Oooops!

You’ve trained your best technique thousands of times and when you’re pressed to use it serendipity sets in and you make a mistake.


Murphy's law as: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong".

Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment often restated as “Murphy was an optimist!”

We all make mistakes and I believe how we prepare ourselves to deal with them when things are not optimal is an important part of our training to consider. It is not enough to train to take advantage of your opponent’s mistakes, but how to compensate for ones you make too.

In taking your focused technique and working it against as many different attacks as possible, by taking your focused technique and practicing it with different footwork, moving forward, moving backward, moving on angles and turning you can build up a comfort factor to learn how to make it work no matter what happens.

In my training with Tristan Sutrisno I studied a small number of his vast two person sets from karate and siliat training. They were taught with precise technique execution for both sides of the two person set, but as skill and speed increased eventually mistakes occur. The left strike is used where the right strike is called for or the right kick is used where the left kick is called for, Sutrisno Sensei made it very clear you can’t stop the practice because your partner made a mistake, instead you had to make your response work no matter what attack was used.

Sutsisno Sensei’s answer is the key to fight serendipity, to move past the Oooops and succeed.

Here is a simple training drill I just made up to help make this point.

Attacker

Step 1 – Right Foot Forward Right Lead Hand Strike

Step 2 – Left Foot Forward Left Lead Hand Strike

Step 3 – Right Foot Forward Right Lead Hand Strike followed by Left Reverse Hand Strike

Step 4 – Left Foot Forward Left Lead Hand Strike followed by Right Reverse Hand Strike

Step 5 – Right Foot Forward Right Lead Hand then Left Reverse then Right Lead Strike

Step 6 – Left Foot Forward Left Lead Hand then Right Reverse then Left Lead Strike

The following are the counters for those incoming strikes

Defender

Step 1 – Right Foot Backward Left Outside Middle Block

Step 2 – Left Foot Backward Right Outside Middle Block

Step 3 – Right Foot Backward Left Low Block followed by Right Low Block

Step 4 – Left Foot Backward Right Low Block followed by Left Low Block

Step 5 – Right Foot Backward Left Outside Middle Block then Right Low followed by Left Low Block

Step 6 – Left Foot Backward Right Outside Middle Block then Left Low followed by Right Low Block

At this point the attacker and defender reverse roles and continue

Take a partner and practice this, slowly and exactly at first. Then when you get used to the drill pick up the speed but when a mistake happens whichever side you’re on keep on working and make your technique succeed!

Certainly there is much more involved but this is a starting point into a lifetime of effort!