Kinaesthesis and Proprioception 3 – how to use the feeling

Once you begin to become aware of what’s happening in your body as you perform striking and moving actions as you learn or develop new skills the manner in which you attend to the learning process alters. I think of it as observing and making adjustments rather than thinking too much about the actions themselves. This is a subtle difference but a very important one, as Bruce Lee intimated, don’t think about the movement, feel it.

Elsewhere, I have mentioned the Superfrau punch, and provided a non-perfect clip. This came about by accident, but it has been a happy accident. It’s a method of snapping back at the hip, which snaps the body forward and by so doing adds significant power to a technique. When we discovered it I was able to pick up the movement pretty quickly, probably because it’s similar to other movements we do, such as the Superman punch, but also because I was able to feel it.

Next, I was immediately able to adapt or add the snapping Superfrau movement to established skills, so it can be used to drive jabs, crosses, hooks, elbow strikes etc. Since then we have used it to add power to pretty much any movement delivered from in close. It’s actually not that surprising and it probably isn’t new at all, after all it’s likely to be some form of Fa Jin anyway. Whether it is new or not is irrelevant the versatility of the Superfrau is the important bit, and this has been possible because of our developed kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception. I don’t think that we have an exceptionally developed body awareness either, we just use what we have developed practically.

Fighting in the clinch

This evening we were doing some clinch work, looking at either making space to fire in knee strikes or to fire them in without making space, via Superfrau delivery, for instance. One of the students started using the Superfrau to add power to a shoulder shrug to open up the partner for strikes, this works well.

I mentioned in the first of the trilogy that heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception skills when joined to your opponent allows you to become sensitive to their movements and thereby presenting an opportunity to exploit the inevitable gaps. Again Bruce is correct, you have to feel the opportunity to use it, if you think it or watch it, it’s gone before you can use it!

Push hands etc can develop this sensitivity but it’s important to then develop these skills by using them in freer drills, otherwise you cannot be sure they will transfer to a live situation, developed sensitivity has to be applied. For example, during clinch work it is possible to feel when someone is creating the space to deliver a knee strike, if you push them at this point they cannot make the attack and depending on your push success you are set up to throw a flurry of punches*. While this could be trained for, I only discovered this through rough clinch work at Primal, it was another happy accident. By developing kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception I believe there will be many more happy accidents.

*On similar lines, the competition fighting scenes in Enter the Dragon begin with the opponent’s arms touching. This, known as listening arm, is so they can feel their opponent’s preparatory movements and act on them.

Superfrau update

I’ve edited the Superfrau post to include a better clip illustrating GSP’s ‘superfrau punch’. And for your view pleasure I’m including it here, thanks Tommo

As I said before, we don’t actually do precisely the same movement, he does a sort of front leg superman punch. We use a shorter action to use close up. Last night we had a go at using the motion to deliver front hand hooks, it worked! So we can use it to deliver pretty much whatever we like, straights, hooks, elbows and even knees, and importantly, all with increased power!

Now the goal is to get the technique ingrained so it can be used in a more ‘live’ situation. So we started shifting the target round, next is to see if we can work it from a clinch. It’s ongoing………….

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.