Racing Drill

The racing drill is a simple exercise but it has very interesting and non-intuitive implications. In the drill Nage's hands are held side by side in front of Nage's chest. Then one of Nage's hands tries to strike the target before the other hand can touch the chest. As Nage improves the hands are moved closer to the chest to start. Eventually Nage tries to hit the target in an eye blink.

The interesting thing about this is that when striking Nage attends to the hand touching the chest rather than the hand hitting the target. Trying to hit the target causes tension which slows the strike and decreases power. Touching the chest is trivially simple and does not create tension. This is reminiscent of the Jo thrust in Aiki where the back hand strikes and the front hand acts more like a guide for the Jo. In the Jo case the back hand actually strikes because it holds the Jo. It is not obvious until one experiments that it is best when the front hand is hitting the target the rear hand should be in control.

Movie of Racing Drill.

Fig. 1 Start of Race		Fig. 2 End of Race		Fig. 3 Closer Start

1. In Fig. 1 Nage's hands are beside each other in front of Nage's chest.

2. In Fig. 2 Nage's chest is touched with Nage's left hand and the right hand strikes the target before the left hand can touch the chest.

3. Fig. 3 shows Nage ready to try again with the hands closer to the chest.

The hand coming back to the chest does more that just control the punch even though this control is very important. The functions of the hand on the chest are:

1. Control the strike.

2. The hand on the chest is centrally located so that it is in a good position to launch a second strike or parry.

3. Having the hand close to the body makes it less vulnerable to knife attack.

4. Having the hand close to the body decreases angular momentum making the Tornado Twist faster.

5. Most people muscle test stronger with the hand on the chest than with it away from the body.