Po-Eun hyung

[bushido_man96]

No, Danielle, that one isn't too bad. It still doesn't seem to flow the way I like to do the forms, though.

But, I could see the difference here between many of the others. The sine wave wasn't nearly as pronounced.

[DWx]

Each to their own I suppose. I can't get my forms to flow as well I as I like doing them non-sine wave way, but maybe that will come with practice.

[tonydee]

It is just really weird and much less powerful for me to do it without [sine wave].

I hear this a lot, but for me it's only half an equation. When you don't use sine wave - what do you use? When I started learning very old-style TKD, we were taught to raise the back heel up off the ground while keeping the leg pretty straight - lifting the body weight - then drop the heel and body weight while trying to get the hips to rotate. It kind of worked - we could punch pretty hard and break things (well, most of us ) - but in hindsight it made little sense and was hideously inefficient in generating rotational power through the hips. For people from a similar TKD background, I can understand the sine wave being an improvement.

But, long time ago - through the introspection that comes with explaining techniques to beginners - I "rediscovered" Shotokan style hip rotation. Made me feel like a complete moron for not twigging to this earlier. It's so simple, strong and direct in rotating the hips into the technique that it often comes as a revelation to TKD people who've not tried it before. The best youtube video I've found on it is here.

It really annoys me that I had to spend 10+ years training without understanding this just because early Korean TKD lost it amidst the scrambling political in-fighting and manic transmogrification of the 'art' into something that could be distanced from karate. Not to say that there wasn't innovatation and value added in other technical areas - all that focus on kicks did yield results - but when the fundamentals of hip rotation for hand techniques are lost, it's no wonder the death of hand techniques themselves follow... they can't be effective without support.

Cheers, Tony

Edited June 25, 2009 by tonydee

[DWx]

Good post Tony,

However please don't assume that we do the sine wave motion in isolation and that we only generate power from "bobbing up and down". This is not the case at all and hip twist is a very integral part of our movements. Everything is driven from the hip and the sine wave motion is to partly facilitate that. After all our origins are mainly Shotokan influenced and hip twist just makes sense because you are using the whole torso rather than just the arm to make the strike.

[bushido_man96]

We also use a lot of hip twist in our school, and no sine wave. I think the main reason that we don't have a sine wave motion is because our GM was originally trained in the WTF style forms, most like the Palgwes, but I am unsure. So, we use a lot of hip, and no sine wave.

[tonydee]

please don't assume that we do the sine wave motion in isolation and that we only generate power from "bobbing up and down". This is not the case at all and hip twist is a very integral part of our movements. Everything is driven from the hip and the sine wave motion is to partly facilitate that. After all our origins are mainly Shotokan influenced and hip twist just makes sense because you are using the whole torso rather than just the arm to make the strike.

Sorry - didn't mean to imply that at all. Just saying, from my own experience, when comparing the hip-rotation employing sine wave to whatever hip rotation you were doing before that, the latter may not have been a great baseline. Almost everyone is doing some hip rotation, and subjectively most people think they're doing a lot of it, but it's necessary to understand and try the alternatives (preferably with someone who's mastered them to guide/correct) before being able to conclude which one's really most useful for you.

Saying that, it's an open question in my mind. I'm genuinely interested in what you're comparing sine wave to. I personally haven't practiced sine wave motion enough to get used to it. A guy I trained with at my old school (profile) ended up joining ITF, and did tell me it took him a couple years to get used to but then he was sold on sine wave. I don't know if he ever understood Shotokan-style hip rotation though. Must look him up when I'm back in my old home town and compare.

Cheers, Tony