Creating your twenty-four techniques for your Level 7 test can feel daunting at first. It did for me, too. But it became one of my favorite parts of the journey, because the real value is not the techniques themselves. The real value is the process of creating them. By Level 6, you have learned the core patterns of striking, defending, feeding, disarming, and moving.
Technique creation is where you “break the pattern,” take what you’ve learned, and build your own versions with intention. It’s where the art starts to become yours.
Before I started creating my twenty-four, I wrote down a few personal rules, or “tenets,” to guide the process. I’m sharing them here because they helped me stay focused, efficient, and have more fun with it.
My Tenets for Technique Creation
Keep it simple, direct, and concise
I’ve seen great techniques created by the FQIs who came before me. The ones I appreciate the most are quick, clean, and easy to execute.
Complex techniques can be fun, and I enjoy them too. But in a pressure environment, complexity is less likely to hold up.
My personal filter was simple:
If I can’t do it cleanly under pressure, it needs to be simplified. Even then, I completely biffed a couple during my test.
Focus on the setup, not the follow-ups
When I was creating techniques, I kept wanting to add more, extra variations, extra follow-ups, extra “just in case” options. It was too much. I was going too far down the rabbit hole.
Eventually, I shifted my focus toward techniques that create a strong setup. If the setup is solid, it naturally leads to multiple follow-up options, depending on the opponent’s reaction. That’s what I want to give my students too: strong setups that create choices, not complicated scripts
When I wanted to show a favorite follow-up:
I would demonstrate only the setup first, then add the follow-up at the end as an optional variation.
There’s no such thing as originality
Every move that can be moved has been moved. If you create something that feels original to you, it has probably shown up somewhere in someone else’s training, too. That doesn’t make it less valuable.
About a month before my Level 7 test, GM’s third book was released. When I got to the section on countering the groupings, the first counter to Group 1 was something I had never seen before, but I had stumbled into it myself and built it into one of “my” twenty-four techniques.
That experience reinforced something important for me.
Original is not the goal.
Functional is the goal. Reliability is the goal. Teachable is the goal.
Substance over style
One of my favorite things about Taboada Balintawak is that GM encourages us to put our previous arts into our techniques. That approach is brilliant, and it makes the art personal.
My one frustration is when someone tries so hard to “put their art in it” that the technique becomes over-stylized. It can start to look like an awkward hybrid instead of a clean application.
I think it’s better to bring in the principles of your art, not the costume of it.
Principles travel well. Poses don’t.
The principle should be visible in the result, not the shape. Pressure doesn’t care what it looks like; it cares what holds up.
GM once told me, “I want to see your Kung Fu in it.” I told him my Kung Fu is in everything I do; I just don’t try to make my Balintawak look like a Kung Fu movie.
Let go of attachments
During the creation process, you are going to find techniques you like that just don’t work well. I did too.
At one point, I was holding onto a mediocre technique because I really liked the idea behind it. That’s a trap. Forcing a technique to work just because you want it to be good rarely works.
A good idea is not the same thing as a good technique.
If it didn’t hold up with honest timing, I cut it, even when I liked it. If it’s not holding up, let it go. You can always come back to it later. Just avoid letting it block better work.
Find the counters, but only to a point
When you create a technique and then find a counter, you now have two techniques. That’s valuable. But for me, the real benefit of finding counters was improving the original technique. I didn’t try to chase every possible counter during the creation phase because it would have become an endless study.
Instead, I preferred to pressure-test my techniques with other students and teachers. I wanted to see how they naturally countered what I was doing. That feedback helped me refine the technique into its best version.
Use counters to sharpen the blade, not to start a new collection.
A few good counters helped me tighten the original, then I moved on.
Now that I’m Level 7, I’m excited to explore counters more deeply. At this point, the deeper rabbit hole becomes part of the work.
Looking Further Beyond the Twenty-Four
Now that I’ve created my twenty-four, tested them, and reflected on them, there are a couple of things I might do differently.
Choose techniques that teach
The first question I would ask sooner is this: Can this technique be used as a teaching tool? Can it serve as a foundation for learning, exploration, and coaching, rather than just a “cool sequence” for a test?
Some techniques are effective, but they aren’t valuable teaching tools. Others open up an entire training conversation, timing, range, angle, pressure, and principle.
If I were doing it again, I would prioritize techniques that teach.
Explore multiple setups, without disappearing into the rabbit hole
The second thing I would do differently is explore different ways to set up each technique.
Not different follow-ups. Not endless variations. Just different entries that lead into the same core idea.
That matters because in real training, and especially under pressure, you won’t always get the exact same feed or the exact same moment. A technique that only works with a single perfect setup is fragile. A technique that can be entered from two or three common situations is much more durable.
A simple rule I like: Keep the technique the same, but be able to do it as both the feeder and defender.
The goal is not to collect variations. The goal is to make the technique easier to access when things are messy.
And if the setup exploration starts getting too deep, I treat that as a sign that I’m building a second technique. That’s not bad, it just means I should label it separately and move on.
Final Thought
I’m not claiming these are the best or only rules for technique creation. But these tenets kept me honest, and they kept my techniques functional.
If you stay simple, build strong setups, avoid over-stylizing, and pressure-test with good training partners, your twenty-four will come together faster than you think.
And more importantly, you’ll come out of the process with a deeper understanding of the art.
