First off, thank you again to Mushtaq Ali for providing
this exercise for transferring skill sets from your dominant side to your other side! Between this, and some of the other material he provided, it'll definitely be of value in learning, as well as
un-learning some things.
The "L" to which I refer is the "L-stance" I find myself falling into doing anything more than intensive pad work. I had a small epiphany about the probable origin of this dysfunction. My theory is that this L-stance behavior is a corruption of my cat stance that I focused on developing while training kung fu (basically, a Korean variant of Northern Praying Mantis kung-fu).
In the cat stance, the majority of one's weight typically rests on the rear foot, allowing the lead leg to quickly deploy itself, usually for either a front-snap or butterfly kick (sort of a reverse roundhouse kick). Of all the basic stances in my particular system, this stance is used the most, particularly in the left lead. The overwhelming majority of the short and long forms start in this position, as well as the drills. I realize now that two bad habits developed with the majority of my time in the cat stance in left lead.
First, I learned to eventually rest more and more of my weight on my rear (right) leg without very much effort, to the point where there would be almost no weight on my front (left) leg. The result was that while my left lead was quick to respond, it would take too much time for my weight to transfer between my rear leg and my front leg to allow the right leg to do much of anything. To make matters worse, my right/rear foot took to laying
flat on the ground.
I notice that I don't have this problem standing in a cat stance in my
right lead. In the right lead, the majority of my weight distribution is still on the rear (left) foot, but not so much that my foot lies flat and can't spring me forward. Thus, I've got mobility and when necessary can deploy my left rear for an attack relatively quickly - at least moreso than with my right.
So, the solution should simply be
Stay in right lead, stupid! Ah, if only it were that simple.
Now, we come to my heuristically-developed L-stance habit. This habit revolved around learning to "cheat" during Tae Kwon Do point-sparring by using kung fu tactics. I put that in quotes because my teachers pointed out that no point sparring rules are violated by doing that. I would stand in my left lead cat stance, use my left leg to rapidly deploy a front- or most often, a butterfly kick (or to block). Most of my sparring partners would be shocked by a kick like that scoring so easily, and the split second distraction would often be just long enough for my inefficient weight transfer from rear to lead leg to take place, and continue with right-leg attacks, if I chose. Now, in the course of TKD sparring, with all the movement and attempts to stay "light on your feet," as it were, I wouldn't maintain a perfect cat stance, nor was it always the best thing to do.
When my left front or butterfly kicks didn't provide enough reach, I would have to resort to, for example, a side kick. Now, once someone would figure out what I was doing and try to stay out of range of my left, I would often try chasing them down a bit, in left lead, with the intention of using my left side kick at the earliest opportunity. Now, to perform a TKD side-kick correctly, especially to hit above waist level, the base foot generally must be pointed outward, facing ideally 180° away from your target. Since moving with your feet pointed in opposite directions isn't viable, my right foot chose a happy medium to cover most eventualities -
by lining up my heel behind and perpendicular to the heel of my lead foot. That way, my foot could shift quickly in the direction it needed to be in to deliver one of my left lead attacks, thus maintaining the integrity of one of my more successful strategies.
If my self-analysis is correct, I can draw the following conclusions:
One of the reasons I have trouble defending my right side is that in all that time point-sparring, I never really had to - My left would soak most attacks when it was leading, and when my right was leading, I generally wouldn't worry whilst it was engaged in an attack.
These habits have led to an inability for my right leg to propel my movement as quickly and efficiently as it should be able to - That isn't to say I continually fought in left lead or that I never started with a rear/right leg attack. But, think back to the
backyard FMA session I referred to a few posts back. In an inside deflection, my left leg was an integral part of my forward movement as I stepped out with my right, resulting in a bare patch of grass. The act of stepping out with my left doesn't have the full commitment of the rest of my body behind it. This is what I was feeling when I noted the difference while working on female triangle stepping.
My right leg is rendered ineffective for any sort initial attack and becomes a liability when dealing with an opponent's forward pressure - When under pressure to fall back into these heuristics, my rear/right leg attacks get jammed, if I can get them off at all. When the vast majority of my weight (and therefore, my center of gravity) ends up on my rear side, I'm a sitting duck for anyone who's so much as glanced at
Tao of Jeet Kune Do.
I did a little experiment last night. I performed some of the rudimentary footwork movements from some of my earliest TKD and kung-fu forms. When I pay attention, I can detect subtle differences between the movements of both feet which were more apparent in my kung fu (big surprise) than in my TKD. Now, I'm not sure if it caused or was caused by my bad habits, but it inspired a brainstorm of ways to attack this problem using the "slicing time" methods Mushtaq Ali suggested.
Specifics to focus on should include:
- Placement of my right foot before, during, and after Thai-style kicks (even TKD and JKD kicks for that matter). Initially, I just want my right foot to land in the right position so as to retain the option of a follow-up coming from either my right or my left.
- Footwork that leads into basic boxing combinations i.e. how to move into striking distance without compromising power.
- All of the footwork movements underneath my old kung-fu long and short forms. I suppose I could use my TKD forms, too, but I'm placing more emphasis on retraining my kung-fu for other reasons.
- Allowing my right side to stay in place and be defended, at least by soaks and blocks initially. It boggles the mind how I can sometimes utilize the tools on my right side to defend my left (e.g. the inside deflection), but not vice versa.
