The Way of Least Resistance

Brush knee is one of those central techniques you find in taijiquan - one of its "defining movements", if you will.  Chances are that if you stumble across a picture of someone doing taijiquan, it's either single whip or - or it's brush knee. So I thought it might be useful to run through the ubiquitous brush knee and show some of the varied applications - running from those that people most often use to those that might be more obtuse and even seem "inventive" (but which, I'm sure you'll agree, actually follow the literal form of the technique ). If you want to run through my video at the end of the article, you can.  It goes on a bit.  Or you can just take a look at my brief analysis that accompanies each of the gifs below: The first, and I think most common, interpretation of brush knee is a deflection against a front kick. It certainly does work for that.  In so doing, it uses taiji's " continuing momentum " of which I...

Introduction In Parts 1 and 2 of my article "Bridging the gap between karate and the internal arts", I discussed my design of an experimental or "research" form ("kenkyugata") - one that is an "external/internal hybrid".  In this essay I wish to describe and discuss the "final product" in detail. The goal of this project was to create a form for external martial arts practitioners (in particular, karateka) that enables them to assimilate  into their practice some  of the principles/concepts  (意 or "yi") of the internal arts relating to efficient momentum transfer - both for defence (effective evasion and deflection) and counter attack (landing blows more securely and with "whole body" force multiplication). Above all else I wanted this kata to be sufficiently familiar to karateka : I wanted to avoid the need for them to undergo lengthy training in the outward form  of the internal arts  (called 形 or "xi...

Taijiquan’s "continuing momentum" In Part 1 of this article I discussed the internal arts principle of "preservation of momentum" - ie. converting a fully extended or expanded position into something else. In that Part, I discussed how each of the internal arts has its own principle 1 or preferred method of doing this. “Continuing momentum” is my name for taiji’s method. What is this? Essentially it involves beginning a retraction at the very moment you reach full extension and vice versa. That might sound easy enough. But if you simply “back pedal” after missing a committed haymaker, you will probably be simply reversing momentum - not continuing it.  In that circumstance you might well find yourself smack in the middle of your opponent’s counter. If anything, your opponent is relying upon your back pedal (as a predictable, untrained response). So how does taiji address this issue?  The answer lies in 5 different, but equally important elements...