Recently, I was teaching a semi-private lesson with a couple of students. We were working on a new technique that took them a while to learn. They then asked me, “How do you counter this technique?” My answer was that there were several counters like anything in martial arts. They were excited. I said, “But…….“

“You haven’t even gotten this new technique down yet. To understand the counter, you need to understand not only how this technique works but also to relax.“

The biggest issue is that they either muscled their way through the technique or resisted it. They had not learned to relax.

In short: how do you expect to learn the counter when relaxation is absent?

To be fair to my students, they were enthusiastic about the lesson and were like kids on Christmas morning. How can I not be happy with this enthusiasm? To satisfy their curiosity, I showed them a basic counter to the technique they were learning. To their credit, they knew they were struggling with the basic technique and, more importantly, with relaxation.

Learning to counter requires relaxation. If you default to resisting techniques being performed on you, you will have difficulty seeing the counters. Resisting techniques seem to have the magical effect of creating tunnel vision and narrowing your options.

In other words, the more you relax, the more you can see the counter possibilities. Conversely, those possibilities narrow considerably when you focus on resisting a technique.

If you are not able to view this video, click here.

For example, in the above video, I tried to counter Alex’s punyo shot by stiff-arming and resisting him. See 0:13 through 0:20 of the video. Because I stiff-armed him, Alex got around this by punching me.

I often see students resisting or muscling their way through techniques and then asking me what the counters are. I always tell them, “You’ll learn the counters when you can demonstrate to me that you can relax.” 

In other words, what is the point of learning the “counter for counter” if you haven’t learned to relax?

“The more you relax, the more you can see the counters!”

I once asked Professor Presas about this at a camp in Atlanta after observing a player trying to muscle or resist a more experienced player. Over a breakfast of eggs and bacon, I asked him: “is it appropriate to resist a technique?”

Professor responded: “My God if you resist me, I will crush you. If someone resists, you must relax and go with the flow!” 

To pull off counters, you must be in a relaxed state. This means learning how to relax.

From an instructor’s perspective, it means teaching how to relax.

Teaching students to relax is sometimes difficult. Most students understand this intellectually.

However, to be able physically to relax is easier said than done. And, for some, it takes considerable training.

So, when teaching the concept of relaxation, I keep it simple. “Just relax throughout a basic drill and refrain from resisting or muscling a technique.”

For example, if I can show that I can stop Alex’s punyo feed in a relaxed state, then I’m ready to learn a basic counter. If I can’t show that I can relax, how I properly learn the counter?

Bottom line: I’ll teach you the counters when you learn to relax.

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