The ABC's Of Practical Poomsae Applications, Part 7: Bakkat Makki (Outward Block)

We are back again with Part 7 of the ABC's of Practical Poomsae Applications, this time we are going to take a long good look at the Bakkat Makki or Outward defensive technique. We are looking at the knife hand version and the closed fist version under one as the movement is the same throughout the technique. The difference is superficial as the template is the same. Before you jump in you might want to check out my thoughts on the translation on the word "makki" as I think "block" is a very limited translation of the Korean term, and especially if you look at the root word "Makda". You can click here to read an indepth article on that here, or you can get the extremly brief version that I think Makki is anything you do to stop or prevent an attack, including but not limiting to block, parry, push, lock, limb control etc.

Another thing you might want to do is to read through this series in the order it came out.  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, Part 5, which focuses on the knife hand guarding block and Part 6 focusing on the inward knife hand strike. With that out of the way let us jump into the outward defensive technique :-)



The outward knife hand and closed fist block both have the same template which you can see below, the only difference between the two being that the end position has the front hand (blocking hand) either in a fist or in a knife hand configuration.

I have previously said that for the most part Taekwondo hand techniques follow the Karate techniques in an identical way. Not so for the outward blocks however. In Karate they chamber in a different way, and the "blocking hand" moves on the inside of the pulling hand (the one going back to the hip). This makes any Karate application for this technique a variation application for Taekwondo at best. There is nothing wrong with this, as Poomsae can still be a mnemonic devise and you can link the movement to many different applications including Karate applications, but Taekwondo has a very different chamber so a primary application in my mind should strive to follow the template (basic technique) as closely as possible. In Taekwondo you will note that the blocking hand goes on the outside of the pulling hand and that the initial movement has the hands reaching toward the opposite sides of the body. The pulling hand is roughly on the opposite shoulder, while the blocking hand starts at the opposite hip. In the video he then moves the blocking hand in a circular movement a little upwards before it comes forward, but you'll see what I mean. Below is a picture of the chamber for the block in its "extreme chamber".

A Karate Chamber would have had the hand that I have on my hip by my ear on the inside of the pulling hand which would be roughly the same position. The change in chamber makes the overall trajectory much more circular and flowing in my opinion, but more importantly it changes the application a great deal. While the Karate movement is used one way often ending up with a knife hand strike to the opponents neck, the Taekwondo movement is more defensive in nature, dealing with the opponents limb(s) instead, or used to recover if your initial attack was blocked instead. 

Through my research I have found out that most Kwan (schools) that later would form Taekwondo used the Karate chamber but in the early 70s it seems that Kukkiwon standardized the technique into our modern Bakkat Makki with the hand going on the outside of the pulling hand. Most people believe that any changes done from Karate techniques to "unique" Taekwondo techniques were done with a political motivation by people who had no idea what they had. This might be true, but we should not overlook the possibility that this change is a remnant of a Chinese or Native Korean Martial Arts legacy that has found its way into modern Taekwondo. In Tai Chi there is a very similar technique which is for all intents and purposes the same as the Taekwondo bakkat makki. It is done slowly in their form and it is more circular and exaggerated, but it is the same. It could be that the pioneers of Taekwondo knew how to make use of this Tai Chi or other Chinese Martial Arts technique and preferred it over the Karate technique and therefore chose to use one over the other. We do not know, so I do not think we should presume. Anyway I digress, let us look at how the technique can be used to recover if your initial attack is blocked by the opponent.

Last Post in Part 6 I talked a little bit about the Dangkinun Son or the pulling hand, both hands working together. You might have noticed that one hand is often holding the opponents arm, pulling and twisting it, but you should not be too hung up on holding the opponents arm. Anything is better than nothing and sometimes you might be pulling him off balance with a lapel grab. Below I am grabbing the opponents lapel, pulling while doing an inward knife hand strike (the same technique I explained in Post 6).

Now by not grabbing his arm in this particular case with this particular attack he manages to block my knife hand strike (gasp!). This training if your attacks fails is very little seen in modern Taekwondo with the formal sparring all being countered with a "dead partner" (one who let you counter). 

With the opponent blocking me I want to move to his outside to attack him again from another angle. Right now we are both in position to attack each other, I want to be the only one with all my weapons trailed at my opponent while being offline from his. I therefore push his block inward, sidestepping and sweep his block/limb away with my other hand following the bakkat makki movement exactly.

Above you see the transition (and I am exagerating for the sake of clarity in the photo), below is the completed transition with the pass to the other hand completed.

You should note that here I am pushing on his arm above the elbow joint. This turns him away from me slightly. There are any number of follow ups you can do from here but for the sake of keeping this basic we follow up by grabbing his arm, twisting and pulling it back toward our hip and punching him in the opening we just made.

Before moving on I want to take the oppertunity to highlight that we have done an application that flows within a sequence in Poomsae, explaining how the Poomsae are built up in a systematic manner and not just basic techniques thrown in at random. In Taegeuk Sam Jang you deliver two inward knife hand strikes to the neck. Let us say that the first in the form demonstrates how to follow up from the previous sequence and so we ignore it here, the second demonstrates how you deal with the opponent blocking it, so you deliver one knife hand strike to the neck of the opponent but he blocks it (the second knife hand strike in Taegeuk Sam Jang). This is followed in the form by turning 90 degrees and doing an outward block. The turn is there because there is no other way of telling you that you need to angle yourself in relation to the opponent because there is no opponent in the solo performance in Poomsae. The outward block, pushes the opponents block inwards, the turn tells you to sidestep while doing this, and the block itself is the pass to the other hand turning the opponent slightly away from you. This is followed with a weight shift in the form (the change from Dwit Koobi/ Back stance, into Ap Koobi/ Long front walking stance) along with an attack. 

Poomsae gives you many basic techniques which you can intepret in many different ways, but once you start looking at the sequence(s) and try to fit everything together your options are limited. If you are finding that you have 200 applications for an outward block, that might be a little too many, looking back at the dynamic context might get you from 200 to just 1-3. Note that there is a difference between what the Poomsae demonstrates and what you can learn and apply from it. The beauty of Poomsae is that is shows just a handful of applications, but you can find the underlying principles and apply them in an almost infinite number of ways. THIS IS WHY THE MASTERS OF OLD PRACTISED ONLY 1-3 Forms. We learn a lot of forms which spoon feeds us the principles, but we do not need to know 20 forms to be good, we just need to REALLY understand a few.

Below you can see a video that around half way demonstrates the same principle using the outward block to recover from a block, but this time it is an outward knife hand strike to the neck that has been blocked instead of an inward knife hand strike.

Another way I often make use of this technique is a "Parry-Pass" where you parry something and pass to the other hand. It can also be used to shut down a 1-2 combo, or if the opponent fakes the first attack you will block his second with the primary movement. I have pulled off all of these in free sparring thanks to the parry pass method, and the ones that has trained enough to internalize it they say it works well for them too.

The movement is the same, but in the chamber the hand that is in front with the shoulder works as an inward parry, much the same way a momtong an makki or inward middle block would be used in a shortened form.

Here I parry inwards, while sidestepping. In the picture I do a wide transition with the other arm to clearly link it to the basic technique, but if you read the opponent you can make the transition smaller as need be in application.

You then pass to the other arm, grab and pull and strike as before (or you can do any other number of things). The parry pass method is great if you are caught a little surprised as the chamber covers your body (but the more you cover the bigger the movement and the slower you get). Once you either read the opponent, or your initial parry connects you will feel and or know where the opponents arm is and then cut the movement as small as possible to be economic and fast.

There is a lot of redundancy built into the technique. One redundancy is that you react to an attack but you missjudged it, the opponent goes low. Since the chamber has you moving one hand to your opposite hip there is a chance that the hand blocks low attacks.

Since this post has been a lengthy one I will try to keep the next one briefer and a little simpler. I do hope you are enjoying the series and that you also enjoyed this post. Next post I will look at the Oe Santeul Makki, click here to go there directly