boxing

Movement Is Essential

This is the first in six posts on “what makes Hertao different”.  You can find the six concepts in a list at the bottom of our home page.

The term “martial arts” covers a wide variety of styles and practices, and means different things to different people, but most would agree that martial arts originated as “fighting methods” in some sense of the term…combat, war, self defense, etc.  If martial arts are to remain true to their original purpose, they need to include techniques and training methods that work in fighting and/or self defense.  Footwork is a vital part of any real martial art.

In a real physical conflict, people move.  They don’t stand still.  If you get hit, you move.  If you hit someone, they move.  If you try to hit someone and miss, it’s either because they moved, or you’ve got a REALLY bad aim.  Sure, people can stand still and block, but that rarely happens unless they’re up against an immovable object.

In Hertao all training reflects this, and if you want to be able to fight or defend yourself, your training needs to reflect this too.  You need to practice striking while moving forward, backward, and side to side, while moving diagonally, and while ducking and rising.  Training combinations of strikes or blocks while standing still is all but useless.  If you hit someone once, they’ll move.  If you’re standing in the same spot, your follow up shots will be hitting only air.

Poor Training

Poor Training

When you block or cover you also need to move.  Standing in place and blocking only gives your opponent the opportunity to strike whatever target you’ve just uncovered.  By moving, you limit the opponent’s follow up options.  Dynamic movement needs to be a part of every technique and drill.  In some “traditional martial arts” far too much emphasis has been placed on stances.  Although this has been completely de-emphasized in MMA these days (and rightly so), most people who trained martial arts prior to the early 90’s know the terms “horse stance”, “forward stance”, “cat stance”, etc.  Training these stances rather than footwork is a great way to get you seriously hurt in a real fight.

Although some classical stances may appear for an instant in real fighting and can also be seen in the footwork patterns of effective Filipino martial arts or even in western wrestling, they need to be largely forgotten and replaced with footwork.  If you are someone who trains techniques in stances, try thinking of them as positions you hit momentarily in the context of footwork.  It will change your training and ability for the better!