Good Form in Basics

[Lance C]

Good Form in Basics

Recently a topic of "how hard can you hit" and "why" came up in class after using "Herman" to look at people's form and the impact measurements. One of my adult students found that a few of the "under 12'ers" were comparable. We looked closely at what he was doing tried to troubleshoot improvement.

This guy went home a bit upset over the low scores and spent the weekend watching fight tapes, and reading on improvements to his form that could be made. He came back several days later with some ideas he had been practicing on and attempted to "high score" His average had gone up 100% and his Maximum hit went up 100%. We used me to validate the setup of the test, and I scored about 70% of normal (probably due to the cold I have)

That is, this student spent three days learning, watching others and practicing his form and was able to DOUBLE! his scores.

From my observations and questioning of the individual that most of the progress was made by using more hip rotation, and a higher level of intent for the punch. His new scores are typical to his body weight and time in training, however it wasn't the two years training, but one weekend that brought his punch scores to where he wanted them. (We discovered at this time many students do not hit the target squarely into the core vector, due to the fact this is the path of greatest resistance and had a tendency to hit slightly across the target or hit much more to the side of the target where the punch would drag across the target. It had a much less "sudden jolt" of stopping than hitting into the core vector. Both types of punches could be more effective than the other in the right incidentals, however one is often a product of "fear" a sudden jolt causes. The person holding the pad often wrongly estimated the power of the punch, since the hit "spiked" high but for a shorter period, which caused the pad to compress much, but move much less (energy absorbed vs wasted energy that goes everywhere) I found this very interesting.

To sum this up, it is important to have checkmarks when doing quality control in athletic training, despite all of the traditional methods in martial arts, you still need to make the mark, even surpass it whenever possible, measuring equipment when used properly is an invaluable asset that will put an athlete to the level they are training for.

-Lance C

[profesormental]

Greetings.

For a similar reason, I've been concentrated on teaching and experiemnting and optimizing basics in my classes.

I've been after the execution that anatomically has more strength with less effort, more stability, and is biomechanically sound as to optimize mechanical outputs (momentum, kinetic energy, minimize weapon elasticity upon impact, etc.).

With just that, begginners have in days solidified their base, increased their power, and they are starting to keep their balance and structure even in transitory stances against constant pushing (including the cat stance!)

With such a base, now we optimize their structure so that even under forceful pressure on their fist towards theiir shoulders, their "horizontal" punches don't collapse.

This optimizes momentum transfer, which maximizes hurt on the bad guy.

I encourage you to keep going to maximize the measurable output of your students, and am happy that you're documenting such great successes with just focus on basics.

Thanks for the post!

Sincerely,

Juan M. Mercado

[Lance C]

Greetings.

For a similar reason, I've been concentrated on teaching and experiemnting and optimizing basics in my classes.

I've been after the execution that anatomically has more strength with less effort, more stability, and is biomechanically sound as to optimize mechanical outputs (momentum, kinetic energy, minimize weapon elasticity upon impact, etc.).

With just that, begginners have in days solidified their base, increased their power, and they are starting to keep their balance and structure even in transitory stances against constant pushing (including the cat stance!)

With such a base, now we optimize their structure so that even under forceful pressure on their fist towards theiir shoulders, their "horizontal" punches don't collapse.

This optimizes momentum transfer, which maximizes hurt on the bad guy.

I encourage you to keep going to maximize the measurable output of your students, and am happy that you're documenting such great successes with just focus on basics.

Thanks for the post!

Sincerely,

Juan M. Mercado

To continue developing this post and a sideshoot issue with rooting:

One of the first things with students that I do sounds similar (about 1 year of training), however they soon learn that there are fighters and specific attacks against your rooting. ie Low leg kicks for example (Kenpo is full of them) hurt your legs when they are rooted (good attacks against upper body users) at some point the student familiar with Kenpo attacks starts developing a sensitivity towards "leg parrying" which appears in GM Parkers books.

A Blue Belt student of mine has been learning some concepts involving "unrooting" and "choosing your own path", so a recovery can be made. This gave him much more excited motion while fighting, sometimes you go with your opponent, sometimes you go directly against your opponent and sometimes you go perpindicular to your opponent. That is as a constructor of motion, he now moves much more unpredicatable and with much more force than before.

Rooting has to be there, however rooting can be an anti-motion and a quality that some fighters specialize in training against.

ie Leaping Crane applied, the side kick can be countered by unrooting (quickly!) overtop the kicking leg and a downward stomp applied over the side kick. It is one small chance of busting up the technique.

I really like training people at green belt level and one of the things we do is take it to a running fight, that is we chase and drive him towards a fighter, or catch him and fight, these escape and evade maneuvers are essential to street survival. See the power in a technique when somone roots from a dead run and only a small portion can be transferred into the technique, however devistating it can be.

My idea is "Motion from Motion into Motion."

My class started getting out and running / walking again as this is an often overlooked part of training. Mobility!

-Lance C

[warrior-scholar]

My idea is "Motion from Motion into Motion."

My class started getting out and running / walking again as this is an often overlooked part of training. Mobility!

-Lance C

Lance C,
Isn't it funny to watch some lower belts spar? They look like they are creeping along the ground and just waiting to react to someone's action. Your comments bode ill for the stereotypical "Master" with a 30 lb gut, confident that his power from a static position will be sufficient. On the other side of the coin, some of my students in the past had great mobility due to sports training, but lacked the ability to transfer power from that motion into their strikes. As you point out, we have to work both sides of the equation for optimal transference.

[Lance C]

Lance C,
Isn't it funny to watch some lower belts spar? They look like they are creeping along the ground and just waiting to react to someone's action. Your comments bode ill for the stereotypical "Master" with a 30 lb gut, confident that his power from a static position will be sufficient. On the other side of the coin, some of my students in the past had great mobility due to sports training, but lacked the ability to transfer power from that motion into their strikes. As you point out, we have to work both sides of the equation for optimal transference.

I have noticed that myself. The two athletes who received "Elite" standards in training have inspired me to hit the track a bit. My 30 lb gut is holding be back!

Yes! Definately other sports training can really affect or detriment karate skills. Many soccer players are "too light on their feet" which means they lean forward to go forward (sprinting habit?) They also do not hold onto power with their legs, they constantly lift their feet purposely unrooting. However horizontal foot push sprinters have is a very powerful way of generating forward momentum, especially if they do not have the body weight (anaerobic body types usually are very slender, no muscle or fat) to use gravity or rotational momentum with the same effects.

One area where I developed some punching power (being very tall and heavy) was increasing my forward momentum. To really hit with power I am learning to hit the track a little bit more, my weight needs to come down and my effective strength needs to come up. This strength to weight ratios in great fighters is usually a very high positive number. I will make up a number here: say 2.5 that is their muscles can handle 2.5x their body weight, allowing for fast overcoming of inertia etc.. A different body type say partially fat and muscular like myself might have a score of 0.5, the muscles really ramp up to move the mass, by simply maintaining your musculature a weight loss will increase this number lets say to 0.6 (a 20% increase) and if you increase your effective strength you could push it to 1.0 (a further 66% increase) You would note huge gains in your mobility and your power.

Perhaps Elite Fighters is onto something. I doubt I would even score on the running tests right now (maybe 1 or 2 %, the opposite of Elite) This allows for me to only improve.

Keep training in the physical and mental world!
-Lance C

[Xperience]

Hello Gentlemen ~
Jim Stuart once told me that hitting really hard, amounts to being relaxed & using good form. I've also dicovered that allowing gravity to break inertia, offers a real burst of speed, as well. If you want to know how hard you're hitting, have the person holding the heavy bag close their eyes, so they don't tense up. Then, when they pick themselves up off of the floor, ask them (just a little low-tech humor there). As far as I can tell, advanced technique is but combined basics; so it seems to me that everything is basic, at any level. To refine footwork: if they're light on there feet, round them out with settled footwork (like Tai Chi); and vice versa, if they tend to root. Simple stuff, from the simple minded (careful how you take that).

;) X