As Hannibal said about using a distraction to soften the opponent... that's the idea behind it and it works. This is of course not standard Hapkido either. You don't have to be kicked in the knee hard for it to distract you. There are MUCH harder moves involved in Combat Hapkido, some will agree and some will not, that's ok.
Is there any substantial difference between a joint lock and armbars and such? Because I love my armbars and I don't punch people to get 'em.
no, an arm bar is easily gotten off of a punch (assuming you have the experience and timing down), but you can get it through a distraction. The distraction is not meant to hurt the opponent so much as it is to simple distract them away if a lock is to be employed. I am not taught however to be the aggressor at my classes so I wouldn't use the distraction unless grabbed first in some way.
Perhaps Thomas will chime in. Being a green belt does not qualify me so much to be an expert on all of the questions asked. Thomas I believe is 3rd or 4th Dan.
An armbar is also easily gotten by just applying the durn thing. I don't need to wait for you to punch me or distract you, I can just crank dat.
On a basic level, the concept is that if someone is grabbing you, their focus is on the area of the grab, a quick strike to another area 'distracts' the brain for a moment and helps you apply your technique. As they react to pain away from where you want to attack, it should make it easier to apply the lock. When we introduce techniques in the curriculum, they are usually introduced in a fairly static manner without a lot of push/pull energy. The distraction strike is one way of creating some energy to assist your movement. It also makes for a fairly easy way of teaching - something like 'Use the 3 D's - distract (strike or move) - disrupt (balance) - destroy (do damage)" What should happen as students learn the basics and move from more static applications to more realistic ones is that you will learn to use your body movement and footwork to create your energy/distraction to apply the techniques. For example, in this video clip by Master Locke, you can see how he shows the basic kicks and then he sues them to open up his opponent for some of the locks. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icWcBOOrQ_g"]COMBAT HAPKIDO: Green Belt - YouTube[/ame] By the way, Klaas is a good man to take advice from. If you Youtube some Hankido (and Chongmukwan) you'll quickly find Klaas showing some excellent technique. Instead of using strikes as a distraction, he uses mostly body movement and footwork to 'flow' into locks and techniques. Hopefully at your Combat Hapkido school they are also doing some flow drills and such to help build up the balance disruption and distractions through your body movement instead of just strikes as well. But, a lot of the early belt level disruptions are introduced with a strike as the disruption.
Thanks for the info Thomas... i'll take a look at them. We do use flow drills... typically we will go through them at the beginning of class in sort of a round robin type of drill with myself and my 2 instructors. The good news is that even though I will be out for a month is that the purple belt I had already gotten pretty good. They want me to work on it while i'm off and my Sensei told me to just come in on Wed nights since they will be at the other dojo on Tuesday nights to assist there while i'm gone. My Sensei is having his surgery and should be back around the same time I am, so that will be good to make sure the technique is all proper. I can't wait to get to the higher belts and get into the multiple attacker scenarios. It will be fun, and a good way to really see a little more how I react under the extra pressure... even if it is more controlled.
