From: drury@helix.nih.gov (Richard Drury)
Subject: Re: Describing techniques in words - Yuk!
Organization: National Institutes of Health
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 20:10:05 GMT

radner@cray.com (Lauren Radner) writes:
>poore@dirac.scri.fsu.edu (David Poore) writes:
>
>I'd rather not use 'inside/outside'... there was quite a lot of
>verbage here a while ago when people fumbled all over themselves
>trying to figure out if "an inside block" was a block moving
>from the outside TOWARDS the inside, or STARTING FROM the inside
>and moving to the *outside*... Can't we just use 'left and right'?

Maybe it's just the arts I've been exposed to, but I think that 
the inside/outside approach is often superior to the left/right 
approach in describing the orientation of techniques.  During
instruction, we use the "inside" and "outside" references all
the time without hopelessly confusing each other.  The only time
I remember any confusion involved a Shotokan guy who defined the
in/out-sidedness of a block according to the location where it
started rather than the direction of its movement.  But
describing this in right/left terms would not have solved this
problem.  What is a "right block?"  Does it start from the
right, or finish there?  Worse yet, are we talking about the 
blocker's right or the attacker's right?  We reprogrammed the 
Shotokan guy, but not by virtue of right/left terminology.

The nice thing about the inside/outside convention is that it
allows for person-independent descriptions.  My inside is your
inside.  Your outside is my outside.  The situation with right
and left is not so straightforward.  Right and left must always
be qualified with reference to a particular individual.  That,
in my experience, provides more opportunities for confusion than
the inside/outside convention.

I don't mean to say that you can do away with right/left
references altogether.  How else would you describe stepping
forward with the left foot, ot any number of other movements
that do not register meaningfully on the inside/outside axis?
Just that inside/outside references work very well in the
appropriate context.

>Your use of 'cross-handed' and 'same-handed' in your "simple"
>example confused me... 

It sure did!  This showed up right away when you tried to 
reformulate his description in right/left terms.

>For example, if I were to re-write David's example 'my' way (not that I'm 
>sure I understand what he meant!) I would phrase it something like:
>
>- Bad Guy is attacking from 12:00.
>- You are standing feet shoulder-width apart, hands at sides.
>- Bad Guy thows a high punch with HIS right hand.
>- You block his incoming arm with your left arm by:

No, when he said "cross-hand" here he meant your *right* hand, 
i.e., the one a*cross* the centerline from (rather than on the 
same side as) the attacking hand.  This shows that you
misunderstood the terms (which I think you already suspected), 
but not necessarily that they are inherently confusing.

Notice that, like inside/outside, the same/cross terminology
refers to the centerline.  Maybe this dependence on the
centerline concept is the caue of some confusion.  If you
study arts that pay a lot of attention to the centerline (like I
think David Poore does), then these locutions are bound to be
more intuitive.  If you are not used to analysing the structure 
of techniques by reference to the centerline, maybe this 
terminology seems more foreign.

>For example, to describe the opening moves of our version of nihanchi
>(one of our kata), I'd say (skipping the salute part):

I think your description was very clear.  I liked the details a 
lot.  My only question had to do with a left/right issue.  I was 
okay with this:

>- Your left foot crosses in front of your right leg, to take one step
>  to your right (towards 3:00). If someone took a snap shot of you in

But this next piece of footwork seemed improbable:

>- Your left foot now moves and takes a step to the right, all toes still
>  pointing toward 12:00, knees still bent, feet about shoulder width
>  apart. 

You meant that second step to be taken by the *right* foot, not 
the left, right?  I mean, correct?
--
Richard A. Drury
drury@helix.nih.gov