The ABC's Of Practical Poomsae Applications, Part 4 Spear-hand thrust

We have covered multiple techniques, and talked a little about principles so far in this series. This Part 1 which you can find here, which focuses on Arae Makki, Part 2 which you can find here which focuses on Momtong An Makki, Part 3 which you can find here focusing on Eulgeul Makki in order. The reason for this is that you will learn more than "just" the applications themselves, you might be able to see the underlying principles at work. This series is written so that students relativly new to practical applications in Taekwondo can get an introduction that is technique-based rather than forms-based since we are most often learning Taekwondo as a technique-based system. We have forms, but we most often learn the individual techniques and applactions. Often the usual applications taught fails to explain the complete movement, and that is also one thing that this series is trying to give the readers; an explanation for each techniques complete movement. In this Part 4 we will be looking very narrowly at movement #2 in Taegeuk Sa (4) Jang, the spear hand thrust. That movement is unusual in the sense that you have one hand under the elbow while doing the spear hand thrust.
time we will look at a variation that builds upon the previous "lesson". If you have not done so allready I urge you to read through




Story-time (skippable)

Before we begin I want to share a story which I believe I shared a few years back, but I will tell it again. Let us go back about 15 years, and a younger (thinner and more hairy) version of myself attended a Poomsae seminar. The focus on this seminar was as is usual in taekwondo, focused on competition poomsae, how to get the movements just right for the solo performance of the form. I do not remember the exact belt rank I had but I believe I was around 4th-1st geup (red belt). Now during a water break in between the training sessions I could not help but overhear two blue belts asking a 1st geup (just before the black belt) what the purpose of the spearhand thrust was. More specifically they were wondering why the other hand was placed under the elbow instead of pulled back to the hip which is the norm in basic techniques. I was intrigued as I was wondering the same thing myself. Later in my own Dojang I would learn the application for move #1&2 in Taegeuk Sa Jang to shut down a two punch combo where you block twice with the hand in the front and countered with a spear hand thrust, but at the time I was blank. The student who received the question was almost a black belt so she had to know, or so I thought. The Dojang where she came from was pretty sports oriented so I am not sure why I believed that she would know but the answer she gave was "just because..." and then following this up with: "it is much  prettier that way". Given that the Dojang she belonged to was sports focused the focus when learning Poomsae would be to nail down the performance part, not considering the combative purposes of the movements as they would not be related to how they approach sparring.

Now this series will hopefully help people who has not learned a lot of poomsae applications to have a rudimentary understanding to build upon, but this episode is one that I think back on often when teaching and when writing this blog (and other kinds of content). We should strive to understand the "why" of everything. That being said let us return to the technique itself.

Back to the application (Story-time over).

The technique in question can be seen below:

Again you will note how the other non striking hand is below the elbow joint instead of back on the hip. 

The application that I will be giving at this time is a very basic one that uses the same principle as back in part 3 on the high section block. From a lapel grab one hand smashes down on the opponents arm while the other hand drives into the pit of the throat of the opponent. 

It is very basic, perhaps even "crude" but it is a great example of both hands working together in unison, that the whole movement is doing something, the target is suitible for the weapon of choice (soft target for your fingers) and it gives you an imidiate advantage. I hope you read part three allready, if you have not you should click here as I describe the multitude of advantages slamming your arm down upon the opponents grabbing arm gives you. In this case I am exploiting the lifting up of his chin and that he comes downwards and forwards at the same time. Below you can see the same slamming down from part 3:

The applications for different techniques is clearly built upon the same underlying principles. In the old days you would practise few forms, but you would extrapolate from those few examples many applications. Today we have a multitude of forms practised, this gives us many examples of the underlying principles, but we should not forget that the underlying principles are few while the ways in wich they can be applied is almost limitless. 

I hope you enjoyed that analysis of Move #2&4 from Taegeuk Sa Jang. There are many different applications for this (and all the other) technique(s). I have on this blog demonstrated a very different take on one of my posts on Taegeuk Sa Jang, but in this series I am trying to give one or a few basic applications to the basic techniques. 

Next part we will look at another very common technique that appears in Taekwondo Poomsae, the Sonnal Geuderuo Makki (Knife hand guarding block).