westward into Iran, Turkey, and beyond. Indian history can be classified into four great historical periods in which monarchs goverend their realms according to Buddhist ethics and precepts. We can assume that in all of their monarchical regions the cultured arts of Buddhism were all well know. (p. 172)

Maybe, but even if you accept the basic premise that these periods were governed according to "Buddhist ethics and precepts" it's still a big stretch to assume that the distribution and interpretation of the "cultured arts" was universal. Slightly further on he says:

The Muslim invasions and subsequent slaughter of Buddhist monks and nuns caused many to flee into Southern India, China, and elsewhere. Because of this, much of what we know concerning nata within Indian Buddhism comes to us via Chinese tradition and Buddhist writings. Refugees carried with them living knowledge, not only of Buddhist spiritual teaching, but also of its cultural arts and skillful means of teaching. The Gupta and Pala Dynasty nata would have been among these, and doubtless continued to be developed by subsequent Buddhist masters [Note 34a]. (p. 174)

The problem here is that he's asking us to assume a tremendous amount about the Indian Buddhist nata. He provides enough material that we can be certain that some set of physical practices called nata existed in Buddhist India, but anything further than that is supported primarily by post-diaspora oral tradition and writings. The text is riddled with such logical leaps:

According to traditional and reliable temple accounts, there were several seminal methods of unarmed combat training which came into China from the second to eigth centuries A.D. All of these came from India and thus stemmed directly or indirectly from the martial traditions of the Indian nobility, that is, the Vajramukti method. (p. 207)

He doesn't even bother to provide a citation for that; what do these accounts consist of? How do we know that they are reliable? etc. Moreover, even if we accept the premise that one or more unarmed combat methods came to China from India, it doesn't follow from there that they bore any relation to Vajramukti. Mr. Dukes mentions a "people's army" which existed contemporaneously with the Ksatreya (p. 159) which had its own military practice; absent any good evidence one way or the other it's just as likely that the unarmed combat methods which arrived in China could have had their roots in that tradition.

He also spends a lof time time drawing unwarranted inferences. Take, for example, this passage:

In the countries to which Buddhist nata were taken, particularly Thailand, Korea, and Malaysia, we find evidence of various unarmed martial arts, which were (or are) still practiced with nata movement patterns and techniques, even though Buddhism, itself, has been largely forgotten or replaced by other teachings. It is not difficult to recognize their connection to the Buddhist nata if one knows something of them. (p. 174)

Again, no cites, no notes, no nothing. He's saying "it looks like nata if you squint just right", despite the fact that he hasn't ever defined what nata look like. In a similar vein, he spends a lot of time talking about esoteric mudras (hand configurations) used in Buddhist rituals, seeing the similarities between the mudras and hand configurations found in various martial arts as evidence that the latter descended from the former. He's either unaware of (or totally discounts) the possibility of convergent evolution. There are a finitie number of things you can do with the human body, so the fact that two techniques look similar isn't sufficient to demonstrate a lineal relationship.

And then there are some random, toss-away lines that made me go "WTF?". For example, in talking about the evolution of various schools of Buddhism he has this to say about Sahaja-yana, a type of "left-handed" Mikkyo:

It is said, however, that the aim of this school was to realize voidness by means of what was symbolically designated Mahasukha (Great Bliss) in one's body and mind. Popular in the Bengal region of India, it become [sic] influenced by Hindu Tantrism and rapidly degenerated into a teaching of depravity advocating Maithuna (ritual sexual intercourse) and other titillations. (p. 204)

Huh? Exactly how does rendering judgement on an extinct Buddhist/Hindu hybrid do anything to forward the purpose of the book? There are a number of questionable statements similar to the one above scattered through the main text and endnotes which, taken in gestalt, demonstrate that Mr. Dukes is a polemicist who's primarily interested in defending his interpretation of Buddhism. For example, he really has a hang-up about monks and the use of weaponry, stating several times that no "real" Buddhist monk would ever use a weapon. Evidence to the contrary is either explained away ("the sistrum is not a quarterstaff") or dismissed as the work of non-monks pretending to be monks (p. 216). So who died and made Mr. Dukes the arbiter of all things Buddhist anyway?

That said, the book isn't a complete loss. The first few chapters are interesting in their own right, especially the bits about perception and the Buddhist concept of self-as-process. I found it helpful, in reading those parts, to have first read Zen and the Brain; without that background material the discussion probably would have been to esoteric to be easily comprehensible.

1 The full title is a mouthfull: The Bodhisattva Warriors: The Origin, Inner Philosophy, History and Symbolism of the Buddhist Martial Art within Indian and China.

2 Of course, my wife will tell you that I'm just a sucker for any thick book with big words on the cover.

Don't Buy Anything From

2009-04-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

Further Update: See here for the backstory on the redaction.

Update: It was Blaine Patton of BP Web Design.

So you gotta wonder whether spamming my blog really helps Martial Force in the long run. I suppose that people who maintain sites which get more traffic just turn on comment moderation and are done with it. But this here blog doesn't get much traffic (or many comments), so when someone decides to spam one of my threads I can take the time to be properly petty and vindictive.

The neat thing about search engines these days is that they're smart, but they're not that smart. For example, I could say something along the lines of "REDACTED" or "REDACTED" or even "REDACTED". I'm not asserting the truth of any of those statements, but search engines aren't to the point where they can figure that out yet. All they see is "REDACTED" or "REDACTED".

Which is a pity to some extent. For example, I can truthfully say that Martial Force is trying to game search engines by spamming blog threads. If Google were smart enough to figure that out then maybe they could take some sort of punitive action.

So, as long as I'm at it, I might as well mosey on over and take a gander; I've had a bad day at work and feel up to the challenge of mocking someone's website. For example why, if they're Tae Kwon Do specialist, do they have a picture of Bruce Lee on their header? And why is their selection so shitty? I mean, really, they don't have anything you can't find at a dozen other martial arts stores on the web. Except maybe the martial arts greeting cards... don't know that I've seen those anywhere before. Is some 4th Dan really so desperate for cash that he's hand-crafting greeting cards?

Though, you know, I wonder if the spamming is really even their fault. Russel and Ann Shaw are probably decent folk, and spammers don't generally leave their mobile number lying around their website. Possibly it's the guys who designed their website, REDACTED, that's responsible. REDACTED offers REDACTED; if I were going to guess who's the spammer I'd choose an SEO consultancy over the people who run an internet Tae Kwon Do store. Meh... whatever.

Notation: Translating A Form, Part 1

2009-03-07T13:26:00.000-08:00

Alright, now I have a free moment to try translating an actual form and see where that leads us. It's not going to be perfect, but that's ok. The only bar that we're trying to clear right now is "better than English", which shouldn't be too hard to do. So I'm going to start by attempting one of the most basic forms that I know and seeing what sort of practical problems I encounter. Without further ado then...

I'm going to start with a very basic form that's mostly just blocks and punches. Here's the first movement:

Assume Front Position and bow. Right foot steps out into Horse Stance. Bring arms together vertically, then Knuckle Roll with Dragon Breathes Fire.

So what do we need? Well, as discussed in previous posts, we need a concise system of symbols to represent atomic actions: blocks, kicks, punches, etc. The question arises as to whether I should develop a list of symbols or just use one which already exists. I think that if I were to try to develop symbols at this point the effort would be largely fruitless; I have only a vague idea at this point of the problems I'm trying to solve. So it seems that I should use a system which already exists.

And here's where we run into problems, because there's bugger-all in terms of martial-arts dictionaries with both English and Asian character sets. The most likely candidates I've found so far are the Japanese Martial Arts Dictionary and 汉英英汉武术词典, but I don't have access to a copy of either. So, absent any argument to the contrary, I'm just going to use Simplified Chinese.

That being said I should note that I'm not a linguist and don't speak Chinese; I'm relying on Google's translation service. There are undoubtedly much better translations than what I'm going to use; the reader is encouraged to chime in with any suggestions. So, here's how I'm going to render the atoms from the first movement¹:

Front Position: 前线立场
Bow: 弓
Horse Stance: 马立场
Dragon Breathes Fire: 龙呼吸火

And already things are getting complicated; how do I render "Right foot steps out into Horse Stance"?

What's going on in the form is that the performer transitions from Front Position to Horse Stance; that much can be inferred simply by rendering the motion as "前线立场弓马立场". But in performing that transition you can step out with the right or the left; how to render that?

One possible candidate is

We could choose to interpret that as a transition via the right foot. But that, to some degree, defeats the purpose of the dan tien line. Horse stance is fundamentally a movement (specifically, a lowering) of the dan tien, so my instinct is that the glyphs for horse stance should live on the dan tien line.

If we choose to go that route we need some clean way of indicating "by way of the right foot". How about

So what I've done here is to rearrange the relative positioning of the attention and dan tien lines. I originally placed them "on top of" the arm and leg lines, respectively, to mimic their spatial relations. But I don't know that that positioning adds anything. The above, on the other hand, makes it easy to indicate "by way of" using something as simple as a couple of lines. Also, I find that it makes it easier to keep the left and right sides straight, since they've visually separated by another line.

A fair criticism at this point is that the lines indicating transition via the right foot are superfluous; in the system that this particular form comes from you always step out to the right under normal circumstances. My response is that I'm looking to create a more generalizeable system, so its useful to be able to indicate such transitions. If a particular system were to use the notation herein being developed it could certainly decide to make such transitions "silent" by convention.

I find also that, since the action proceeds from left to right, I'm envisioning the hypothetical practitioner facing to the right of the diagram as if I'm looking down on em from above. In that case the left and right sides should swap like so

Thus the final rendering of the first movement is

Compared with the quoted text above I think it conveys just as much, if not more, information in a more concise format. We'll see if this is born out by subsequent movements. That's enough for now; I'll attempt the next movement time permitting.

1 As a side note I recommend BabelPad as a quick-and-dirty way of working with Unicode character sets.

Reflections On Previous Notation Proposal

2009-01-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

I've had some time to think about my initial proposal for a notation system. I think I'm on the right track but need to refine the system.

Thinking again about music I realized that a musical score doesn't tell the entire story; there's tremendous room for interpretation within the bounds of the notes on a piece of paper. A notation system for MA should have the same property; it needn't specify the form down to the smallest nuance. Rather, focusing back on the original problem, it just needs to be better than English (or your language of choice) in describing the form. I imagine that a performance of a form based on a literal "reading" of the notation would look rather wooden.

That being the case, I expect that using the notation to describe something like a front ball kick is a dead end. No matter how hard you try, you can't use the notation to convey the nuance of executing a front ball kick correctly, so why try? Rather, basic strikes need to be treated as axiomatic/atomic; when you say "front ball kick" you have to anticipate that your audience knows how to do that.

I also noted, in my previous post, that I know forms which would be difficult to describe using the proposed notation. Some of them are esoteric, but the first form I learned also breaks the system. The problem is that I didn't provide any way to deal with the 3D nature of a form. Most forms don't exist on a single, straight line; they change direction and range over an area.

So we have to establish some way to change direction. Direction, at least in the systems I've studied, is a function of your hips; the direction you are facing is perpendicular to the line defined by your hip sockets. But that's only part of the story; striking/blocking also has direction. Additionally, there is also a direction of "attention", e.g. what am I paying attention to as I execute the form. These three directions are correlated to some degree, but any system of notation needs to be flexible enough to allow each of them to vary individually.

So here's what I'm thinking: I need to add a couple of lines to the "staff" that I proposed earlier. Rather than 4 lines there will now be 6 lines. The first line from the top is the "head" line. We use this line to indicate changes of attention (though I suppose it could also be used to indicate a head strike if need be). I've also added a line between the hands and feet that represents both the hips and the dan tien; since the relation between those two regions is more or less fixed there's no need for them to have separate lines. We use this line to indicate changes in direction and also sudden/unusual shifts in mass. For example, I know a form that involves jumping, turning, and landing in a new stance; the "jump and turn" portion of that can be indicated using this line.

But that still leaves the issue of indicating the direction of a block/strike. I'm inclined to think that direction should be

Indicated as part of the basic strike notation.
Measured in relation to the center line that runs perpendicular to the line defined by the hips e.g. the performer's direction.

Most actions are executed with 0 degrees offset from this direction vector; to keep the syntax clean its not necessary to indicate direction in those cases. Its only necessary to indicate direction of action when it deviates from this center line. For example, if I execute a "front punch" it goes straight out and comes back parallel to my center line; this is the standard, default behavior, so there's no need ot indicate anything special about it. However, if I'm to execute "spear hand to left 45 degrees", this needs to be noted.

In addition to having a direction strikes and blocks also have a target. It's important to have some mechanism to indicate target because a single strike can often have multiple targets which make sense. At the same time most strikes also have a "canonical target" e.g. they're typically delivered to a particular area. Again, going back to the "front punch", this strike is usually delivered to the chest/solar plexus, but it can also be delivered to the face, the stomach, or even the groin.

I'm still toying with notation for all of this. I figure that the best way is to try translating a form and see what seems to work best. More as I have time.

Book Review: "Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals: A Historical Survey"

2009-01-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've noted before is that its really hard to find good books on the martial arts. It's doubly hard to find critical texts given that the martial arts as a whole doesn't have a strong history of self-criticism. Even the non-woo-ish books tend to present their material without feeling the need to question or defend the presentation.

So I was quite pleased to find Chinese Martial Arts Training Manuals: A Historical Survey by Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo one day while browsing the MA section of my local bookstore. It is exactly what it claims to be, a historical survey of Chinese MA training manuals spanning a period from the late 16th century to the mid 20th century. More importantly Kennedy and Guo aren't rooting for a particular school or style. Rather, the seem genuinely interested providing solid information regarding the evolution of the martial arts in China.

The book is divided into two sections. The first part, which I found most interesting, is a general history of Chinese MA and training methods. It has all sorts of good stuff including a commentary on the academic study of the martial arts, a investigation of the historical evolution/understanding of 'qi', and a discussion of the amount of pure BS that is to be found in historic manuals. They also introduce a interesting character, Tang Hao, an early historian of the martial arts who did quite a bit of primary research in the field.

The second section is a review of various exemplar manuals. Its interesting to see how manuals have evolved over the year and how they compare to modern publications, but I found this section to be less useful overall than the first.

As I said above, I think this book makes a good addition to a MA library because of its critical nature. One of the recurrent concerns of MA practitioners (in the US at least) is that we've inadvertently ruined a noble discipline due to the commercial nature of most of our studios. In reading this book you quickly realize that Chinese martial arts was as a whole never some pure, spritual practice unsullied by commercialism or pragmatic concerns. The way we "do" the martial arts in the US is certainly no worse than historic practice and may indeed be (a slight bit) better because we're more open to empirical/historical inquiry than past practitioners have been.

One improvement that I might suggest to Kennedy and Guo for a future revision would be the inclusion of a "Further Reading" list of some kind that's accessible to English speakers. Some of the sources cited in the text are available in reprinted form from Lion Books, but being reprints rather than translations they're all in the original Chinese. I, for one, would love to read Tang Hao's works, but I've had no luck finding English translations.

Back. W00t!

2009-01-03T16:57:00.000-08:00

Turns out that I'd much rather write about the martial arts than spend time on my MBA. Most of my free time is being sucked up by another project so it's unlikely I'll get around to my grand MA synthesis any time soon. But I've continued to ponder the idea of a MA notation; that's a smaller chunk that I might actually may manage to make progress on.

On Indefinite Hiatus

2007-12-21T23:18:00.000-08:00

With regrets I'm putting all of my blogs in mothballs for the time being. Between a new job and school I really have no time for them anymore. My hope is that I'll be able to return to them at some point in the future, but I'm not holding my breath. Thank you all for your participation.

A Preliminary Proposal For A System of Martial Arts Notation

2007-10-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's been quiet over here recently, but I'm still around. I'm occupied trying to identify martial arts families as discussed in my previous post. I suspect that's going to take awhile, so to keep you all entertained I'll throw out a related idea I've been mulling over: martial arts notation.

I've been reading through some of the MA books in my collection and realizing that, when they discuss techniques and forms, its oftentimes difficult to figure out exactly what's going on. Its awkward to describe simultaneous action in English in any sort of a concise way, let alone convey the rhythm of a technique. For example, one form I know involves jumping, executing a punch and a kick, then landing in a specific stance while executing another hand strike. That description of a single, fluid movement is long enough, but if I were to add the additional verbiage to let you know what kind of punch, kick, strike, and stance, and their relative timings, the description would quickly become difficult to understand.

A lot of books use pictures to illustrate techniques, which can be an improvement, especially when augmented with text descriptions. But pictures have some inherent limitations:

They're not compact: The pictures necessary to illustrate a single technique can take up an entire page; illustrating an entire form can take many pages. Especially in the case of forms it becomes difficult to present a holistic overview.
Photos require cameras: If I want to illustrate a particular technique I need to have the forethought to take pictures, get them developed, and then have them easily accessible. Which is fine if you are putting together a book or a magazine article, but complicates ad hoc writing. An obvious alternative is to use drawings instead of photos. You lose some information in the process, but whether that's a substantial concern is up for debate. The bigger challenge is what to do if you have limited artistic talent.
Pictures, be they photos or drawings, are captures moments of time. There's an unseen transition between any two pictures; sometimes the transition is important, but underdetermined by the pictures (more on that later). You can always add more pictures in an effort to determine the transition, but then you start running into the "compactness" issue already mentioned.

What I'm searching for is an alternative to words, picture sequences, or both. Such an alternative should be:

Compact: The space required to illustrate a technique or form should be minimized.
Easy to use: Whatever notation is chosen it should be easy to read and write, even for the artistically challenged.
Generic: It should be able to describe a wide variety of practices rather than being tied to a particular art.

Those are the absolute, bare minimum requirements. A truly useful system will also:

Capture motion accurately: It should provide some way to describe the transitions between pictures.
Provide timing information: It will show not only what happens, but will also give the reader at least a basic sense of the rhythym of the form/technique as well.
Provide a "birds eye view": It would be very useful if the reader could, at a glance, get a general sense of what's going on in the technique/form as a whole.
Make comparisons easy: Since this is a blog about comparative martial arts, it would be nice to have a medium by which to perform comparisons. I would like to be able to look at the notation for two techniques side-by-side and immediately pick out the similarities and differences between the two.

The martial arts, at least in terms of choreography, resemble both music and computer animation. I unsure if this is an original insight on my part, but I've not run across the analogy elsewhere, so I'll elaborate a bit. A form/technique is a sequence of events which transpires in a pre-determined, chronological order. Anyone who's done computer animation work can see the similarities; computer animations are programmed as events/motions unfolding with respect to time, a lot like a kata. Like music, a form involves multiple instruments (hands, feet, etc.) which operate independently but work together in a common endeavor. These ides pre-date the rest of the material below; the music/animation connection first occurred to me in 2000/2001 when I was trying to design a computer-based instruction system for teaching martial arts. So, if what follows looks like sheet music or keyframe animation, its not a coincidence.

Now I'm going to work through how I derived the basic ideas for this proposed notation systems in the hopes that others will call attention to where I've made a wrong turn or overlooked the obvious. I started by trying to characterize what I know as a "front ball kick", an elementary technique which is found in many arts. Being one of the "artistically challenged" myself I used stick figures to illustrate the motion: After doing so I made the following observations:

The stick figure did a decent job of conveying the basics of the technique, but failed to convey some important nuance.
Interpreting the sequence requires at least a basic understanding of martial arts. For example, figure is a horse stance; that's probably apparent to a casual practitioner, but not evident to the uninitiated.
The stick figure is more comprehensible that an English description, but more compact than full-fledged drawings/photos. It's still probably to "verbose" for forms.
There's a lot of redundancy; only one leg moves, but the position of all limbs is depicted repeatedly.
The positions of the joints (the black dots) completely determine the configuration of each figure.
The transitions between figures 2, 3, and 4 aren't capture well.
Neither the striking surface nor the direction of the applied force are obvious from the figures.

These observations, in turn, merited the following responses:

Item 1: That the stick figures convey at least a general sense of the technique means that this isn't a totally fruitless avenue of exploration.

Item 2: It's OK if the notation is opaque to non-practitioners; the whole idea of an MA notation will only be of interest to people with a pre-existing MA background. At a more fundamental level the difficulties in interpretation are caused by projecting events occurring in 3D space onto a 2D surface. If it becomes necessary to disambiguate such a sequence it's always possible to present multiple elevations simultaneously: Such disambiguation will often be unnecessary; the action in the hidden dimension will be obvious. As a general rule, though, finding a way to concisely render 3D motion in 2D is going to be important.

Item 3: It may be necessary to have a couple different type of notation: a "detailed" notation for demonstrating specific techniques and a "concise" notation for sequencing techniques.

Item 4: The stick figures should be reduced in some way; the notation should focus on changes in position. This will eliminate the redundancy and (hopefully) contribute to compactness, readability, and ease of use.

Item 5: In conjunction with Item 4, if the figures are going to be reduced in some fashion then what's left should focus on joint positioning.

Item 6: This is a biggie. For example, the sequence 2,3,4 makes it look like the kick delivery and return are symmetric, but in the version of the kick with which I am familiar such is not the case. Remember what I said earlier about transitions being important but underdetermined? Some transitions are essentially path independent; it doesn't matter how you go from A → B as long as you get there. The 3 → 4 transition is an example of such independence; if you make the transition efficiently then the minutia of how you get there is not terribly important. But the 2 → 3 transition is different; there is a very specific way to deliver the kick. Deviate from the prescribed motion and your kick is going to be, at best, ineffective.

Per Item 4 you can characterize a transition by describing how a joint moves in time. We'll concern ourselves with such descriptions shortly.

Item 7: A simple annotation can show striking surface, direction, and even magnitude of the force if we so desire:

Now we come to the point where I just started tinkering. The first thing I realized was that using the positions of the joints in space to describe a transition wasn't the best approach. Absolute positions aren't invariant under scaling and, more importantly, aren't terribly intuitive. Relative positions, at least in terms of Cartesian space, aren't much better, since it's still important ot know how the limb in question relates to the rest of the scene.

I realized that I shouldn't focus on Cartesian coordinates, but rather on joint angles. Angles are invariant under scaling and rotation, so the same description applies regardless of size or orientation. Once I came to this conclusion is was a matter of finding a clean notation to describe the joint angles. I tried a few approaches:

In this figure I've added an interim step and some arrows to indicate how things move. It's too cluttered; it's difficult to read the arrows overlying the joints. So I thought about removing the middle stick figure entirely: Still not particularly descriptive, but I feel like we're moving in the right direction. The use of the arrows to indicate the transition seems like it might have potential, but I'm not sure it tells us anything we don't know. We can tell that the joints must bend in a certain way just by looking at the before and after; what we need is relative timing information. So how about:

So what to make of this? This shows the relative timing of how the three joints should bend; everything starts at the same time, but you need to have your foot bent before impact or else you break your toes. To interpret this you need to assume that the top line represents the hip, the middle line represents the knee, and the bottom line represents the ankle. You also have to assume that we're talking about a leg. I believe that the above figure contains most of the information needed to correctly describe the kick, given the constraints of the figures preceding and following. But, for the sake of readability, I'd also like to add information detailing the direction and magnitude of the joint movement.

Most joints only hae one degree of freedom; they can either bend or straighten. Both motions are meaningful independent of the orientation of the joint/limb, so they're suited to our purpose. As far as magnitude, it seems simple enough to just use degrees. Combining these yields the following:

That seems readable enough. The top says "bend 90 degrees" while the bottom says "straighten 180 degrees". But I realized that a further refinement is possible if we can make assumptions about the default "bend" and the default "straighten". If we assume that "bends" are 90 degrees and "straightens" are 180 degrees (both measures absolute), then we can omit the angle descriptions entirely in these cases. Going back to our motivating example, a front ball kick can now be rendered as:

This figure describes the following:

Start in horse stance.
Make a standard transition from horse stance to crane stance.
Deliver the kick. Drop the knee slightly and straighten the leg to 180 degrees. Bend the ankle to 90 degrees; this should be completed before the knee is completely straightened. The striking surface is the ball of the foot and the force of the blow should be directed straight forward.
Make a standard transition to crane stance.
Make a standard transition to horse stance.

The stick figure diagram is no worse, and quite possibly better, than the English description. It also has some advantages over a sequence of pictures in that its compact and describes the transition between 2 and 3 better.

Recall that we said earlier that we'd like the notation to focus on change; since the configuration of the upper body doesn't change it's only necessary to draw it once. We assume that if there's no notation indicating change then a given configuration remains the same throughout. In order to clarify which limbs are changing we'll divide our notation into an upper portion (above the waist) and a lower portion (below the waist). To disambiguate which leg is doing what we'll further subdivide the lower portion into left and right sections; ditto with the arms. So we end up with something which looks like a musical staff:

But how, then, do we use this to show a "horse stance"?

This is the point where we commit to developing a generic framework rather than a notation for a specific system. A horse stance is a known, static configuration, but the specifics of the stance will vary from system to system. So we need some way to define what we mean when we say "horse stance". This takes us back to stick figures:

We say that a "horse stance", alternatively represented by the glyph "H", is given by the above body configuration. This would be an example of the "detailed notation" I speculated about above. We can then render a horse stance as follows:

Since the horse stance involves both arms simultaneously we represent this fact by positioning the appropriate glyph on the midline dividing the left and right arm regions, an approach we also follow with the legs. Since both the upper and lower body are involved simultaneously we represent this fact by placing the horse stance glyph on the midline dividing the upper body and lower body regions. Assuming that we've defined crane stance by a glyph "C" we can now render the front ball kick as follows:

This is where I'm going to leave it for the time being; this is obviously a work in progress. Some areas for improvement are as follows:

Glyph placement: I like placing glyphs on a line to indicate that multiple limbs are involved in a motion, but doing so makes the glyph hard to read.
Detailed notation: Drawing the disembodied stick figure leg seems like an ugly hack.
Robustness: I know forms that would break this scheme easily. It will have to be expanded to include things like changes in direction, jumping and ducking, attacks delivered off the center line, etc.

I'll continue to tinker with notation as I write more on various topics.

Allen Cook is a Fraud

2007-10-27T22:20:00.000-07:00

When someone tries to sell you a $1000 sword for $200, make sure you do your research.

This afternoon, as we were driving back from the Olympic Peninsula along Washington State Highway 3, we stopped to check out a guy selling swords and knives by the side of the road. The gentleman's name was Allen Cook, and he gave me this story about how he was a dealer and was liquidating his collection to pay for his wife's (or daughter's, I forget) cancer treatment. Then he shows me, among other things, a Damascus-type katana which he claims is worth $1000. But he was going to let me have it for the low, low price of $200 dollars. Granted, it was a pretty nice sword; I might have bought it if he'd taken credit cards. Alas, such was not the case, but he gave me a business card in case I wanted to get it later:

When I got home I took the liberty of trying to figure out whether the sword was really worth $1000; if it was I'd likely buy it^*. Turns out the sword is worth about $200 retail; I'm pretty sure it was a Frost Cutlery katana. The box looks the same, the contents look the same, it might have been a different color but that's it.

So, boys and girls, the moral of this story is as follows:

Allen Cook is a fraud and a liar.
Don't buy swords from roadside stands.
You didn't need a katana anyway.

*What I'd do with it after that, given the fact that I'm lousy with the katana and would likely end up seriously injuring myself, was a whole different question.

New Feminist MA Blog

2007-10-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

(Via Alas) Ms. Nancy Jane Moore has started a new martial arts blog, Taking Care Of Ourselves, discussing martial arts with an emphasis on practical self-defense for women. Based on the material that's available there so far she seems to have a concrete, possibly atypical, take on the subject as a whole. It'll be interesting to see what she has to say on the subject as the blog develops.

What to Compare, Continued

2007-09-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

What To Compare, Continued

I've had a chance to look over The Ultimate Martial Arts Encyclopedia, and its not all that I'd hoped and dreamed. Its not an encyclopedia per se but rather a collection of reprints from Inside Kung-Fu and Inside Karate. There are a few articles on combat systems originating outside of Asia, but the book is still heavily focused on the arts of East Asia. Disappointed, but undaunted, I looked in a couple of book stores, new and used, to see if there is anything to be found that deals with non-Asian martial arts in a substantive fashion. Barring books on capoeira and jiu jitsu, of which there are plenty, there seems to be a dearth of material on non-Asian practices. This gives me hope that I'm engaging in a worthwhile endeavor and not just re-inventing the wheel.

At the same time, while perusing the UMAE, I've come to the realization that its not going to be sufficient to try to identify representative arts from different regions. For one thing there's the ever-present difficulty of tryingto determine what qualifies as "representative". Even if you managed to do so you'd end up with a (rather large, I imagine) list practices without any overriding sense of order.

It seems to me at this point that, if we're going to talk about comparative martial arts, the best way to start out will be to assemble a fairly exhaustive list of current practices and trace their lineages back into the past. I expect that this process will be analagous, in many respects, to tracing the development of languages, since up until fairly recently both have followed similar patterns of geographic diffusion and mutation over time. Like languages, I expect that martial arts will naturally fall in to families that share certain characteristics, and that performing inter- and intra-family comparisons will go a long way towards helping us suss out the water and flour of the martial arts.

The next task, then, will be to assemble our list of current practices. In this endeavor the UMAE will undoubtfully be helpful, as will the various resources scattered willy-nilly over the vastness of the Internet.