• Archive through June 28, 2004 June 28 - 11:30 pm [20]

In martial terms, standing quietly for longish periods of time is beneficial primarily because it teaches the body relatively quickly how to hold various postures with the minimum of muscle usage. This can help a practitioner to learn how to minimize muscle tension while doing forms.

However, I'm not sure how much this is carried over into movement aspects of form work, much less into applications where the ability to move under pressure while remaining balanced and taking the attack to the oppenent is the key to survival.

As far as I have seen over the years with the various teachers that I have trained with, the martial potential of the long-term students who are encouraged to stand for long periods per day tends to decrease and not increase.

It is also true that standing qigong can be an exellent means of meditation but the benefits of meditation don't automatically contribute to martial skill if that is what we are talking about.

Mark, I agree that a lot of the power should come from the waist. A lot should also come from the legs.

I know a friend who loves boxing and has trained in half a dozen different martial arts (Taekwondo, Karate, Kung-Fu, Capoarta (or however you spell this), boxing, and something else) he is also a gymnastics instructor and can do most everying you see in martial arts movies (all the flips, ect.) he can also do everything that Ray Park (Darth Maul from Starwars) does in Starwars Episode 1 including spinning in the air with the body totally horizontal to the ground. Anway, he notes that from all the boxing he was watched including in person from training at a gym, the hardest hitters in the lower weight classes are the ones with skinny upper bodies and huge legs for their size.

(leg drive is essential for punch just like when hitting a baseball with a bat, traditional baseball players didn't have steroid pumped body-builder upper bodies. They had really strong legs and used skill to get the leg power to transfer through the upper body and into the bat)

I believe that your hitting power should come through the legs. People say that your power comes from the waist. I think that a little does but the most important reason to strengthen this is to allow it to handle all the power from the legs. (your body won't do something subconsiously if it knows the rest of your body can't handle it) The stronger the abbs and lower back, the more power it will let your legs give.

Then, the power flows up to your upper body and hits the shoulders. The shoulder need to be as strong as possible to be able to handle as much of the power as possible. Then the power flows down your arms into your forearms when you strike. The stronger the forearms the more power you can let flow from your legs.

"the key to getting "shocking" power is to strengthen the whole body as much as possible with weights (but not trying to get big like a body builder)"

I agree with much of what you say Electro, but 'shock' power in southern mantis is considerably different to short power in wing chun - very different power generation, especially when it comes to the 1'inch punch, which a lot of untrained people can do. Weights are not enough and can be a hinderance.

Shock power does involve everything you say about using the whole body, much of the power does come from the ground (hence the sliding footwork). It also comes from the waist, forearms and shoulders, but we spend lots of time using drills like chy sau to stretch the ligaments and develop spring/rib-bone force.

After a great time spent training, this can add an impressive amount of power to short range punches.

Thanks for the info CGG,

I've just started investigating the aspects of tendons in relation to martial arts training.

Could you tell me what chy sau drills entail?

I've never studied a chinese martial art so I have no idea.


by the way, ElectronicSaiyan is Mont Cessna. Tim, why does our username not appear in the post but instead our "real name" does?

Mont,

It's easier to respect someone who uses their real name. ElectronicSaiyan isn't going to help much when you want other posters to take you seriously.

Having said that- you could go into 'Edit Profile' and switch where you put your real name and the 'ElectonicSaiyan'.... but really... you're better off keepin' it real.

Shane

Chy Sau is a 2-man drill and similar to pushing hands in taichi. There are several different methods but in general they all resemble a stirring motion. For more details check out these links:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/ChowGar/chysau.htm

http://chowgarprayingmantis.com/Training%20Technique.htm

The reason that standing is helpful for this power is its unification of the body. In yi-quan this is also practiced with shi li and fa li.
building muscles can be detrimental to this because muscle training tends to work in isolated areas. so called shock power works by marshalling all your force at once. If there is any discontinuity then the force leaks out (like a manifold leak in an engine, you then have lost a significant part of your power)

The important key to developing and delivering shock power is the union between constant torque or the body and forearms, strong root, coonection between lower and upper body, dip gwut, and spinal whipping (shrimp power). All these by themselves must be taught properly or you will never acheive what you so desire.

. . . . and chi.

Perla, it goes without saying that one should have good health, or "chi". Now go have another cup of herbal tea and read the latest book on Wicca while standing in "golden cock spurts" position.

Okay Ken. Would you like your tea with chi or without? I prefer the golden swallow position while meditating atop my Sybian, gift of love. But that's only when I'm not riding my broomstick at night.

Wow, Perla, I think I'm starting to like you. A lot.

P.S. Even your name conjurs up blissful images.

No.