The Importance of structure?

[busling]

I have heard "structure" mentioned several times from several different sources. However I have never heard a proper explanation of what it means.

My current understanding is: Structure is the sum of Stance, Posture and Position.

Stance – what my legs are doing.

Posture – what my arms, head and body are doing.

Position – where I am standing in relation to my opponent.

Firstly is my above explanation correct or close to correct?

With my explanation above in mind, I can see that it is very important to have good structure. It would seem that good structure would give me an advantage over my opponent.

Is it true to say that the correct structure for a given situation; would allow me attack my opponent with relative ease, while making their job of defending difficult?

What else can be said about structure?

The reason I ask all of this is that I am trying to form an understanding of my system. I would like to know why we do things the way that we do. I feel that once I truly understand the principles of the system I will be better able to apply the skills that I have learnt.

[ovine king]

Structure is about how you stand with regards to how your style works. Posture and stance shouldn't really be separated because they affect each other; Good posture with weak stance and you might as well have no good posture. The same is true the other way around.

Structure isn't about making it easier to hit someone or making it hard for them to defend, it is about making your hits as strong as possible. You've probably heard about triangles in wing chun; that's part of wing chun structure.

Maintaining vital structure would be keeping your hip placement correct (for your stance), keeping your back straight and your head "floating" and your elbows in and your wrists firm.

Attacking structure would be forcing them to drop their hip, sweeping to shift their knees, kicking hip to take out hip/spine line, pulling on neck to take out spine+hip alignment and hence collapsing their structure, slap hand and trapping elbow to effectively close their small circle.

In effect, you only have one vital structure per given style because that is the foundation of the style. Everything from how you move to how you punch is based on a set of principles regarding how you place your hip and where you punch from and where your hands tend to be etc etc. Your footwork is about being able to carry your vital structure around without compromise (think about how you shuffle/step and how your hip SHOULDN'T be moving with respects to your body). When you punch you are drawing on physical structural strength (most commonly heard as "punch from the hip").

[Adonis]

structure can relate to a alot of things your stance, posture, as well as alighment of your strikes like what was mentioned by the poster above.

Stace is more about being moveable and shifting/applying your weight.

Sort of like the idea that the hands do the job the body gives it the weight and the feet gets it there. Every thing helps the other so to speak.

So understanding your particular style would be to look at it logically as far as time/speed/power they help each other.

[Adonis]

experiment with your own body. do the structure you were taught but then mess with it and move the hips forward back to each side and do a punch as you were taught on a bag or some surface. take the feet move them closer together or wider apart change which feet is in front or back raise lower height level, you can answer alot of your questions by going off ofwhat you feel.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Usually when I use the word "structure" I am referring to how the entire body is positioned in relation to itself. That could mean stance or it could mean something like how "strong" my arm is in a certain position. It is important to make the analysis of structure 4-dimensional. In other words, time also plays a factor in structure.

Another key part is simple biomechanics. What is the body's natural "settling" point? In effect, it is a study to try and keep your body in positions where it is strong AND less vulnerable. Included in this calculation are the exclusion of movements which are potentially injuring to your body, whether that be immediate or long term. A classic example of long term injury is how a vast majority of many people punch or do any sort of arm manipulation, which is with their elbows locked out and fully extended. Sure, you may not necessarily feel it as "bad" when you are young, but it certainly builds up and leads to injury down the road.

Other notions of biomechanics and structures can be a simple as when I punch/block/whatever, "is my elbow facing down or as close to down as possible?" Or "does my shoulder turn out too far when I am blocking to the outside"? I find that to be a common one. From a tactical standpoint, doing a middle block (typical swinging middle block to the outside) where this happens is inefficient because there is nothing to block far outside your body. From a vulnerability standpoint, it is bad because your arm is very open to manipulation out there. From a health standpoint it is bad because it places unnatural stress on your shoulder (especially if you are tight).

There are lots of other ones such as centerline theory which are common in many styles (whether they call it that or not). Time, patience, and critical analysis of your martial art will show them to you. Learning as much as you can from people of skill and working with willing partners doesn't hurt either.

On a related note, I think there is a very heavy emphasis by some people/styles to always do everything as hard and heavy as they can. I think this deafens the mind's ear to some extent because there is a focus on generating strength (or what seems to be strength, anyway) rather than listening to what your body is telling you. Therefore it is good to sometimes slow things do and get some feedback. Some styles like Tai Chi do this a lot more than others.

For me, kata is one of the main places where I gain insights into structure and biomechanics (the other being partner work). As such, I always do my kata with various timing or focus. Sometimes I may do it slowly and think only of how my body feels, other times I may do it with "intent", other times still I may do it solely with the application and timing in mind.

[smallman]

my structure is:

Height: 6"

Weight 72 Kg

Chest 40

waist 32

physic: abit muscley and very strong and quick almost perfect lol

[ivette_green]

And yet you're a smallman...

[smallman]

actually smallman is my surname not my ring name.

[smallman]

posture is the way you stand e.g if you are leaning forward or slouched then that is bad posture but if you are straight and steady that is good posture.

[busling]

Thank you for your informative posts