Deeper insights on Critical Contact Flow goals: Lightness, proximity, simultaneous return and instant rooting.
You want to be right inside with GC but you have to train to eliminate the tightness that’s been drilled into us from other systems.
Your “stance” is anywhere you Drop and thus changes continuously, providing a “root that can’t be found” (by the enemy).
Again, you unbalance to set up further hits, not to “throw” the enemy where he can regroup.
With repeated viewings, watch how John ricochets off of 1 strike to further strikes and changes them instantly if blocked.
Note how against 2 attackers John moves both offline and into another attack entry simultaneously without retreating where he could be chased and run down. He stays “in the fight” while remaining unavailable.
Note how against 2 attackers John uses a backwards boxstep/drop to generate rotational power that moves both of them while borrowing their energy.
John shows how hand development makes gouges more devastating. (See Slambag vids for training that works this).
Note how push/pull springboard energy is used to power rapidly changing multi-hits (pull>hit; ricochet>hit, etc.; “Ping-pong…”)
Flowing is essential. When you resist (or block) you cannot respond with an immediate counter-attack feeding off their incoming energy.
The result of the above is that the enemy can’t get purchase on your body while you’re hitting them. Resistance ruins this. This is why we don’t grapple in GC: it sets you up for failure.
John demos how destructions (like in GC Combat Boxing strikes) against the enemy’s hands and limbs can open up more vulnerable areas, especially when the enemy stiffens.
You may do more “controlling” type moves with a less-dangerous enemy (like if you’re a LEO) – and Contact Flow does develop the ability to create “ad-hoc” locks and breaks – but typically as a civilian your life is in danger when attacked (because you should be avoiding fights where ever possible) and you need to fight for your life with penetrating strikes. As John says, “It’s STUPID for a civilian to try and control a guy” -- which makes locking, grappling and controlling arts invalid. Locking wastes time – time that you can’t afford.
Note again how John hits both on the way in (like with a palm heel) and on the way out (with a chop) and how they instantly feed off of each other. (Linking strikes this way is also shown in drills on the GC Combatives vid).
John shows how every move is powered by a weight shift and drop – even yielding and evasive moves.
When you’re dropping you can blast through an enemy’s simple hand block because he’s fighting your gravity-amplified body weight.
A subtle adaptation of the above though that really typifies GC is where the energy of a roundhouse strike that is blocked (13;12) instantly changes to a more direct thrusting strike.
If they do get purchase on your body they will be using more strength and that can be used to pull them in or out depending on directional weakness you sense, unbalance and/or hit off their stiffness. In the example John shows at 8:53, the enemy is pushing UP against his arm so he “Answers the Phone”, smashing into their face with either the hand or the elbow. Note that he then pivots off the elbow and immediately follows with a down hammerfist, ricocheting off the previous strike, a great example of how GC encourages multi-hitting by borrowing energy. This is followed by more destructions against the enemy’s hands and limbs, "I’ll just break anything that touches me.”
You can’t just throw (unbalance) them directly. John “gips” (pulses) them one way to get a reaction and then unbalances them the other way.
The effect of this weighting/unweighting, dropping, shedding, ricocheting, reversing, returning, circling, etc., while moving in and offline with your whole body, is that you are not “dueling” with their hands – you are entering and penetrating.
Great example at 14:00 how if your hand is on their body but not hitting you can upset their balance (and their attack) as a prelude to you hitting.
Great adaptation example at 15:38 of how a blocked arm creates a reference point at your elbow, setting up a devastating pivot strike (hammerfist) to the back of the neck – aided by shifting, dropping and turning the body. Then, a further adaptation to the blocked pivot strike where John bounces a fake (pulsed) shot off the block to another pivot strike to the same target – which is now vulnerable because the enemy reacted to the 1st one.
At 16:26 if you watch repeatedly in slow motion (using the MATRIX Slo-mo Looping feature), you can see not only how John enters more easily with one arm than by “dueling” with 2 – but that he gets to the attacker’s throat (an outward motion) by first smacking the back of his head (an inward motion). The space between these 2 strikes is just a microsecond but the 1st sets up the 2nd by getting him to react (not to mention they’re both devastating anyway).
Great example at 16:43 of being Unavailable and Unavoidable (“hitting where you’re going to be, not from where you are”). From this offline position post-strike he unbalances the enemy, making a counter attack impossible.
