Check-and-Answer System

Mat Manual companion guide to "Check It and Answer." Print it. The article explains the four-beat defensive chain: check their rear roundhouse, set the checking leg down forward, cross as their leg retracts, then your own roundhouse or a step-in knee. This book builds each beat apart, shrinks the gaps between them, and then turns the system around to train the committed return that covers the answer.

Name: ______________________________ Gym: ______________________________ Grade: ______________ Start date: ______________ Lead side (circle): Left / Right Current week (Part 11): ______________

BEFORE ANYTHING: PARTNER SAFETY AND AGREEMENTS ☐ All partner work in this book runs at agreed speed and agreed contact, stated out loud before each drill. Either partner can lower the speed or the contact at any time with one word, and the drill obeys instantly. ☐ Checks are shin against an incoming kick, on purpose. Feeding kicks land at the agreed target and level, checks run at half speed and light contact until both partners pass the card at that level, and shin pain is a stop signal, not a conditioning goal. ☐ The feeding kicker always kicks the agreed side and target in the early cards. A system for answering kicks is not built on surprise feeds. Random sides belong to Part 13, after the beats pass. ☐ The step-in knee finish is trained on pads. Knees to a partner's body run touch-contact only, in the cards that say so. ☐ The committed-return work in Part 7 and Part 14 includes answering the answer with a cross at agreed contact on a guard or pad. No return cross is thrown at an unguarded head in this book. ☐ Stop on any pain, dizziness, or loss of control, from either partner, with no argument and no finishing the set first. Log what happened in the session log (Part 16).

Part 1: The Chain at a Glance

One defensive chain, four beats, no neutral moment. If a rep contains a reset, it was two techniques, not this system.

Chain law: the finish is read off the range at beat three, never chosen before the check. Both finishes are trained so the read has somewhere to go. A worker who kicks from knee range, or knees from kick range, has skipped the read, and the rep does not count.