 Ever since we started doing art-based episodes, the requests have been flooding in for us to cover a wide gamut of different martial arts, which is awesome. One of the most requested is Tonksudou, so today we're going to do something special. We are teaming up with Sensei Justin Ichikawa from TO Wesley Karate in Thousand Oaks California and also of the Sensei Ichi YouTube channel for a bit of an exploratory topic. Sensei Ichi is going to lead off and then we'll come right back with the discussion. Sensei? Hello everyone, my name is Justin Ichikawa. I co-own a school named the TO Wesley Karate Studio here in Thousand Oaks California. I am here in collaboration with Dan to discuss the similarities and the differences between American Kempo and American Tonksudou. We're going to be discussing three different sections. The basic punches and strikes, the basic blocks, and the basic kicks from Kempo to Tonksudou. There's going to be no argument and no discussion, who's better than who. This is actually American Kempo and American Tonksudou, a love story. So once you grab some popcorn and some red vines and follow along. So without further ado, here we have the basic blocks. So these are our five basic American Tonksudou blocks we teach to our white belts, which is the beginning rank we have here in our school. We're going to start with what we call the low defense. When we do the low defense, we teach our students to block with the hand that matches the front leg. So our left leg is in the front, we're going to be folding with our left hand by our ear across our face. We want to have our other hand out in the front. We call it a pulling hand. We'd like to use two hands because it balances out the power. So we have equal power going forward, as well as coming backward, so it balances out the shoulders. So we start with this hand making a fist, fingers tucked in, thumb wrapped across, right by the ear, across the face. Not obstructing vision by putting our arm in front of our face, so we're going to leave it below our chin. We're going to have our other hand straight out in front of us. And as we do the slow defense, we're just basically going to pull our right hand back and push our left hand down to do this block. Each block we have is a circular motion. So we're going to make a circular motion down to block everywhere from about our chest to our lower solar plex area. We're blocking low. We call that the low defense. Little things to look at in terms of power that we focus on and that we teach. We teach our palm to our ears so we're able to use what we call wrist snap, which is the flick of the wrist. Like you have a booger stuck to the back of your hand and you're whipping somebody with a towel. So I'm going to throw the palm to the ear, flick it forward. We call that wrist snap. We're also going to be doing something called shifting, which we teach to our little bit older kids and our adults. We're going to take our back stance, which is putting all the weight on the back leg and turning our back foot out at about a 90 degree angle. We're then going to shift our body weight forward by pushing with the back leg, whipping the chest and hips forward and the wrist to get a little more power for the low defense. So that is our low defense. The knife and defense is our second basic block. We're basically going to take our hand and we're going to open up so we show four fingers together, thumb tucks to the inside. We're going to fold just like we did on a low defense. The hand goes to the ear with the other hand out in front of us. And again, for power, if we need to, we could shift to our back stance and block in front of us. This is here to block the sides of our head as well as the front of our face. We call that the knife hand defense. The next block we have is called a high defense. Now, high defense and outside defense fold same, just like the low defense and the knife defense fold the same. So the high defense and the outside defense fold by our hips. Now, since we're doing a standing block, we're going to be folding on our backside. If we were to be moving forward, we would step on our front side. So on our backside, we're going to take our left hand, our front hand, put a palm up towards us. We're going to take the other hand, put it right on top so wrists are touching. So one hand waving at the sky and one hand waving at the floor. So when we do our high defense, this low hand, the blocking hand, which always folds on the bottom, is going to cross our face all the way above our head and end at a 45-degree angle. We don't teach complete 90 because we feel it's a little weaker there. So we have a 45, so it's nice and strong, able to block either our face or something coming from above, like a hammer fist or a knife attack. So we're going to be folding on our back hip, front palm up, the other palm down. Again, shifting in the back stance, shifting here into our front stance. Or if they're just beginner kids, we fold standing still, just working on that wrist snap, having our pulling hand by our hip, and the other hand above our head. So that is called the high defense. The next block we have is called the outside defense. The outside defense, like I said, folds the same as the high defense, except the blocking hand this time will fold palm down, and the other hand on top will be also palm down. This outside defense, when we tell our kids, is teach them to say, get out of here. So we're talking about get out of here, that's the idea of the outside defense. The outside defense goes away from us, and the inside defense will go towards us. So we fold for the outside, blocking hand on the bottom, shifting weight on the back. We're going to throw it forward and cross our face just like that, with our thumb at our eye level. This is also to protect either the side of our head or the front of our face. We call it outside defense, blocking across the face. The next block that we have, and the final block we have, is called an inside defense. When we do an inside defense, this folds completely different than any of the other blocks. We're going to make a fist just like we did on low defense. It's going to go right to our ear, almost like we're punching ourselves in the side of the head, but don't punch yourself in the side of the head. We're going to put our other hand right out in front of us, and we're going to be blocking across our face. So as if someone's punching us towards their face, or trying to hit us on the side. Now this one won't work the same by shifting back to go to forward. This is better done in a front stance, shifting to back stance. The twist of the body naturally want to go backwards, so we're going to use it by going from front and shifting to back. So we call that the inside defense, making up our five basic blocks. So we have the low defense, knife-hand defense, high defense, outside defense, and inside defense. We teach that on both sides, left and right, and then we get a higher rank to the next level, which is yellow belt. We teach them how to move forward with our blocks. So the way that would work is, blocking hand matches the back leg. Inside defense stepping forward, high defense stepping forward, outside defense stepping forward, knife-hand defense stepping forward, and low defense stepping forward. Same kind of motion. In the higher rank we get, we teach them a little more fluidity. So instead of doing set, go, set, go, we'll be here in a fighting stance position, we'll block as we move forward, block as we move, without having to preset before. So several things come to mind immediately after seeing this demonstration. Mainly how the five basic blocks of Tonksudo are incredibly similar to some of the basic blocks we have in Kempo, but the execution of those blocks have some distinct differences. So let's take a look at the low defense, which we call the downward block. In Kempo, we generally use this as a defense against kicks, and the target area is about roughly what Sensei Ichi said, you know, upper chest to lower belt. Anything below that, we don't usually block with our hands, because it's a little bit too much of a compromise to try to lean forward, lean down, drop down, so we'll use leg checks more for that. Now, the delivery of all of our blocks are usually based off of one or two scenarios. Hands being down, as if we're caught by surprise, or from more of a defensive position or fighting position with our hands up. For the downward block, we don't load up high to the face, but rather we teach mainly beginner students to touch the opposite shoulder to load up for the blocks that they understand the sweeping motion. Otherwise, they tend to just shoot the arms straight down, and it doesn't really cover the vital areas. So, just as Sensei Ichi said, we want a circular motion, so we want to sweep across and down, and when we land, we have our hand matching the front leg, so we have the same angle as our front leg. We don't extend way out here, we don't stop short. We go around, and we stop right about there. Now, the knife hand defense that Sensei Ichi demonstrated is very similar to what we call the extended outward block. The only difference is, you know, instead of an open hand chopping action, we do more of the closed hand, and we deliver it as a bit of a hammering strike to the arm. In Kempo, all of our blocks are strikes as well, so we're not just trying to stop the attack, stop the limb, we're actually trying to inflict pain and damage it. So, we're actually stepping back, we're doing the same motion, but we kind of settle with that snap for the outward block, and we're just past the outside of our shoulder line. I want to go back to your outside defense, which we actually call the vertical outward block. Again, very similar in execution, however, we don't actually use this one as a block. In Kempo, we keep this one within our shoulder frame, whereas the extended outward block, we kind of literally extend past it. So, in Kempo, our vertical outward block, we don't quite use it as a block, but more as a check that follows up a previous block. So, if something were to punch and we were to deflect it, this maneuver allows us to track the limb, check it and guard it against them while we even deliver a counter strike or do another combination. So, this one is more of a check, it follows another block. Now, this demonstration of the inside defense is pretty much the same as our inward block. You know, we use that hammering motion to go across and clash with the striking limb. We've got two variations of this. So, if our hands are up, we deliver it the same way since the Ichi did, in the hammering motion, hammering the cross. If we're caught by surprise and our hands are low, we execute it more of a thrusting manner, it comes up. Now, the high defense, this one is the same as Kempo's upward block. We have pretty much the same applications between both systems, and it's very, very close with the same 45-degree angle to support a stronger brace as well as to provide an angle of deflection. We use this one a lot to catch upward strikes and maybe expose an opponent's torso. Or in the event of a weapon attack, such as a knife or a club, we'll usually evade, but we'll execute this just in case, you know, they clip us. The hand is there just in case something gets through. We rather take the strike to the arm instead of the strike to the head. The execution of the upper block is a little bit different though. We deliver the block following the path up straight up our torso, and then right when the fist gets to about our eye line, we snap out the elbow into the final position. And we do this to keep our vital targets and center line covered during delivery. And we even return it the same way, so if we're going to switch, we follow that same path. There seems to be a major difference in some of our stances. Sensei Ichi demonstrates a lot of his blocks by rotating to our front stance while blocking with the front hand. In Kempo, we call this front stance the forward both stance, and we use it almost exclusively when we're using our rear hand. And we do this for three reasons. One, our front hand strikes are closer to the opponent and they're usually good for quick snapping strikes, while our rear hand delivers the power. So rotating our front stance gives us that torque for that power. And two, the forward both stance provides us with a really strong bracing angle. It helps us retain balance in our foundation when we deliver the strike because our back leg is locked out and our weight is distributed 60% on the front leg, 40% on the rear leg. And the third reason is reach. If we were to stand in a neutral fighting stance, so say from the side, if we stand from neutral fighting stance and I want to reach out with my front hand, if I don't pivot, if I don't rotate, my rear hand can't reach. So demonstrating from this side, you can kind of see I don't have that same reach unless I pivot into that front stance. That pivot gives me the equal reach. Quick jabbing shots with the front hand and power shots with the rear. So I thought that was kind of interesting to see how the front stance transitions. Now, we also have a few other minor blocks that he didn't go over, but you will find me talk about them on his channel. So please go check out Sensei Ichi's channel where you will find the other half of this video in which he analyzes our blocks. I will put the link down below in the description. So let's go back to Sensei Ichi for some more additional blocks. Now, we also have five intermediate blocks which are the same as those blocks, but we add a reinforcing hand for support. So we teach this to our purple belts, orange belts, and blue belts, which we have reinforced low defense. We also have reinforced high defense. We call them X blocks. So we fold the same as low defense except we put the other hand on top to make the X. So it's about wrist to wrist, but it's like a low risk because we put complete wrist to wrist. We won't be able to defend ourselves here. We want to have a little bit more space so we can have room to block. So low X block will fold the same as low defense. Like I said, blocking hand always goes on the bottom. That's a rule. So blocking down the bottom, again, is a rule of supply, but instead of holding high, we're going to be folding low on our hip. So put our hands by your hip, again, enough space to defend. We go from the back stance, shift to front. We want to have enough room so we can see and enough room to guide the technique, whatever's coming at us, above our head and away from danger. We call it redirecting. We also do those two blocks open-handed. So open-handed low X block and open-handed high X block. This can also help with grabbing. We also have this in a few of our forms to defend and redirect the technique. So for our blocks, we don't just use them to stop. We reinforce the inside and the outside defense. So the inside defense folds by the air just like regular. But as we do that inside defense, we're going to take our pulling hand and we're going to bring it like a table right on the bottom. So I'm blocking right to the inside without reinforcing inside defense. So for the outside defense, our knuckles are going to go together on our back hip as if we're standing still and we're going to be shifting our way forward to the reinforced outside defense. Front leg with the blocking hand. So I'm folding on my back hip, knuckles together, and just what we did before on our other blocks, we're going to be using wrist snap. So our palms are going to fall down and we're going to flick up. Almost like you're punching yourself in the bicep. The other block that we have is called a reinforced center chop. We have two different chops. We have center chop and low chop. They could be used to block and they could also be used to strike. So our chopping hand is going to be on the chest and the reinforcing hand is going to be behind us. When we do this, we stay in a back sense with this one. We're going to be using hip snap and shoulder snap. So I'm winding up and I'm flicking it forward. So we have thumb and eye level, armor to 45 and the other arm is at the sternum. That's reinforced center chop. When we pull for reinforced low chop, we pull up to the sky just like we did on low defense and we're going to wind up and we're going to throw them down to do the low chop. So this will be used to strike the stomach or the growing area. This will be used to chop the side of the head or protect the head or protect the body. So that's what we call reinforced center chop and reinforced low chop. Now I know that there was more than five there but the center and the low kind of go hand in hand so I guess that makes it six total so I cheated, okay? So it's going to be 11. Now even though he snuck in that extra block, which we'll let you slide with that, we do have x-blocks in Kimpo as well but they're not as common as our basic blocks. When we do the high x, we're not trying to stop the attack in the event that they may have a weapon, a knife, a stick. They still have some wrist maneuverability or a stick might still carry through and just because we've stopped their hand doesn't mean the weapon can't turn or move. So when we use our x-blocks, we'll usually catch and immediately shift to redirect it and go to a number of different techniques. For the downward x-block, I did come across this a bit when learning Tracy Kimpo many years ago and it was used mainly to kind of catch and redirect the front kick but this really isn't something that you see very much in the Ed Parker Kimpo system. As far as the other reinforced blocks, we don't have those at all but it was really cool to see something entirely different. Our reinforced blocks come in the form of combining two blocks together such as the concept of double factoring. We'll often use an inward block to catch the attack because sometimes it's quicker to get there and it will follow up with an outward block so we kind of do a double factor block. We also have what we call the universal block which is usually an incoming round kick and we're not quite sure necessarily where they're going to target because you can't always predict where they're going to hit you so we'll use the universal block to kind of guard high, guard low and it creates a little bit of a shield. As far as what you were demonstrating before, that's really cool, we don't have anything like that. And to close this episode out, let's take a quick look at how differently we apply redirection. When we use the knife and defense in an interactive setting to defend, someone's coming at us with a straight punch, let's say, we're using it for redirection. So blocks can either be used as strikes like you do as well but we use them for redirection and also for control after the fact. So for knife and specifically, I'm going to be making a circular motion and blocking. I'm not going to be doing this pull-on circle when I block. I'm going to be doing it a little bit more with implementing wrist snap. So when somebody comes to punch, let's say they do a straight-on punch, I'm going to be meeting it and as I'm meeting with it, I'm going to be moving around it to redirect to control. So we are doing our blocks, we can use it to strike against the form and then follow up with a punch or we can use it to redirect the technique, control it and then bring that into a punch that we have for a knee strike, let's say. So that would be the knife hand. We could also use it from the backside, moving off to the side this way, blocking, controlling and striking. So the knife hand is good for open-handed grabbing purposes so we can redirect and move it, push it forward and follow up if we need to. So that's our knife hand defense. There are three blocks that go side to side. Knife hand is one of them, the other one is outside defense. So when we do our outside defense, we're actually going to be using the palm of our hand close to us and we're moving on the outside. So if we're talking about interactively, the inside is actually contrary to what it's to the opposite. So as I go, I'm pushing it to the inside this way so I can follow up forehand. So if I'm doing inside in a combo manner to follow up, let's say I would be doing one, I could use that front hand to strike back this way or I can block to move to the inside this way from the next punch. So inside against an attacker, flick of the wrist will actually push the arm away. So we're using that wrist snap that I showed in the basic block stand alone and we're going to implement it by using that wrist snap to flick the hand away on the inside as well as on the outside on the knife hand. So a little extra flick to help redirect the punch. Or if somebody's doing what we call a hay maker or a swinging punch, so if they're swinging this way, I could use the knife to drive in this way, I could use the outside to drive in this way or if it's coming from, I could also be coming to the inside, booming, driving this way also to kind of redirect and move it around. So we can treat them as a strike as well. Aiming at the wrist for weapon and you could aim mid-form to wrist for everything else but I wouldn't suggest aiming at the elbow or above because if that happens, the hinge will just hit me in the face and then it'll probably just, you know, open hand is slapping the face is never a good thing so I had it coming or I owe him money which I don't owe you money, do I? Okay, if a strike comes from overhead or it comes straight out of our face and we want to push it overhead for, let's say, an overhook we use the high defense. So we're using our high defense if it is coming straight overhead, let's say it's like a knife stab, it's coming straight over to the top of our head we're moving at it and we're hitting again form to form and it's coming up. We don't want to go too far above and straighten our arm out because if it is a weapon strike they're going to cut us in the side over here, stab us in the side so I want to keep it not completely 90, I want to keep it a little 45. If the knife is better here, if I keep it straight and he pushes, it's going to make me weak so I like to keep it 45 to make it strong against my attacker and I want to attack his attack with that block. So if a punch is coming straight at my face I can do the same kind of thing to block it high defense this way as well. So whether it's overhead or straight in, that's the high defense. Now our low defense is to block pretty much anything from about stomach to growing area anything lower we wouldn't really use the low defense because then we'd have to bend over and that doesn't make any sense so I like to keep it relatively within the body realm so if he's punching to the body this way he's going in to circle around. So when I catch it we start pricing folding by the ear if we were to do it live, if you were to be using it I want to be doing that same circular motion but I'm not going to start him here, I'm not going to say this guy's going to punch me in the stomach, I'm not going to go wait a minute, let me fall for low defense. Okay go it's not going to go that way. So he punched me in the stomach I'm just going to get the idea of circular low same thing with the other hand, circular low. If you've seen Karate Kid, the whole wax on, wax off and the floor thing, one of the founders of American Tongue Pat Johnson is the fight choreographer for the Karate Kid movies my father, Gregor Masters instructor so a lot of the blocks that we use are those blocks, that's where he got them from the whole wax on, wax off, that's knife and defense, that's outside defense. I guess you can call it the floor would be a variation of inside defense because but it's lower and then low defense for the other one and then paint the fence same thing, high defense, low defense same kind of situation so you can see the similarities there we actually do a stick defense where he comes in and they do a low defense this way too. Those are our five basic blocks. Now our principles here are a bit different since the Ichi is demonstrating how their blocks can be used on the person and then apply a redirection as opposed to just fully stopping the attack. In Kempo we define blocks as when force meets force with the intent of inflicting harm. For redirection in Kempo we have a series of parries that we use extensively and parries usually will ride the motion of a strike so you'll see our parries is where we actually apply a lot of our redirection and we'll do redirection counter grabbing from there so it's really interesting to see in Tonksudo they're actually doing blocks with redirection and catching from that point that's just kind of a different approach to what we do in Kempo I'd love to see different ideas like that and so that is a quick look at the Tonksudo basic blocks and how they compare to American Kempo now please be sure to go to since the Ichi's channel where he currently has the other half of this video in which I break down our Kempo blocks in more detail and he analyzes them I have the link down below in the description or another one should be popping up around here somewhere so please go support his channel there's a ton of great content and I think that sharing information like this only makes us all better martial arts practitioners now I know that we promised we wouldn't bash each other's ideas but red vines twizzlers bro she's just like I don't even know you now we still have two more of these videos coming up in the next few weeks one that's going to compare our basic strikes and another one that will compare our kicks so please subscribe and click on that bell icon if you haven't already so that you can get a notification when these episodes are ready thanks for watching