Legends of Kung-Fu #23 Chin-Na: The Science of Joint Locking Most kung-fu enthusiasts have heard of chin-na, the Chinese term for joint manipulation and locking skills. Unfortunately, there've been a few misunderstandings propagated about this term. There are some who are teaching chin-na as a style unto itself, calling it a system that they learned from some unknown and unseen master who taught them the secrets of joint locking. Let me make this abundantly clear: There are NO traditional Chinese schools of martial art that teach only chin-na as pure joint locking techniques. You have to understand that all Chinese martial art systems had to encompass four skills to be considered complete. Those skills are: 1. ti: kicking 2. da: punching 3. shuai: throwing, and 4. na: joint locking. Even Shuai-Chiao, the most ancient of China's martial arts and the closest thing to a pure grappling system in the Chinese martial annals, still incorporates all four skills to some degree, while it relies mostly on the "shuai" and "na" categories. Now to clarify further, the term chin-na is broken down into two words, both of which offer a great deal of insight into the important points of this combative sub-science. "Chin" means to seize. That means that the first priority of chin-na is for the opponent to be grabbed in some way. The grabbing techniques are divided into two difficulty levels: counter-grabs and non-contact grabs. A counter-grab is the most commonly seen type of chin-na, involving a response against a grabbing attack. For example, if an attacker grabs you by the neck and shoves you up against a wall, that's a situation where your chin-na techniques are used as a counter to someone's offensive grabbing technique. This is actually an easier situation to apply your joint manipulation technique because you are not facing a percussive attack. Your counter-grab will revolve around using the attacker's offending limb as a means to attack his body position. In other words, you might take the hand that's gripping your throat and yank it off with one hand while positioning your body at a greater distance, while at the same time gripping one of his fingers with your entire hand and snapping it backwards with all your force. The bottom line is that you get a chance to grab your opponent because he's already grabbed you first. A non-contact grab is a much more difficult situation for chin-na to occur. In this scenario, there is no prior contact between you and your attacker, offering you no easy bridge for your joint lock. For your joint lock to take effect, you have to develop strong capture skills, meaning that you have to develop hand-eye coordination, deft footwork, and a very fast grip. The grip is the first step to really developing useable skill, recalling the "chin" aspect of chin-na. This kind of grip strength isn't something that's easy to develop. Unlike the kind of strength developed by doing exercises like gripping a tennis ball or working the gripper bars with the steel spring, this kind of grip strength has to go from total relaxation to total tension in a split second. That means that there's no time for you to "build a grip", as one of my martial arts colleagues calls it. In other words, if you were to lunge forward, grab your opponent's wrist, and couldn't grab tightly enough to really control it quickly, he'd likely yank his wrist right out of your hand and belt you in the face. So this means that you have to slap on a tight, controlling grip and immediately maneuver your opponent into a lock, seemingly out-of-the-blue, before he has time to change his positioning and resist your lock. It's kind of like throwing a solid punch without telegraphing from a relaxed position. "Na" is the second part of chin-na, which implies the act of holding something in one's hand. That's the next stage of chin-na, which comes after the initial controlling hold has already been established and the joint has been manipulated, requiring the strong grip endurance to hold a struggling opponent's joint in a vulnerable position. There are two main types of finishing positions in chin-na: positions of pain submission and positions of joint damage. In a pain submission scenario, pressure points and techniques that overstretch connective tissues are used to cause an attacker substantial non-permanent pain that causes him to become compliant. Most police arresting holds fall into this category, obviously due to liability reasons. Positions of joint damage, however, require far less strength to control, since relatively little control is required when damaging a joint. If you've ever practiced joint locks in class with a partner who's a little too enthusiastic, you know exactly what I mean. For maximum effectiveness, explosive speed is of the essence. The goal is to maneuver your opponent's joint into a position of hyperextension or dislocation as quickly as possible. In a classroom or sport situation, this requires a great deal of control, but in a street situation, you need only go fast and furious. Here's one main point to remember for all of you who are thinking of practicing chin-na. While it's a great part of you combative arsenal, you still have to be aware of the other three limbs that you are likely not controlling. If you're trying to put a lock on a non-compliant opponent, it's a good idea to use striking techniques in conjunction to disorient them before you go for the actual lock. Think about it this way. If you have to worry about someone beating the hell out of you in addition to defending your wrist from a lock, you'll more likely that not put your priority on defending against the percussive techniques. Unless you're of a skill level like the late head of Paoting Shuai-Chiao, Chang Tung-sheng, it's almost impossible for you to get a solid joint lock on someone who's attacking you aggressively without combining striking techniques as a passageway to your final goal of joint control.
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