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The Pivotal
A pivotal is the point of contact between your bata and your opponent's bata or your bata and your opponent's body. It is a source of leverage and power from which all techniques are launched. Having an intuitive understanding of the pivotal and the forces at work around it is the key to being a successful Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha fighter.
Examples:
- The pivotal can act as a fulcrum: In the basic disarming technique the contact between the two batas and the opponent provides a fulcrum for prying the opponent's bata out of his hand. (See second photo on the left.) The basic disarm is discussed and demonstrated on a later page.
- The pivotal can act as a deflection point: A short-range stick punch (i.e. both hands on the bata and the ends, not the tips, act as extensions of the fist) creates a pivotal between the end of the bata and the opponent's body. The deflection force generated when this pivotal is created allows the fighter to easily turn his bata and throw another short-range stick punch with his other hand/stick-end. This in turn forms yet another pivotal.
- The pivotal can act as a pivot point: If a Uisce fighter's current pivotal is at one end of his bata, he can use it as a pivot to flip the other end of his bata into his opponent. (See third photo on the left.)
One goal of Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha is to disarm the opponent. Therefore some of the most important pivotals are those that lead to disarmament. A Rince an Bhata Uisce Bheatha fighter is always searching for that key pivotal and chooses his moves accordingly.
More details on pivotals can be found on the pages that discuss specific techniques.
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