In the second link on the hammer look at the section on the physics of hammering and take note of the scientific explanation of why the hammer is capable of producing such great force over a very short working distance on impact. Within the same article, note why different hammers are used for performing different types of work. Once you understand their design and the physics of why hammers and other types of tool are able to produce the forces they do (particularly against hard objects) you can then try to apply those same physical principles to your punches when hitting an opponent to the body or head.
I sometimes use an analogy of the claw hammer to create an image of ripping or tearing through the target with your fists. This way of striking can be a useful tool in a fight, because you spend very little time on the target. And I’ve found in a streetfight that it’s particularly useful because it saves your hands whilst allowing you to deliver a damaging shot. Because the movement is cyclonic, the fist quickly returns to be able to go again, and even if you miss the specific target, you’re going to catch something in the path of the clawing action. This also ‘clears’ for you, getting his arms out the way for another shot. So imagine using the other end of the hammer when punching and you’ll get the idea.
Another type of hammer that caught my interest in the past was the nail gun (spring-loaded type) . Because I am interested in short range power, I was naturally interested in the principle of rapidly and repeatedly loading and unloading a spring so as to generate a force in a fraction of a second and of a magnitude sufficient to launch and fully embed a nail in a piece of wood. It also struck me that the principle of the loading and unloading of a spring wasn’t that dissimilar to what I knew about plyometrics at the time
And so, with the view of being able to generate a force of high magnitude within a very short space and split second of time (and, like a nail gun, with no obvious development), I set about applying certain principles I was aware of through my research into plyometrics and isometrics.
In particular I drew on my understanding from plyometrics of how to preset the reactive sensitivity of the muscle spindle so that even the slightest stretch or no stretch at all would elicit a myotatic reflex response. Through my work with isometrics I also knew how to train the CNS to become more effective at recruiting high threshold motor units(fast and super fast) by increasing neural efficiency and drive, as well as training the CNS to overcome the inhibitory effect of the Golgi tendon reflex. After a few years of practicing with these objectives in mind, I was eventually able to fire off damaging shots from very short ranges with the slightest of eccentric loading, or from a totally static position.
There is a sea creature, the mantis shrimp, that uses a spring load principle not that dissimilar to the chambered-type punch of karate. The shrimp can produce hammer-like blows capable of velocities similar to low calibre bullet
Tempting as it might be for the karate aficionado to get excited right about now, what you have to remember is that the mantis shrimp uses this weapon, along with very nimble footwork, against prey that is no real threat, or against other mantis shrimps that are armed in the same way. In other words, cocking your fist in a karate-like manner, though it works well when the guy you’re fighting has a limited game or when you’re fighting a stylistically similar type, is pretty limited when the guy you’re fighting knows your game, has a completely dissimilar style and (of course) knows how to fight.
In more recent years, the dead blow hammer effect has aroused my curiosity, particularly with regards to how one might go about increasing the mechanics of impact to the target by transferring more kinetic energy to the target whilst at the same time reducing the energy lost in the rebound or recoil effect following the initial impact. What I’m interested in here applies to working within a reduced space and time against a more resilient target (say, bone). The dead blow hammer gives us a clue about how to produce an accelerated follow-through so that the target fractures or the blow in some other way permanently distorts the body’s internal structures, because you don’t give it the time to absorb the impact .
In the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties, I used to rapidly and repeatedly shake iron rings on my forearms using my entire body from the feet to the hands in both vertical and horizontal planes. I also used bars with very light weights that made a noise when I shook the bar exactly like this at 2mins 40secs, and I used light dumbbells in a similar way through various planes of movement. I not only did this so as to produce an explosive delivery of my limb or fist to the target by way of rapid eccentric/concentric loading and firing, but also to gain a sense of the explosive follow-through that was needed to immediately follow the initial impact.
With the rings, for example, I discovered ways of generating the types of forces that would cause the rings to continue to accelerate forward after what would have been the initial contact point. The sound made by the rings against each other as they accelerated forward on my forearm was an indicator of the intensity and duration of the force I was transferring to my hands, and subsequently to the target. And I could adjust my body mechanics accordingly until I got it right. It was then just a simple case of taking the mechanics of moving the rings and transferring them to my hands or wrists for an actual strike.
In principle this method is not unlike the free-flowing lead shot that is used within a dead blow hammer so as to increase the transfer of kinetic energy to the target. Indeed, it was by training in this way that I was able to break a fair number of people’s arms with my strikes. I didn’t intentionally break their arms; the break was just the consequence of years of training to instinctively strike in this way, combined with a sense of timing that enabled me to break the arm while it was moving during an exchange.
This kind of delivery of a massive force within a brief impact time is one that I’ve found to be effective for breaking bones and dropping a guy with a body shot by causing deep intense visceral pain. This effect is not unlike kinetic weapons such as the bean bag. For more on this
However, as valuable as this type of shot may be, it’s not an ideal knockout shot.
Rotational Knockout
I have knocked a couple of guys clean out with the jolting shot I describe above, but I suspect that the jolt in these cases was so intense that it resulted in disruption of the reticular activating system, which controls consciousness. If the jolt occurs in such a way that the head is very rapidly and suddenly rotated—even if the rotation is small—then the knockout will occur. This is because the jolt of the blow magnifies an effect that is common to all knockouts: disruption of the reticular activating system, which controls consciousness.
The disruption of the reticular activating system occurs through the violent rotation of the brain on the brainstem (see links at end of article). In most cases, this rotation is very obvious, whether it occurs through twisting, moving side to side or through the head being violently snapped back. With fists gloved or not, the highest percentage way of knocking a guy out is to be able to violently rotate the head from different ranges, angles and through different planes. Important to this is being able to sustain an accelerated follow-through for a longer period of time than when breaking bone or when delivering a more jolting shot to the head. Rather than striking the way the mantis shrimp does, the fighter looking for a knockout needs to hit more like the ways these professionals in this clip hit.
In this clip, like many other knockout highlights I have observed, the majority of knockouts come from causing an obvious violent rotation of the head. And take note of how the entire body is used to accelerate the shoulder, elbow and fist through the head to a point often beyond the head’s natural point of rotation, often to such a degree that the head rebounds back following the initial impact. Also note how the hip on the leading side contributes to this explosive follow-through, and don’t forget to look at what the other side of the body is doing so as to complement the follow-through rather than getting in the way of it.
So, shots that violently turn the head cause more knockouts than those that only jolt the head. But that’s not to say that the snapped or more recoil/jolting shots don’t work. They do, and they most definitely have their place in fighting. Look what happens at 40 secs, 1 min 52 sec, and 2 min 48 secs on this Teofilo Stevenson clip.
Teofilo Stevenson was an expert at this type of punch, though he didn’t use it exclusively. Stevenson is well worth looking at. He often had a tremendous reach advantage over his opponents, and so the way he chambered his right hand suited his height, evasive style and his unbelievable sense of opportunity distance and timing. Also, his opponents often stood before him like sitting ducks. Having said that, in 1980 Istvan Levi and Pietr Zaer with their raised guards had him figured out and managed to go the distance with him, whilst Francesco Damiani of Italy with his forward bullish spoiling style managed to beat him in 1982. Igor Wysotsky claims to have defeated Stevenson in Cuba in 1973 on points and knocked him out in Minsk in 1976. Nevertheless, given the slightest opportunity, Stevenson was a great knockout/TKO specialist and one who should be closely studied by those who favour this way of fighting. And take note of how he uses his entire body to deliver and retract his piston-like right hand. Even if you don’t favour this approach, study him anyway in case you run up against a similar type.
Back to the rotational knockout. What’s important to remember when going for a rotational RAS knockout is that the movement of your opponent’s head can dampen the effect of the blow. He may move his head and try to ride the shot, and thereby neutralize some of the shot’s effectiveness. You must anticipate this possible dampening effect and have already compensated for it. You need to remain in accelerated contact with the head for a relatively longer period of time than, say, when breaking bone, so as to have a disrupting effect upon the nuclei of the brainstem and therefore upon consciousness. Equally, whilst by way of leverage clipping the chin might produce a greater rotational effect on the brainstem for less effort, it’s a more difficult shot to pull off in a fight, where your opponent’s head is continually moving. Rather than targeting the head in a very specific way (e.g., the point of the chin) the better alternative is to aim more towards the hinge of the jaw. So if the head does move, you will still stand a chance of hitting the head somewhere and causing a rotational RAS effect of some kind, or disrupting the labyrinthine/vestibular system and subsequently your opponent’s balance and orientation to his surroundings. And of course you have to be able to do all this within a fight where your opponent is trying to knock you out. Many of your shots will miss or have no effect. Importantly, punching with follow-through not only increases your chance of a knockout but also allows you to close the distance, move to the clinch, or use the punching hand at the end of its delivery to check or control the opponent in some way, including transitioning to the takedown. Emelianenko is a great example of this last form of follow-through as a tactical tool.
Shavers and the role of the body
Ernie Shavers was an expert at all this and more, and his fight record speaks for itself with 68 knockouts out of 74 wins. Just watch the amount of explosive body movement that Shavers transfers to his arm, and subsequently on contact, to his opponent’s head or to his body. As the accelerating mass of Shavers’ body decreases from his legs, hips and trunk to his scapula and arms, the velocity of his fist increases, simply by the conservation of momentum. Look at the way he uses his legs, hips, waist and upper torso and head to launch the arm from the scapula to the fist. Everything he’s got is going into trying to put his opponent away, irrespective of the range, angle, or where his hands are in relation to the target. And he is able, if given half a chance, to repeat the process over and over again, or switch from attack to defence and vice versa. Shavers was no Teofilo Stevenson--he wasn’t looking for the clean knockout and in fact he often battered his opponents into unconsciousness--but his record speaks for itself and like all the other great knockout specialists he should be closely studied.
Also take note of the diagonal planes in which Shavers works, rather than vertical. Not only is he incorporating the serape/derape effect by doing this, but he’s also increasing the moment arm from the axis of the hip/spine to the fist. He’s also reducing the chances of himself being hit. Not only does hitting in a diagonal plane potentially produce more power in a safer line, but these natural body power lines correspond to the angles at which the opponent’s head and body targets are most vulnerable.
Something else to note about Shavers is the size of his hands, which when bandaged and gloved would have been hanging like weights at the end of his arms. You have just got to put a very light bar in your hands to feel the increase in the centrifugal effect of throwing punches and to realise how having something to grip on also significantly increases impact.
Training Tips
This brings me to some details about the role of the hand in the knockout. Having a gloved hand allows you to hit without fear of breaking your hands and provides more contact area with which to rotate or rebound the head. Having said that, there are ways by which you can use the un-gloved hand to produce similar advantages. Of course, any form of hand development, including hitting the heavy bag, will allow you to hit with more confidence and more effectively, but there are other ways, too. One way to develop a sense of having a heavier hand is by rapidly whirling your arm at your side so that the centrifugal force causes blood to rapidly pool into your hand. It will turn red and feel full and heavy. Now, immediately switch to the heavy bag and hit it with this heavy ‘full hand’ feeling. This pooling of blood also helps to protect the hands as a result of the fluid within the hands being brought to the surface. This works much in the same way that hand ball players soak their hands in hot water so as to protect them. By regularly engaging in this kind of practice, you can eventually learn to develop a ‘heavy hand’ feeling without the whirling, and the practice also can improve upon the dynamics of the scapula and shoulder when striking.
Another important point when going for the knockout with bare fists is to try to hit the jaw with the entire surface area of the fist so as to cause maximum rotation of the head. Remember, you’re not going for a penetrative effect, say with a single knuckle or to break the jaw, even though that might happen anyway. You are going for the violent rotation of the head. Remember, the knockout is the quickest solution to ending the fight, particularly against somebody armed with a knife.
But in order to cause a violent rotation of the head, the entire arm from the scapula to the fist, with the dynamic support of the whole body, needs to accelerate through the head. This effect is more like a bat hitting through a ball and less like throwing the fist at the head as if throwing a ball, or cracking the arm like a whip by using the entire body so as to produce a high terminal velocity of the fist within a brief impact time. This bat-hitting-ball effect is more an application of the impulse momentum change theorem to the generation and application of force to the target where mass plays an important role rather than an application of kinetic energy where achieving a high velocity is the key ingredient. But either way, if you’re going to emphasize the head as a major target, it would be a good idea, rather than just hitting the head and hoping for the best, to hit it in ways that have been shown to be effective in the professional rings of boxing and Muay Thai.
If you want a catalogue of the various ways of delivering a knockout shot, take a look at Thomas Hearns, who against welterweights up to heavyweights had every shot in the book.
Whichever way you end up trying to hit the head in a fight, it’s worth a mention that like a hammer head and its shaft, your fists, arms, shoulders and scapula have to be capable of not only delivering tremendous impact forces from any position and at any angle but also of sustaining them. The best way I know by which to produce and sustain such forces is to spend a lot of time on the heavy bag, and I do mean heavy—just like Marciano did. And irrespective of whether you are working on hand conditioning, aerobic/anaerobic conditioning, power generation, or tactics (separately, in combination or all together), it’s crucial to always do so with an opponent, real or imagined, in mind.
Sure, the heavy bag (like slip/maize bags, ground to ceiling balls, speed balls, wall bags, uppercut bags, etc.) is never going to exactly replicate the man you are going to fight, particularly when you first start using them. But provided you are working your bag alongside your drilling, conditional fighting, and fighting, you will find that gradually as your fight experience and knowledge grows you can start to work the equipment much as you would a man in a fight. This is about you, not about the bag. It’s about being able to transfer the impression of your opponent in the fight to the bag, and that takes place on an internal level. It relies on your experience and can’t be contrived. The bag might not have arms, but in your mind it can. The bag doesn’t hit you back, but in your mind you’re fighting the man. Indeed, being able to see the bag as a man speaks volumes of the quality of the fighting experiences that have been imprinted as engrams on the sensory and motor areas of your brain. Just as when you are shadow-fighting, when there appears to be nothing there at all, when you are working on the bag you must call up the fight in your mind’s eye.
Understand what you are seeing
I would suggest that quality impressions from your own fight experience (in the gym or elsewhere) as well as quality impressions from observing the knockout specialists in action are the key to this whole thing. Look at the clips, so that when you’re next working in the gym on a head shot, within your mind’s eye you will have a clear impression of what you are trying to do to your opponent’s head. This will enable you to start to work on the dynamics and tactical application of the shot.
I’ve talked to you about the mechanics behind the knockout, but at the end of the day the best advice I can offer you is to watch the clips and really study them. Shavers, like Marciano, Tyson, and of course the mantis shrimp, was one of the biggest hitters of all time. He was also one of the toughest fighters to ever step into the ring. Just look at how he comes back from being decked by Roy Williams to then knock him out. Just because these knockout specialists are referred to as boxers, they were first and foremost fighters, and anybody who can’t see that either has to be blind or seriously locked into their own beliefs. You would not want to test your chosen combative skills against them, unless of course you yourself were an accomplished fighter or you intended to use a gun, because you most certainly would need it.
In my book it’s far more productive to watch someone of the calibre of Shavers, Marciano, Tyson or other knockout specialist like Hearns in action, than to spend your time and energy listening to any ‘expert’ expounding on the dynamics of hitting the head when most ‘experts’ fail to emphasize the importance of causing a violent rotary or jolting effect upon the head. The dynamics of a skill are determined by the effect you need to cause--just like the design and dynamics of a tool are determined by the task at hand. If you’re just hitting the head without understanding the effect on the head you need to produce so as to cause a knock out, then your chances of getting the knockout are reduced. And if you can’t put your shots together like Hearns (for example), then if you come up against somebody who can, you’re going to be in big trouble.
Look at the fighters and learn all you can. No matter how impressive, informed, or eloquent someone might appear to be on the subject of fighting, no amount of talk can substitute for the observation of the real animal in action.
References:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2oh18
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z1oj5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knockout
http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f2/pointed-c
Introduction
This article on the knockout first appeared as part of a thread on the Fighting Arts Alliance forum. Now that the forum members have read it, I thought this material might be of some interest to those who read my blog. The article is long and will appear in two parts.
But first, an introduction covering the main reasons why I posted this piece on the forum in the first place.
For over thirty years I’ve been trying to explain to those who could be bothered to listen the importance of moving the head in various ways. This can be done to support the dynamics and direction of body movement, or it can mean that the head is used as a weapon and even as a 5th limb (as in head fighting). The head is also the major target in a fight, one which will be attacked and needs to be defended. At the same time, your opponent’s head needs to be attacked in various ways with strikes and controls. All of these uses of the head are important.
When I read about the movement of the head in martial arts/SP circles, I note that some have placed great emphasis on the importance of the head in movement, and are aware of the head being a major target. However, these same advocates of ‘using the head’ haven’t as yet, it seems, understood how to use the natural movements of the head to support the bending, extending, flexion and twisting of the spine. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of how to use the head to set the direction in which the body and its mass needs to move in response to a given situation. There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of how the head of one’s opponent needs to be moved in a particular way so as to gain greater control, inflict pain, or most importantly of all, produce a knockout, whether sustained, transient, or stun (i.e., proprioceptive or vestibular disorientation).
Unfortunately, much of the discussion I read online about the use of the head is one-dimensional. It lacks awareness of the specifics of how to move the head so as to support the dynamics of a particular skill, and of how to attack the head so as to cause a specific effect—for the purposes of this article, a knockout.
Interestingly, the way you move your head so as to produce the dynamics of a shot is often the same way your opponent’s head ends up moving. Outside of boxing and Muay Thai, when I look at what passes for the best examples of the dynamics of how to hit a guy in the head (or body for that matter) the main focus seems to be on how hard can you hit him with one single shot—or, more often, how hard can you hit a static substitute, say a bag or a pad. These examples often lack understanding of the specific effect you need to cause by hitting, and they certainly show an inability to repeat the process if the first shot fails—as, inevitably, it often does.
In the same way that the dynamics of a tool are designed to cause a specific effect, so should be the dynamics of, say, a shot to the head. But unless you know what those specific effects are and the best ways of achieving them, you could be running blind. This is particularly true if, unlike a professional boxer (for example) you never get the opportunity to learn by trial and error how to knock guys out. So, if you are not training in a live fighting environment, this article is primarily for you. But even if you are training in a ring/cage environment, there may be some pointers here, particularly in the clips.
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About professionals
The article was written in response to a comment made by
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randomflow on the forum:My better half is a framing carpenter and I have watched with awe at his technique, and have tried to learn from him how to do it right. There is definitely a dropping, or perhaps 'falling into' feeling when hammering efficiently. Sometimes you see carpenters not retract straight back off the target but let the hammer fall lightly to the side before doing so (blacksmiths do this also). Personally, I've found it's less tiring when you are hitting something really hard, the light tap after gives a little bounce to aid the retraction. Having read the article, why you would do both these motions makes more sense now - No recoil/dead blow = more power. Light, relaxed, tap to catch the momentum for an easier retraction.
Using a hammer correctly is a great skill to have, you have to have accuracy of target and line of attack, good hand eye coordination, intent, and body mechanics - good martial training perhaps? :-) Splitting wood is good too ....
I have made similar observations over the years with regards to how professionals use tools to do work--including the 'tools' that are built into the body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRX5BlsU3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcR28Yqt4
It is noticeable how an expert with (for example) an axe uses the body so as to let the tool and often gravity do much of the work, thereby gaining a multiplication of force or speed from the design of the tool. By contrast, when you observe most people doing work with a tool they are unfamiliar with, they put more into the effort of using the tool than they are getting out of it.
That’s why I always look to tried and tested professionals to see how they do work specific to their trade, whether they're skilled craftsmen or construction workers using a simple tool such as a hammer, axe, saw, or spade (for example). Take a professional blacksmith. He has learnt his trade by performing his specialized work day in and day out for many years. He hasn't spent his life talking about what he is going to do with the hammer if he ever happens to meet a horse. He's been doing it for real, making mistakes and correcting as he goes. You can't bullshit your way around putting a shoe on a horse.
You can probably guess where I'm going with this one. In the martial arts there's a lot of talk about tools and arsenals and toolboxes. But when I look at the performance of the men who are doing the talking, I can't see any of the expertise that the tradesman displays in the clip above. Regardless of what they may have to say about tools and biomechanics, most martial arts instructors use the tools of their body like a rank amateur. It shows--to me, anyway.
The professional fighter, on the other hand, employs the principle of the body's tools in action in a way that's clearly effective. If the job didn't get done, he'd be out of work. That's the definition of a true professional. That's why when it comes to fighting, whether in the ring or street, I always take my measure of an 'expert' by comparing what he does and says against the world's leading professional fighters and trainers, both past and present. Personally, my money would be on the professional every time.
The dynamics of tools
Now, on to the tools. Fundamentally, I've been a labourer for most of my life. And I've been learning from how workmen use tools for many years. During the twenty years when I managed a 200 acre estate, I was not only engaged in plenty of physical labour myself, but I came into contact with many workmen skilled in using axes, two-handed saws, spades, picks, you name it. You can learn a lot by watching a workman who knows what he's doing, and I always had my eyes open to pick up on the nuances of their skill.
The reason I am interested in the dynamics of tools such as the hammer and their skilful application is that they have often provided me with an insight into how the body might better be applied when doing work both internally and externally. In the context of a fight, this type of insight means being better able to deliver enough force to knock a guy out or stun him with a shot to the head, or drop him with a body shot, or even break bones with a blow.
And the truth is, there are many ways of executing, say, a punch so as to produce sufficient magnitude of force to take a guy out. I've probably tried and had some success with them all, including the chambered or cocked type punch of karate--something I'll be including in my next post. Each of these shots is mechanically different, and has a different potential application within the context of a fight. Any can potentially cause a knockout depending on the context. But it's understanding the various principles of the delivery and impact of the shots that gives you the edge, and that's where an understanding of how tools work can help.
The hammer, like the majority of our biomechanical levers, is a third class lever. When a hammer drives a nail into a piece of wood, the wrist acts as the fulcrum or axis, the mechanical effort of the arm is applied through the hand, and the load to be overcome is the resistance of the wood. This type of leverage is capable of producing great speed of the hammer head and its impact force (see 'The Physics of Hammering' near the bottom of this link .
Indeed, the human arm from the scapula to the hand is a third class lever. Here's a quote from 'Training the Shoulder Complex in Baseball Pitchers: A Sport-Specific Approach' by Jeffrey J. Jeran, MS,CSCS, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Wellness Center,Morgantown,West Virginia and Robert D. Chetlin,PhD, CSCS, HFI, West Virginia University School of Medicine,Morgantown,West Virginia.
'Inappropriate scapular kinematics may be further illustrated by the biomechanical principle of levers. Throwing a baseball involves thirdclass lever action, where the glenohumeral joint acts as the fulcrum, the baseball acts as resistance opposite the axis, and the muscles responsible for delivery are located between the fulcrum and the resistance. Imagine that your arm, shoulder, and scapula form a type of catapult (a classic third-class lever), where the scapula forms the base (i.e., the fulcrum or axis), the shoulder, upper arm, and forearm provide the desired muscle action (i.e., the effort), and the basket (i.e., the hand) holds the ball (i.e., the resistance). If the scapula or base is weak, or not tightly fixed, and you have the strongest arm in the world, the law of acceleration assures that your unstable base (i.e., scapula) will be difficult to control, resulting in improper mechanics, inaccurate throwing, poor velocity, and increased susceptibility to injury. Therefore, we believe that a strong base (i.e., the scapular fixators) is vital to both skilled performance and injury prevention. The scapular fixators, therefore, should be trained as diligently as those muscles that are directly involved in accelerating the ball.'
Being a third class lever like a hammer (which includes club and sledge hammers), axe, baseball bat, tennis racket, catapult, sling, billy jack, club, and even a mouse trap, the arm can be used in similar ways where moving the load at great speed over large distance is an advantage, in that the distance moved by the load is greater than the distance moved by the effort. And since this motion takes place in the same time frame, the load moves at a greater speed than the effort.
In other words, third class levers move the load quickly over a large distance by applying a large effort over a small distance. So if we can find ways of increasing either the length of the load or resistance arm, or increasing the applied effort, or both, then we can increase the speed of the delivery of the fist to the target.
Something else we can play around with is torque, or the magnitude of twist around the centre of rotation, which as a formula is equal to the application of the force multiplied by the perpendicular distance from the centre of rotation to the line of application of the force. Torque can be seen both in relation to the application of force by way of the muscles and tendons to the bony levers of the body and the joint axis about which they rotate, as well as in the application of force to the target and the major axis about which the rotation is taking place; i.e., the hip or the spine. And because torque is the product of the force and length of the moment arm, it can be increased by increasing the magnitude of the force and length of the moment arm.
Although having an understanding of those numerous factors that influence both linear and rotary motion can improve your performance, such an understanding is not essential and sometimes it's better to draw on analogies such as throwing your fist like a rock or a ball, catapulting it, whipping it in like cracking a whip, using it like a club or a hammer and even spring-loading it like a mouse trap when describing the different ways of punching a man in the head, for example. What's important to remember, though, is that unlike a catapult or hammer, the human arm can be applied from various positions, levels, ranges and angles. The hammer, for example, is by its design limited to do work within more specific planes and environments. The human arm, on the other hand, can be adjusted and forcefully applied to the target in many different ways.
Important to the success of this third class leverage system of the arm is the scapula, whose supportive structures must be developed in a way so as to provide a dynamic base from which to launch the arm and sustain the impact. And so this area has to be developed and strengthened by exercises specific to what the scapula has to functionally do in a fight. That’s why shrugs/rolls with weights in various positions, isolated scapula pull-ups, press-ups, dips, etc. are important. Most important is testing the dynamic stability of the scapula on the heavy bag.
Applied scapula
Two great fighters who clearly show scapula and shoulder development as well as how to use the arm like a catapult, hammer, or club to strike with the fist with tremendous force are Rocky Marciano with 43 knockouts out of 49 wins, and Mike Tyson with 44 knockouts out of 50 wins .
Just watch the clips and you will see how explosively the arm, from the scapula, shoulder, elbow, to the fist is able to move through various planes of movement from any position. Too many guys when they punch are either too tight in the scapula and shoulder region, so they end up punching with just their elbow, or too loose, so they end up punching in a disconnected or floppy way.
Naturally, the elbow is important in the delivery of force to the head or body as it is the last link of acceleration development in the kinetic chain from the feet to the hand. In over-arm, side-arm, under-arm and push-arm patterns the elbow can greatly enhance the acceleration of the fist and subsequently the follow through. However, irrespective of how the elbow is used to finally accelerate the fist (there are a number of ways), just prior to the contact of the fist with the target there should be a sense of the summation of all those forces generated within the kinetic chain (including the scapula and shoulder) being used to drive the elbow rather than the fist into the target, irrespective of the blow or position. It's rather like focusing on driving the hilt of the blade of a knife into a man instead of focusing on driving in the blade. Following through with the elbow in this way greatly enhances an accelerated follow-through of the fist.
I remember once hearing Tyson talking about how shrugging his shoulders was the key to his big hitting power and how, as part of his workout, he did shrugs with weights to enhance this process. I've been a great believer in scapular and shoulder development ever since. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0ONHZmsF
I often tell guys that by dynamically shrugging or rolling at the shoulder when they punch, or at the hip when they kick, they can generate and impart to the target a greater magnitude of force for a longer period of time than if they don’t use the shoulders or hips in such a way.
Some points about the knockout specialists
Marciano at just over 13 stone really knew how to throw a shot, and the effect of his blows were often described as being hammer-like, having rocks thrown at you, being hit by a billy jack or a baseball bat. These are analogies I've always tried to emulate and I've encouraged others to do so. Funny enough, Marciano's first sport was baseball and it was only after failing to make it as a professional baseball player that he turned to professional boxing. His baseball background might partly explain why his opponents likened his shots to having rocks thrown at them or being hit with a baseball bat. Although he often missed the head, which was his major target, he nearly always made up for it by hitting other parts of the body, usually the shoulders and arms, hard enough to cause damage or break his opponent's alignment or disrupt their balance in some way. And when you consider the relentlessness of his attacks (he was throwing 80 to 100 punches in a 3 minute round) that’s a lot of damage to sustain as an opponent. It was also requiring of an unbelievable destructive determination and stamina on the part of Marciano.
Hitting with this kind of power and relentlessness, it's not surprising that Marciano's opponents were always instinctively trying to get away from him, but only six opponents out of Marciano’s 49 fights and 49 wins ever succeeded. Something else about Marciano that’s worth noting is that he had pretty good timing and defensive skills, and the stories about him having to take a shot in order to give one are nonsense. When you consider he was throwing over 80 punches a round, if he'd had to take that many shots he'd have been beaten to a pulp. Just watch his fights and you'll see what I mean.
When I watch Marciano and Tyson hit guys in the head with their full weight behind their shot and with so much explosive bad intent, I often wonder if it was their intention to see if they could detach their opponent's head from his body and see how far they could propel it into the crowd. Tyson and Marciano were seriously big hitters, so if you want to knock out guys or seriously hurt them, then emulate the best--forget the rest.
Something else that should be remembered about knockout specialists like Marciano and Tyson is that when they climbed in the ring it wasn’t their intention to dance around the ring trying to score points or wait for the opportunity to throw a counter punch, but to knock the other guy out as soon as possible. The only reason they didn’t do that in the first seconds of the first round is because their opponent was not some rank amateur but a skilled boxer/fighter, often of world class level, who knew how to neutralize their knockout attempts and who often had the intent and skill to try and knock them out as well. Let's not forget, their opponents had the whole ring to try evade the pursuit style of Marciano and Tyson. If they had fought in a smaller ring, their knockouts would have been occurring much earlier in the fight because being able to crowd their opponent and working in restrictive pace suited their style.
And this is a style that could easily be transferred to the streets. So for those who say that boxing wouldn’t work on the streets or in some other kind of close combative situation, I'd answer that it rather depends on what type of boxer we're talking about.
More about the hammer and its applications in my next post.
But I won't be abandoning the blog. I've got some stuff ready to go up pretty soon that I hope will be of interest.
This post is just to note that Primal will no longer be an open session. It's for Fighting Arts Alliance members. If you need to know more about the Alliance, all the information is here.
Pad work provides the opportunity to address those more technical elements of the dynamics of a fighter’s skills as well as their forceful application to a target. It addresses conditioning and athleticism. And it can replicate all the tactical and strategic dimensions of the fight itself. Indeed, if the pad work is performed correctly it can allow the fighter to fight the pad man with a ferocity and destructive power that could never be reproduced in sparring without somebody getting hurt.
However, this is only true if both the pad man and fighter know exactly what they’re doing and why. And here is a clip of two Thais that shows exactly that.
When it comes to the way the pads and even boxing mitts (along with belly protector) should be used in the stand up position, as far as I’m concerned this clip says it all. It’s this more realistic approach to pad work that I use at Primal, both on the feet and on the ground. This type of pad work is the key to developing those attributes necessary to becoming a stand up fighter. Thai pad men are often ex-fighters themselves, some of them even champions, but irrespective of their backgrounds the one thing they all have in common is their knowledge of a stand-up fight. It is this knowledge together with their long practical experience of training fighters that they bring to their pad work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Y8TUaaR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFbzAjaQy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpL5ZLddt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwQhaRL7y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmzvTo1Ns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDJ1vthAS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-A8b8MNT
Living in a flat and consequentially not being able to hang up a heavy bag, to what extent is it possible to develop any level of usable conditioning? Without actually having the luxury (!) of being in a position to create the noise and replicate the satisfying impact of the heavy bag, to what extent can tools such as body weight exercises (eg plyometric press-ups?), shadow boxing or other 'drills' assist (ie non contact), and are there more beneficial or equally important means that can be improvised (ie replicating contact)? I noted your point on your livejournal, for example re doorways for developing forearm conditioning.
Fitness plays an enormous role in the effectiveness of a fighter. On that basis, you can accomplish a lot simply by getting your overall fitness up to scratch.
Physical conditioning is simple: look at Crossfit and work their routines to get your general conditioning up. You can also work the Muay Thai knee drill even in a small room. I used to do it in hotels. If you add hand weights or even strap on the single or double pad you can now get your impact training as well as your conditioning (see below for more on the pad).
Back in the 1970s when I was travelling a lot I used to use a towel on the hotel bathroom floor and do squat thrusts (forward and side) and mountain climbs with two towels. If you haven’t got a pull-up bar, you can use a door. Wedge a book or something under the bottom of the door so you don’t pull it off the hinges, then hang a towel over the top corner and do your pull-ups. You can also buy a chin up bar to put in a doorway.
Another great one I used to do was lie down on the carpet on my belly and stretch out full length, and then using my fists and forearms, pull myself forward and push myself back repeatedly, using the resistance of the carpet. This is good for clinch work.
For grip, get an old tennis ball and just start squeezing it. Squeeze it until you can completely compress it. And later you can start trying to rip it apart in your hand. As you progress, use newer balls. The one thing I found out with that, when I developed my grip strength, my punch strength went down. So you have to balance it out.
If you trap a towel in the door you can practice your hand-fighting by changing your grip positions and pulling on the towel. The towel is somebody’s arm. I used to have a rope with a knife on the end that I’d use—I don’t recommend you add the knife—but it really is great for grip strength and it gives your hands a sense so that when they come in contact with a limb, they close on it. They develop a mind of their own. You can snap, pull, and jerk it just as you would on a man.
You can also just hang a towel or a jacket and use it as a striking target. Try to displace it with your shots as violently as possible.
Weights-wise, you can always use light dumbbells for shaking/punching or doing clinch work, or kettlebells to involve more total body movement. If you do your knee drill with a weight vest, this will challenge you.
You can use power bands for punching and throwing actions, and you might be able to get creative and find other uses for them. They’re a great tool.
If you can, get an indoor bike. Not only can you get your aerobic/anaerobic cardio in, but you can also work on strengthening the patterns of kicking and punching and sensing the interconnectivity of your body. This has been one of my primary training tools since the mid-1970s and I can’t recommend it enough. I show how to use the bike on my Fight Training Modules DVD. You can also sit behind it and pedal it with your hands for a poor man’s ergometer. Very good for developing cyclonic movement.
Over the years when riding the bike I've watched various fighters on video to absorb their styles and skills, almost to the point where I feel they're my own. I can then take that visual imagery and kinesthetic sense of what they do, and translate it into shadow-fighting, or take it to the bag, pads, etc. Riding the bike is a great opportunity to watch fights and empathize with the fighter. I'm doing it with Namkuaban at the moment and I can actually run through all the moves of his fights from memory.
You can’t use all the functions of a sandbag if you’re in a flat, because you won’t be able to throw it, but you can still use it for lifts. You can apply the Tabata protocol and do curls, presses, squats, with sandbags—look around on You Tube and you’ll get plenty of ideas. I’m also keen on the Bulgarian bag http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il8rU0H-9
There’s lots of ground skills you can develop: hip heists, sit-throughs, switches, granbys, etc.—bit like breakdancing. With a weighted vest you increase the challenge.
As far as impact goes, this is where you have to get creative. You can condition your hands using a small bag full of sand or lead shot or ball bearings, hold it in one palm and just sit hitting it with your fist or your elbow. This same idea can be extended to the use of a Muay Thai pad or boxing mitt. You put the pad on one side and repeatedly hit it with the other using short-range rapid punching, elbow, knees, or even round kick with the shin. You feed the pad onto the punch/elbow at the same time. It’s an extension of punching your own palm. You can add footwork, and you can even use the pads for body conditioning by hitting yourself with the pad in the thighs and abdomen.
You can also go onto the ground and get into various different positions: on your back, on your side, on your knees, and work the striking from those angles.
It’s not a substitute for a pad man or even a bag, but there is a challenge in it. The working space is reduced and you’re now trying to find ways of making space using your own body to generate full power in that smaller space, and to repeat the shot again and again. By driving the pad into the elbow (for example) at the end of the delivery, you’ll get a double impact and it helps in developing a strong follow-through.
To learn how to hit in fight context without the benefit of a training partner, you really need to watch fights. You have to be imaginative and be able to visualize when you are training. And the advantage of training in your own home is that you can get up to anything you like because it’s private. (Certainly you should be doing shadow-fighting.) If anybody watched you doing some of this in a formal setting, they’d think you were crazy. You don’t need to worry about that.
When I was at Bourne Hill, I used to have a lot of paper lying around from my notes. I’d make balls of the paper and then set up an empty 2L coke bottle across the room and throw the paper at it. I’d try to knock the bottle down. Gradually I started to find ways by which to take my arm for a ride by using the momentum of my whole body in different ways, and then I’d start filling up the coke bottle with water to make it harder. That’s one reason how I learned to throw shots. I used something very light and put a lot of force into it. And it doesn’t cause any damage to your house. You can even throw the paper ball up in the air like a baseball player does, and hit it with your punches or kicks. But you would not want people watching you doing this.
What has always made it easier for me to engage in this kind of work is that I always have an objective, and I’m looking for ways to enhance my performance no matter where I am. So I look at things a little more creatively. I’ve already spoken about how I used the television to develop peripheral vision, and the high-speed remote control to develop dynamic visual acuity. Take a problem-solving approach, the way a kid would.
Until a couple of years ago I thought I was going to come into a whole heap of money. The sale of Bourne Hill House, which I’d expected to go through around 2000, would have left me with enough surplus funds to open a gym. I’ve written elsewhere how that process dragged on and resulted in eventual disaster (http://www.morrisnoholdsbarred.co.uk/ped
Not long after this, an old student and friend contacted me and offered to finance a gym. We had our eye on Tony Pillage’s old place in
I knew that my friend would finance me at his own loss, but I just wasn’t going to do that. I didn’t have the resources myself, and with three young kids to support I couldn’t risk what little we had. And so, during the course of the last year or so as I’ve come to the realisation that having a club of my own isn’t on the books, I’ve been thinking about how I can find another way to have a direct input into the fighting side of the martial arts.
Earlier this year, I was hearing from people how I ought to set up my own instructors’ course. It seems to be in vogue, and certainly there seems to be money in it. At the same time, I was thinking about how to solidify the relationship I have with various clubs and individuals.
The problem is that I’m not an organizational type. Organizations, especially big ones, run against the grain of my personality. And all too often they are about money and about maintaining a status quo. I’m all about challenging the status quo. Sure, I’d like to make money. But I won’t compromise my principles to do so. Never have; never will. There’s just no way I’m going to hold an instructor course, charge a lot of money, and give people a certificate of accreditation for attendance. If I were the type to sell out, I could have done that a long time ago, and for a lot more money. I’m not about to start now.
So the question then became, for those training with my guidance, how could I support their learning and their teaching at a club or group level without having a formal organization?
There was also the issue of grades and accreditation. I looked into a number of ways of grading and accrediting. The one I liked best was the BJJ system, where fighting is central to the belt and grades can be won and lost. But the truth is, I’ve never liked grades at all and I didn’t want to buy back into the system.
In the end, I decided to avoid the idea of a hierarchy altogether. That’s why I chose the name Fighting Arts
On my website and occasionally on this blog I have been known to challenge, criticise, and lampoon aspects and individuals in the martial arts that I find offensive or problematic, or just plain amusing. But I want to make one thing clear. The Fighting Arts Alliance forum and other private resources that will be restricted to
So if your ears are burning, don’t blame me!
Information about the what the
Feel free to read more on the website, and as always if you have any questions, e-mail me there.
On Sunday I conducted a well-attended course at
When I got home, I was able to find the actual reference I recalled, which is included within the second of these two links. They are Part 1, and Part 2. Good memory, eh?
Primitive reflexes, including the asymmetrical tonic reflex, play a hidden role in athletic performance. During the years after the infamous ‘fall of Gallagher’ when I researched the role of the head in movement, I was also researching the
Primitive reflexes begin their development during the fetal stage and are nature’s way of providing the building blocks upon which more complex actions depend. In the fetal stages and as newborns, motor control is undeveloped. The sensory and motor pathways associated with these primitive reflexes originate in the brainstem and are in the main strengthened by random head movements. No matter where the head moves, there is a specific corresponding response in the spine, pelvis and limbs. Without these inboard reflexes inherited through natural selection, the young organism would have no chance of survival.
There is a sequential order of development in the first years of life. If one or more of the primitive reflexes are absent, this has serious clinical repercussions for the motor development of the individual. As the higher centres of the brain mature, these pre-programmed responses are gradually inhibited in favour of stronger, more specialized sensorimotor pathways within the midbrain, referred to as postural reflexes. The latter allow us to successfully interact with the world about us, and if the primitive reflexes persist through this stage, there are also adverse consequences for the motor development of the individual. Both primitive and postural reflexes play key roles in motor function, and individual variations in the integration of the primitive reflexes within the CNS account for relative ‘talent’ (or its lack) in athletic skill.
Though the primitive reflexes are inhibited, they are never erased, and under certain conditions they re-emerge. Tadashi Fukuda noticed that these reflexes often come into play during goal-oriented and purpose-driven tasks requiring of exceptional physical power and coordination, and it was even noted that within non-athletes under certain circumstances these reflex patterns came to the fore.
What does this mean for you as a martial artist? In a nutshell, you have primitive reflexes that can enhance your performance, but that doesn’t mean that every time you move your head, these primitive reflexes come into play. They don’t. They can be inhibited by higher control centres within the brain. And indeed, in some forms of training, they are actually ironed out.
However, if you are aware of these primitive and postural reflexes, you can actually set about enhancing your performance. The first step lies in recognizing the patterns when you see them. Because primitive reflexes are integrated into functional behaviour over a period of many years, they can be difficult to spot within the seamlessness of athletic performance.
Through my research into kinesiology and my own athletic experiences I’ve known of these primitive and postural reflexes for over thirty years. I’ve always tried to address them in my personal training, and I believe I’ve had some success with this. In fact, some aspects of my performance are directly attributable to knowledge of the primitive and postural reflexes. However, attempting to impart this knowledge to others has been more challenging.
One pitfall of pursuing academic understanding of this phenomenon is the fact that having an abstract knowledge of it is insufficient. You need to have real-life representations of the reflex patterns in action. That’s another reason to watch the fight. Read about the patterns, and then look at top athletes and take in a holistic sense of how those patterns are manifesting. Watch enough, and you’ll start to see them all over the place.
Matt told me how he was trying to explain a movement within a karate form in terms of the asymmetric tonic neck reflex, which seemed obvious and clear to him as a sports scientist. He described his frustration at the inability of the karate practitioners to ‘get it.’ I know about this! But even the most receptive student, even a top athlete, can have trouble translating this academic information into practical use. This is because the point about a reflex is that it’s unconscious. It can’t be controlled; you have to more or less trick the system into producing the reflex response.
In my classes I devote a lot of attention to the head. Often the performer is unaware of the way his head (and the reflexes associated with it) may be inhibiting his performance, or at least, not contributing everything that it could be. I am always trying to draw attention to the way the changing position of the head relative to the action will improve the quality and power of the action.
In my training of an individual, the tips I will give often involve small changes in the use of the head at a critical point in the performance of a skill. There is no one size fits all. This is an area of instruction where the coach has to have a deep understanding of how the head works in relation to the body, in the context of the skill, and within the situation; i.e., the fight. It’s one thing to be aware of the importance of the head as an initiator of movement but quite another to understand how it exactly does that to support a given action.
In fighting, the head can also play a crucial role in setting up your opponent on the feet or the ground through its direct or indirect manipulation. And in a defensive sense, you need to be aware of how your head movement can be used against you. Reflexes are a double-edged sword. The better you understand them, the better able to exploit them to get an edge.
_____________________
Additional reading:
Biomechanics of Sport and Exercise
Biomechanics of Sport
More on the tonic neck reflex
Neonatal neurology
Primitive reflexes in child development
Motor control and learning
I'll be posting more about the Fighting Arts Alliance when we're ready to kick it off. I'm trying to get a group together on the internet which concentrates on fighting and fight training. No politics, just an exchange of information and ideas. Part of this involves a private forum that's members only. At the moment, we have a small group of users testing it out and getting it started.
I don't intend to drop the blog in favour of the forum, but in between setting that up and summer holidays, I haven't been posting the way I'd planned.
I do have some content lined up and hopefully next week I'll start to bring that here.
Also I will be in Loughborough this Sunday--see the courses tag for more information.
Kinesiology, Cooper and Glassow
Kinesiology and Applied Anatomy, Rasch and Burke
Kinesiology: Scientific Basis of Human Motion, Hamilton and Luttgens
Several years ago when I thought we might be relocating to the US permanently, I gave away some of my books. Others went missing in the Bourne Hill fiasco, and many of my best videos and books I sold to a collector to raise cash.
Luckily I was able to hunt up copies of these tets. They're all old, especially the first two. I like the older books because they contain a philosophy of movement rather than just a scientific analysis of it. The field has moved on technically, but the underlying concepts and principles of kinesiology remain sound.
Now of animals which change their position some move with the
whole body at once, for example jumping animals, others move one
part first and then the other, for example walking (and running)
animals. In both these changes the moving creature always changes
its position by pressing against what lies below it. Accordingly if
what is below gives way too quickly for that which is moving upon it
to lean against it, or if it affords no resistance at all to what is
moving, the latter can of itself effect no movement upon it. For an
animal which jumps makes its jump both by leaning against its own
upper part and also against what is beneath its feet; for at the
joints the parts do in a sense lean upon one another, and in general
that which pushes down leans upon what is pushed down. That is why
athletes jump further with weights in their hands than without, and
runners run faster if they swing their arms; there is in extending the
arms a kind of leaning against the hands and wrists. In all cases then
that which moves makes its change of position by the use of at least
two parts of the body; one part so to speak squeezes, the other is
squeezed; for the part that is still is squeezed as it has to carry
the weight, the part that is lifted strains against that which carries
the weight. It follows then that nothing without parts can move itself
in this way, for it has not in it the distinction of the part which is
passive and that which is active.
--The Gait of Animals, Aristotle
It was the highlighted line in the text above, which is included in the prefaces of the first two kinesiology books listed above, that set me on a research that has lasted nearly 40 years. In that time I have concerned myself with learning how the animal (man in particular) organizes this pressing against that which is beneath to make those changes in position upon which its survival depends.Without having had access to this material when I did, I don't think I would have been able to progress. It was the information in these books that enabled me to get past my training plateaus. It showed me how emotions, thoughts and sensations are translated through the CNS into movements of needed response. It helped me to understand those factors that are influential upon successful movement.
In the early 1970s when I began this quest, martial artists were not looking at science. Now it is in vogue for martial art and self-protection teachers to resouce sports science. But their approach often seems lacking to me in this essential philosophy of movement. The use of technical language and concepts may impress the student, but in my observation there aren't many out there who actually understand what they're talking about. If more of my contemporaries would return to this root level of understanding of basic kinesiology, they might grasp the principles that are essential to understanding and facilitating movement.
Now, I'm a layman in this field. But I understand these concepts and principles on a practical level. I've had three sports scientists (Mark Chen, Jon Law, and Alan Sinclair) who have found that what I was able to explain and demonstrate from my own unique perspective actually enhanced their understanding--despite them having had an enormous amount of schooling. I've made it my business to understand this material from the inside out. Often when I was reading these books' explanation for physical phenomena, it was simply verifying what I intuitively knew as an athlete. Gradually I was able to get a handle on what my body knew how to do, and articulate it for myself.
And it's this process of articulating and analyzing what you intuitively know that gives rise to further progression. You can then feed that back into your training. I always say that you can't refine what you can't define. When it comes to biomechanics, these books are invaluable in helping you define what the essential influential factors upon movement are. And it's all in harmony with the process of evolution and the fundamental patterns that I'm always talking about.
When I listen to some of the pseudoscience and 'internal' bullshit that passes for knowledge of the human body, I just have to laugh. The real knowledge is right there in books like this. It's not going to hand itself over to you on a plate, but it's far from impossible to comprehend.
These books can be hard to come by, but if you're serious try and get your hands on a copy of one of them. They're that good.
You mentioned that you trained with Steve Morris. Are the stories of him true? Is he a technically brilliant animal!?
I find it a bit difficult to talk about Morris because of his current disillusionment and stance regarding karate but I will say that the stories about his brilliance are true, and the ones about his lunacy are not. He is an incredibly gifted, skilled, intense and hard martial artist. He was very tough but I never saw him injure anyone while training. He has basically spent 50 years or so in the martial arts being continually disappointed by styles, organisations, teachers, students and people in general, I guess it just finally got to him. It's a real shame.
I think that even though Gavin chose a different path to the one I would have advocated, he has a better insight into my nature than most. From my point of view, it's not a shame--it's just the way things go. But as for the rest, he's hit the nail on the head.
A lot of people when they examine those factors that are influential upon combative performance quite naturally include the mindset, conditioning, fundamental skills, key moves, strategies, tactics of the fighter, but seldom give much notice to athleticism. To me, athleticism has always been a very important factor, both in my own performance and in my approach to training others.
I credit my own physical level of involvement in sport and outdoor play as a child for the ease with which I can approach a physical problem. I’ve spoken before about the fundamental movement patterns that we all have, and it’s playing multiple sports and recreationally engaging in climbing, running, jumping, kicking, throwing, etc. that develops those patterns. The patterns can then be called upon and modified to build more specialized skills. Again, see Vern Gambetta’s work for more on this.
When I look around at my contemporaries in the martial arts, I sometimes wonder whether they actually played a sport in their life, or even played recreationally, because that basic athleticism seems to be totally lacking. And I don’t mean elite performance, I mean the basic ability to move in an effective, dynamic way. Whatever natural movement they might have had seems to have been overwritten by these more motor-oriented movements of so-called combat, rather than the innate movements being modified for combat. They look awkward. They look like if you asked them to kick or throw a ball, they’d embarrass themselves—let alone be able to play competitively.
It will also teach you to look at your combative training in a different way.
http://www.sportsci.com/topics2/presenta
http://www.femaleathletesfirst.com/artic
http://functionalpathtraining.blogspot.c
The reason why I put Rufus up recently is that there is a strong similarity between the way he stretches the slingshot from both ends simultaneously, and the way that somebody throwing a ball double-stretches the serape muscles. This is the shoulder-hip separation referred to in the first article.
This double-stretching not only engages the serial elastic component of muscle, but also the muscle spindles embedded within the muscle. The faster you can initiate this stretch, the more powerful the contractual force that is developed as a consequence.
So the trick is, how do you get this double stretch effect?
In pitching you see a very exaggerated example of the front leg stepping forward while the rear shoulder pulls back. In fighting, naturally this principle has to be adapted to the time frame and tactical situation required, so the movement won’t look obvious as it does with the pitchers. However, in some form the double-stretch when present will enhance the force development of your shot. I used to tell Richard La Plante when he asked me how I got my power that I’d simply refined the process of throwing a stone.
I’ve been talking about the serape muscles and the importance of their engagement across the diagonal of the torso for thirty years, although I think I was mispronouncing the word 'serape' on the videos made in the late 1990s. There’s nothing new in the concept; it’s been around since 1922 in Logan and McKinley’s Kinesiology. I picked up the idea in the kinesiology books I bought in the early 1970s.
Have a look at the photos and at Rufus. Don’t get caught up in the detail, but get a feel for the separation and double stretch; i.e., stretching from both ends simultaneously and engaging as many muscle groups as you can in the kinetic chain. No passengers.
Look at this remarkable old guy (wait, he's the same age as me!). I'll be talking about this double stretch more in a future post. Meanwhile, there are some new replies in the comments thread of my last post.
Several posts ago randomflow
Are you also saying that it is counter productive to practice the movement out of context because however hard I try to copy the outward shape of the movement, especially as shown by someone else's idea of how to do the move, it won't mean much when the context is added - for my own body?’
The short answer to both questions is ‘yes.’ The longer answer is that there are a number of reasons why in training you might want to slow down or reduce the intensity of the exchange or of the practice of a move. However, none of these reasons (in my book) have to do with perfecting the mechanics of the move. There’s no such thing as a perfect skill. There’s only the necessity of what you have to do at the time—that keeps changing.
By the way, this pattern is a modified version of the throwing pattern that all kids use. In this case, the throwing pattern has been modified for baseball. I would modify the same pattern for fighting. It’s there—you don’t need to rebuild it.
Personally I can’t think of any sport where the beginning athlete is told to go slow in order to learn how to throw, kick, run, catch, etc. except for values of ‘slow’ that are like those Lincecum is displaying in the clip above. In other words, slow movement in a sporting context is natural movement done a little easier than at game level. It’s not the coach correcting every millimetre of the move. The game situation and the drills the coach uses to support the game will take care of refining the skill so that the novice gradually becomes competent. It’s not true in any sport I know that the beginner needs to be told exactly how to move.
From childhood we develop patterns of movement without instruction. It is these patterns--crawling, walking, running, skipping, climbing, jumping, throwing, hitting, etc.—that serve as the basis for further adaptation in more specific skill work. High level athletes rely on these fundamental patterns, which have usually been enhanced from early childhood through personal practice (not instruction)—that’s what’s called talent. If you read the Vern Gambetta piece, you may have noticed how he laments the fact that in recent years athletes often come to him with too many sport-specific skills and not enough fundamental pattern work. It’s the enhancement of the fundamental pattern that can sometimes make the difference between a mediocre performance and a potentially great one.
So when I teach a guy, what I’m trying to encourage him to do is to access these original patterns and build on them. We do a lot of this work at Primal. That’s also why I’ll get a guy to throw a ball at a wall. Or, if he’s got a problem with a round kick, to kick a ball. Because I know he’s already got a throwing pattern that can serve as the basis for his punch and a kicking pattern for his kick. I’ve just got to put him in touch with it. Then I can give tips as to how he might increase the force of release to create a greater impact.
It’s easy to take a natural pattern like crawling, throwing, walking, etc. and adjust it to turn it into a sport-specific skill. And in the same way, once that skill has been established in the athlete, it can be tweaked. The biomechanics of a move can often be improved, but this has to be done within the context of the individual’s movement style. And everybody is different. Just look at a road race to see all the different styles of elite runners. The important thing is that the engram as a whole isn’t removed and replaced with a motor-oriented, controlled pattern devised by the teacher. Instead, a key aspect of the move can be addressed. And this has to be done in a way that doesn’t lose sight of the whole of the performance—otherwise the coach can do more harm than good. And the more sophisticated the athlete, the more subtle the tweak is likely to be.
A good coach in any field has a kind of ‘feel’ for movement. It’s intuitive. This comes through long exposure and involvement with athletes. By contrast in the martial arts, instruction tends to be neat, tidy, organized, systemized. Everything is very rational. The teacher is the authority, he takes on responsibility for the student’s development. The material is often presented very slowly and is broken down piece by piece. There is a strong use of conscious analysis and attention to detail and motor controlled skills.
But nine times out of ten, the instructor doesn’t even know what he’s looking at. He doesn’t have the experience.
My approach is whole-brain. It involves all senses; I’m engaging everything in what I do and expecting you to do the same. I don’t act as an authority; I create situations and the trainee takes on full responsibility for his development. I present material in realtime speed, not speeded up and not slowed down. I rely on subconscious processing and allow the trainee’s subconscious to take care of the details. Novice or expert, it makes no difference.
When I demonstrate a move, I demonstrate the effect I want to cause. I want you pick up on what I’m doing on a visual and kinaesthetic level, not a conscious/verbal one. I want you to sense the generative forces I’m using to produce the effort, so that you can call on those same resources in yourself. I want you to understand the order as a whole, using all your senses and keeping your verbal mind out of the way. I don’t want you to get caught up in analysis at that point in the process. I want you to feel it. Your subconscious mind can do the processing. Provided you realise your mistakes and persist, your subconscious will take care of it for you.
I’m also a believer that you learn by your mistakes. With me, it’s not about avoiding mistakes, it’s about creating an environment in which you do make mistakes and can learn from them. People like to go slowly because they want to avoid making mistakes, but it’s the process of self-correction that teaches. And by the way, this process of learning through exposure to a fight situation is progressive. It varies from individual to individual. When you teach a kid to swim, you don’t dump him in the
Just because you’re presenting something methodically and with a strong rational foundation, that doesn’t in fact make it effective. Often in the martial arts the presentation is impressive but misleading.
When you break down movement and concentrate on how to move rather than on the effect you need to cause or prevent, you replace the unconscious process with a conscious one. The result of this is movement that is unnatural—visibly so, to my eye at least. I can see the holding-back, the over-control. It’s very obvious.
And here’s the other thing. When it comes to explosiveness, the Golgi-tendon reflex is the killer. The Golgi-tendon mechanism relies on feedback in order to initiate the inhibition on release. If there isn’t time for feedback, there isn’t time for inhibition. When you involve the conscious mind in movement, you allow time for that feedback to occur, and in all likelihood the inhibition will kick in. In order to access the superfast twitch fibres upon which explosive movement relies, there mustn’t be any second-guessing. Your action must be like a bullet leaving the gun. You pause to think--and the moment’s gone. The recruitment doesn’t happen.
This explosion in the mind must be acted upon by the body instantly, without thought. You can’t be worrying about how you’re going to move or be self-conscious in any way. You let it go, completely. Accuracy comes through practice and self-correction, not through slowing down the explosion. That can’t be done. The minute you slow it down, it ain’t an explosion any more.
If you train in a motor-oriented way, then your brain is always engaged in ‘where should I put this?’ and ‘how should I do that?’ and you can’t let go. To produce this kind of explosive force, you need to let go, spontanteously and repeatedly. When I look at guys who have practiced training in a motor-oriented way over a long period of time, they have got in the habit of consciously controlling their movement. They can move naturally in everyday life, but as soon as they go into ‘martial arts mode’ the conscious control kicks in. Guys like this find it very hard to move explosively, naturally, and most of all spontaneously as the situation demands. They can’t let go.
Similarly, most people I’ve observed who engage in motor-oriented practice can sometimes produce one big shot when they’ve had time to set up and get ready to go, but they make their shot and then they’re done. It takes them a long time to get ready again.
The kind of delivery you need in a fight is one that can come out at any time, either in a synchronized manner or in broken time, and one that can be repeated again and again with each shot loading the next. That’s what I mean by ‘Uzi mentality’ as opposed to the firing of an old cannon. The use of natural patterns such as running or climbing automatically facilitates the ability to repeat an action. In the primeval forest, if you had to climb a tree by numbers you’d never make it.
I’ve been making these points about movement for years. And years. Some people understand what I’m talking about, but from what I can see around me in the martial arts most don’t understand, or don’t want to understand. I’m not discouraged. When I see the size of this blog’s readership and the number of different national flags coming up on statcounter, I reckon there are enough people out there who are interested in this information for me to feel encouraged to continue providing it.
Over the weekend I also received some photos from Neal Lofts. This is The Fight Ministry, and I think I've mentioned before that the way he's used the space is brilliant. Also, Neal built his own cage and it's as good as anything I've seen with a big price tag attached to it.
I'll be at the Fight Ministry on 27 June. It's going to be a good session--if you live up North and follow what I do, this is a great opportunity to experience it first-hand. You don't have to be an MMA fighter to attend. It's professional gym, but the door is open on the day.
I answered one of the Q&A questions yesterday. But this one's been sitting in the box for a while from
randomflow . It's too long to go into the comments of the 'Don't Piggyback' post, where she asked it. There were some other questions thrown in there, too, but for now we'll stick to the function of a teacher....I was thinking back to being asked (by Sonny) "Are you a good student, or a bad student"?
Of course this was kind of a trick question - on one level I was a good student, I listened, followed direction, and tried my best. But what he was getting at was that he didn't want me to do this ALL the time. He wanted his students to THINK, test out what they were told, never take anything as rote.
It was an interesting line to walk, because you wanted to do what he told you, that's only respectful, however you also wanted to not JUST do what he told you. He wanted to see your mind engaged in the process of understanding without being disrespectful to what he said ...
I've thought about this alot since, and what a fine line HE walked as a teacher also .... I'm sure it's so much easier when your students just do what they are told, don't ask any questions, and accept that they are not to change anything they are taught.
Perhaps the fact that he actually was a fighter gave him, and us more latitude in some way?
Perhaps a lack of fighting experience over generations goes hand in hand with creating systems and methods of teaching that preserve the status and power of those at the top without actually having to prove it?
I don't know.
So ultimately I am thinking about what the role of a teacher is.
He wanted to see your mind engaged in the process of understanding without being disrespectful to what he said
I’m a lot like this. I require and encourage my trainees to take responsibility for themselves. I’m an authoritive figure within the class because I know my shit, but I expect people training with me to try out what I’m putting across and see what they can get from it. I don’t want to be obeyed. I don’t my word to be gospel—it ain’t. I want to get your mind working and involved in solving the problems. From a ‘teaching’ point of view, all I can do is give you some clues, some tips, and some information that has helped me. I can’t hold your hand and do it for you.
When I teach, I deliberately throw a lot of shit at people. Partly this is my personality, but it's also calculated at a certain level. I throw it at them so that they are forced to process it holistically. I used to have a guy in Horsham who came out of Shotokan, where everything is taught by rote, and he kept asking me if I could break it down and make it simpler so he could understand. It drove me crazy. I don’t want to make it simpler because it isn’t, and I need to train you to be able to deal with reality. You need to think fast. You need to get out of your verbal brain. I’m throwing it at you that way on purpose. My madness has a method.
It just shows you how little they know about how I operate!
I draw your attention to this paragraph. It could almost be Musashi, if he had a ten-gallon hat.
When I say that I learned to take my time in a gunfight, I do not wish to be misunderstood, for the time to be taken was only that split fraction of a second that means the difference between deadly accuracy with a sixgun and a miss. It is hard to make this clear to a man who has never been in a gunfight. Perhaps I can best describe such time taking as going into action with the greatest speed of which a man's muscles are capable, but mentally unflustered by an urge to hurry or the need for complicated nervous and muscular actions which trick-shooting involves. Mentally deliberate, but muscularly faster than thought, is what I mean.
I identify with Earp on this one, strongly. Taking your time means being in control of the timeframe in which the action occurs. You’re mentally independent of the action. I’ve written about this before. Also note what Earp says about simple movement being more effective than complex. The time frame doesn’t allow for complicated movement.
One thing that keeps coming up recently is the question of the role of a ‘teacher’ or in my words, the role of a trainer. I’ll be getting to that one soon.
Athletic Development by Vern Gambetta
This is a book by one of the top functional coaches in the world.
On page 143 he talks about the fundamental patterns I'm referring to. On page 6 he references speed. There's a lot of other good material in the book.
This guy is somebody I can relate to. Much of what he's saying rings true with me and my experience over forty years of training myself and others. Read his book, read his blog, read his newsletter.
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