This is sometimes done out of the tradition to show a new student that karate (or whatever the art is) is not an offensive art but rather a defensive one. The typical blocks that are taught in many traditional martial arts are full range blocking. In other words, they teach the student to make a complete blocking motion. An example of this is a down or low block. It is usually taught to come from the shoulder all the way down to slightly past the leg. It's easy to see that you would probably not have the time or opportunity to make a block like this on the street.
First of all it would take too much time. Secondly to get into this blocking position you would leave yourself open to many other attacks. For years I wondered why most of the traditional styles teach a form of blocking like this that seems to be totally impractical. These type of blocks are used in the katas (forms) but not when students start sparring.
No, we are taught to hold our hands high and elbows in protecting both the face and body. Several years ago I got some insight as to why the ancient masters might have developed this type of blocking system. When we started participating in adrenal stress response training. I could see how many students would shorten up and speed up their strikes and blocks to where they became almost totally ineffective. More like flailing than striking or blocking.
What I learned is that everything we do under a full adrenal rush tends to speed up and shorten up. So the blocks become weak and the strikes more of an annoyance than a deterrent. So the ancient masters might have had more insight into this than we had originally thought. In a future article I will explain the practicality of blocking techniques as it applies to real self defense.
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