ENTER THE MATRIX AND WATCH THE FULL VIDEO LESSON CAREFULLY:
Repeated viewings of GM Perkins’ movement while flowing with students yields tremendous insights into how to react properly; words cannot fully convey this but you will begin to feel in your own body what is effective GC movement.
► The “wrestling” aspect of GC is really about extreme belligerence involving neck breaking and slamming moves as opposed to just holding, locking and grappling.
► The key aspect is NOT to move against their motion but thru Sensitivity, lightness and Body Unity to change your angles of attack and use their motion/force against them.
► This can also involve a quick high-speed pulse to load their spring and instantly change direction into a strike or neck break, etc.
► You are constantly staying ahead of them using this method and thus, as we always say, remaining “Unavailable and Unavoidable.”
► This may LOOK like wrestling but it clearly is not!
► GC subtlety: your sensitivity can allow things like the back of your hand being a “wrestling” (unbalancing) tool. Only in GC!
► You keep reversing their energy direction: they push, you pull, and vice versa.
► John then goes into a lengthy demo of straight GC vs wrestling/grappling.
► Using feather-light Sensitivity, John remains completely disengaged (unavailable) from the perspective of the opponent, even tho John is TOTALLY sticking to and reading his every move/intention, yet the opponent cannot find John’s root (“A root that can’t be found”).
► As always, note carefully how John uses his entire body to connect and strike with.
► John is constantly “hitchhiking” off the opponent’s energy/motion and the freewheeling looseness and rotation of his body will turn the enemy’s incoming strike or grapple attempt into a strike from the opposite angle – kind of like when you get hit in the ass by a turnstile or revolving door when rushing through. This usually ends with John striking where the opponent has no balance – because they committed themselves to a direction.
► John gives a great demo of Loading Your Spring at 5:40. This is combined with Sliding Energy (letting them slide by) and is devastating.
► Even if John is doing “grappling” moves like a headlock, he is still doing it as an impact strike>wrench. And of course, you Drop on everything. For example, a forearm or chop to the back of the neck slides right into the headlock. He resists>you reverse the headlock/neck crank direction instantly.
► Again, a Drop-punch “splashes” the target so as not to send the enemy away where he can just attack again. Remember, there is an instant retraction/recoil/ricochet with all Drop strikes so as to “contain the over-travel” associated with almost all other martial art strikes. This also allows for instant multi-hitting machine gun striking.
► John demos again how you don’t try and “stop” or resist a strike, you deflect it, skim it, slide it or turn/reverse with it. You pull their push and push their pull.
► Subtlety: a slight unbalancing disrupts their strike better than a traditional “block” and opens them up to your strikes.
► Note how a hand strike folds/collapses into an elbow strike, from all kinds of potential angles.
► Train to deliver elbow strikes from every possible angle, not just horizontal, including up, down, sideways, diagonal, inverted and even as a stab at every possible angle.
► John shows a student how being soft you can defeat some of the things John is throwing at him.
► John makes the critical point that if you’re just 10% softer than the enemy then it’s a 100% advantage in a fight. You also only need to be 1/125th of a second faster than the enemy to be 100% more effective. Note that you don’t need to be “biologically” 1/125th of a second faster – your superior looseness, balance and sensitivity will get you to your targets that much ahead of the enemy reaching his targets.
► It can’t be repeated enough: You Drop on everything – root changes, steps, strikes, evasions, deflections, pocketing – even “combat wrestling” moves.
► Very subtle but important point at end that often confuses people: There’s the simple downward gravity Drop that augments your speed, balance and power – and then there’s the “Plyometric Drop” where your Drop into the ground results in plyometric, spring-loaded rebound power, which is even more devastating you can find detailed info on the distinction between them, as well as detailed explanations of all 5 Drop Steps on the GC Combatives DVD/Matrix vid.
