Stardog Champion's Japan photo journal

Maximum pain with minimal force

One of the major ideas behind this particular martial art is understanding how the human body works. How the joints go together. How limbs move. How the nerves relay messages.

Then, it teaches you how to exploit those things to make your opponent feel pain.

What's amazing about it is that it takes very little in terms of physical power to do so. All you have to do is understand torque, leverage, and pressure. And then, you have to be quick and clever enough to move out of the way of an attack, and then manipulate your opponent to immobilize him.

Notice here how the back of the student's hand is presed up against Noguchi-sensei's thgh. And all Noguchi-sensei is doing is putting his hand on the student's shoulder to make sure he can't move away. No big headlocks. No devastatig punches. No blood gushing out of any orifice. Just torque, leverage, and pressure.

Of course, it takes years to master these techniques. All of the students here have had years upon years of basic martial arts training. It's assumed that they already understand how to dodge, counter, and most of all, fall without getting hurt.

posted by Stardog Champion @ 12:10 PM