Balance in unbalance?

[Lord Apocalypse]

Hello all, recently i'v been reading a book by kiyoshi arakaki called "the secrets of okinawan karate", fascinating book and it's made me look into some other things that i'v heard about before.

 

A section of his book talks about when delivering a strike your body has to be balanced with imbalance, basically to deliver your energy into the opponent you have to be at an unbalanced angle to them so that when you hit them you put all your energy into them as well as balancing yourself at the same time, well that's how i read it anyway. Now, i understand the theory and can see how it works, however i'm wondering if there is a good way of practicing it as i can't really feel a difference punching my free standing punchbag.

 

I know a few people on this forum know what i'm trying to explain and may know other ways of explaining it or different names for it, chi, waveforms etc and i know this idea is apparent in tai chi, but does anyone have any tips on improving it or how i can check my progress?

 

Cheers!

[Sasori_Te]

Well, to me it sounds like the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy. You are probably already doing this if you know about proper weight transfer while you're moving through a strike. Even if you don't know it by the way that I'm explaining it you may already be doing this. A lunge punch is an example of this. Sinking your weight in tai chi is another. It's simple physics:

 

Force=Mass x Acceleration. From what you are descibing Arakaki is likely assuming that the speed will be there already and he's just talking about ways to add as much mass as possible to the strike.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Really read up on the section about dropping the knee to generate force. I had to read the book in its entirety at least once (not to mention sections several times) before I got the overall picture and then I could delve into it some more.

 

A lot of it has to do with manipulating the center of gravity between two people as well, so a partner does help.

 

All in all, I'm still immersed in trying to understand it completely myself (but I've lent the book to someone else right now) and I imagine it will be some time before I can translate my mental understanding fully into everything I practice.

[Lord Apocalypse]

Ah so you have the book then, excellent, well ok so you don't have it just now but you know what i mean. I'v read the book cover to cover about 3 times now, the concepts appear to be quite simple yet really hard to work out. The main sections i keep reading over and over are the dropping of the knee and the ICG, fascinating stuff though.

[Dijita]

A section of his book talks about when delivering a strike your body has to be balanced with imbalance, basically to deliver your energy into the opponent you have to be at an unbalanced angle to them so that when you hit them you put all your energy into them as well as balancing yourself at the same time,

 

It makes sense. I mean essentially when you get really technical about it, the simple act of walking is a constant state of putting yourself unbalanced and balanching again.

[Shorin Ryuu]

I actually did this before reading the book, but I walk around everywhere by dropping the knee rather than "normally". It keeps you more relaxed, anyway.

 

I do naihanchi even more now than I did before. Basically all of my kata are in another phase of reworking (I do that every couple of months or so), trying to incorporate his ideas into them. Luckily, a great deal of his stuff he explains I have heard from a lot of teachers in my style (Kyoshi Doug Perry mentioned gamaku multiple times every class when I visited him). However, it did help me to get a much better mental grasp on these concepts.

[Lord Apocalypse]

Yeah i know what you mean shorin ryuu, these ideas are linking to some other ideas i'v been experimenting with, also, i knew there was a reason that naihanchi was my favourite kata