Giving up Center line

Protecting and attacking center line is a valuable concept to understand, but as usual during a fight things don’t always go our way. Your opponent might have a very strong C line offensively and defensively and this could be a problem especially if your opponent is taller then you and has a longer reach in all 4 ranges. How do you get in?

There is a concept called giving Center line. The Filipino art of Kali is well known for using this concept. Instead of putting up a barrier protecting C line as discussed in the previous Center line thread. The Kali fighter tends to have a square ( feet side by side) fighting stance allowing their opponent to take advantage of a C line straight attack, thus countering by side stepping the straight attack and attacking at an angle from the side.. Most often attacking the opponent’s limb as it strikes, this is called a limb destruction also referred to as a gunting by the natives.

Kali is one of the chosen arts of Bruce Lee’s 26 elements every student should know.  This system is primarily a weapons based art. In fact double stick training is what a beginner would start with because it promotes ambidextrous movement allowing freedom to attack with either limb evenly and not be a one sided fighter ( left or right dominance).  This is why the squared fighting stance is preferred. The Kali fighter has a weapon in both hands, one on either side of C line, so when the opponent sees no barrier in C line and attacks, the kali fighter is free to side step either way cutting off the attacker’s limb., or what we call (defanging the snake)  Please understand  Kali as with many of the ancient arts was created for War and in battle blades were substituted for the rattan training sticks.

The movement of kali and the weapons is transferred to the empty hand fighting and so does the concept of giving up Center line, when the student can move in and out of Center line you now have a more complete and free fighter in the science of movement.

As a rap-up of the past few threads we now have and idea of  Jeet Kune Do (JKD) as I teach it, the freedom to integrate, techniques, principles, and concepts from a variety of martial Art styles with out prejudice. the understand timing with a relationship to music, and measurement as we relate it to the 4 ranges of combat, and we have general knowledge of working in and out of center line.

I hope you guys can see that we are using a step by step formula, to educate ourselves to the science of movement as our foundation, this is not the fighting aspect but the learning aspect (Self perfection).

(Self Preservation)  is when you take the theory and bring it to the lab for testing.

(the fighting). Some of my students are not into fighting at all but just love learning about it and others like to fight so there is something for everyone.