Fundamentals

Rolling/Falling

Rolling and falling are fundamental skills and are a part of every class including forward shoulder rolls (off both sides), breakfalls (both sides), front-fall, back-fall, side-fall, flip, etc. There is a minor point worth mentioning on forward shoulder rolls and breakfalls: there are two ways in which the hand can be placed when rolling, on the back of the hand which is more traditional, and rolling with the palms facing the floor. The litmus test for a roll or anything else is whether it can be done smoothly on a sidewalk or a hardwood floor. James Longs, a 5th degree Goshin Jujitsu black belt, likes to say “the floor fixes all.” Mats are important for regular training safety - but it’s good to get a periodic reminder of where you might have to roll outside the dojo.


Stances & Footwork

This explanation deserves to be very long, but for the sake of brevity stances and footwork are a meld of boxing and traditional martial arts. As in boxing, the closer your opponent the higher your hands should be and the tighter your chin should be tucked to your chest. A more “open” stance (i.e., more of the chest exposed) is preferred over traditional “side-on” stances due to increased mobility. This type of stance does expose more of the vital organs on the front, but more importantly it protects the back. Not only is having a grappler on your back very dangerous from the standpoint of getting choked out, at the very least it limits the possibility of getting cracked on the back of the skull or the spine – things that aren’t “competition legal” but could happen on the street

Hand Strikes

The upper-cut and hook are very effective close-range boxing punches and are an important part of the Goshin Jujitsu arsenal as well as the jab and cross. Elbow strikes (where, technically speaking, the point of contact is actually about an inch or two above the elbow on the forearm) are practiced going across to the face, up under the chin, and down on the chest. These can also be performed where the contact point is 1-2 inches towards the tricep – useful as a reverse strike in a bearhug (opponent is behind), or as an elbow-drop (opponent is below). Elbow strikes are arguably the most important close-range strikes due to the forearm being such a strong part of the body, and are effective both for men and women.

Something that deserves comment is that the effectiveness of a punch is considerably tied to proper hip-torque, which in turn is tied to proper footwork. This is an important illustration of the inter-relationship between subjects that is holds true throughout the system (e.g., punching isn’t a completely separately topic from footwork).


Kicks

There is a preference in Goshin Jujitsu for simple low-to-mid-level kicks. The most common kicks are the front-ball kick (contact point is the ball of the foot, target is bladder or groin), roundhouse bridge (contact point is the bridge of the foot, target is usually stomach or side of body), the side kick, and Muay Thai-style leg kicks (usually striking with your shin where target is your opponent’s knee or side of leg). Knee-strikes, technically speaking, are classified as kicks in Goshin Jujitsu and are used extensively in close-range techniques.