Karate Stuff for Only Me
I'm starting to actually want to use this journal for its journaling function, but really only as it relates to karate. So this post, and an unknowable number more will mostly be notes for myself. I think this is the kind of thing people set up filters for sometimes. Should I? Anyone want to be saved from potentially incessant karate ramblings
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This kind of stuff is actually discouraged in our dojo. You're never aiming for a moving target, because you're not tracking a target. You're protecting your core, and attacks (more accurately strikes) are delivered the same in relationship to your own space. Isshin-ryu is a hard style (a striking style), but it is strictly for defense, so you are only attacking things that have been brought into your threatened area. We don't chase our targets, because that's the quickest way to compromise stance and form.
One of the reasons we drill the many different applications of the most basic moves, is so that when the time comes to strike, you don't need to think or aim or do anything that would cause an ounce of hesitation. You perform the move clear of thought (mushin), and let the technique do the work.
So we don't really have small moving targets. A fist or foot entering our threat space is treated the same, it is directed away from the core, and allowed to move such that the opponent is compromised. These redirections are strikes, but they're not aimed at anything, if they hit, they hit. If they don't, the attack was not in position to be a threat.
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Also I do believe in the necessity of moving your stance. If someone is attacked with a flying kick, or if someone much larger than you is charging, I don't believe that you can deflect them with strikes. I think the only way to defend against them is to get out of the way, and the timing and speed at which you do so will greatly affect the response of the attacker.
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I agree with you that striking a small moving target won't be detrimental to anything we're working on. The makiwara isn't for target practice, though. It's for developing a full-body strike. In fact, most of the time, you don't strike the makiwara full-speed. You go through the motions of the strike as precisely as you can, and having made contact, use your whole body to push through the target. It helps you develop a punch that will penetrate into the internal organs, or so they say. I feel like this kind of power is something I really need to improve, so I'm eager to work with a makiwara, but it may not be time for that yet.
Our philosophy of self defense does make target practice superfluous, to some degree. The idea we base all our techniques on is that there's an attack coming at you, and you need to defend against it, and sometimes that means attacking it and sometimes that means counterattacking and sometimes you do both at the same time. But regardless, it all begins with the attack coming at you and your defense. From there, a lot of the strikes that counter are a matter of body measurements. If I block a strike that was going to hit me, I know my counterattack will hit because a person's arms can only be so long. I know when I block, they're thrown off balance and pulled downward, so my shuto strike will land on the back of their neck. The most important part of that process, though, is executing the block perfectly. The only really adequate way to practice that is through kumite drills, ideally with as many different opponents over time as possible. Hitting a tennis ball or something like that isn't going to hurt, and will probably help in terms of reflexes and agility in general, but it doesn't bear a lot of similarity to what it'd be doing in a fight, not as much as just practicing katas with the right mindset.
As for stance and movement, I don't think Lem was trying to say we never have to move. In fact, a great many defenses, even if you aren't dodging, involve moving your stance, and the more quickly and stably you can do that, the better. But he's absolutely right that we don't chase our opponents. We let them come to us and then we punish them for it. If they're too far away to strike, then we're not fighting.
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