Tanto vertical thrust versus the twisting thrust

 

 

If you look closely this was when Tris was having me work on the first 4 tanto drills, but we know he was not doing exactly what was trained to do. One of the differences is that he is seen doing the twisting style thrust while I was using the vertical thrust. I was to busy doing what I rembered to watch him as to what he was doing. After I found these notes (partial) about the knife thrusts. I now looking at this clip see he was already using this type of thrust.

 

I just ran across something I wrote long ago about how the turning thrust punches in karate were akin to tant knife thrusts I was taught by Tris Sutrisno.

 

By the turning twist punch I am referring to those in the original Isshinryu Sanchin kata, or those used some of the time in our Ananku (which I changed to just vertical strikes in our version) or the punching in the Sutrisno Nijushiho we practice, or the strikes in the Pai Lum Supple Dragon form we use.

 

In Sutrisno karate all of the strikes in the first several years of kata are turning punches (the exception is one of his more advanced forms which uses vertical strikes. Most of the Chinese striking I learned from Ernie also used twisting punches. Perhaps it is easiest to say is that most systems use twisting punches. There are exceptions including Isshinryu), and realistically both strikes work, Having been hit by them I attest they all hurt.

 

But to take a step in a different direction that of the tanto drills I was taught by Tris. There all the strikes are vertical strikes with the blade. Of course even as limited as I was in how much he taught there are layers to that too. One of the things he taught me as a section of a Knife form (while the piece I did learn was long it was not the whole thing. Of course it worked, and the first way I was shown it everything was using the vertical strikes in the tanto drills. Then he threw a twist (as in everything he did) was when he taught me a different version of the form, Then what had been vertical knife thrusts, were changed into twisting knife strikes. Nothing else changed just the manner in which the thrusts were done.

 

He then explained that was because the twisting thrust and twisting extraction with the blade creates a more dangerous wound. When we remember Tris’s father fought in the Indonesian underground using skills from Japan and Indonesia, this is just another aspect that was not shared openly.

 

Which made me think of the relationship to the twisting fist punches.

 

 I have seen others maintain that the twisting punch as it enters to body uses the turning fist to twist/tear into the body to create more pain.

 

I don’t totally by that as striking with the vertical ridge of knuckles  creates a very different shock into the body.

 

But there is a similarity too.