Sine Wave (ITF TKD)

[Dobbersky]

All

I need you guys to advise me what the Sine Wave is for.

I have popped to my local ITF Dojang, got my ITF Dobok and raring to go, even though I got to put on a White belt again.

I need to understand the SineWave, what's it for?

What's the application of the technique, with the "up/Down" effect comes into play?

Where did it originate from as I have researched some ITF schools don't teach the Sine Wave to their Forms (Poomsae)?

Is it more Western Schools putting the Sine Wave in as opposed to Korean School etc/

I'm also learning Koryo Poomsae (WTF) from a student of mine.

I am Japanese/Korean Karate based as you already know and we tend to glide without a Sine Wave on the Forms I'm used to doing. Is there a way of gaining Dan Grades in ITF without performing the Sine wave?

Looking forward to your responses etc

Thanks

[sensei8]

I'm in opposition of the Sine Wave and here's why.

Grading in ITF without succumbing to their methodology might be nearly impossible.

I too, being a karateka, don't understand the Sine Wave methodology, even though I've heard many, many explanations/reasons for it. I firmly believe that the Sine Wave methodology, especially the excessive Sine Wave, robs the practitioner of power. Why?

The quickest way between point 'A' to point 'B' is a straight line. Sine Wave isn't a straight line. Sine Wave methodology acts to me like a wind-up, and MA techniques don't require a wind-up; MA techniques aren't a baseball pitch.

[DWx]

Awesome Dobbersky, welcome to the family Who you training with?

As an ITF-ist I try and give you my take on things, but this is only what I know and what I think when I'm training.

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Originally sine wave got introduced early on as a way to try to generate more power and for political reasons. Check out page 144 of A Killing Art by Alex Gillis:

A more important gift to the communists, however, was a change to "sine wave", a series of subtle movements that applied to all techniques. Good martial artists had always slightly bent their kneess and rotated their hips before launching a technique (thereby creating more power), but Choi now wanted everyone to lower then raise the entire body, with no hip rotation, so that they could use gravity while driving downwards with a punch for example. Everyone had been practising a small sine wave (requiring a small knee spring and snapping of the hips) but Choi's gift was a big sine wave (requiring a big knee spring). The differences sounded subtle, but, when put into action, they gave Choi's Tae Kwon Do patterns a distinct style - a slower, more rhythmic, bobbing-on-the-sea look that dramatically distinguished it from Karate and Kim Un-yong's Tae Kwon Do.

Just as dramatic were Choi's sudden announcements that North Koreans were practicing "pure Tae Kwon Do" (because they were doing a big sine wave) and that all the other instructors on the planet were "fakes". As my instructor, Mr Di Vecchia explained, Choi inserted a three-dimensional signature on the martial art (sine wave), handed it to North Koreas and, in one move, disowned his wayward disciples, men who Choi viewed as disobedient and unfilial. In fact, disowning those surrogate sons was perhaps Choi's chief goal with sine wave.

Even over my short 10 year training time, its changed in how we do it as there's more understanding of body mechanics and as the movement gets refined to something more useful. Over my training time, we've changed from a massive up/down to a more lateral forwards/backwards movement (never understood this one) to the now more subtle motion. Up/down is never going to add more power going forward and if you know anything about mechanics you're crazy to think so. (You do get a lot of ITF students and instructors saying up/down does, but its a misunderstanding on their part of what the're doing themselves). Sine wave has changed and is all about relaxation.

Its not really an overtly up/down action. I like to think of it as natural sine wave and created sine wave. Hard to explain w/o pictures but when stepping between stances, sine wave comes into play as a result of natural movement. Its to do with relaxation. If you're going from a deep stance, eg walking stance and stepping forward into another walking stance, you are going to go up and down a little. I mean you take two people the same height and get one person to do a walking stance and the other to just stand there, the one in the stance is going to be lower. To take a step, you've either got to make a conscious effort not to come up or you will naturally raise as you go through that non-stance-just-standing there phase.

To illustrate, watch a crowd walking:

its almost imperceptible but you can see that they bob slightly. If they were taking longer steps i.e. the size of a walking stance, the wave would be more pronounced. In practice, we get a slight down up down movement. Using an example of going from walking stance with the left leg forward and stepping through so the right leg is now forward: When we land in the left stance and finish whatever strike or block we were doing, the stance should be locked out. To transition to the right stance, we first relax the legs and the back leg will go from locked out to bent slightly. This also results in a slight downward motion. Push with the back leg to go to the neutral "non-stance" stance (feet both under the body). Of course you're going to raise up unless you make an effort to bend your legs to maintain the low height. From the neutral position you now drive forward into the second stance and end up going down. That's all it is. Excessive downward or excessive upward motion is totally counter intuitive as you waste time for no increase in power.

The neutral position serves as a transition position. The left leg is loaded and the weight is on the ball of the foot. This allows you to pivot and push the weight, allowing you to either step forward or you can step back, to the side, shift, slide etc. Translates straight over into sparring as this is where you keep the weight when moving. Only time weight goes onto the full foot is that instant when you're landing a strike/block and need to fix the stance. So why not just keep it all level as power is more effectively transferred in a straight line? Relaxation. Must relax everything between techniques, including the legs. Have to be able to change direction or reverse the movement at any time, including halfway through the movement, i.e. the neutral stance position.

Created sine wave is a little different but taking the 1st 2 moves of Do-San, block-reverse punch in a walking stance. Sine wave is not bend the back leg down, then push up onto the ball of the foot and then punch. The back leg should be locked in the stance as you finish the block. To transition into the punch, you relax the back leg and inevitably get a slight bend in the back leg. This tiny downward movement is the "down" part. Hardly that noticeable. You don't physically force the bend and lowering. The weight shifts slightly onto the ball of the back foot, (but you're not wearing imaginary high heels ). This frees up your hip a bit more so you can pull it back and then snap it back into position as you fire off the punch. Coming onto the rear ball of the foot allows you to pull the hip back a bit more and the leg naturally turns a bit too. End up with a slight upward motion and you then use your leg as well as hips to drive into the technique. It is slower than what you'd see in Karate kata but when you learn more patterns you'll find that there are variations on the movement to chain together techniques and combine this action.

The only time the sine wave should look "over the top" is when the legs are assisting in the technique. So take a scooping block in a sitting stance. The idea is you are lifting up and parrying an opponents attack (like a kick). You come up in the stance so that your legs are assisting with the upward motion of the arm. You're then using your big quad muscles and not just relying on your arm to be able to lift the leg out of the way. Similarly with any technique when you want to pull them into it. You can make it a bigger movement and use the dropping of your weight to assist with pulling them in.

There are more nuances to it than this but I hope this serves as a very basic idea of how to do it. The problem really comes from people misunderstanding and/or trying to make it more aesthetic. In essence people want to make all moves the same with the same amount of sine wave action to it (and this is the reason why tournament patterns are so bad for it). If you're going to do it, you have to be smart and ask yourself why you're doing it and what the technique is for so how do you use the sine wave? The other issue is that "Master X" visits your school and decides that you're not doing it right so spends ages with you exaggerating the movement to make you understand the mechanics of it. But then Master X goes away again and the instructor misunderstands and thinks bigger is better. Its like how we teach our beginners: big arms for blocks and strikes so they get the movement down. As they progress the movements become more conservative and shorter. It really is something that's better shown rather than explained so I hope your instructor does this Dobbersky.

[sensei8]

A very SOLID post Danielle!

[bushido_man96]

Yes, Danielle, very nice post. The best explanation I have read of it.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem is that most places are putting too much emphasis on the up and down motion.

I do the ITF forms (well, most of them) in my style of TKD, but we don't use any sine wave - sensei8 can attest to that. We prefer to use body twist, via the hips, to generate the power. And like DWx mentioned, when moving from stance to stance and technique to technique, there is going to be some natural sine wave.

Hopefully the school you attend doesn't over-emphasize it, as that is the quickest way to kill the rhythm of a form, in my opinion.

[DWx]

Yes, Danielle, very nice post. The best explanation I have read of it.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem is that most places are putting too much emphasis on the up and down motion.

I do the ITF forms (well, most of them) in my style of TKD, but we don't use any sine wave - sensei8 can attest to that. We prefer to use body twist, via the hips, to generate the power. And like DWx mentioned, when moving from stance to stance and technique to technique, there is going to be some natural sine wave.

Hopefully the school you attend doesn't over-emphasize it, as that is the quickest way to kill the rhythm of a form, in my opinion.

It depends what you mean by rhythmic. Makes it v rhythmic IMO. I've never seen any other style do it (although Karate team kata comes close) but in ITF we have team patterns. Since sine wave dictates the pace, they look v rhythmic and you can almost match the moves to a metronome. I compete in both individual and team patterns and to get the pacing right for competition, I do actually keep a count in my head as it keeps the moves on the beat. Also allows you to do some pretty cool things when doing the pattern in a group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eos9sP0_KvU (but in team patterns sine wave gets over-emphasized and the movements slowed down to make sure the group looks identical)

In terms of rhythm, all I described above was "normal motion". There is also "fast", "slow", "continuous" and "connecting" motions and when I explain these to beginners, I personally talk about fitting it to full-beats and half-beats.

In all honesty, it'll probably be over-emphasized right through the colour belts because they'll want to see you using your legs. Then as you progress beyond, you'll learn to make the movement more concise. Its not all that bad anyway. Regardless of whether you really like it or not, there is a lot more to the style than the sine wave. You'll most likely have to do sine wave to grade but you'll get a lot more out of the style than just this funny movement.

[ninjanurse]

The other issue is that "Master X" visits your school and decides that you're not doing it right so spends ages with you exaggerating the movement to make you understand the mechanics of it. But then Master X goes away again and the instructor misunderstands and thinks bigger is better. Its like how we teach our beginners: big arms for blocks and strikes so they get the movement down. As they progress the movements become more conservative and shorter. It really is something that's better shown rather than explained so I hope your instructor does this Dobbersky.

Exactly. This is how things become distorted and unfortunately leads to some of the questionable things you see being practiced. Theory and action are two different things-mindful practice, not robotic parroting is the key to really understanding what you are doing.

[bushido_man96]

Yes, Danielle, very nice post. The best explanation I have read of it.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem is that most places are putting too much emphasis on the up and down motion.

I do the ITF forms (well, most of them) in my style of TKD, but we don't use any sine wave - sensei8 can attest to that. We prefer to use body twist, via the hips, to generate the power. And like DWx mentioned, when moving from stance to stance and technique to technique, there is going to be some natural sine wave.

Hopefully the school you attend doesn't over-emphasize it, as that is the quickest way to kill the rhythm of a form, in my opinion.

It depends what you mean by rhythmic. Makes it v rhythmic IMO. I've never seen any other style do it (although Karate team kata comes close) but in ITF we have team patterns. Since sine wave dictates the pace, they look v rhythmic and you can almost match the moves to a metronome. I compete in both individual and team patterns and to get the pacing right for competition, I do actually keep a count in my head as it keeps the moves on the beat. Also allows you to do some pretty cool things when doing the pattern in a group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eos9sP0_KvU (but in team patterns sine wave gets over-emphasized and the movements slowed down to make sure the group looks identical)

In terms of rhythm, all I described above was "normal motion". There is also "fast", "slow", "continuous" and "connecting" motions and when I explain these to beginners, I personally talk about fitting it to full-beats and half-beats.

In all honesty, it'll probably be over-emphasized right through the colour belts because they'll want to see you using your legs. Then as you progress beyond, you'll learn to make the movement more concise. Its not all that bad anyway. Regardless of whether you really like it or not, there is a lot more to the style than the sine wave. You'll most likely have to do sine wave to grade but you'll get a lot more out of the style than just this funny movement.

I should probably be more specific here. When I talk about a rhythm, I don't necessarily mean like a beat in music. I think of the differing rhythm throughout the form. Maybe rhythm is the wrong word. When I do forms, there are some sets of moves that combo together, and some that are more individual in nature. In the sine-wave forms I have seen, these combos are killed because each move becomes independent of the other moves. So I think more like a fight rhythm, where there are combos, then maybe some setup moves, then combos. That kind of idea.

[Dobbersky]

Well its been a long an hard search but I've managed to find one school that practices the "Non Sine Wave" ITF. So I'm going for my free lesson ASAP. Will let you know how it goes!!!

All going well, I should get my long awaited BB in TKD after all

[sensei8]

Well its been a long an hard search but I've managed to find one school that practices the "Non Sine Wave" ITF. So I'm going for my free lesson ASAP. Will let you know how it goes!!!

All going well, I should get my long awaited BB in TKD after all

Good luck...please let us know how things work out.