►The “trapping” that you see in various arts is hard to do at high speed with real violence. Plans and trapping techniques go right out the window and people just jump off and hit you.

►In GC, you don’t “trap” – you sense and follow with feather light contact and isolate and pocket/move around and in off their attacks..

►John makes various comparisons to tai chi: GC maintains constant contact with zero pressure while still being Unavailable and Unavoidable and moving around reference points. None of this can be accomplished without developing the 5 GC Principles of Balance, Body Unity, Looseness, Sensitivity and Adaptivity. Trapping, pushing, grabbing, etc., is a waste of time and potentially dangerous.

►Yet, you can still unbalance the opponent with almost zero pressure by sensing their balance points.

►When you may apply pressure, is not by opposing, blocking or stopping an incoming strike, but by helping them go where they want to go (either with a tap, a push or strike) but not being there for them as a target. This also will throw their balance.

►You CANNOT plan anything in GC. By following the principles while engaging in free-form Contact Flow, your subconscious takes over and creates openings and strikes far faster than your conscious mind ever could.

►John then gets into a more detailed explanation of throwing people’s balance.

1. When a non-GC opponent steps they have no or only 1 balance point between steps. You can push/unbalance them with just one contact point in any direction perpendicular to their motion. We say “non-GC” because we step using a “Descending Parabola” that smoothly transitions from root to root, reinforced by the fact that we’re Dropping as we step and can re-Drop at any time.

2. When you have 2 points of contact (for example your left and right hand) you can Pulse/suspend them both for a split second which rigidifies them and then you can unbalance them in any perpendicular direction to their movement.

►Important note: The whole point of Unbalancing in GC is NOT to send or throw people where they can simply recover and re-attack. It is to create a moment of vulnerability in them so you can snap/release off the suspension instantaneously and strike them.

►The trick is to hit them the instant their balance is broken, not before and not after.

►Note that the suspension for unbalancing can potentially be in any direction.

►You can also use the moment of unbalance to pull them into an even more vulnerable position to set up a more damaging strike. This can have the effect of ping-ponging or rubber banding them.

►You can also unbalance them while they’re in the process of hitting by giving them a slight perpendicular pulse. You can then hit them when they’re vulnerable. Many non-GC opponents will have a moment of unbalance as they strike because they RISE instead of DROP like we do in GC. Note again that you’re not clashing, blocking or otherwise stopping their strike.

►John then gets into a discussion of the Descending Parabola principle in GC stepping, which differs greatly from stepping and weight transfer in tai chi where there’s a moment of vulnerability between roots.

►To eliminate this vulnerability in GC stepping, John takes students through single-leg balance Contact Flow, where you work on descending, dropping, and shifting your weight smoothly as you come off the single leg. Watch the video carefully to pick up the subtleties.

►It’s not mentioned here, but notice the similarity in principle to what you train doing the Ninja and Vacuum Walks.

►When this is developed, you can even unbalance them or hit them stepping backwards because you are sinking and dropping into your new root behind you. John compares this with the wrong way: falling back or up-unweighting like most people do when they step back.

►You can also use this backstep as the prelude to a Rocket Step forward (the most powerful drop step in GC), using the rebound energy off the sinking backstep.

►The video ends with master Michael over-stressing master Martarano in the single-leg Contact Flow exercise so he is challenged to do the sinking descending parabola step. This takes lots of training!