Karate from the Ground Up. ¤ 4

The Rising Block followed by Counter-Attack

Moving forward using a series of rising blocks and punches can be bewildering in the beginning because so many things happen both together and in rapid sequence.

To help in learning this sequence, it is common to add one more element. The initial effect is to make it more complicated, but in the end it makes all the techniques flow smoothly.

Let's assume that Defender is just standing naturally "on the street" and Attacker initiates communications by firing a punch at Defender's head. Defender steps back away from Attacker and into forward stance, at the time executing a rising block with the same-ENSW hand. As Defender steps and makes his rising block he is rotating his body into half-facing orientation to Attacker. Once the block is made Defender executes a counterpunch "on the recoil" using the opposite-ENSW fist. Defender has chosen to defend with the same-ENSW hand so that he can now use full body rotation to power his counter- attack. At the end of the counter-attack, Defender has gone from half-face to full-face orientation to Attacker. So far so good.

Attacker, however, steps in again, now attacking head level with his second fist. Defender wants to use his same-ENSW arm for a rising block, but there is a problem: That arm is still fully extended from the counterattack Defender just made.

In order to force Attacker to adapt Defender's timing a bit, and in order to set the stage for performing the same rising block + counterpunch technique, Defender now does the following things. I'll break it down slowly here, but in actual practice it's speedy:

Defender moves his front foot back so that the sides of his feet and his knees are touching. (That protects his groin nicely.) At the same time the hand that just made the punch comes back to the point of the hip, and the other hand extends five fingers in close proximity to Attacker's eyes, deterring him from rushing in too fast. At this point Defender is in full-face orientation to Attacker and "chambering" for what happens next:

Defender's moving foot continues to trace its "snow angel" back to the normal forward stance position, at the same time Defender executes a rising block using the same-ENSW hand, and in so doing Defender is moving into half-face orientation. Next, Defender executes a counterpunch, rotating into full-face orientation.

In shorthand notation that's something like the following:

(1) Step back, rising block, counterpunch.
(2) Step half back, switch hands with feint toward Attacker's eyes.
(3) Step the rest of the way back, executing rising block and counterpunch.

After you've learned the sequence, there will be no actual pause at stage (2). You'll just glide smoothly through that part.

When practicing the feints to the eyes and other techniques, be nice to your partner. Remember, you'll need him/her for next time too.