The Critical Margin

In Japanese martial arts there is always much discussion of the critical margin in an attack and it usually is directly related to the distance between you and your opponent. A legendary example is the duel between Musashi and Kojiro in which they both struck at each other simultaneously. Kojiro's blow sliced through the knot of Musashi's bandana whereas Musashi's blow crushed Kojiro's skull. In real combat a distance of an inch could make the difference between life and death; a critical margin indeed! There are lessons in this story that can be used to illustrate Musashi's grasp of the importance of these margins and I have already covered some of these in the post 'Musashi's Oar' from September 2008. There is another aspect to the story in the fact that Musashi tied a towel round his hair as a bandana and left the knot on his forehead. Why did he do this? Maybe as a means of keeping his hair out of his eyes (Musashi had notoriously long and unruly hair as opposed to the shaven topknot of most Samurai). Or maybe it was there as protection; just enough protection to make a difference where the critical margin was an inch or two? We will never know if Musashi was lucky or just very very good but I think that very good makes it own luck a lot of the time......
On a much less lethal level there have been many times in my fencing career where I have attacked someone, missed by an inch and then got hit by a counter-attack or riposte. It's very annoying when that happens and it is usually down to one (or several) reasons:

Incorrect technique selection: I'm either too close to use it or too far away, possibly because my footwork was wrong
Poor execution of the technique: no explanation needed!
Opponent out of range: they are moving away from me when I attack
Telegraphing: I make it obvious what I am going to do and they adjust distance before I do it
I attack the wrong bit of the target: due to my foil background I still tend to fleche to the body not the arm and can't cover the distance quick enough
Not getting inside their reflex time: I don't move them where I want them to be
A predictable rhythm: it makes it too easy to avoid my attacks

The all pervading factor in the examples above comes down to one of the three D's of fencing; distance. If you can't manipulate the space and distance of a combat then you are likely to lose it. It really is the critical margin of any fight and will determine the success or failure of the move you are attempting. Step in too deep and your feint won't have time to execute or you are vulnerable to counter; step in too short and you just won't hit or won't provoke the move that you are looking for. Distance distance; details details....