Excerpts GRAFTING: Bridges Within American Kenpo

Here are several excerpts from my new book, "GRAFTING: Bridges within American Kenpo."

Ideal Phase "Snapshots"

The Ideal Phase of any technique is the original way you learn a technique.  If taught correctly, this version gives you the basic attack, direction you move, initial defensive action, plus a counteraction designed to stop the attacker.

The Ideal Phase of any technique is a possible solution, NOT THE SOLUTION!  If these techniques were "the" solution, why would we need more than one technique against a punch or a kick?

I see Ideal Phase techniques more as "snapshots of motion," used to build mental photo albums.  You practice seeing these "snapshots" repeatedly, and respond using an automatic defensive pattern of motion.

 In the beginning of Kenpo training, these "snapshots" of positions are designed to build automatic responses

These initial defensive moves will bring you to a Relative Body Position that will give you Position Recognition.  Position Recognition is the warm and fuzzy feeling that you get when you are in a familiar position. From this familiar place, you will be able to respond to the threat presented with monitoring and appropriate actions. Repetitions of these snapshots build subconscious muscle memory responses. 

These automatic responses will give your conscious mind valuable time to decide which action is best, based on the mental filters you train.

Monitoring

Monitoring is the mental action that determines if you need to continue the fight.  Many Kenpo self-defense techniques carry you through a response intended to cause considerable damage to an attacker.  It is your responsibility to act with the appropriate use of force to stop the attacker.

Monitoring is consciously looking at the situation and determining several things:
  Is the attacker continuing his attack or has he given up?
  Do you need to adjust your energy in your defensive action?
  Is the attacker showing signs of injury great enough to warrant stopping the technique at this point?
  Has the environment changed somehow? 

For example, has someone else (friend or foe) entered the fray?

Monitoring can take just a split-second.  To monitor, one needs only to look at the situation at hand, and determine if the attacker has stopped.  Try to determine if a different course of action might be better for the problem at hand.  Most techniques in this system have natural places to monitor the action, regardless of length. 

Practice monitoring with training partners and find the points or beats within your techniques where you can take a split-second to look at the situation.  Have your partner react with what he thinks would be realistic responses and see if you can find the natural monitoring points in the flow of the action.

The skill of monitoring is important because you will be responsible for your actions, and you must be able to justify anything you do to someone else. 

You must be able to explain why you continued the fight to the point you did.  Self-defense does not always end at the scene of an attack, many ends in a courtroom.  Several years after an altercation, it will matter that you stopped when you did.  You need to develop the skill of knowing when to end your response intelligently.