The ABC's Of Practical Poomsae Applications, Part 5: Knife hand guarding block

This has proven to be a fairly popular series judging on the traffic it garners and I am very happy about that. If you are reading through this series and you are enjoying it or finding it interesting please remember that sharing is caring ;-) If you are new to this series it would perhaps be helpful to read through the series in order if for nothing else you will get through a logical series that build upon each other in turn.  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, and Part 4 which you can find here that focuses on the spear hand strike. With that out of the way let us turn to this weeks focus which is on the Sonnal Geudeuro Makki or knife hand guarding block.





The series is an attempt to giving regular students a starting point when it comes to Poomsae applications by giving one or two practical applications to basic techniques. We have covered several techniques allready but one that keeps turning up in Poomsae that we have not yet looked at is the knife hand guarding block. Now when people start out looking at resources of finding practical applications to their forms they often end up looking at Karate applications since the basic techniques are often identical when you compare Karate techniques and Taekwondo techniques. Sure there are some differences, like modern Taekwondo roundhouse/Dollyo Chagi is no longer the same as the Karate Roundhouse/Mawashi-geri, but if you look at Shotokan Karate low block, high block, inward block you will see they are identical to the Kukkiwon way of doing them. The emphasis on power might be a little different, but the overal movement is the same. The reason why I mention all this is that when they come to the knife hand guarding block the way Karate chamber the technique is very different to the way a Taekwondo student chamber the technique. This changes the application somewhat if you study with an open mind, but others quickly conclude that the Taekwondo version is useless because in many peoples eyes the Korean founders of what was to become Taekwondo did not understand what they had and changed stuff just to change them. Below you can see the Karate chamber for the knife hand guarding block. You will notice that one hand goes to the ear while the other hand is extended. This is very different than the Taekwondo version.

Below is the version that you will see in modern Taekwondo:

As you can see here both arms are moved back instead of one back and one in front as in the Karate chamber. The way that Karate students will apply their movement is therefore different and not applicable to our movement. Personally I use the Karate application as a variation application for our movement so I get the best of both worlds. I do however have an application for the Taekwondo version, but first a 7 min clip by Iain Abernethy demonstrating his take on the movement:

In Iain Abernethy's take it is very much a way to deal with the opponents limbs. In my personal take I have one that works in the "sameish" way as one of Iain's to recover from being blocked by the opponent, but in this post I will only give one application that fits very close with how we do the technique. Below you will see the chamber and the finished technique done solo:

The end position is the same as in Karate, one hand in front of the chest and one hand in front of the body. Instead of dealing with the opponents limbs I use the chamber as a way to block a haymaker punch (or an inward knife hand strike which follows the same trajectory as a haymaker). As you see it you move forwards into the opponent while your hands come up like a flinch. The moving forward bit might take some training, but the arm movements is the most natural way to receive something coming fast toward your head. It is simply a flinch. In the form this is formalized and stylized a little so the hands continue longer back than necesary. Another way of viewing this is that you flinch as before but you guide the opponent off balance (represented by the hand going behind you), before you change direction with your hands and deliver the same ending as before. Slightly different take on the same movement. 

From this "flinch" one hand grabs and pulls the arm down toward the chest, and the other hand goes straight into a knife hand strike toward the neck of the opponent as can be seen in the picture below.

It is easy to overthink many applications, but many of them can be sumarized into "grab, pull, smash". This one is no exception. Once people understand that the formalized stylistic technique is actually a flinch which is the most natural instinctive way of dealing with something comming toward your head, followed by a grab, pull and smash it is easy to make the link between the template (gibon dongjak/ basic technique) and the application (eungyoung).

Below you can see me drilling this in a relaxed an easy way. You will still see how it is applied though, just keep in mind that the context of the clip is not pressure testing, nor a demonstration against real "intent", just drilling a little as a cool down after a session. Some enjoy video more than photographs which is why I include this clip as well :-)

I am hoping you are enjoying this series, and I will be back soon with another post dealing with the inward knife hand strike as seen in Taegeuk Sam Jang among other techniques.