Mr Punch
07-12-2005, 05:51 AM
Centreline theory is great. It's great to protect your centreline and fire everything off there, especially if your reach is longer than your opponent's.
Buuuut, if I have my guard wider, right hand closer to my head and left hand following another line of a triangle with the right but further out, I can offer my opponent my centreline, still be close enough to pak, lop, straight punch (or hook), elbow, jum etc from my centreline (as in the 360 deg vectors), without sacrificing my outside gates and leaving myself open for roundhouses/hooks/other circular attacks.
In a way my centreline is better protected, cos I'm luring my opponent into it where I can control him more easily.
To get theoretical, although I have used this effectively in sparring... It's like chess: you want control of the centre so one way to start your game is to set up a strong thrust in the centre of the board, which you then to need to reinforce to protect, unless you can catch him in a fool's mate really quickly. If you don't get the fool's mate, is it not safer to take the centre by first putting forward your flanking pieces in a position where they can hit the centre and protect the centre, rather than rushing out and trying to get it immediately...?
So in the first exchange in a streetfight, you want to go straight in and try and take him out asap. But if that doesn't work (environmental factors, he's not an idiot...! etc), you want to make sure you know where he's going to hit you. If you leave your centre open, it's easier to protect outside-in than inside-out (moving to the outside gate to protect against his hook etc) in many cases. And if he's really open you still have the option of driving straight up the middle.
Any thoughts?
Buuuut, if I have my guard wider, right hand closer to my head and left hand following another line of a triangle with the right but further out, I can offer my opponent my centreline, still be close enough to pak, lop, straight punch (or hook), elbow, jum etc from my centreline (as in the 360 deg vectors), without sacrificing my outside gates and leaving myself open for roundhouses/hooks/other circular attacks.
In a way my centreline is better protected, cos I'm luring my opponent into it where I can control him more easily.
To get theoretical, although I have used this effectively in sparring... It's like chess: you want control of the centre so one way to start your game is to set up a strong thrust in the centre of the board, which you then to need to reinforce to protect, unless you can catch him in a fool's mate really quickly. If you don't get the fool's mate, is it not safer to take the centre by first putting forward your flanking pieces in a position where they can hit the centre and protect the centre, rather than rushing out and trying to get it immediately...?
So in the first exchange in a streetfight, you want to go straight in and try and take him out asap. But if that doesn't work (environmental factors, he's not an idiot...! etc), you want to make sure you know where he's going to hit you. If you leave your centre open, it's easier to protect outside-in than inside-out (moving to the outside gate to protect against his hook etc) in many cases. And if he's really open you still have the option of driving straight up the middle.
Any thoughts?