THROWING A PUNCH IS THROWING.

When we land a punch we create a collision with the target and our punch.

As Instructors at my sifu’s school, we were all required to deliver the same definition of  Wing Chun power to our students, which was…

F = M x A.  

Force = Mass x Acceleration.

This is obviously correct, but due to how the English language uses the word acceleration, as in something going faster, this could, and did, lead to misunderstandings.

Acceleration is a change in velocity.

Slowing down is a change in velocity.

Therefore slowing down is also acceleration!

Thinking that acceleration was just going faster made it difficult for students to understand the many ways of bringing about a change of velocity and ultimately led to students trying to speed things up and using unneeded effort.

It is much easier to think of Power as a measurement of Work done over Time.

This may sound a bit cumbersome but it makes things clearer once we get it.

Wikipedia explains it this way…

…As a simple example, burning one kilogram of coal releases much more energy than detonating a kilogram of TNT  but because the TNT reaction releases energy much more quickly, it delivers far more power than the coal…

LINK TO PAGE HERE

Now we can approach the issue from the perspective of releasing energy.

When we land a punch we create a collision with the target and our punch.

The energy released in a collision is the sum of the mass of both parts, so the power generated is no longer just coming from our punch but from the combined mass of both people involved.

The first thing to consider is that to release 100% of our share of this total amount of energy our punch must land perfectly on our target.

For optimum power production, the accuracy of our technique is more important than our speed of delivery.

One way to help achieve this accuracy is to travel over the shortest possible distance.

And of course, shorter distances result in quicker travel times for the same energy investment.

If we can bring about a situation where everything is happening, not necessarily moving, quicker, for example allowing the attacker to move toward us, and delay our response until the last possible minute, we increase the chance of accurate contact while simultaneously shortening the time it takes to release the potential energy of the collision.

As complex and Nerdy as this may sound, this is a central IDEA in Wing Chun’s Fist Logic so all we need is to trust the training and perform the task, understanding is preferred but not needed for this approach to suceed.

The Hierarchy of Movements and the Summation of Forces.

The Hierarchy of Movements…The strongest and lowest body parts around the centre of gravity move first, followed by the weaker, lighter, and faster extremities.

e.g. We move our Pelvis, then our Pelvis moves our Chest/Shoulder, and then our Shoulder moves our Arms.

Summation of Force… Essentially this means that when multiple forces act upon the same object in the same direction these forces add together.

When we move our Pelvis as we do in Chum Kiu, and then rotate our torso as we do in Big Gee, and finally extend our Arm to strike as we do in S.L.T. these individual forces add up to create a much greater force.

All of the relevant body parts do not need to initiate at the same time but all of the relevant body parts do need to be moving together at the moment of contact for this to work.

There can be a minor disconnect between the step, the twist, and the punch at initiation as long as they are all moving toward the target as the strike lands.

When we look at the relative distances covered by each section of our body as we engage an attacker, the punch, which under ideal circumstances is only travelling 1 inch, the fabled “inch power”, needs to start later than the step and upper body twist to avoid landing too soon, and as a result, is always playing catch-up.

This natural catch-up creates yet more [positive/faster] acceleration to an already [positively/faster] accelerating body.

When we engage in FORM analysis the goal is not to learn the FORM, the goal is to maintain control of our body as it plays out movement.

In this way, every one of our FORMS is teaching the same lesson.

IT IS NOT SPEED THAT KILLS.

IT IS THE SUDDEN STOP.

SIGUNG ISAAC NEWTON.