Change of Tactics

Change of tactics states that if conventional tactics work, use them and if not abandon them for what works. Use every available option until you succeed. There are situations where even the mastery of conventional tactics is not enough to save you.

If you try striking and it fails, change to grabbing or throwing. If that doesn’t work, try locking or immobilization. If that doesn’t work, go back to striking. Often a combination of different attacks and tactics can extricate you where a single type of attack cannot. Consequently, Junsado emphasizes a diverse array of simple, practical skills that can be combined to defeat any style of opponent.

Often, empty hand striking alone will not be strong enough to defeat your opponent. When you find yourself in this situation, search out and use common environmental weapons. The list of possible environmental weapons is limited only by your creativity. Use whatever is necessary and works for you.

Using Circular Movement to Destroy the Opponent's Balance

Circular movement is excellent for destroying the opponent’s balance. Circular movements create two opposing but complementary forces that follow each other on the circumference of the circle. Examples include hip throws,
shoulder throws and rear hook takedowns. The theory of the circle applies to many different movements. The primary circles found in combat are:

1. The circle created by you and your opponent moving together.
2. The circle created by one person moving independently of the other.
3. The circle created by the movement of individual body parts.
4. The circle created by the force of one or a series of movements/blows.
5. The circle created by one person’s manipulation of the other.

Circular motion has the added advantage of centripetal force. When you move your arms and legs in circular kicking or striking motions, you become the center of the circle and the force of your blows is increased by the circular force generated. When you execute a throw, your body becomes the center of the circle and initiates the force of the throw. The weight of the opponent increases the force, which culminates in the impact with the ground.

Timing in the Fighting Arts

Timing is the ability to control the speed of your attack so it reaches its maximum efficiency at the proper moment. Timing is a combination of speed, accuracy and reflexes. To achieve proper timing, you must synchronize the various parts of your body to fit the speed of the movement being executed.

There are two types of timing: action timing and reaction timing. Action timing means selecting the right action at the right time. Simply put, find an opening and take advantage of it. Action timing is used for initiative attacks
against a neutral or defensive opponent.

Reaction timing is assessing your opponent’s offensive movements and selecting a proper response. It is commonly used in counterattacking. Reaction timing is always in response to an attack by the opponent and is more difficult to establish than action timing.

Both types of timing require good perception and judgment, accurate muscular response and correct performance of the intended movement. The body and brain must be synchronized to assess the current situation, select a proper response and execute the response in the time allowed.

Long Range Fighting Tactics

The long range is the distance at which either combatant can strike with their longest attacking implement usually by kicking, by striking, or cutting with a weapon.

Advantages


Long range is ideal for kicking or for using a long weapon such as the stick or sword. In long range combat, you can protect your vital organs and still strike the opponent in a split second. Long range strikes are good for applying maximum force in every strike because you have enough space to create acceleration force with long, powerful weapons.

Disadvantages


The long range and neutral range have similar disadvantages due to the amount of time a long strike takes to reach its target. It is both slower and more difficult to conceal than a short attack. Long attacks also leave you vulnerable immediately after the attack because you must sacrifice some space and time to execute a long range strike properly. Give special attention to maintaining your guard between long range attacks.

How to attack


Long range combat is well suited to linear and thrusting attacks. Take advantage of the time gap between your attack and your opponent’s response by following up every attack with another. Make maximum use of footwork to cover and close the distance.

Tactics


Study your opponent’s speed and habits. Understand his style so you can adjust your timing accordingly. Use both regular and irregular rhythms to confuse your opponent and draw him into your attack. Attack decisively and follow-up every attack with compound combinations.

Getting over Fear of Injury in Fighting

Fear has many sources. The most obvious source of fear in any contact activity is fear of injury. Before you engage the opponent, you will mentally size him up and consider how much damage he might be able to inflict on you.

This mental damage assessment comes from a basic instinct to remain safe. When you find yourself doing this, reverse your thinking. Think instead about how you have trained to avoid being hit and injured. Focus on the strength of your defense. Visualize how you will easily defend every attack your opponent attempts.


Before you experience being hit, you have an unreasonable amount of fear. By integrating contact training into your workouts, you become comfortable with being hit and anticipate the effects of blows on certain areas of the body. Once you get hit a few times, your fear diminishes. You become accustomed to the sensation of contact.

Practice recovering quickly from contact blows in your training. The human body is equipped with a front line defense system that is activated every time you face a potential physical threat. If you are injured, your body has a short-term coping system that suppresses pain and protects the injury until you are able to escape from danger. Minor injuries are almost completely masked until the fight is over. Even moderate to serious injuries like sprains, fractures and lacerations are much less obvious in the heat of combat.

Often the shock of being hit is more painful mentally than physically. When you get hit the first few times, you feel angry and frightened. Make a conscious effort to shake off this feeling and stick to your plan of attack. Don’t become distracted by your fear or anger. Rather, focus on the event.

Accept the fact that in every combat situation, both fighters will be hit and sustain some physical damage. No matter how skilled you are, you cannot avoid being hit when you engage in one-on-one combat. Fighting is an exchange of blows. The person who sustains the least amount of damage prevails.

Neutralizing an Attack

The main goal of the primary response is to neutralize the attack of the opponent and prepare to launch the secondary response. To do this effectively, you will need to establish four things in your favor in a split second:

1. Time
You can gain needed time by stunning your attacker into inaction or confusing his strategy. Use the time you gain to plan and execute your next movements. Every extra second is valuable time to prepare your secondary
response.


2. Stability
When you are confronted, you are likely to lose your balance and composure, at least momentarily. Psychological or physical instability creates additional openings for your opponent. By initiating a primary response, you will be able to regain a comfortable posture and prepare to attack. Now is the time to establish a strong but flexible position in preparation for your secondary response.

3. Superiority
Through an effective primary response, you can gain physical and mental superiority over your opponent. If you evade or block his attack, he will be momentarily unbalanced and discouraged. The mind controls the body and
plays a large role in its ability to function at peak effectiveness. Defeating or discouraging your opponent psychologically gives you a significant advantage.

4. Opening
In addition to temporarily stopping the attacking opponent, an accurate primary response will create an opening for your secondary response. In this sense, the primary response and secondary response are not separate actions but complementary parts of the whole.

Primary Response and Secondary Response

Offense and Defense. Attack and Counterattack. These basic concepts of combat are familiar to even the novice strategist. Perhaps too familiar. Have you ever taken the time to analyze the fundamental meaning of offense and defense?

Offense is generally viewed as forward movement against the opponent. Defense as the retreat and regrouping. Attacking quantifies the actions taken during the forward moving offense and counterattacking encompasses the actions that fortify the retreat.

At the beginner and intermediate stages of fighting, these concepts are useful for their simplicity. They give the fighter a clear sequence of actions necessary to defeat the opponent.

As a fighter becomes more skilled, he begins to find offense that moves backward and forward, that side steps and even stands still. He finds defense that doesn’t retreat.

To define the total concept of strategy, without the preconceived notions of offense and defense, think of it in terms of the primary response and the secondary response. The primary response is the segment of combat in which you neutralize your opponent. Neutralizing the opponent means destroying any advantage he has over you and establishing equal ground from which you can prevail. The primary response uses the conventional defensive tactic of stopping the advancing attack combined with the additional step of selecting a skill that will create a weakness in the opponent’s strategy for you to exploit.


When you have executed a successful primary response, the secondary response will follow naturally. It will take advantage of the neutralization and the vulnerability created by the primary response.

The primary response extinguishes the immediate threat posed by the opponent and the secondary response removes any further potential threat.