The realization of a Martial Artist’s personal potential is acquired through the combination of highly developed levels of skill and the Martial Artist’s natural abilities.

Introduction

The level of competency, with which a martial arts practitioner is able to strike a target with the maximum of his potential power, combined with precision and accuracy, or likewise receive and redirect any incoming force, is largely dependent on his stability and body control immediately before, during and after the act. There is an important relationship between stability and body control, namely, that a decrease in stability results in a greater need of body control to ensure that the execution of a technique is successful. Interestingly, this increase in body control belies the notion that the highest levels of the martial arts are achieved using the concepts of economy of motion or the conservation of energy. In effect, the ability to maintain the requisite level of stability is one of the factors that determines the level of efficiency and skill at which an athlete operates, doing the least to achieve the most is representative of an accomplished Martial Artist. It is therefore important that the Martial Artist, as with any athlete, has at least a fundamental understanding of the means by which stability is maintained in one’s particular art or skill efficiently whilst in the processes of giving and receiving impetus.

Keep reading »

In technical terms, strength from a purely weightlifting standpoint does not train the muscles used in Wing Chun Kuen to generate power. When people say ‘we hit with the whole body’, what do they specifically mean?

Now before you jump on my back, please listen to what I have to say

Where does the power come from? The implication is that the bigger person has more power than the smaller person from a physical point of view. Is this raw physical power the source of efficient Wing Chun Kuen power? My belief is that the power used in Wing Chun Kuen derives from a persons body structure. This gives them the ability to use the ground as a brace so that the point of contact to the base is one unbroken line through the body. This allows efficient use of the body’s mass in striking to deliver power and not because the muscles are bigger or more explosive. I would also hazard a guess to say that the efficiency of the tendons and ligaments to align the skeleton are more critical with the muscles being activated just enough to hold the proper position (or to bring the limb to the proper position) and nothing more. So if two people of different physical sizes hit each other similarly, from a pure power perspective, the larger person has the advantage in terms of mass behind their punch IF Their body structure is equivalent (ie properly aligned) to that of the smaller person.

Keep reading »