Topic: physical training
Power, Force, and Kinetic Energy are words which are used to support theories. Like Chi and Prana, the words have taken on a magical meaning. However, punching and kicking are not that difficult to describe and do not require much math. Math only comes into play when a person wishes to confuse the issue by throwing numbers at you.
As in any discussion, we will begin by defining the terms which will limit the discussion.
Power is the total possible output of a given system.
Force is an amount of power which is focused by purpose in a direction.
Kinetic energy is the force which accelerates a given mass to a given velocity.
Energy is that component which is not physical. When my punch hits you, a part of my fist is not left behind. Energy is transfered.
Chi is energy. In translation, all definitions, chi is similar to the concept of mass/energy of physics. In practical terms of the martial arts, Chi is anything which cannot be explained but can be felt. After Chi is experienced, it can be defined much like light can be divided into a spectrum. There are qualities, essences, components, and many other varieties of definition depending on the culture, depth of experience, and specific Martial Art.
To further limit this discussion, I would like to point out that every Martial Art was developed by people who were poor, illiterate, and had limited social skills. Further, the training was developed and results noted long before anybody bothered to wonder what was really happening. Our current Scientific Training, which every public school teaches, teaches us how to compare data and test theories at an incredibly fast rate. Most Martial training can take years to develop any skill and development of these programs often took generations. It is easy to listen to stories of Martial History and only remember that one guy developed a style. It is easy to forget that these styles were the result of training multiple other styles which developed from combining "traditional" training methods.
As an example, Hung Gar is the result of multiple masters combining and refining the complete training programs of at least ten styles. This was before the Tiger Crane set which every one talks about. Tong Bei is the result of over seven styles which was refined on the military battlefield by the general who named it. It is also easy to forget that Shaolin Long Fist is not what every body learns. The Ten forms of Shaolin are the beginner levels. The other styles were to be learned after a person had built this foundation and Long Fist is only one of them. When the Buddhist temples were burned and the monks hunted down, most of the kung fu knowledge was lost.
Hopefully we are now in a position to discuss physical training in an adult manner.
Physical damage caused by punches and kicks is often described as the result of mass and speed. Since you cannot change mass you should work on speed. This is a horrible simplification of the process. The mass behind a punch or kick is variable. This concept also assumes that force is efficient and enough time has passed for that energy to transfer. It also assumes that you are capable of transferring that amount of energy.
First I will go over limitations to striking and what training, at the basic level, which removes or controls that limitation.
Second I will go over the aspects of force which are overlooked by most people, even when their style has that ability, and the training which develops it.
The primary limitation to the application of energy is stability. Stabilizing movement of any kind limits the amount of energy which can be transmitted. Moving the feet, maintaining balance, recovering balance, entering range, and countering attacks all limit the amount of energy which can focused into an attack. As the saying goes, you should not fire a cannon from a canoe. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The power of the strike is, simultaneously following the path backward. Therefore, whatever force you are directing must be equal to or less than the force which you can withstand without falling over. The training which allows you to control this limitation is stance work. How you stand and what direction you strike in from a given posture is the result of training to be stable. The more energy focused, the more stability needed. With proper stance work the only limitation is the strength of the ground you are standing on.
The next limitation is the strength of the bones and joints. If you break your own bones with a strike then you did not transfer all of that energy into the opponent. You might as well hit with less power since a broken bone imposes a serious limitation on the energy transfer of the next strike. There is also a factor of time. Everything has a plasticity which determines how it will break. Wood, bricks, steal, and bones all bend before they break. When any energy is introduced into any system, this energy builds up in a location depending on the rate of introduction and the rate at which this energy is conducted by the system. A small amount of energy applied quickly will damage a substance when a slow introduction of a tremendous amount will have no effect. Think of the difference between a cutting torch which can burn through metal in seconds and the heat which a pan will endure while cooking in a restaurant over the whole day. Alternately you can think of the strong man who can pull a plane with his teeth and who would not try to catch a hammer with his teeth. This limitation is over come through choice of targets and through experience. Everybody knows how a heavy bag is used. What they ignore is that the experience teaches you how to hit without injuring yourself. Most Martial Schools have the students hit a variety of objects to teach them how to hit various parts of the opponent without damaging their ability to focus energy in later strikes. They will also teach the students to hit specific targets with specific body weapons to further limit the possibility of unfocused and unwanted damage.
Speed is the next limit. It should be noted that speed is the result of coordination. There is much discussion over the speed of the hands when punching. Everyone ignores baseball. A good pitcher can throw a baseball at 100 miles an hour. Rarely do you get to be a pitcher under 80 MPH. Untrained people at Six Flags have been clocked at about 30. What this means is that how fast the arm moves is the result of the whole body being coordinated. It is relatively easy to get beginners fast enough where their punches whistle through the air. However, most people can actually be seen punching while their body is moving away from the target. Hardly good coordination. Speed also allows the student to cause damage to select targets when hitting with the wrong body weapon. For example, a punch to the side of the head will often break the hand. Of course, knuckles can be trained to strike surfaces while the side of the head is rarely trained to be a weapon. An important factor to consider is that the skull has the brain behind it while the knuckles have more bone behind them. A slow and powerful strike to the head will be absorbed by the skull and neck muscles. A fast strike will conduct through the bone and the energy, minus what was needed to damage the skin and muscle surrounding the skull, will continue into the brain. An even faster strike can actually use the bones behind the target as a brace which will allow more control over the resulting damage. The training for this is the boards and bricks which are broken. Each requires a different amount of speed for a given force to result in a break.
From this basic information we can determine a simple way to predict whether we can efficiently transfer energy and control the result.
The amount of force our stance can withstand should be greater or equal to the amount of force we can conduct which should be less than or equal to the body weapon used. The resulting energy should be considerably greater than the target can safely conduct. Many people are proud of knocking someone off of their feet. However that is wasted effort. Knocking someone over actually means that the target has conducted enough energy to the rest of the body for the body to respond with movement. The force which knocks a person back is power which is not causing damage. So the energy applied should be faster than the target can conduct (intensity) and less than the force necessary to move the body.
This appears simple enough. Now we shall move on to concepts which are often overlooked.
Kicks are just powerful steps. The whole point of training to kick is so that you can increase your stability. If you can kick with power then you can punch while stepping. A good kick should add tremendous power to the following punch.
The flaw in most popular kicks, I hesitate to say all kicks, is that they are viewed as a range attack rather than a powerful step. without the hands striking it is easy to catch the leg. With "kicking" range the leg takes too long to fully extend and then pull back to the original position. With chambered kicks there is even more time used to get the leg to the chambered position and often the leg is chambered again before it is put down. This need to chamber coupled with range has caused most people to fully extend the base leg. This causes the kick to rely on balance rather than stability and reduces the amount of energy which can be conducted to the target.
This leads us to the popularity of jump kicks. Jump kicks have the primary limitation of gravity. This means that during a jump kick you are trying to focus the energy of the jump or the energy of the fall into the target. This requires a high level of coordination and a very fast kick. It does not make the kick more powerful! The stability of the posture in the air must be balanced by the power of the kick. If the kick is too powerful or too weak then you will land badly. The only way to increase the power of a jump kick is to jump higher which only increases the amount of time an opponent can use to disrupt your focus. A jump kick simply teaches a student to step faster from one stance to another. A jump kick is not an advanced kick.
Body conditioning has to be over the whole body. Simply conditioning the hands, forearms, or any individual body part simply moves the damage to the next weakest location.
Push-ups, sit-ups, running, and squats are whole body exercises. All injury and "danger" from those exercises is the result of bad form and people who try and "maximize" the preferred results. The first achievement of these exercises is efficient coordination, then endurance, then power, then development of the obvious muscle groups. This is why bad push-ups damage the shoulders, bad squats damage the knees, bad sit-ups damage the back, and bad running gives shin splints. People have been using these four exercises as the foundation of all training for thousands of years. Many martial art programs only have this training and most yoga postures are variations and combinations of those exercises.
Muscle groups work in opposition. Coordination is also in opposition. Expressing power is different from dissipating power. Attacking is different from defending. Both must be trained and be in balance. This is why "Traditional Martial Arts" has such a range of training techniques.
This is also why so many people think the exercises are useless.
Why would "breath control" be so important when most people don't have the skill to take advantage of it. The obvious fact that ribs break when inhaling, lungs are damaged when the breath is held, and strikes can be withstood by exhaling should support the importance of breath control as a basic skill.
The fact that fighting requires focus and the maintenance of an emotional state should support meditation as a basic skill. It is always the first thing removed when someone creates their own style.
The statement that most fights end on the ground should support training not to fall or be thrown. Why does everybody just train postures which make it easier to throw them? If ground fighting is so effective, why don't most people train to stop it? Ground fighting is not a basic skill. Stopping grappling is a basic skill and this is why every body teaches to keep stepping and keep the hands moving. A powerful punch does not need to move around. You simply strike when the range is correct. The attacker needs to pass through the punch to reach you. How can you not hit him? After the kick is the punch, then the knees, then the elbows so how does he get by all of them? Maybe the opponent sucks at hitting? I wrestled and was taught to stop grappling with an elbow to the neck and shoulder. How can someone taught to strike with the elbow not be able to do this? Elbows are basic.
Basics are an incredibly powerful aspect and they need to be explored to the fullest. The Egotistical need to learn the "important" moves is the greatest cause of weakness in every Martial Art. This need to bypass basic techniques to learn the "advanced" simply causes students to perform advanced movements without the benefit of basic power or stability. This is why techniques "don't work in a real fight". This is why Controlling the Ego is taught as a basic technique and is the most important aspect when applying any physical effort.
Kung Fu is not only effort over time, it is efficient effort and correct effort which is maintained over time.
