An introduction to blocking

There are many schools of thought on how to deal with an oncoming strike. Some martial arts styles believe in meeting force with force, whilst others believe in redirecting the energy of a strike and using it against the person doing the striking. GKR doesn't go with either of those - instead, for the most part, we believe in deflecting the energy of a strike so that it passes harmlessly by. The advantage of using deflection, is that it requires virtually no strength, whilst at the same time, placing our opponent at a momentary disadvantage. The one exception to this philosophy, is the Chuge Uke block, which is used to directly resist the most determined of round kicks.

To turn or not to turn
Although we practice our blocks in a number of ways, the most common is in line drills during basics. In this situation, we don't always use our hips, although in kumite or real life, we would use hips. Soto Uke and Gedan Uke always require hip-work, regardless of the stance you perform them from. With Jodan Age Uke, Uchi Uke and Gedan Barai, hip-turning is optional, although the blocks are more effective if you use it.

Hip turning serves three functions - first, it can increase the strength of the block. Secondly, it reduces the amount of your body that is exposed straight on for an adversary to hit. Thirdly, it winds back your opposite arm to give it maximum power on a counterattack. Hip turns are always placed at the end of a block, rather than spread throughout its duration. This syncronises the hip turn with the end of the block, enabling you to use your full body weight, and the power of your legs, to make the block as powerful as possible.


See how much smaller and further away the potential target area is with the hips turned off.

Use the correct edge of your wrist
Another important GKR blocking philosophy, is that we use the front or back surfaces of our arms to block, rather than the bony edges. Admittedly, blocking with the bony part is more effective because it hurts more. Japanese master Mas Oyama, who founded a full contact karate style called Kyokushin, is famous for his blocks, which frequently broke his opponents' arms. However, unless you've spent years conditioning and strengthening your forearms, and killing the nerves by repeated bone-to-bone blocking or bone-to-wood practice, what hurts your opponent, will also hurt you. You might think it's great to cripple an attacker with one all-powerful block, but if your arm is in agony afterwards, you are at the same disadvantage as he is!

In GKR, the moment of contact in our blocks is performed using the front or back of the forearm, and the arm is then rotated 90 degrees to increase the power of the block. The only exceptions are Gedan Uke, which has no final rotation, and Kake Uke and Mawashi Uke, which both use the hands to block.

If you strike with the bony sides of your wrist, you're going to hurt as much as your opponent.
Use the inside or outer surface of your wrist to block, then rotate your wrist for added power.

Block far, block small
In most of our blocks, we operate on the principle of block far, block small. In other words, the sooner you block, the less movement you need to make, to deflect a strike past your body. See the diagrams below to see why. Why is a smaller block preferable? Because the smaller the block, the quicker your recovery, and the less energy it expends. With this in mind, you'll find that a lot of our blocks are pushed out in front of us to intercept the incoming strike at the soonest moment. This also gives you the largest margin for error, and the most blocking time.
Far blocks require less movement by the blocker to generate a safe deflection angle.
Close blocks require more movement by the blocker to deflect an attack safely past your body. They also leave you less time to react if you miss the block on your first attempt (the margin of error).

Line drills versus Kumite

All of the blocks in this section are described in line drill format. That means that they're all performed from parallel stance, as if you'd just completed an identical block. Unless it's an integral element of the block, I have not added hip action. More importantly, you need to understand the fact that this section describes formal execution of blocks. In a sparring situation, or in real-life, they would be performed from a guard position, so the preparation is likely to be a little different. Also, your execution is likely to be more casual, possibly with less extension or rotation at the end of each block, depending on the nature of the attack, and your planned response after you've blocked. Bear in mind the fact that all karate is about learning a vocabulary of combat, rather than hard-and-fast rules. Once you know the vocabulary, you can string moves together into sentences, you can abbreviate words, or you can even invent your own language that's effective for you.