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| Old School Punching |
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| Old School Punching |
This article started as a response from Andre as two new ideas for training. I thought my focusing on a topic that already had two threads started, some insights would pop up so to speak, and several did. I started to look at the thrust punch in detail, and as happens the more that you look, the more questions are brought to the surface.
The thrust punch or Oi zuki (from my copy of Dynamic Karate), as I read from Dynamic karate, is you step, when you have weighted the front foot, you begin the hip rotation and finally you punch, with pull back on the other arm. You step, turn and punch. Three steps.
In many ways this is a time, distance and speed problem from high school physics. Given any two you can find the third. Given distance and time, the speed can be deduced, but there of course is more to this, things do not just start at a given speed, they need to be accelerated to a speed. In addition, the greater the distance traveled, the higher the end speed is, but that also will dictate a longer time. So it can be easier to make your punch faster, but it will take longer to get there, just increase the distance. This is used as a tool to see how each of the three steps could be improved upon.
Another feature will be explored, that is the relative property of motions. If you have an object moving on a moving object, their speeds are additive, relative to each other, which come to haunt us later.
One of the things that pop out of course, is that a small light-weight person needs to be very fast in order to put much power in their punch; this is of course because they do not have the weight. A big weighty person does not have to put as much speed in their punch in order to have power, they have weight behind them, but then slow punches are easily deflected. So for a small person to generate a powerful punch they need to be fast. Being fast has another neat property, it is harder to block.
A note on gravity. 32 feet per second per second, or about 9 meters per second per second. That is the acceleration of gravity at most points on the earth’s surface, give or take local altitude and anomalies, of which there are many. For the most part gravity does not do a lot here. We have to be able to stand up, hold our arms up, walk. We do these things pretty much all the time when we are not doing karate, so it does not do anything special to us when we do karate. But there, we fight it all the time.
Of the three steps, the punch has the least complications. With the fist on the hip position, your upper arm thrusts the arm out. The forearm, for all practical purposes is along for the ride; it controls or guides the fist to the target, but does not seem to be part of the process to thrust out the arm. Elbow should be tucked in, as this helps to provide a straight line path for the arm, making it more efficient. Wrist rotation basically bring the fist around for proper alignment of bones and stuff, it in of itself does nothing in the process for thrusting forward. Vertical or horizontal, not an issue with speed or power, the only purpose is to align the supporting forearm to take the punch. If you like a vertical punch its fine. If you like a horizontal one, fine. Does not matter at all for generating power or speed.
Shoulders should be tucked in for efficacy, first, the hip rotation does several things, one of which is to minimize the lever arm between the spine and the shoulder and align the shoulder socket with the direction of force. If we did not rotate the hips, just fired from the hips straight out, the results would be that the shoulder socket, which is like a ball joint, would not be aligned at with the direction of the force and would take it on somewhat edge ways, which is not good. In addition, the collar bone group would act as a lever arm and significant torque would be felt at the spine. Both of which are not good things. Extending out the shoulder too far, makes for a loose connection with the socket, the addition “depth” does not warrant to me the tactical risk of loss of balance or give someone an item that can call “mine” one, and lose connection.
All the things that make the punch effective make the pull back ineffective. Nice and tight to the body with tight elbow makes a smooth return, but you generate minimum amount of force, you basically generate the force of the weight of your arm plus the speed you bring it up too. It would be much better if you got your returning elbow out and use the upper arm as a lever to generate more torque. I note this; let each figure out what to make of it.
One last item, of the three parts, the punch is the fastest; it also makes up the least mass of the three, so it is the fastest and lighter contributor of the process. There was not a lot you can do with the punch to make it faster, other than build up some muscle. There is a limited amount of distance you can add. Folks who practice Goju-Ryu hold their hands higher, and that causes the elbow to be higher, allowing a longer distance, thus faster. But it is so small as thought to be of little practical use. In addition, as you wind up the elbow higher, it becomes harder for the muscles to get it going, you lose some of the mechanical advantage of the lever arm. One interesting item to note is that as you punch and throw out your forearm, there is considerable downward, them upward motion of the elbow, which of course first pushes down the forearm, then pulls it up. This adds nothing to the forward thrust, but does require a lot of energy, so it is what is called “overhead”, a cost you cannot avoid. I note it because as you become faster and faster, this starts to be a higher and higher penalty you have to pay with no reward, causing you to tire with nothing gained. Another note is the more weight you have, the more force, so nice big forearms are nice things. Since they are moving the fastest here, they provide the bulk of the force. Muscle push is another force that comes in to play, that is as we hit the target, we can still push foreword with the shoulders, this is an addition source of power that is hard to qualify, this does not really add speed, but it is another source of power.
For every movement, there is an equal and opposite movement, and that is very true here. As with thrust out the right arm it has to push against the right shoulder, the left is pulled back, an it must pull against the left shoulder. Hopefully equal and opposite, but it does not end there. The shoulders need to be supported, they have to be connected to a body that can resist the push pull, and that ends up being the spine, which has to be supported, which ends up being the lower back and pelvis region, which has to be supported by the legs, which are supported by the feet, which on set on the floor. So, even the simple act of thrusting your arm forward ends up being supported by your little toe, and all of this has to play together, all of this has to be strong, all of this has supple and at the same time rigid. No problem.
The turn and the stop need to be looked at together. Their interaction is tightly connected.
The hip rotation is interesting. First, it allows us to jump start the punch by flinging the shoulder out. What we really are trying to rotate is of course are the shoulders, after all, that is were the arms are attached. Hips may be fun to watch, but it is the shoulders that we are trying to get moving really. The rotation also allows us to keep up the speed we started when we started to step forward, at the end of the step, every thing comes to an abrupt stop, and we use the fact that we are moving forward to save this energy by converting the forward motion into rotational motion and rotate the hips around. The rotation should be deep, that is near the pelvis, not high on the hips, and there is a subtle difference that was pointed out to me.
At the end of the step, at least per DK, you nail down the leading foot, using a nice tight stance and leg tension; you rip the hip around and deliver a good strong fast punch. This system is a very good system to deliver the punch; it is a very bad system in the generation of a strong punch.
The reason is the nailing down on the foot. The sudden abrupt stoppage of forward movement and momentum robs a great potential source of power and speed. You stop, then turn and punch. Imagine a baseball pitcher or a cricket bowler stopping and then throwing, he would be sent back to camp in a second. The advantage of a very strong stance is that it will not collapse under the shock of the punch. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so this sequence is perfect for this, well maybe not. The forces of each movement can be done that may optimizes the sequence better.
The key is that the movement and force of each sequence can be additive, which is each build upon the speed and force of the previous movement, providing that each sequence continues. If one stops, all of the addition stops and goes to zero. At best the sequence should be continuous until after the target is hit, but not before penetration happens.
To overcome the disruption of the stop, we need to rotate before the stop, the faster the hip rotation. the less the disruption. The disruption is there, but it is smoothed by the speed of the rotation. The reason that this occurs it that the faster the rotation, the more the ‘power’ and since there are now forces in two directions, they add, less forward, and more in the direction of rotation. This is good and bad. Remember we are stepping forward to hit a target, so a change in the direction of the force which is not in that direction, is bad, but we can make this up when we thrust out the arm, the force is redirected to the direction we want.
The step has some issues also. As we step forward, we transfer our weight to one leg, pull in the other and, if you will, snap out the floating leg and nail it down, now using both legs as supports, twist the hips and throw out the punch. So for a great part of the technique, we are balancing on one leg, and there is not much to do about it.
As I noted before, this technique can be looked at as the classic time and distance problem from high school physics class.
Given the same starting point, if you extend the distance, you increase the end speed. You also extend the time it takes, so there is no free lunch. If you extend the distance you must increase how fast you move to make up for the extra time. But there are limits on just how much more performance you can train into the body. Example. The Shotokai likes nice low stances. The lower your stance is, the greater distance you must cover in each step. The greater the distance the greater the end speed, and the longer time it takes, so significant extra training is required in order to approach the same total time of the shorter distance, resulting in a much more powerful punch.
To really understand just what this means, we need to digress and do some basic math. To increase only speed is straight forward, the energy to make something move twice as fast, ignoring acceleration, friction and all the other stuff, will require twice as much energy. If it takes ten units of energy to go 5 miles per hour, it will take 20 units to go ten and so on. But acceleration is a whole different thing. To make something accelerate twice as fast, it takes at least four times the energy. At least four, maybe more. That is a lot of extra energy that has to come from your already tired muscles. So, to do this we build up some muscle mass, but then you are adding weight, which helps put some power behind your punch, but then you have to now expend more energy to move it. No free lunch, and somewhere you are going to start to get less and less out of added muscle bulk.
The acceleration process if pretty rough on you body also. You are asking to go from zero to faster than light, right now, then hold that acceleration throughout the movement, or at least hold your speed. Hard work. Speed is easy, Acceleration is hard! And it goes without saying, that that the heavier you are, the harder it is, not that you did not know that. So the ideal karateka is infinitely strong, with infinite weight, which can go from zero during the movement, but then go to maximum upon contact with the target. Hey, no problem!
Most of us do hip exercises, we stand in a forward stance, hands on hips, and crank back and forth so much like my mothers old washing machine, thunka, thunka, in time to a rate of one potato two potato. We need to be whish-whishing, like the speed of light. Fast and furious! not thunka, thunka!
So start as usual, hands on hips and start slowly the rotation, get full rotation from down deep, go from as far back to as far forward to stretch out and get the muscles limber, and now of course increase speed, not too fast yet. Over time build this up. When you think you are ready, start fast, then do a burst of as fast as you can, 12345, and then slow down, then 12345, very fast. Work this until you do not have back aches the next morning. When you think you are ready, repeat again, but now hold your arms up, upper arms level with the ground and first above your head, but straight up, these will act as lever arms and put some weight out there for you to push against. And again, slow, then fast, and then burst. Got it? Ready for the killer?
Now when you are almost superman, get a Bo, or a steel pipe, or something like it, and place it behind your neck on your shoulders, using your hands to lock and down and now start again. Work up until you can do bursts of very fast rotations without back aches in the morning! Watch out for pain in the knees and ankles, you may need to support them in someway.
Not really sure what to do here, but here are some ideas, criticize all you wish, these are just some ideas. We need to build up fast, quick leg movements. The only thing that comes to mind is sprinting. Short burst of speed, keep the knees up and rotate the hips and arms as you do this. Those of you who have done track and field will realize that this is just the opposite of what we are taught there. In the short dash you keep your hips aligned and straight with your head up, not rotating back and forth, but this is karate and not track and field, folks!
Running in place with lunges. Another idea I got the other day while watching some soccer players warm up, they would run in place very fast. Looks good to me. So some running in place as fast as you can and then lunge out into a forward stance with rotation and a punch, pull back run and to the other side.
Sorry folks, this is the best I can do.
Here I am going to start off not with punching stuff, but with some tai chi stuff I learned for relaxing the arms.
Just stand with feet apart and arms at your side. Relax, really relax the arms, tilt your head slightly back, and just using your shoulder muscles rotate your shoulders, little circular movements, first forward then back, forward, then back, relax your arms, this is very important. This teaches your mind and body to use the shoulders and not the arm muscles! Slowly stop, relax, now slowly, just using your hips, rotate around, forward then back, relax your arm and relax your shoulders, slowly, slowly build up speed, relax all but your hips, your arms should start swaying with the rotation, start to synchronize the hip rotation and arm swing as to build up the arm movement, keep all the shoulder and arm muscles relaxed, you should then be able to snap you hip smartly forward and your arms should fly up! Takes time, but it really helps to focus on the different shoulder and hip muscles.
Speed drills. Other than just standing and doing so very fast punches, which may not be a bad idea, try the following; do elbow drills, a forward elbow strike up and fast, back to chamber while doing the other side. I have concerns about the shoulders and elbow being over exercised and harmed, so this allows you to work the upper arms without put strain on the shoulders and elbows as in a full punch.
A must, but do it against a bag, or the makiraw, it takes time to learn to control your muscles to be able to have tension at the right moment. My shoulders are very sensitive to this, so I do not do full power punching in the air. Use a bag or something to arrest the punch to keep your body from falling apart.
This page is copyright © 2005 Mark Groenewold
This article is copyright © 2005 by the author