People cannot remain tense all over their bodies for any length of time it is unnatural. Also it is impossible for them to move whilst they are completely tense. You should therefore experiment responding with movements that make you safe whilst creating tension and density in your partners. This can cause them to stumble or contort to avoid the threat. More skillful people will escape in a manner that preserves their own form. Often they may do this by rolling or stepping out of the way.

You can also use your movements to gather the density in one place. This will free other parts of the body from density and make them easy to manipulate.

In this kind of work it has a very psychological approach whilst drawing from your physical work and movement.

The next area of work to appreciate is support and permission. This work is easy to describe. If a person leans on you and they do not fall over they are drawing support through your body. You are therefore giving them too much permission. We should learn to move away from the pressure of the persons weight or push causing them to fall. It is very similar to a person who when he trips grabs onto a branch of a tree. If this snaps or gives way the person will fall over because they are no longer able to draw support from it.

Sometimes you can move in such a way that you can offer support that is not there. The opponent who has had his form disrupted will sense or see something to grab or lean on. If you move correctly this support will disappear once they are committed to it, but before they get a chance to lean on it. A good example of this is when you go to push on a door to open it, but just as you make contact someone on the other side opens it causing you to stumble forward.

When you combine these principles you can create many interesting and subtle forms of work. There are other forms of no contact work including the stopping of an opponents breathing, but this article is only a starting point. The following demonstrations show some examples of training drills and the use of non-physical work.