Am I right in thinking there is a concept in some Chinese martial arts where the two hands work together when fighting, so one is gripping/pulling/pushing while the other is hitting? And is this called "husband and wife hands"? Taking the analogy that good hand skills are like a good marriage. A partnership between two different people that complement each other to be greater than the sum of the parts. Or is it called "Mother and Father hands"? Again the analogy that one part of the pair is doing one thing while the other is doing something else but they complement each other to work together? Or have I just made that up from watching too many martial arts films?
There may be some systems which might use such terminology but those are not common CMA terms to my knowledge. Simultaneous parry (or grab/trap) and attack is common and almost a standard in CMAs.In WC it's called lin sil die dar,-or something along those lines. Grabbing is usually what most of those chambered fists represent in many forms,including Okinawan/Japanese Karate, TSD,TKD,etc.Most often accompanied with a strike from another appendage. So...... Probably.
Funnily enough my JJJ Sensei used the term 'Husband and Wife hands' last week. They work in harmony, or one in action, and one backing it up.
That is a concept in some CMAs including wing chun. I've never heard any specific naming of it and there's not even any reference to it in the wing chun kuen kuit because it's considered such a basic concept it's like telling people that you walk on your feet.
If you think about standing square to an opponent and rotating at your spine one side one side will advance towards the opponent (yang) one side will retreat from them (ying) so in terms of simple body mechanics this could translate to male/ female, huband and wife working together. Its just one mechanic. I would not over emphasise it, but whatever helps a student to learn is good so long as it doesn't put blinkers on them.
It comes from some discussions I'm having with club mates at taekwondo. I'm trying to plant the seeds of more practical pattern applications. As such I'm trying to show that techniques can have uses beyond, or different to, the regular "a block is a block" taekwondo explanations. Trying to point out that the reaction hand (pulling hand or hikite in Karate) is usually doing something while the other is hitting things. If anything I'm trying to remove blinkers!
What dead_pool said, it's an Okinawan karate principle about both hands working synergistically when you do the hurty stuff to the other person.
it is a tricky balance to get right. I know from my personal learning that at times I have fastened on to something my teacher said and got stuck on it to the exclusion of other stuff. As I am aware of it as a failing in myself I am sensitive to it in students. to give an example. I had a new student who had studied a lot in a different school overseas. I noticed that this student had a habit of over-complicating things - going for grapples and take-downs and missing out on simple opportunities to strike or break the balance that were right in front of him. So I sent a lesson showing how he could do simple stuff and maximise his advantage in the positions he was in, rather than trying to improve his position by grapples. At the end of the session he asked, "have you ever heard of the expression the hand never comes back empty?". I replied that I had not heard of that particular expression, but that I understood the thinking behind it. After that session I never saw the student again. Ideas that demonstrate principles are great but over attachment to any one idea or principle can cause problems - balance in all things.
