Direction of Attacks 2 (Patreon)

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

These are examples of solutions when your opponent is moving to your rear side. I'm using the the front, side, and back kicks with heel turns. But as I explained, don't think of them as different techniques but the same straight-on attack applied in different directions. Also, the concept of directionality isn't specific to these movements but is a universal concept found throughout martial movements.

Since the primary thesis for LMA is wayfinding, this is about how the direction of your partner and where they are in relation to you dictates your response. In other words, your responses are solutions to your partner's directional relationship with you.

We are partner-focused in every way, and your teacher isn't me but your partner. They will guide all your movements. Since you'll rarely do anything statically in a live game, do this practice task as you move around, orienting to an imaginary partner and visualizing them circling around your rear leg side whenever you plant roots.

The movements demonstrated are also partially a mobility (action capacity) exercise to get you into the ballpark of these movements. There is no right way this should look because you have a lot of freedom in how you can do them, but also, there is no target for precision. It is impossible to have precision without a target. You're just doing generalized martial movements to be adapted later during live play.

By generalized, I mean when people try to hit a target in these directions, they converge on these movement solutions. In pursuing a movement goal, the body is attracted to these movements, hence why these movements are called attractors.

Another movement we're building action capacity for is the heel turn. Again, this is another movement that organically appears as people move in martial arts. We are attracted to this movement. It's another attractor, but since it happens so often and since so many other movements are tied to the heel turn, I call it a universal movement. Universal movements and positions are not literally universal, but they will appear in many of your movements, whether you want them to or not.

The heel turn is also a critical movement in avoiding injury. If your whole body does a big turn without your feet, bad things happen.

The aim of everything shown and described is to build a general mobility scaffold to be used later but also to embody some critical concepts about movement as solutions, your partners as puzzles (or games within sparring game), and play as problem-solving.

– Sam