I hope ya’ll are doing well. We’ll be looking at short power, different high triggers and distance as well as the attackers perception of when you act and react.

I remember when ever GM Rene was here in Copenhagen, people would want short power training. In the beginning, I was no different than everybody else. Watching some of the guys I teach has made me want to write about this, not to mention all the questions about it.

To make sure we are all on the same page we’ll rehash the whole trigger idea. A trigger starts the attack sequence moving. This could be a low trigger: a foot turning, balance shift to one foot, or a knee movement. There are also midline triggers. Then there are high triggers. This is the subject for today. It is also possible to start two at one time, though it could be broken down to a single trigger if we go tai chi and really analyse it.

Lets start with boxing. I always explain what we do as dirty boxing based on weapon common sense. We use butt strikes / hammer fists and other weapons /techniques that a boxer doesn’t us… an example is the palm stick. Many straight punches start at the shoulder. Some boxers start the movement forward without their shoulder rolling, lifting or any other signal/warning. Others roll the shoulder. The “non-rolling shoulder” is great for long distance strikes. The Latosa Concepts Escrima students start with medium to long range training, not short range. This is important when looking at what starts an attack/counter sequence.

You might ask yourself now… what about short power? The answer is simple, it’s for short distances / ranges. You have to get to the short range before you use short power techniques, at least if you don’t want to scream from the mountain tops…here I come! There are other exceptions but we’ll stay away from that right now, there’s no need to confuse everybody.

The guys are still learning to close the range, which leads into situations when short power mechanism can be used.  As a result of this they are learning to read an attacker and know what to do. Learning to read an attacker is a big part of the first two grades. If we started at short range training they would have a harder time learning to read an assailant. Every time we cock our gun we tell the attacker that we are coming and vise versa. In the end it will end with just hitting before being hit, but I like to see a learning process before getting there. If we look at distance and start positions, it makes it easy to work things out once some experience is gained.

By being aware of what we do we can learn what others are doing. That’s a gift well worth it’s cost.

Another aspect of this, when looking at stick training, is they are told to keep the stick high for the most part. This is actually putting the shoulder in a high position if you understand body mechanics. The dropping shoulder is part of the forward moving and dropping energy. So… indirectly there is some shoulder power added to the mix. Most people just don’t know it. The trick is to not cock the gun just before you shoot it. We make sure the gun i cocked all the time.

Now lets look at a normal mid range stick strike. The movement starts when the hand starts to fall down and towards the attacker. This is a reason for the Latosa Concepts,FMA 1st grade training program… dropping power and balance.

All this can change when we talk about fakes to get into a shorter range, pure unadulterated reading of an assailant, and other tactics. These subjects and more are for the guys who train with us.

The first post on the blog about triggers is here. Otherwise you can look at trigger as a blog search item. There is a search function at in the upper right corner.

I take it as a compliment that the men are hungry for information and excited about learning more,but keep it simple and on plan. We’ll get there and then you will see and know more. “A few simple techniques done very well are better than many techniques done poorly” quote by Da Boss and all the people who have inspired him.

Click on the picture to see the event information for the summer-get-togther.

Stay proactive in Life and Training 

CW

Founder Latosa Concepts, FMA