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Lähitaistelu (Close Combat) Part 2 - Vartalon Hallinta (Body Management) - Stances and Falls



In the work published as All In Fighting, Fairbairn says that there was little point in teaching soldiers how to fall - for their purposes it wasn't worth the time.  In more regular times, however, falling is one of the skills that will genuinely help most people at some point in their lives.  For all the taking of swords and guns I've practised, the thing I can categorically say has saved me from serious injury at least twice is being able to fall well (no doubt I will trip over and hurt myself tomorrow now).

Here a full range of falling/rolling is taught.   Interestingly, getting up is also taught - a weakness of many syllabi is the teaching of falling down followed by lackadaisical getting up -  a practical example of a lack of Zanshin.

Here we start to see the foundation of the system through the 'kamae' which is used for all situations/weapons.  It may be a simple stance but it runs through the entire curriculum - the stance or approach does not really change at all.  Note the forward roll is shown single-handed with the left hand down - this is the same position as if a rifle is held.  Throughout the film, after every action, the demonstrator returns to the default position.

One of the problems of many combative systems is that they will import modules they deem to be missing without modification to match the existing system (probably because there isn't one, or it isn't understood).  The classic example is arts that have been cobbled together from sports realising they do not deal with knives.  They then import a branch of Phillipino martial arts and suddenly have two very different approaches with the end user effectively being asked to change approach completely based on particular scenarios.


Vartalon Hallinta (Body Management)



The default stance:




Getting up, often overlooked:






Falling:












Rolling:










I'd encourage anyone with a knowledge of the unique Finnish language to comment corrections to the translation of the titles in this series.

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