I’ve recently launched a Patreon account so I could return to the applications seen in Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata. I wanted to share the deep dives into my ongoing research on traditional martial arts, including expanded photo sets, application breakdowns, and long‑form reflections that don’t always fit neatly into a standard blog post.
Since the launch of the book, we’ve had lots of great video from seminars and workshops. These are perfect to supplement the static photos in the book, and Patreon members get to see applications direct from the events we’ve held to celebrate the book.
The article below is one of the free pieces featured there, presented here in full on this blog. Patreon supporters get access to the extended series this article belongs to (see the links below), along with access to premium content and behind‑the‑scenes material from my current projects.
Right after a sparring session a few years ago, one of the black belts approached me and asked where I’d learned the hand skills I was using in our exchange. “Was that Wing Chun?” he asked. “Actually, it’s Traditional Taekwondo.” He didn’t believe me.
For nearly two decades my school and I have been analysing traditional martial arts patterns. This wasn’t reverse engineering, that is we weren’t trying to make old movements fit modern preferences. It was functional analysis aimed to reconstruct historical skills, or at least imagine what they were designed to achieve.
Take Bassai’s three middle‑block sequences. Our goal was never to justify the pattern. We wanted to absorb the technique phrase into our working vocabulary so we can use, test, and refine its tactical worth.
To explore the technique, we stand in front of an opponent who throws a slow attack, which we deflect. Then a slow combination, which we also deflect. As our ability improves, the difficulty of the attack increases. Eventually the two‑man exchange approaches full speed, and we can then move testing into an unscripted combative exchange. This is not done at full pace; both partners move proportionately to the other. This free‑flowing and ultra-safe environment lets us study whatever technique against a live opponent, and helps with the ongoing functional analysis.
This unscripted exchange has shaped our pattern analysis more than anything else. We’ve learned that every slice of motion can be used to deflect, cover, or strike. With a wide-ranging remit, we take aspects of the middle block, for example, using it to deflect a straight cross, and drill it, running variations upon variations. We do the same with the knife‑hand guarding block, the twin‑fist block, even an elbow strike. Eventually techniques blur and blend, becoming simply the read of distance, timing, angles of entry, and the expansion of your physical structure to connect with the opponent.
After my first book, I found myself writing a story set in 19th‑century Ryukyu, during the Japanese subjugation of the islands. The cultural pressure and financial hardship pushed former bureaucrats to develop a new training system called karate. As I researched the personalities and consolidated the historical canon, I began to understand how deeply Chinese martial arts, culture, and food influenced Ryukyu. That pushed me to study Chinese‑based systems and expand on the basic concepts I’d explored in my first book.
As opportunities arose to explore Chinese‑based systems, I found concepts that immediately clarified gaps I’d carried for years. The idea of fajin, and the broader principles of internal energy manipulation, offered powerful analogies for kinetic chaining and kinesthetic movement. They revealed how leverage, structure, and intent could be directed through the body to destabilise an opponent.
If you’re curious what this looks like in practice, I demonstrate a basic soft‑style leverage application in this clip: Hard-Style Meets Soft Style: Ryukyu Karate Applications You’ve Never Seen Before (2:44-3:21).
Even a basic understanding of soft-style principles have given me a deep appreciation of how muscle control, structure, and intent could be used to destabilise an opponent. Hard‑style training had always hinted at these dynamics, but here they were expressed cohesively, with a precision that made the underlying mechanics unmistakable.
Behind-the-scenes at photoshoot for the book
With the middle block, the external training is still useful as it trains the practitioner to run interference on the opponent or weave through their defences. But inside the movement there could be more: the soft-style relay of waveform energy from the ground, through the body, into the opponent.
The middle block could be dismissed as arms waving in the air. But the hands should be waving, and transmitting the ground force travelling through the body. When the middle block connects, you’re sending that entire waveform through the opponent. Do you send it as a vertical pulse? Do you shake the tree? Do you float him while striking? Do you sink the energy so his hips collapse?
Or has the opponent trapped your limb, and you’re using the middle block to disrupt his centre of gravity before countering with a blitz?
When that black belt asked if I was using Wing Chun, he wasn’t wrong to see something unfamiliar. What he saw wasn’t a different style, it was the result of twenty years of digging beneath the surface of my own tradition. The forms gave me the entry point, but the real lessons came from what was there before the form: the centreline control, the kinetic chaining, the soft‑style leverage, the waveform mechanics that had never been spoken of aloud. I certainly didn’t set out to reinvent anything, and I never chased other arts to fill a gap. I simply followed my practice until it led me here, to a place where the form is no longer the destination, but a doorway to the lessons it always meant to teach.
Breaking Through Application One, Full Article Series:
- Bassai Wrist Release Photos That Didn’t Make the Book
- Patreon Premium: Bassai Dai: The Wrist Release, Head Capture, and Hidden Skills Behind Step 1a-1b
- Training for Multiple Opponents in a Hard Style Context
Breaking Through Application Two, Full Article Series:
- Why Bassai Repeats the Middle Block Three Times, and What That Means for Application 2
- Patreon Premium: When the Middle Block Stops Being a Block
- Evolving the Middle Block from Hard Style System into a Soft Style Artform
Bio: Colin Wee is a Singaporean author, martial‑arts instructor, and cultural historian whose four‑decade practice spans Asia, Australia, and the United States. Known for his analytical approach and deep tactical insight, Colin blends historical research with lived experience to illuminate the human stories behind martial traditions. He is the founder of Joong Do Kwan in Perth, Western Australia, and serves as Secretary of the Australasian Martial Arts Hall of Fame (see About the Author).
You can get a copy of Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata from Amazon or directly from the author at Ingram Sparks.
© 2023 Colin Wee. Images reproduced from Breaking Through: The Secrets of Bassai Dai Kata. All rights reserved. No part of these images may be reproduced or distributed without permission.
