So I promised a video and a cool, funny story about the beginning of naihanchi. Class was cancelled last night because of floods and lightning and etc... so no buddies to do the video with, but here's the funny story.
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The first movement of naihanchi, the opening, is commonly interpreted as a wrist-shearing joint destruction somewhat similar to nikyo or kotemawashi in aikido. It comes off of a chest-push or chest-grab attack.
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Well, a few years ago we'd played this technique a good bit and we were all confident in our ability to pull it off. One of my students and her boyfriend were out at a jukejoint-type place and while he was away somewhere, a drunk, young-adult, Hispanic fellow came up and asked her to dance (among other things). She declined in non-ambiguous terms, to which he responded by grasping her breast and reiterating something suave, like "Come on, baby."
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She says she stood fibrillating mentally for a moment or two because this guy had the audacity to actually grab her boob, but then the first thing that popped into her mind was, "I know how to break this guy's hand!" Her hands reached upward toward the man's hand just like in naihanchi... she was running through the move in her mind... everything was in slow motion... And then he was gone. Disappeared. he had literally vanished from in front of her while she was looking at him! She looked left and right and behind her. Then she looked down and found him lying in a mangled, crumpled heap. She thought, "Did I do that?!"
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Turns out her boyfriend had seen this encounter and, striding up behind the fellow, had hammered him with a fist on top of the trapesius HARD and had knocked him straight into the earth, semi-conscious - another technique that can be extrapolated from the beginning of naihanchi.
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They beat a hasty retreat from the juke joint, but they had an interesting story to tell about how they'd done a synchronized team naihanchi to this poor assailant.
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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com
