The Way of Least Resistance

Here's a video I took this morning of me doing shisochin kata. For those who are interested, you can see my notes on the possible history and origins of this form here . Copyright © 2014 Dejan Djurdjevic

I filmed a video today which is a companion piece to some observations I made about the taijiquan movement "high pat on horse" some years ago. Here are both videos. I hope you find it interesting. Copyright © 2014 Dejan Djurdjevic

Last night I got an unexpected pleasure: a visit from my good friend and IAOMAS member Colin Wee Sensei and his colleague Dragan Malesic. It turns out that, courtesy of my work here at The Way of Least Resistance, US-based "Official Karate Magazine" has given me a "Golden Shuto" award in the inaugural category "Outstanding scholarship online". I'm very honoured to receive this award and thank Colin, Dragan and all those at Official Karate Magazine! Copyright © 2014 Dejan Djurdjevic

Here are some videos I shot in May regarding the two basic forms of nukite (knife hand) used in karate: The standard chudan (chest level) nukite The standard age (rising) nukite A video discussing the nukite in shisochin kata Copyright © 2014 Dejan Djurdjevic

I saw this video the other day: The defender is attacked by a fellow who runs at him from a distance with bat or pole. The defender responds by stepping off line inside the circle and moving his hand upward to deflect. In doing so he contacts the shoulder first, jamming the attack at its source. This is known as " cutting the supply lines ". This instantly takes the bulk of the force out of the attack.  This is the favoured tactic of arts like arnis/escrima/kali when defending against weapons: jam the slow moving parts of the body. In aikido terms the approach would be an " irimi " - ie. "entering" - however there is no "turning" ("tenkan") or other "blending" as is typically seen in aikido. The defender also manages to deflect the attack by sliding up the attacker's arm, " slicing " aside the remaining downward action  (probably a high hiki/kake uke or a kind of " steeple block ") (note -...

The "C" back is one of the internal arts most important functional, practical features yet it remains largely unknown. I plan to write an article in the near future in which I highlight its potency by reference to specific techniques. [Edit: now see " Left single whip: taijiquan's hidden power ".] For the time being, here is a video:

A video in which I discuss the impact and function of stance width. Copyright © 2014 Dejan Djurdjevic