Force in time

Over the past couple of years, I have distilled my training/teaching methodology of martial arts to a functional matrix of sorts. Now, to approach the training in that way, it is assumed that the practitioner already has a solid grasp on the technical material, i.e. the requirements of good mechanics of delivery.

Now, the mechanics of delivery may and will vary depending on the tool being used and/or worked against, but being that the purpose of the matrix I mentioned is the tactical use, in the sense of helping a more efficient decision making process under pressure, the specificity of each tool (empty hand, edged, impact...) does not matter, as long as it is a contact weapon. In other words, this may not apply to projectiles.

With all this in mind, I call this approach Dynamics of force in time continuum. That title is not aimed at making the whole thing sound fancier or more "scientific", it just seems to encapsule tho whole approach in the most condensed manner. I hope it will make more sense once you get the rationale behind it.

The first part of the above equation is the dynamics of force. Here, it simply means the three available modes of dealing with the force of the attacker - avoid it altogether; redirect it; stop it. In the terms common for many contact combat sports, it would be expressed as an evasion, parry and a block, respectively.

The second half is the time continuum. In practice, it corresponds to three types of timing one's response to the attack - reactive; interactive; proactive. For example, you can deal with you opponent's punch and then retaliate, you can both strike at the same time, or you can intercept/go preemptive.

	Reactive	Interactive	Proactive
Avoid
Redirect			xxxxxxx
Stop

Hopefully, the above table should depict it in a bit more concise and "graphic" manner. So, according to the basic idea, you take a technique and see how it operates in any of the circumstances that could be described as one of the field in the matrix. You have probably noted that the redirect/proactive field is marked, and the reason is that in my view the nature of the delineated options leaves this one empty...or at least I have not encountered a move that would fit in it. If you do, please let me know. 

Besides serving as a general model of classifying the tactical options for the purpose of teaching, it also comes in handy for the analysis of one's (either an athlete that prepares for a fight or his/her opponent) affinities in sportive matches, and modeling the training to follow accordingly. 

In any case, this is still the work in the process of constant testing and modification, but the outlined shape has shown some promising results so far.