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Knee spring in any Karate style?


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Again, Sine-wave is not knee spring style! . Sine wave is down, up down. Knee spring is up, down. Also, both Knee spring and Sine wave is used in sitting stances, so it not just for when you move. Also from still walking stances with punches thrown, are you told to spring the knee or do the sine wave bounce

Respectfully I would suggest you ask your instructor to show you. You're correct in that ITF went from linear > knee spring style > sine wave but really the last two are used in conjunction rather than one replacing the other. It is difficult to explain this without being there in person but sine wave requires a stance change otherwise it is just knee spring. (FWIW you also don't have sine wave when stance changing low -> high such as in Hwa Rang, L-stance to vertical stance.)

Over time I thing it's fair to say it has become less effective because it has been exaggerated so much and gotten away from the original intention. However having done several IIC and ITS courses this year with the technical director for ITF (Vienna), there is definitely a focus on reigning it back in.

But I think this is now straying away from your original question to the Karate folks on here?

As for dropping weight as a way to generate power, Jack Dempsey's "falling step" in boxing is along the same lines:

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." ~ Confucius

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No I have never seen this before. In watching the video, and maybe it's over pronounced because it's being filmed, the persons momentum is halted and then starts again before executing. This to me makes no sense. As you lose the momentum and have to regenerate it.

To me this stop in momentum would hinder you from delivering maximum energy to the target.

However this is an observation of a person that has trained in Okinawan Karate so I have no actually knowledge of the body mechanic's behind this technique and I could be way off base.

The person who succeeds is not the one who holds back, fearing failure, nor the one who never fails-but the one who moves on in spite of failure.

Charles R. Swindoll

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Again, Sine-wave is not knee spring style! . Sine wave is down, up down. Knee spring is up, down. Also, both Knee spring and Sine wave is used in sitting stances, so it not just for when you move. Also from still walking stances with punches thrown, are you told to spring the knee or do the sine wave bounce

Respectfully I would suggest you ask your instructor to show you. You're correct in that ITF went from linear > knee spring style > sine wave but really the last two are used in conjunction rather than one replacing the other. It is difficult to explain this without being there in person but sine wave requires a stance change otherwise it is just knee spring. (FWIW you also don't have sine wave when stance changing low -> high such as in Hwa Rang, L-stance to vertical stance.)

Over time I thing it's fair to say it has become less effective because it has been exaggerated so much and gotten away from the original intention. However having done several IIC and ITS courses this year with the technical director for ITF (Vienna), there is definitely a focus on reigning it back in.

But I think this is now straying away from your original question to the Karate folks on here?

As for dropping weight as a way to generate power, Jack Dempsey's "falling step" in boxing is along the same lines:

No. Jack Dempsey had a forward direction to the falling step/weight transfer. He didnt just advocate an up and down motion.

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Again, Sine-wave is not knee spring style! . Sine wave is down, up down. Knee spring is up, down. Also, both Knee spring and Sine wave is used in sitting stances, so it not just for when you move. Also from still walking stances with punches thrown, are you told to spring the knee or do the sine wave bounce

Respectfully I would suggest you ask your instructor to show you. You're correct in that ITF went from linear > knee spring style > sine wave but really the last two are used in conjunction rather than one replacing the other. It is difficult to explain this without being there in person but sine wave requires a stance change otherwise it is just knee spring. (FWIW you also don't have sine wave when stance changing low -> high such as in Hwa Rang, L-stance to vertical stance.)

Over time I thing it's fair to say it has become less effective because it has been exaggerated so much and gotten away from the original intention. However having done several IIC and ITS courses this year with the technical director for ITF (Vienna), there is definitely a focus on reigning it back in.

But I think this is now straying away from your original question to the Karate folks on here?

As for dropping weight as a way to generate power, Jack Dempsey's "falling step" in boxing is along the same lines:

No. Jack Dempsey had a forward direction to the falling step/weight transfer. He didnt just advocate an up and down motion.

Which is what sinewave is: moving in a direction with a weight drop.

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it." ~ Confucius

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Again, Sine-wave is not knee spring style! . Sine wave is down, up down. Knee spring is up, down. Also, both Knee spring and Sine wave is used in sitting stances, so it not just for when you move. Also from still walking stances with punches thrown, are you told to spring the knee or do the sine wave bounce

Respectfully I would suggest you ask your instructor to show you. You're correct in that ITF went from linear > knee spring style > sine wave but really the last two are used in conjunction rather than one replacing the other. It is difficult to explain this without being there in person but sine wave requires a stance change otherwise it is just knee spring. (FWIW you also don't have sine wave when stance changing low -> high such as in Hwa Rang, L-stance to vertical stance.)

Over time I thing it's fair to say it has become less effective because it has been exaggerated so much and gotten away from the original intention. However having done several IIC and ITS courses this year with the technical director for ITF (Vienna), there is definitely a focus on reigning it back in.

But I think this is now straying away from your original question to the Karate folks on here?

As for dropping weight as a way to generate power, Jack Dempsey's "falling step" in boxing is along the same lines:

No. Jack Dempsey had a forward direction to the falling step/weight transfer. He didnt just advocate an up and down motion.

Which is what sinewave is: moving in a direction with a weight drop.

No. Sine wave is lifting and raising your body with an arm punch. You don't follow the punch. Imagine a sumo wrestler raising his body and punching.. It does nothing to the punch if the body doesn't follow the motion forward. Learning forward is a big no no in karate and tkd reverse punch

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Originally, ITF TaeKwondo performed punching according to the same principles as Shotokan: jerk the hip, tense the abdomen etc.

Then they played around in the 70s and added a very peculiar thing called knee spring, in which you spring the back knee slightly by raising the body upwards and down before you punch.

It is demonstrated below, watch closely:

Now, does any Karate style adhere to this principle of punching? It makes no sense to spring the knee without punching afterwards... Springing the knee is meant as a weight transfer from the back leg to the front leg. But in TaeKwondo, you are supposed to spring the knee, then set it to the ground, THEN punch. Making the motion irrelevant for power generation.

Later they added an additional step (Sinewave), which is to go down, then up, then down. But let's stick to knee spring for the purposes of this thread.

Knee spring and sine wave are two different things.

Knee spring creates sine wave.

Knee spring is in all (ITF) movements. Sine wave is only in movements which travel or involve a stance change (but not all stance changes).

But in TaeKwondo, you are supposed to spring the knee, then set it to the ground, THEN punch. Making the motion irrelevant for power generation.

This is not true. In ITF Taekwon-Do you never finish the leg before the punch. Everything MUST finish at the same moment. The punch should finish as the leg drives straight and locks the stance.

I'll admit that the movements you see nowadays are over the top with this movement (often for competition) but from what I've seen recently there is a conscious effort now to reign it back.

I've never really done knee spring in any of the TKD that I've practiced. Power generation has almost always been from the hips.

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