Feb 15, 2013

Stepping Pattern in Martial Art


Stepping Pattern is often overlooked in martial art training and education. Actually this is important and determines the quality of a person's self-defense capabilities.

I often see trainers who only teach one stepping pattern. Straight line pattern. All the attack and defence are done by stepping forward or backward. With this pattern, I believe that students who are trained will not develop much, because they are formatted merely.

Now try to imagine a more flexible stepping pattern. Stand on the sandy soil. Draw a pattern of eight winds, where the line length of 2 meters. Stand right in the middle point. Ask one of your friend to attack you with a straight attack from the North.

Avoid the attack by stepping into the direction of the winds. You can escape to the Northeast, Northwest, West, East, Southeast, Southwest, and South. Easy, is not it? You will find it easier and your horizon is open widely. You will also feel a lot of more defence techniques can be developed with this stepping pattern.

Eight winds stepping pattern is not the only pattern beside straight line pattern. There are also triangular pattern, saw pattern, square pattern, and other stepping patterns that you can develop yourself according to your creativity. Martial art  is actually flexible and not difficult.

This is a shallow study of stepping patterns in Martial Art. Hopefully it will be useful for Martial Lovers.