Shaped Charges Redoux

 

As I think back on it one of the more interesting principles I got from Sherman Harrill was that the manner of striking could be more than hard or soft, but the manner of striking could be to deliver a variety of shaped charges into an opponent’s body. This would be ever so much more than just striking making a more complete use of the Isshinryu system. At least from my perspective.

 
To begin I would put the manner of striking. From what I learned Sherman used three different methods (which paralleled  two of which I was originally taught.)

 
First there was the fast vertical strike with the tight fist.

 
Second was the fast vertical strike with the fist kept lose until the moment of impact, then the fist would tighten for the strike to then loosen on the fist retraction.  This strike creates a shock wave into the opponents body where the strike wave rises through the torso to reach into  the opponent’s throat,

 
Third was a very slight change to the first 2 strikes, but instead of striking with the first 2 knuckles of the vertical fist, the strike would shift to strike instead with the ridge of knuckles of the fist being used. This would create a smaller striking surface and a more intense pain experience from those strikes.
 

Of the above 3 methods one was not better than the other, each had their uses and in the end it the one used stopped the attack, it was a successful strike.
 

A different method of striking involved the retraction of the fist after an initial strike. It would become a slashing retraction of the fist chambering process, using a strike unexpected by the opponent, in effect the initial strike becoming a 1-2 strike.

 
Before I go further to clarify whatever use of the initial hand technique (block or strike) the act of the changer allows this process to become another strike.
 

Targets could be the side of the chest, the side of the neck, the side of the head, or a slashing strike unto a block into the opponents other striking limb.
 

 But that chamber strike did not stop there because the act of chambering could also be an elbow strike to an opponent behind you. Everything was situational.
 

I ever recall one example where the right strike was into the opponents lower right abdomen, then becoming a 2nd glancing strike to the other side of the body ending up with a vertical thumb strike across the underside of the opponents striking arm. Then to become another vertical thumb strike to the underside of that arm as the chambering of the fist beginning, to continue into a slashing strike into their ribs. One movement becoming 5 separate strikes. Unleashing a whole range of pain into the attacker.
 

Yet another sort of shaped charge came from the 2nd row of techniques in Kata Seisan. The movement where the palm rises then turns over. This movement potential offers two different shaped charges.

 
As the palm sweeps up it can be used to be a palm strike into the lower abdomen. This too creates a shock wave that rises into the opponents torso.  Not to be forgotten would be the use of such a strike into the kidney area of the opponents back.

 
Then when the rising of the arm is finished the hand can overturn and the back of the hand can be used as a striking surface that fits into the side of the neck, under the jaw of the opponent. The use of this target allows you back hand to deliver a descending shock into the opponent. This move can destabilize or even KO the opponent.

 
Then there is the issue of nukite strikes into the armpit. Where the strike inserted in one direction can cause one leg to buckle or in another direction can cause the other leg to buckle. Hooking the nukite down yields a very different potential.
 

The armpit has no natural protection making such strikes even akin to KO.

 
Even the use of kicks can deliver shock waves into the opponents body. How depends on the use of the kick selected.
 

This is not a complete study of every possible use of shaped strike charges in Isshinryu. Just a presentation of one potential rarely discussed.


Post Script

 

    These are not just words in a blog. Of course they are that.

    But these are some of the experiences my students and I felt, bent and dropped, experienced from Sherman. They contain the wisdom of pain.

    Several times Sherman privately explained to me he was always holding back, because everyone at those clinics were not his students. He had not trained them and did not intimately know how any of us would respond to the full pain of such a response. Then because of time, there was much that he put into his own studies and actual students he could not cover. There just was never enough time to attempt that.

    What he was doing is providing a view of what he saw within the Isshinryu system. A starting point should any be committed enough to continue.

    Five years after his death I was able to attend a clinic with his senior student, John Kerker. It was then I saw the full application of such techniques again, and again and again. From John from other of his own clinics, I obtained a fuller idea of what Sherman was talking about.

    May my students continue to be inspired by what Sherman showed.