Striking Arts

Next, the Kosho Ryu bujutsuka would choose striking arts. These are broken up into Onna No Atemi (Female Strikes), and Otoko No Atemi (Male Strikes). Onna No Atemi teaches the importance of 90 degree posturing, which is essential to the methods in Kosho Ryu bujutsu. This study, which comes directly from the Sho Chiku Bai, is one of the foundations of the art. When postured 90 degrees to the opponent, you make him effectively weightless in attempts to continue his attack. This makes him simple to escape from, control, or damage. Although Onna striking weapons and even the strikes themselves are soft and weak, the impact is tremendous to the opponent in his contorted position, and capable of crushing his spine and breaking his neck, back, and leg with one "soft" blow. All Kosho Ryu strikes are actually male then, in essence, to the opponent.

Unfortunately, many other arts, even some of those of the Kempo lineage, do not practice this way. This results in the direct or nearly-direct conflict of force from the two parties involved, which often damages the striking limb of the practitioner attempting to defend himself! What kind of self-defense is that? Misunderstanding of the proper base for striking techniques is also frequent. Wide bases capable of allowing practitioners to generate maximum striking power are not meant to be used when striking opponents who are moving toward you! This is obvious to practitioners who study the natural laws of physics applied to combat. If you're not sure about this, consider the following example: A speeding trailer truck is your opponent, complete with mass and power, and headed straight at you. Do you stand in its path, in your strongest martial arts' stance and attempt a powerful punch or kick straight to the radiator? That would be the wide base solution, with no regard for mass and momentum. What is the Onna No Atemi solution? Simple: move out of the way as you lightly toss anything weighing a mere 5 pounds or more up to the height of the driver's side of the windshield. This soft strike will cause massive damage to the visual plane of the opponent, causing him to lose control of his motion, and probably crash as you walk calmly away. At the very least, this speeding bully would be unable to turn quickly enough to re-attack you in your mobile state. Were he to try to do so at high speed, he would probably contort himself to a such a degree that he'd roll over and crash! This is the power of Onna No Atemi. It is an understanding which comes from the study of Natural Laws of motion.

Otoko No Atemi (male percussion) involves the connection of the upper and lower-body spheres of rotation, using proper triangulation of movements, muscle groups, and meridians to engage maximum energy in the destructive striking force to a stationed opponent. Elements of Earth and Heaven must connect at a specific triangulated point for maximum effect. To understand this, we study the Tao. Stationed opponents are not people who are standing around that we've decided to attack. Opponents are able to be frozen in motion temporarily, or put into positions from which they cannot move without damaging themselves, by studying Kosho Ryu bujutsu and understanding how it is that movement takes place. Again, we return to the study of the self and of natural laws of motion. By creating these frozen positions in the opponent, we create a void in time which we can use to buy the time necessary for the generation of massive striking power. This is the mode in which wide base applications are valid, and power may appropriately be generated by the practitioner defending himself.

When it comes to the study of the striking arts, it is necessary for the Kosho Ryu practitioner to engage in the structure of body types, posturing, and positioning. This is most effectively done through the study of healing arts. Knowing these things tells a practitioner how to adjust his strike to accomplish his goal pertaining to the opponent's anatomy. One linking point between the martial and healing arts studies is Kosho Ryu's Muscular-Skeletal-Internal Striking Theory (MSI). On an opponent with large muscle-mass for instance, muscular blows would cause debilitating cramping. Certain skeletal blows, to the upper ribs for instance, would be ineffective, but others, to the lower legs possibly, would break bones. When massive damage is called for, blows to internal organs through the meridian structure would be used, especially on a body-builder-type, due to the fact that he's stretched his skin tightly over certain areas, actually making these types of strikes more effective! Knowledge of the octagon from the Kosho Ryu Sho Chiku Bai mon, Kosho 7/10 and negative striking methods (which you can find out about at seminars), would be employed here as well to cause the internal damage energetically through organic meridians and tsubo (pressure points). A Kosho Ryu practitioner studies the nervous system, the musculo-skeletal system, and the organic-meridial system, as well as body dynamics and kinetics through the observation of natural movement. All of this knowledge is necessary to know where the targets are that are appropriate for the desired level of damage based on the context of the situation. More importantly, by understanding motion, and dealing with live, moving opponents in Kosho training, students also study when the target is exposed and in the ideal yin state to accept the blow we choose with maximum effect. The study of the combination of tsubo targets, natural movement and rotation, angle of rotation, breathing, and posturing in relationship to the strike and striking angle determine the type of blow used, and its effect.

Jeff Driscoll - Kyoshi