Bruce Lee’s One Inch Punch

Following the recent one inch punch post I found a short documentary on the wing chung approach, which, of course, was Bruce Lee’s approach at least initially. I know very little about Wing Chung so I found it an interesting seven minutes or so.

Interestingly, the one bloke in the video said that on it’s own it offers little value, other than a great party trick of course. The value comes in applying the one inch punch movement. He said when you learn it you discover “invaluable lessons”.

If you manage to learn how to one inch punch successfully, that’s all well and good. The value comes in applying the same power movement in other ways. If you can do so in one context you must be able to do so in another.

Furthermore, it surely opens the door to further discoveries regarding the generation and application of short range power, without having to rely on “centering the chi” or whatever. One bloke in the video intimates using the one inch punch from a combat perspective, firing it from a blocking move without pulling the arm back first. Another mentions the importance of getting the mass into the target. Some sensible stuff here.

Lee's one inch punch

Right at the end of the video the last bloke to speak says that the one inch punch “keeps opening doors”. That’s the take home point, referred to above, learn it and apply it!

When we look at getting power over a short range we try to take what we know to work and condense it. So to get the mass into a short range strike you can use the same, or almost the same, body movement that powers a longer range punch to power a shorter movement. Add the explosive finish and you’ve got something to work with.

That would be one approach that may prove successful or may not depending on the context. Of course, if you manage to develop a new short range power generation movement, it only has value if it can be applied in a fight. If not it’s just a party trick.

Short Range Power – the Phantom Punch

On May 25th, 1965, in Lewiston, Maine,  Muhammad Ali  beat Sonny Liston for the second time. Again there was controversy, this time it was related to the ‘phantom punch’. Ali finished the fight, in the first round, with a short chopping straight right, which knocked Liston down for somewhere between 12 and 17 seconds, while the referee flapped around losing control as Ali stood over Liston shaking his fist. The ref was informed of time Liston had spent on the mat and stopped the fight, declaring Ali winner by knockout.

The straight right that tagged Liston was known as the ‘phantom punch’ as many missed it completely, others said it didn’t land at all. Many believed the fight was fixed, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that many believed the punch was not hard enough to knock Liston out. In slow-motion, it’s clear the short right hit Liston plum on the jaw as he is regaining balance from a lunging jab, he had trouble landing punches in both fights. The clip clearly shows a jarring, shaking of Liston’s head which appears to be sufficient to knock him out.

Steve Morris explains that a knockout occurs when the reticular activating system, responsible for controlling consciousness is disrupted.

The disruption of the reticular activating system occurs through the violent rotation of the brain on the brainstem. In most cases, this rotation is very obvious, whether it occurs through twisting, moving side to side or through the head being violently snapped back

The slow-motion clip indicates a rotation of Liston’s head, the ambiguity concerning the efficacy of the phantom punch is to do with the assumption that a bigger punch is required to cause a knockout. Big punchers tend to throw the kitchen sink at their opponents, Tyson, Marciano and others of that ilk certainly did. But if the opponent is off balance when hit, less force is required to rotate the head, and so cause a knockout.

In 1965 there were still those that believed Ali was unable to punch hard, he was retreating when he threw it and given the short range of the phantom punch it’s easy to understand how people didn’t believe their own eyes. Ali himself claimed the punch, which he called the anchor punch, was too quick for the eye to see.

A short punch on the retreat does not have the obvious power of a Tyson blockbuster, but the phantom punch was not the only time Ali was able to knockdown or knockout an opponent while going backwards. The highlight clip shows a few examples, while Anderson Silva did something very similar to Forest Griffin recently. I suppose people find it difficult to believe that it’s possible to generate power while going backwards, let alone short range power.

The Knockout

In any kind of unarmed martial arts setting, sporting or self-defence the knockout is the most spectacular and effective way to end a contest/confrontation, against an armed assailant it becomes an even greater asset.

There are endless examples on you tube of boxers, MMA fighters and regular citizens knocking out the bad bloke. On the Fighting Arts Alliance Forum Steve Morris has gone into great detail on how a knockout can be effected from both close and longer range in terms of power generation and effect on the target, i.e. the head.

Using biomechanics with reference to great knockout fighters and the use of tools by skilled exponents, knowledge gleaned from these sources provides an insight to

being better able to deliver enough force to knock a guy out or stun him with a shot to the head, or drop him with a body shot, or even break bones with a blow

The article is in several parts over the course of a thread and contains numerous links for supporting evidence and illustrative purposes. The outcome is a wealth of information and tips and how to use this effectively to improve your chances of executing a KO on the bad guy. There really is a ton of information that can be applied to your training to bring BIG improvements. It’s a very well produced piece of work.

Some of what he covers includes

1. different ‘shots’ to effect a knockout
2. how the knockout occurs
3. rotational knockout
4. increasing mass, increasing velocity
5. levers & supportive structures
6. hammers & nail guns
7. the role of the body
8. training tips

Personally, I find the combination of science with real life examples invaluable, it really gives you something to chew on! Why not join up and have a look?

Whipping in the Round Kick

Round Kick

As well as altering my punching, after encountering Steve Morris the way my round kick is delivered has changed. It is significantly better than when it was a standard mawashi geri. The whipping action delivery ramps up the power for a kick as much as it does for a punch and we end up with something much more akin to a Muay Thai round kick than the standard mawashi geri.

Whereas the whipping punch used a hip-shoulder-arm sequence as the basic movement, in the round kick the sequence is arm/foot-hip-leg, once again with the head leading the action

The non-kicking foot moves out and across to the side with the head moving (posting) over it. The arm on the kicking side is raised so it can pull in the opposite direction to the kick, rotating the upper body and transferring momentum into the hip and then leg creating the whipping action. The lower segment of the kicking leg is left behind and in effect is thrown into the target. For the kick to be thrown the body is first elongated and then contracted rotationally.

Hopefully that makes sense, it’s easier to show than describe; as usual the written word is clumsier than a demonstration. The rotation of the upper and lower body in opposite directions is perhaps counter-intuitive as one would think that everything should be going in the direction of the target. However, it’s easy to get a feel for how this kick works by sitting on a computer chair; it has to be one that revolves though. If you lift your feet up off the floor and stretch your arms out to the side, you have the equivalent of the starting position. Now sharply pull your arms into your centre and you’ll see that the momentum is transferred to the lower body and your legs twist in the opposite direction to the upper body. Ta daaa!

This instructional clip of the Thai round kick is pretty much it, although there are a few details missing. Steve describes the kick in some detail here in #6 and goes into great depth on his Round Kick Clinic dvd. This dvd is great, it’s the first one I bought and is really excellent, well worth a look.

There are several examples of this kick or similar in MMA/Muay Thai/K1 fights, such as the one Steve Morris mentions when Cro Cop was knocked out by Gonzaga, shown in this UFC 74 preview clip. Thiago Alves is using a similar kick a lot against Josh Koschek creating plenty of power. But the power of the kick is clearly illustrated in this clip from a pseudo science show called Fight Science.

Whipping punch

After training with Steve Morris, I have altered the way I teach people to punch. I start with what he calls the sequential punch. This involves whipping the body toward the target with the fist following. The basic movement is quite easy to get, although sometimes people struggle to move their hips separately to their shoulders, which is a bit of a hindrance.

The action requires a loading at the shoulder, so the hip is slightly forward of the shoulder. The hip moves forward, then the shoulder and then the arm, with the fist (or elbow) striking the target. So its, hip-shoulder-arm, at least to begin with, this is the basic movement, but greater power can be accomplished by moving adding a snappy plyometric action to each segment of the sequence. This involves a rapid backward movement before the segment moves forward toward the target. This all sounds complicated and it’s easier to show than describe, Morris blogs about this here. He talks about the head leading the whole movement, which really does fire the strike. I get beginners to throw the body first and add the head part once they get a basic idea.

Now, while this sequential punch is similar to a Tyson punch I’m going to use Mike Zambidis as a model. This clip is an excerpt from one of his fights with the finishing hook being a good example of the sequential, whipping punch. If you watch the slow-mo replay a few times you can’t fail to see the movement described above.

Using the body to whip through a strike in this manner really delivers exceptional power, Zambidis is good at delivering strikes in this way. In this, exquisitely edited clip, there are plenty of examples of the sequential, whipping punch. It’s noticeable that Zambidis uses this ‘delivery system’ to fire off any number of strikes, including devastating round kicks, a subject I recently blogged about. Watch him, he’s very good.

Function over Form – the round kick

Thai Round Kick

In the previous article I related the (hypothetical) Form Police apparent in the Physical Conditioning world, as reported by Ross Enamait, with those in the martial arts world. These Form Police are firmly removed from the lateral thinking stratum being entrenched and engrossed in literal translation of martial arts related topics, kata for example. While the literal-lateral distinction isn’t strictly dichotomous, it’s probably best thought of as a sliding scale of  fixed to open thinking,  literal thinking places limitations on potential progression. There now follows an example of the distinction.

If we consider the round(house) kick, a martial arts stalwart technique,  we can witness the drawback of literal thinking. If the desired outcome of the kick is to produce sufficient power to cause damage or even a KO, as efficiently as possible, by definition the emphasis has to lean toward function rather than form. We want to produce a powerful effective kick and as such are not too concerned with aesthetics.

Consider the following two clips, broadly separated into opposite extremes of the (hypothetical) form-function (or literal-lateral) continuum, one from TKD the other from Steve Morris

Morris goes into a fair bit of detail of how to perform the kick but the emphasis is clearly not on form but rather on how to get ‘total body movement’. The TKD clip, however does seem to have a greater emphasis on form, look at the lines etc added to help the viewer, note the precise instructions, which go into fine detail. Force equals mass times acceleration, acceleration can be achieved in both version of the kick, but the Morris version allows greater mass to be included in the equation, as the whole body (i.e. the mass) is involved not only in the production of the kick but also after contact (if you watch the entire clip, there are one or two instances where he ‘gently’ kicks someone).

It’s clear to me which is the more effective kick, admittedly I have no personal experience of the TKD kick but lots regarding the very similar karate mawashi geri*, certainly similar regarding teaching protocols, while I have felt the Morris version. The Morris kick is far more effective, as he says you get more for your money.

If you look at the two pictures of round kicks included in this post, it’s obvious that the thai kick is transferring momentum, and so force, into the target, while the mawashi geri is merely being placed. You get what you train and the mawashi geri trained in the manner of the photo is aesthetically pleasing, it looks nice but is less efficient than the thai kick.

I’m not saying that a spinning, jumping reverse TKD tornado kick hasn’t got the capability of producing sufficient power to cause KO, there’s evidence of that on you tube. Rather I question whether it is the most efficient/effective method of producing the power required to achieve a KO from a high kick or cause damage efficiently in a low kick.

In fact, ‘perfect’ form results in minimal loss of balance and so minimal transfer of force, clearly an inefficient method of producing power sufficient for a KO. In contrast, by emphasising total body involvement Morris concentrates on outcome, i.e. power, rather than form, indeed his kicks look rather untidy. If unconvinced I’d suggest experiencing one or two of his kicks at quarter power, it’s a pretty surefire convincer.

An alternative and less painful option is to consider which of the kicks outlined in the clips above is more similar to those used to get KO’s in MMA/K1. Look for more or less body involvement as Mirko Cro Cop, famous for his kicking power, dishes out lots of KO kicks.

*the interested reader can watch a Shotokan video on the round kick

Form Police in Martial Arts

Form Police

In a recent post on his blog Ross Enamait complains about Form Police in regards to criticisms on the performance of someone lifting 300lb in single arm dumbbell raises. His point is that sometimes you need to go for broke and form is not important at that moment. If you read what he says you’ll see that he puts forward a very decent argument, there are also some interesting comments.

Further, Form Police grievances in the traditional martial arts camp, where form is paramount, run along similar lines. The assumption is that aesthetics are important and that we should strive for perfect technique. Students will be corrected to the nth degree; a hand adjusted here, a stance corrected there even just by a few centimetres. This ensures tidy technique performed in tidy lines working in unison to produce a nice tidy all-kicking, all-punching dojo. If you spend any time on Karate Underground Forum, you will notice this view popping up over and over again.

Emphasis on aesthetics, or form, as Ross says is fine if you’re being judged on it in a competition, but when you’re performing the aforementioned lift, it’s not a huge issue. There may be very good reasons to prioritise over form in lifting and marital arts, for that matter. I once interviewed a friend of mine, a bodybuilder, for a module at University. He was telling me about how he prepared for a lift, a big lift. It was ALL about the lift, shutting down the senses and going for it. He would even do just one repetition; this was to prove to himself he could lift that PR in a given lift. This was an important psychological success, which outweighed (excuse the pun) concerns about form. Of course, he didn’t want to lift dangerously, so form didn’t go completely out of the window.

In martial arts, attention to form is important to a degree, of course. We want to avoid injury while producing as much power as possible. So rather than concentrating on perfecting the form of the kick and ending up with something akin to this, which while showing great balance and looking very pretty it will not get you knockout power like this or even this. So in this instance, at the very least, the Form Police would, by insisting on aesthetics, ensure we had a sub-optimal kick if we ever need to “go for broke”. That’s the trouble with emphasising form over function, the goalposts are moved in a sub-optimal direction.

Kids and Karate

There’s a lot of stuff out there concerning kids and Martial Arts training. I’ve only recently started teaching my kids class, but I’m enjoying it more and more with time.

When I started I wanted to make sure that I didn’t teach them bad movement skills. Often with karate training people end up moving like robots, this is through overuse of three-step sparring and the like. The difference in movement efficiency when kids do that sort of training compared to when they run around freely in play is marked and frankly scary.

Why on earth would a teacher/coach/sensei want to replace movement efficiency with a vastly inferior model? I can see no reason. Please,  feel free to let me know via comment if anyone can.

One of my first aims was to shape inherent efficient movement skills into something martial. We ‘play’ Zombies and the ‘bashing game’. These are adaptions of adult drills that get the kids moving around one or more opponents. In simple terms they run around avoiding other kids. I give them tips and they improve. They love the drills, there’s some competition and a lot of fitness work. It’s a winner.

Another aim was to use similar ‘play’ methods to teach striking skills. I get them to throw a ball against the wall and then adapt the throwing technique into the striking technique. This is a method Steve Morris uses, and it is very effective. I also use it with adults, always with great success.

These kids can hit hard, no question about it. Oddly enough they enjoy this too, especially when I let them hit me! I always have them hitting pads and bags straight away, it can take a while for them to get used to the contact but they get there.

One outcome of this playful learning is that the lessons are noisy and a little anarchic. No straight lines, lots of belts falling off and then discarded, running around. That’s not to say that discipline goes out of the window, misbehaviour and silliness gets a visit to star jump corner (burpees with a star shaped jump). Increasing numbers of forfeit star jumps are then ‘awarded’.

The photo taken after yesterdays class with three young achievers illustrates the lack of emphasis on a tidy gi……..

young achievers

Superfrau and more bow bending

As mentioned in the previous post, we ‘created’ a Superfrau strike. It’s not easy to describe, but I will try.

1. The front (left) leg is on the toes, with the left side of the hip pushed forward and arm up, in guard, facing the bad guy.
2. This position is adopted after moving from a fighting position that Steve Morris favours, which has the back in a concave shape. Meaning that the c-shape has been bent back on itself.
3. The leg is thrust down and backward a little, ensuring the hip is pushed back on the left side.
4. This action forces the shoulder and arm forward, driving the fist to the target.
5. In essence, we bend the bow of the back

George St.Pierre used a very similar action to fire in a jab in his recent fight with BJ Penn. At the start of the 3rd round with 4.50 on the clock he hits Penn with a Superfrau! Kinda….

Now, one person that benefitted from ‘bending the bow’ was Tyson, certainly in the early years. Here’s a clip of him training, there are a lot of instances when he’s bending and releasing the bows in his back and across the shoulders. The clip should give a clear illustration of this concept.

Bending the Bow

One analogy used in martial arts concerns bow’s within the body. I first heard of this from Steve Rowe at Shikon then later Steve Morris. I didn’t find it all helpful initially but now I love this analogy and, importantly, it’s useful in getting the body to generate power ‘naturally’.

Steve Morris blogged about bows in the article ‘loading against the curve’, referring to the construction of a reflex bow. While this helped I still didn’t quite get it at first, but now I do. If you imagine a springy branch that once pulled, wants to ‘ping’ back to it’s originally shape, that’s like a standard Western bow. The reflex bow, in contrast, has increased ‘spring’. This is due to it’s construction from a c-shaped piece of wood bent back on itself, i.e. against the c-shape. This greatly increases the tension and so power of the bow when firing arrows. Therefore, the bows in the body need to be bent against tension in order to generate great power. If a bow is bent ‘loosely’ power is diminished.

During a striking action, a bent ‘body bow’, such as the one across the shoulders, helps increase the loading of the strike. Muscle stretch at the shoulder activates the elastic component of the muscle providing potential energy. Tension at the shoulder joint augments this potential energy allowing greater force to be exerted when this energy is released. If the muscle stretch at the shoulder is soft/loose the resulting strike is comparable to the Western bow rather than the reflex bow. You have to play with this concept to get it. As an aside, the tension referred to here should not be confused with the dynamic tension that you often see used in the performance of sanchin kata. The striking action is NOT stiff!

It follows then, if we combine more than one bow we get a cumulative effect. This is something we have been working on in our club. We ‘created’ a strike we called the Superfrau which is like a close-in version of a Superman punch, which bends the bow of the back. We got a lot out of this. Then we added the bend of the shoulder bow, thus utilising two bows in one strike. It’s some hit!

Bows bending!

The analogy of bows bending to fire shots works well once you get your head round it. So long as tension is maintained in the bow, power strike after power strike can be fired. I think of the body being charged, through tension, ready to fire. The image of the wrestler jumping from the corner of the ring onto his opponent illustrates the charged image I have. Chest protruding, arms splayed ready to explode inward! Although it should be present in something as mundane as the Goju kata’s sanchin and tensho.

The bow analogy can be used as a model allowing us to harness natural body resources to produce powerful strikes. These resources can be manipulated to find further ways of implementing power in strikes. It’s all good.