Striking principles

[USCMAAI]

I have had the privilege of speaking with practitioners of various styles of martial arts. One of the things I found interesting was the discussion of power striking. I found it rather amazing that so many people had difficulty understanding that power was different than strength. It also was amazing to see that many did not understand that there are several different striking principles. Before I talk about Striking, I need to clear up the differences between power and strength.

Strength is defined as the capacity of exertion and or endurance.

Power is defined as a force that exerts control, influence or destroys an object at an effective rate. This is explained with the formula:

P= Mass x Speed.

Distance

As you can see there is a difference between power and strength. You can have physical power without having strength, and you can be physically strong and not have physical power! You may say that I am splitting hairs, but think about the two definitions. Consider this; is a 280lb weightlifter more dangerous to you than a 100lbs woman with a 9mm? Of course assuming both want to do you harm, and both are within range to do so, most of us would probably rather deal with the weightlifter. No matter how strong the man is; he is unlikely to be able to generate the amount of power a bullet could. Now the stronger a person is, the more he/she can exert mass (throwing a punch, kick, executing a throw etc.). This in turn affects the amount of power produced. Conversely, a small object moving at great speed can create an equal amount of power (i.e. the bullet and Bruce Lee).

Maximum Power- Any movement of the body is dependent on the expansion and contraction of muscle groups. The amount of power generated in a given technique is related proportionately to the coordinated expansion and contraction of various muscle groups. This affects the amount and speed at which various body masses contact a target.

The distance required for its application also affects the striking power of a technique. Therefore maximum power can be achieved at various distances depending on what technique is used (kicks, strikes, throws, etc).

Concentration Of Power- to deliver an effective technique (one that causes maximum damage to a target area) you must concentrate the power of your technique into the smallest area possible on your target. Even a great amount of power that is dispersed, will not be effective. An example of this concept was displayed to me in New York. I have a friend, who is a professional wrestler. He is 6'10" tall and weighs 325lbs (big man!), I had the opportunity to be invited to get into the ring with him. He picked me up and "body slammed" me on the mat. Now the throw appeared very fast and hard, and I weighed around 230lbs at the time. Power = Mass times Speed over Distance. We had all those elements there, and I should have suffered some serious damage, but the mat was constructed to absorb and disperse energy, therefore I suffered no damage.

Fluid Shock Wave Striking Principle

All things being equal, the more time on contact that a concentrated technique has on soft muscle tissue, the more effective it will be. This is due to the fact that the energy transfer to the effected muscle tissue is complete causing motor dysfunction. This is called the Fluid Shock Wave Striking Principle. Generally the time on contact is only 30 milliseconds (just long enough for all forward momentum to transfer into the targeted area).

Trembling Shock Striking Principle

When striking the hard targets of the body such as skeletal structures, the Trembling Shock Striking Principle will be most effective. This striking principle works by delivering a concentrated strike to the effected target area and quickly removing the striking weapon. This in turn causes the transfer of energy into the skeletal structure at single point, and quickly removing the weapon prevents the rebounding of that energy. The reason that these two principles are effective is that Fluid Shock works by creating an over stimulation of the muscle tissue. Muscle is 80% water, thus the time on contact allows for the transfer of more energy. Because the skeletal structure is more rigid, and energy displacement occurs more slowly in bone than muscle, snapping strikes that concentrate their power to a smaller area are more effective.

Now I should explain what is meant by time on contact. Many martial arts instructors talk about "sticking" a punch or kick. This is similar to what I mean. Time on contact entails delivering your strike about 6" past the target and leaving the weapon on the target for approximately 30 milliseconds. These types of strikes are particularly effective when used against large muscle groups or pressure sensitive areas.

There are two other methods of striking. Touch Pressure techniques are technically not strikes, but are a method of application that is designed to create pain compliance. This is accomplished by touching various pressure points with sufficient force (pressure) to cause pain. Examples of this method are joint locks, and the George Dilman method (Koshoryu Kempo).

Quick Penetration Strikes are used against pressure points as well, but instead of applying pressure to these points, quick stabbing strikes are used to create a mental stun that last 3-7seconds, allowing you to move on to another technique without resistance. This type of strike is also used against soft target areas and organs, such as the eyes, kidneys and throat.

There are some effects or principles that can be achieved regardless of the type of striking technique used. They are as follows:

The Principle of Increased Impact: This principle states that a strikes impact on a target can be increased if that target is prevented from “riding” the strike, or “recoiling” from the strike. Think of it this way; if you kick a target and that target is allowed to move with the kick, the force of the kick is diminished. But if the target is pinned against a wall or another object, and is not allowed to move with the target, the impact is effectively increased. This principle also states that "sandwiching" or bracing techniques also cause this effect. This also implies that a target moving "into" the end of your technique will also increase the effect of your technique.

The Principle of Double Impact: This principle states that striking a target and forcing it into a solid object (wall, post, floor, etc) will double the impact of the strike. An example of this is delivering a palm-heel strike to a target's head. If the strike is done correctly it is powerful, but if the target's head is instantly driven into a wall, or some other solid object, the impact is doubled.

The Principle of Angular Momentum: This principle states that torque is necessary to accelerate and rotate an object creating inertia to produce angular momentum (spinning motion). This principle contends that the impact of techniques that produce this effect is greatly increased. 'Doc' took this one step further and stated that "small circles" were even more potent in most cases. He stated that in strikes, kicks and throws " You will work harder to move your hands, legs, and body in large circles, but the power available will actually be less than that produced by keeping the rotations smaller and centered as you hit, kick, or throw your target."

Many of you probably have been applying the various striking principles in your training for years, and may or may not have even known it. I write about these different forms of striking as a means to cause you to evaluate your system, training and teaching. Could you identify which principle is appropriate for each of the strike, kick, throw, etc of your system? If not why? There are other principles and theories involved in striking (some of which I disagree), but I feel that the ones discussed above are the major elements of striking. As with all of my writings I do not claim to be the only authority on the subject, or that I am 100% correct. I merely open up topics for thought and hopefully discussion.

[cross]

Excellent post.

From my experience with striking and the way its taught more specifically, people tend to focus far to much on the technique and dont pay enough attention to the power generation behind it. Leaving them with technically "good" looking strikes, but at the same time they wouldnt hurt a fly. In my opinion the principles of power generation are far more important to master than a large number of techniques.

Thanks again for posting, it was a great read.

[TigerDude]

Thank you for starting a discussion. I believe your discussion of striking is good, but your physics isn't quite right.

Power is the energy is takes to move something over a distance at a certain rate. It is not related to the damage done by a strike.

Momentum is speed times mass. Kinetic energy is one-half times speed times mass-squared. Momentum is what moves things when they are hit. Kinetic energy is what damages things.

The momentum of a bullet is actually very low (despite Hollywood silliness), due to the low mass of the projectile, but the kinetic energy is high due to the high speed. A 127 grain 9mm bullet travelling 1250 fps would have momentum of 3.1 kg-m/s, and a kinetic energy of 594 Joules (kg-m^2/s^2).

A punch, depending on the assumption we make, has much more momentum, but actually a similar amount of kinetic energy. Assume a 25 pound arm at 30 feet per second, and the momentum is 104 kg-m/s, and kinetic energy is 474 Joules.

The reason the bullet is more deadly is a combination of the small size the impact is distributed over, and the properties of the human body. At the slower speeds of a hand-held weapon, a very small diamter is required to puncture skin, like a knife or ice pick.

I do agree that striking power will primarily be the combination of speed and mass that can be put onto the target. There are lots of ways to acomplish this, which is what must of us in the striking arts try to get better at. Also, depending on what you are trying to do with the strike, concentration of that power may be effective.

The Principles of Increased Impact and Double Impact make good physics sense.

My belief is that beyond the physics of speed & mass, there is little science behind our various martial arts' stances on what a good punch or kick is (big circle, small circle, linear, rooted, heel up, surface damage, interior damage, etc.). People know what a hard punch feels like, but beyond that... I am not trying to knock your analysis, but I see lots of explanations of these things, and many tend to be contradictory (sp?).

I do know that I'm a pretty big guy, & if I hit someone with a hard straight left (I'm a southpaw), I'll likely break both my fist & his cheekbone. Maybe I'll get better one day so that I'll have a better option. ;^)

[JWLuiza]

Actually, KE = 1/2 mv^2 not mass squared. So a person with the same speed, but twice the muscle in an arm will have twice the kinetic energy, while someone with the same mass, but twice the speed will have four times the KE. Watch out for the fast big guys.

The dissipation of the KE is what does damage. Damage is inversely proportional to the area of the strike and to the time it takes to transfer the KE completely (to accelerate the other body)

[USCMAAI]

I will defer to those of you who have greater knowledge of physics. I only know that the above princples work for me. Thank you for your comments. It appears that I may have to do a little more research.

[bushido_man96]

Great information, and great posts by all!

[Ottman]

Excellent post.

From my experience with striking and the way its taught more specifically, people tend to focus far to much on the technique and dont pay enough attention to the power generation behind it. Leaving them with technically "good" looking strikes, but at the same time they wouldnt hurt a fly. In my opinion the principles of power generation are far more important to master than a large number of techniques.

Thanks again for posting, it was a great read.

I love the physics discussion too, and would love to see a book written on physics and the motion of the human body, but I certainly don't have the physics knowledge to do it myself. (In fact, I'm gonna go google that after this post and see if there are some books out there on this already. There's got to be something.)

Anyway I have to agree with Cross. Technically good looking strikes are great for forms (obviously) but I've always been way more into practical delivery of a strike than it looking good. If you really take the time to train for power, and learn how to use the muscles of the body in the very coordinated way that you need to in order to deliver the most power/damage/destruction/whatever, I feel you learn a lot more about what the human body (what your body) is capable of than with traditional good looking technique in which you're trying to emulate a particular standard that may or may not work (or may or may not work for you at least).

I've always been very interested in the physics behind it all, and I emphasize the difference between good traditional technique, and powerful effective technique (and especially where the two meet) in my classes. I think it's essential for an instructor to know intimately these differences and how the two can work together as well, in order to be able to teach different types of students. Obviously some are more concerned with power and practicality, whereas some are more interested in forms and demonstrating traditional technique, and an instructor should be a master of both IMHO.