State of the Art: October 2007

My! It's been a long time since I've posted. Well, the summer has been good to us, and while there was a lot of disruptions due to vacations and such, we have formed a nucleus of fighting skills around the Gim. Using the Pi and Dian strikes, footwork, stance work, and the Ge, Dai, and Jiao counters, we've created a compelling fighting framework.

We can now engage in a complete sword match with minimal to no contact between the blades. Attacks are answered by yielding and striking directly to the opponent, allowing their extension to expose them to your counter attack.

Here is the warmup:

- Forward and back drill: take turns thrusting or cutting to your partner's head. Move your weight to the front leg when you attack. When being attacked, roll your weight onto your back leg to yield from the attack, but do not lift your feet if possible.

- High-Low: begin same as forward back, but add cuts to the knees. When you sense a cut coming to your leg, lift into a hanging stance; bring your knee to waist level and tuck your foot back by touching the ball of your raised foot to the thigh or knee of your standing leg.

- Practice these drills while keeping your blade in front of you. Allow your blade to float above or below theirs in the opposite direction of their attack so you can avoid binding against their blade while maintaining your opportunity to attack.

- Practice these drills with Jiao counters to the opponent's wrist.

- Add in Pi strikes toward the hands. When a Pi strike comes toward your hand, instead of yielding the body, use Dai to roll the hand away from attack, keeping your point toward your partner.