The focus here is double stick. As we have discussed previously, one of the most common things that we see in double stick is that people will put one stick in front and load up the rear one for a caveman strike. The front stick jabs and blocks and the rear one throws the caveman strike, perhaps into a power downward 8.
We call this structure “The Siniwali Caveman” and it is natural to the human animal, be it sword & shield or boxing or double stick. Indeed, it is so natural that someone with relatively little flight time with sticks can manifest the essence of it rather quickly.
This can be infuriating to the fighter who has invested lots of effort into cultivating his stick skills. Not only can he not get past the front stick without getting cracked by the big Caveman strike that is waiting behind it, he is quite often being continuously backed up as the Siniwali Caveman fighter presses forward behind the shield and/or jabbing of the front stick.
What to do?
In our DVD “Dos Triques” we showed two sets of variations to answer this question: “Frondo 3″ and “Tricky 21″, both of which are based upon striking the front stick momentarily out of play and taking advantage of having two sticks in play while the opponent has only one. These are not the only possibilities. There are also “the New York” and “Santikan” also knock the front stick momentarily out of play.
The track record for these teachings is well-established, but there will be opponents who do not let you knock the front stick momentarily out of play– especially after you have done so a couple of times!. They ward off incoming blows and counter with power.
The Subversive Game, so named because we strike from the inside of the opponent’s structure, is for solving exactly this problem.
By adding the Subversive Game to your game, you should have a complete set of games for getting past your opponent’s front stick, be it horizontal, diagonal, or vertical. Bring the fight to him on your terms!