EFFORTLESS POWER.

It is what it says on the box, power that is effortless.

I was working with Rick and Anthony last evening, the same stuff we have all been doing this week, in many ways the same stuff we are always working on…

 …developing effortless power.

Let’s be fair and honest with ourselves, in the recent training sessions you have all been amazed by the results.

And then amazed once again when I show how we have been doing this since ‘day one’ but you didn’t connect the dots.

It is tricky stuff.

What is effortless power?

It is what it says on the box, power that is effortless.

One of my favourite examples is when I ask…

Q. Have you ever walked into the edge of a table? 

A. Yes.

Q. What hit you?

A. The Table????? DUH!

Well, NO, it was you.

You walked ‘into’ the table.

 Or did the table jump out at you?

  You did not try to hit the table, you did not mean to hit the table, all the same, without malic or intention you just walked into it.

Effortlessly.

No set-up or practice, no special shape or secret move, just effortless power, creating instant pain.

There is a well-used saying, ‘to punch above one’s weight, it means performing or achieving results better than expected and beyond one’s ability, skill, experience etc.

This is used as a compliment, but it is a silly compliment because, in the real world, we cannot punch above our weight.

Our power production is an expression of our weight.

Striking power can be maximised by good movement, correct structure, accurate strike placement, and fortuitous connections with an opponent. 

But we can never surpass what our body weight delivers effortlessly in any situation.

Questions we should ask ourselves.

Do I get heavier if I contract and tense my muscles?

Do I get heavier if I put in more effort?

Do I get heavier by doing things in a particular or ‘special’ way?

Do I get heavier by … {fill in the blank}?

The answer to all of the above and any other consideration is… 

…We do not.

We can only ever hit as hard as our body weights contribution.

In so many ways power is nothing more than throwing our weight around.

It is how and where we throw it that is the key.

Effortless power is the efficient organisation of our body weight.

On one level FORMS are a way for us to begin to understand how to organise our body weight, from static, to mobile, to dynamic.

So is Dancing.

So is Yoga.

So is Table Tennis.

The difference between FORMS, Dancing, Yoga, and Table Tennis is how we organise our thinking.

You guys always laugh when I say that Table Tennis could be an outstanding Martial Art.

And I laugh at you laughing because I know one day you will get it and think that back then you must have been a bit of a dick.

Another thing to ask ourselves is… What do we need to organise first?

If we consider that we are the same weight in our sleep, the same weight on the toilet, and the same weight in training, what does that tell us?

Here in Australia, a bag of cement weighs 20kg.

I do not think that any of us would like someone to drop a bag of cement on us, even effortlessly.

With the most basic of self-organisation we can effortlessly transfer our body weight when we make contact with an opponent, even if we only bump into them.

Work out how many bags of cement you are the equivalence of and ask yourself “why do I not think this is enough”?

The lightest of us would be equivalent to 3 to 4 bags of cement and to transfer this all we need to do is reach out and touch someone.

It is our thinking that we must organise.

Consider this, when you reach out and touch someone on the shoulder and do not put them on their ass it is because your Monkey Brain understands weight transfer much better than your Human Brain.

It is time to play catch up.

Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey.

Malcolm de Chazal