Maai Combative Spacing

Maai 間合い

Combative spacing or maai is important to investigate early on and come to understand. In weapons combat it is essential. Although at some point it disappears later in training, during the early stages it behooves us to make sure we understand when we can hit and when we can be hit. This seems like common sense. However, it is something often overlooked.

Training ourselves to understand the spatial planes around us and our opponent is a worthy endeavor. In this photo, I am explaining how to do basic striking in Japanese fencing. In this case, striking from issoku ittō no maai, one step, one cut interval.