5 Alive

“Two hands and two feet. Until some of us have four hands and four feet we will have just one style.” Thank you Bruce. Yes, one style. And the same few tools. You may call it a firedragonjackrabbit punch while I call it an uppercut. It’s still the same tool.  So here we are, we all have the same amount of tools moving on the same angles and planes as everyone else, what do we do? How do we gain an edge? We do what the boxer or fencer, with their few tools does. We vary our attacks and try to trick them. Set them up and get them to do what we want. Just like the chess player, with their limited tool kit, it becomes a mind game. Skill isn’t necessarily how well you do that lunging thrust but “why and how” you’re opponent, who we will assume has the same skill set as you for now, is letting it land.  It is skill in getting it there, by varying the attack.

There are five ways of attack. Fencers know them, boxers know them, Bruce Lee showed us we could all know them. You know them too. They are:

Single Direct Attack
Attack By Combination
Attack By Drawing
Hand Immobilization Attack
Progressive Indirect Attack

Your base attack is your single direct attack. Each progressive attack all have inside them the SDA. It is the culmination and the end result of each attack. That is to score, which is a single direct attack. The rest just add spices and are used to make the opponent do what you want them to do. Either physically, HIA, or psychologically, ABD, PIA. Once we “get them where we want them” (that was no accidental play on words) we can apply what? The single direct attack. Attack by Combo contains nothing but a series of single direct attacks and each SDA in the combo serves the dual role of attacking and setting up the next attack. How Kung Fu. Hmm.

So, because I really enjoyed it, and I have to get to work, here is a video that does an excellent job of not just explaining but giving plenty of examples of the 5 ways of attack. Learn the five. Stay alive.

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