Understanding Fighting Combinations

When you look at a sample technique or combination, analyze it carefully. First look at the primary response. What is it? Why is it effective? How will it work best for you?

Consider the secondary responses that follow. How are they combined? Which targets are they intended for? How can you adapt them to fit your body type and ability?

Through examining sample Junsado combinations, you will find several principles that run throughout Junsado. The hand skills, hook kick and knee strike are the main striking weapons. Joint immobilizations are used frequently to finish attackers, especially when the defender is disadvantaged. Every skill has a special purpose in training and execution.

As you practice each skill, you will come to understand its applications and purpose. Then you are ready to adapt it to fit your own physical and psychological character and style. Adaptation is the foundation of effectiveness in Junsado. When you master and adapt Junsado skills, they will fit you perfectly to your own nature. They will become part of you.

How to Practice Fighting Skills

As any fighter knows, excellent physical conditioning is prerequisite to learning combat skills. Physical and mental strength are an essential foundation on which to build your fighting skills. To increase your fundamental physical
condition, practice healthy habits in your everyday life. Adopt a daily conditioning and exercise program that exercises the whole body and especially the muscles and joints used in your combat training.

Based on your physical conditioning, start practicing the basic fighting skills. When you are ready to begin, take the skills one at a time or in small groups and work slowly at first. Every movement is a dynamic entity that cannot be expressed except through movement.

When you begin a new skill or movement, first visualize the ideal action. See yourself performing an accurate, fluid movement. Begin practicing slowly, with the focus on imitating the correct line of movement. Refine each skill individually adding speed and power when you have established the correct movement pattern.

Once you have practiced a technique thoroughly, begin practice with a partner. Start with arranged interactions and limited skills. Increase the spontaneity of the interaction as your skills develop. Always use excellent control
when practicing with a partner. These skills are meant for self-protection in actual combat and may cause serious injury if control is not exercised.

What is offense in fighting?

Offense is primarily those actions that deploy your superior strengths and its goal is to defeat the opponent. It is reliant partially on you and partially on your opponent. To defeat the opponent, your offense must be more than just good in the conventional sense. It also must be superior to your opponent’s defense. If you prepare excellent kicks and your opponent is better at blocking your kicks than you are at deploying them, you will lose.

Here it would be better to have another type of offense to fall back on. In a sense, superior does not always mean technically better. It can mean smarter, faster, stronger, more sophisticated. The offense that wins is the one that best fits your strengths and your opponent’s weaknesses.

In summary, when you master offense, the opponent will not know how to defend against you. When you master defense, he will have nowhere to attack. If you master the strategy of offense and defense as one, he will not even know whether to attack or defend.

Fighting Strategy: Don't get Tricked into Changing Yours

Strategy goes forward regardless of what the opponent attempts, yet at the same time is sensitive to the changes of the confrontation. To execute properly, you must know when to stick to your plan and when to change course. This means not being deceived by your opponent’s strategy. Know what is real and what is an illusion created by your opponent to trick you.

Direct Line of AttacK

In combat, planning to attack along the most direct and economical line is key. Be quick and concise without hesitation. However, do not mistake the most direct route for the shortest physical distance between your weapon and the target. The shortest route to accomplishing your goal may appear circuitous to the eye. But once put into action, it will be the most effective.

Imagine yourself traveling in a boat on the ocean, charting a straight course to your destination. Unexpectedly, lying directly ahead of you in your path is an island. You have two choices if you wish to reach your destination. You can go around the island by way of the boat or you can sail up to island, carry your boat across the island then get back in the boat and sail on your way.

The second choice is the shortest distance from one side of the island to the other. It is not, however, the most efficient. The most efficient route is to sail around the island. Although it appears to be a longer, digressive route in terms of distance, it is the more pragmatic in terms of energy expended. A boat is not meant to be carried over land, it is meant to travel in water.

Carrying a boat over land just to take the shortest route from point A to point B is to ignore the purpose of the boat. When traveling by boat, make the most efficient possible use of the boat. Though it does not readily appear to be the most direct line, it has its other advantages.

Be flexible. If your original plan of traveling straight ahead is not feasible by boat, you must adapt your course to what you have available.

Combat is the same. Travel the route of least resistance with the tools you have. Don’t be attached to appearances or plans. Sometimes the obviously direct route will be best and sometimes the less obvious direct route will be best. The best direct route is the one that maximizes the function of the techniques being used.

Junsado Principles

Junsado principles are divided into two elements: tactics and strategy.

Junsado tactics are a balanced combination of power and deception. Power is created by taking advantage of the most direct line of force and pinpointing the most vulnerable targets. Deception is caused by using a variety of skills and approaches to the opponent.

Junsado strategy is composed of primary and secondary responses. The primary response is the way of neutralizing the opponent’s attack through one of four possible types of actions: evasion (emptying the space), parrying (redirecting the line of attack), blocking (obstructing the line of attack) or cutting (filling the space). The primary response is usually followed by the secondary response. The goal of the secondary response is to end the confrontation as efficiently as possible. Secondary response includes hand skills, elbow strikes, knee techniques, foot skills, takedowns, throws and joint immobilizations. The key to effective use of primary and secondary response skills is in the ability to select appropriate techniques according to the situation and opponent. This ability comes from practice and experience.

Strategic Planning: How to Trap your Opponent

In fishing, baiting a hook and reeling in an unsuspecting fish is generally preferable to chasing the fish around the ocean until you catch it. Unless you can swim better than the fish, you should stay in your boat and make him come to you. Strategy is the same. Why chase after your opponent and run into his territory if you can make him come to you?

Set traps that will lure your opponent into your psychological and physical territory. Give him an irresistible opportunity (the bait) and prepare a counterattack (the hook) when he takes your bait. When setting a trap, take care not to expose it too soon. If you show your trap before he has fully committed, he will withdraw.

Conversely, do not wait too long. If he bites and gets stung by your trap, he will be furious. If you do not stun him into inaction, he will redouble his resolve to beat you. Waiting too long will result in a ferocious counter by your opponent.

Timing is of the essence for baiting the opponent. Maintain your composure  and let the opponent rush into you. While he is busy moving, mentally step back and with full alertness, view him like a fish circling your hook.

Stay detached and wait for the perfect moment to hook him and attack. Maintain a relaxed, ready posture and mind. Pick your chance and finish him when you are at a strategic advantage.