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Techniques -
Basics: General
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Escape forms are an essential part of your Budo training. Far too often
students believe that they should be providing a hard block against an
adversary when in reality a simple escape form will enable them to
safely remove themselves from imminent harm.
Think about a person standing on a railway track watching the approach
of an oncoming train. The person has several options: 1. they can
choose to do nothing, 2. they can choose to hit the train straight on
when it arrives, 3. they can choose to try to knock the train off its
track (block it), or 4. they can choose to jump off the track and watch
the train go by. What this silly example shows is that the option that
save us the most harm is to escape completely out of range from the
oncoming attack.
In Budo there are 8 basic directions as mentioned earlier and
these directions are used in escape forms: 3 behind, 3 ahead and 2 at
the sides. These directions correspond to the points on a compass as
:N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. For beginners the escape positions that
make the most sense are the 3 positions behind as shown by the solid
black lines in the diagram below and shown as #1, #2 and #3.
 Source: The International Budo Instittue, 2005
The back positions, namely: #1, #2 and #3, make the most sense for
beginners since a beginner's ability to determine the exact timing of
an attack is still being developed and retreating away from an attack
provides the greatest amount of time to respond. Thus, escaping
backward provides the needed space and extra time to effectively
compose a counter-attack. With time and practice, the student will be
able to move quicker and more elegantly thus being able to take
advantages of the other escape directions, namely #4 and #5.
As an even
higher level of mastery is attained the student will be able to move in
direction #6 and #7. This is very difficult as the timing of the attack
is thus reduce by more than half, as the opponent is moving toward the
defender and the defender is now moving toward the attacker. Escaping
using direction #6 and #7 should only be attempted after several years
of training. Escaping in direction #8 is only for the most advanced
martial artists and it takes many years of practice to successfully
attain the skill level required to escape forward and blend into the
oncoming attack. Nevertheless, it is an escape direction that can be
utilized if the skill level exists.
Escape forms and blocking technique are closely related.
However, as discussed, if the escape form is correctly executed there
may be no need for a blocking technique. Nevertheless, there are times
when you must block an oncoming leg or hand technique. The basic
blocking techniques are discussed in the following section and are
introduced using the Sanchin or Hourglass stance.
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