THE ANALOGY OF THE CHAIN

 by Phillip Starr

I often used the analogy of a chain to explain to my senior students how a proper martial art technique should feel and how it is to be applied. A coiled-up chain can't hurt anybody unless you throw it at them or shove it down their throats...but in that condition, it doesn't pack nearly the wallop that it does if it's used correctly. Coiled up, it is soft and flexible.

If you swing it around it has tremendous potential energy but if it doesn't hit anything, it's harmless. The potential energy is never released in the form of kinetic energy. Actually, it is still quite soft; it isn't stiffened at all... until it meets resistance; i.e., the target.

At the instant of impact, it is the RESISTANCE, the target itself that CAUSES THE CHAIN TO HARDEN! The links align and for an instant – just an instant – the chain becomes as a steel rod and if there's a weighted metal tip on it, that tip becomes a lethal weapon that transfers every last drop of energy into the target. This phenomenon lasts only for a micro-second, after which the chain once again becomes soft.

Isn't martial art technique the same? You will probably answer in the affirmative but then consider and ask yourself if you start to tense up BEFORE your fist or foot makes impact with the target? Well, DO YOU? If you do, you're blocking the free flow of power to the target!

“So”, you ask, “Should I stay relaxed until the moment of impact and then tighten up my muscles like the chain?” And my smile would be followed with a thunderous “NO, YOU DIMWIT!” Think on the analogy of the chain once again and reread the first sentence of the third paragraph. Let it sink it. Digest it.

Let the target (the resistance) CAUSE whatever measure of tension is required; DO NOT try to do it yourself! You'll probably generate too much or too little (tension) and in any case, the moment of impact lasts for such a very short time that your timing will very likely be too early or too late! Just let nature – and physics – do everything for you. Your job is to ensure that everything is properly aligned; that all of the “links” in the chain are correctly adjusted (so that they all inter-support each other), so that (kinetic) energy is not lost. Actually, you're going to lose some of it – that's simply unavoidable – but try to lose as little as possible.

Sure, it sounds simple enough but it requires a good deal of practice. Overcoming the inherent tendency to tighten up, making sure that the body parts are correctly coordinated and aligned...takes a tremendous amount of practice. Even tightening your fist before impact will cost you power. I often tell my students to make a fist as if they've just caught a fly but don't want to crush it. No daylight seeps in (lest the fly escape) but it isn't tight, either. Impact will tighten it for you!

This is the secret of what is known as “kime” in Japanese (pronounced “kee-meh” for you rednecks out there). I have heard on taijiquan practitioner say that chansi-jin (silk-reeling power) is actually generated by maintaining a relaxed condition until the instant of impact... and then body is tightened for just a second. The gentleman who spoke these words said that such was the instruction provided him by a renowned member of the Chen family (who practice Chen style taijiquan in China and teach seminars worldwide). And... he's wrong. Real chansi-jin is another story, but that's outlined in my book, “DEVELOPING JIN.” Certainly the analogy of the chain is applicable, but there's much more to it than that.

And, like the chain, you must not retain any of the (kinetic) energy once impact is made. You have to adhere to the old Christian adage, “T'is better to give than to receive”, and give all of it – every last micro-measure – to the intended target. To do otherwise means that your target receives much less than 100% of the power that you can give to it. If you consciously tighten up, the time of impact is increased and that reduces striking force considerably.

I've seen countless students and teacher alike who, after executing a punch, have what I call a “bouncing fist.” That is, the punching fist seems to bob up and down a wee bit after the punch has been performed. This is indicative of excess tension (energy) being stored in the arm and hand; it is energy that has NOT been transferred to the target. At the instant AFTER impact, your bodily weapon should be empty. Totally.

To strike with real destructive force doesn't require great strength. It requires correctness. There's a difference. All of this is found in the book, “MARTIAL STRUCTURE.”

AN OLD SECRET TO LEARNING

 by Phillip Starr

Have you ever learned a new form (or part of a form) only to find that with the coming of the sunrise, you've forgotten a big chunk of it? Or perhaps you tend to forget a particular movement (or even a series of movements) in a given form every time you perform it? I know I've done these things countless times but I discovered ways to cement them into my memory and I'll happily pass them on to you...

There's an old Latin proverb that says, “repetitio est mater studiorum.” It translates as, “Repetition is the mother of studies (learning).” Truer words were never spoken. And you can learn to use this idea to smooth out the wrinkles in your form. If you're having problems forgetting a certain movement(s) in a form, try this... Do the form. If you forget the movement(s) in question, stop immediately and start all over again from the beginning. Sure, maybe you'll forget it again. But trust me, after you've re-started the form several times, you'll bloody well remember the movement(s) in question. For one thing, you'll soon get sick and tired of having to start over repeatedly. Moreover, every time you forget the movements and have to begin again, you're REMEMBERING what you should have done! Before long, the movement(s) in question will be cemented into your memory.

But the best method of learning and remembering something, whether it be a martial arts form or anything else, is this... remember that once class is finished, you have 60 minutes in which to review the (new) material. Sixty. Minutes. As soon as you get home (or someplace where you can run through the movements or otherwise review what you've just learned), toss your coat aside and do it. Just two or three times is all it takes (although more is better in this case – but anything'll help). The next day, you'll remember about 90% or more of what you learned.

However, once the 60 minute time frame has elapsed, your brain begins to forget what it's just learned. Actually, it doesn't forget at all but the material is removed from your readily accessible conscious files. Within a few hours, you'll forget more and more of the new material. Within 24 hours, you'll forget up to 80% or more of what you learned... So, don't wait until the next class to review the new movements. Take ten minutes and run through them at home a few times. You'll be surprised at how much you remember the next day!

ABSORB WHAT IS USEFUL...

 by Phillip Starr

One of the very worst pieces of advice ever given to the martial arts community at large came from the lips of Bruce Lee.

"Absorb what is useful,

Reject what is useless,

Add what is specifically your own."

Determining just what is useful and what isn't is quite a daunting task and one that should be examined closely. After all, a goodly number of today's so-called "mixed martial arts" crowd as well as followers of numerous eclectic martial ways state very clearly that traditional martial arts aren't entirely applicable to modern combat or combat at all. They believe that numerous techniques that are taught within the traditional martial arts either don't work very well or, in some cases, not at all. This, they say, is why they have chosen to follow their "own paths."

Executing a correct reverse punch, front snap kick, kotegaeshi, or o-soto-gari is a pretty daunting task for most raw beginners who have had little or no previous martial arts training. The new student can spend hours working on any one of these techniques for a whole month and it still is practically worthless in a real fight. The reason why is obvious; to develop any technique so that it is truly usable requires a great deal of practice over a period of time! There are no short cuts. My teacher said that developing effective technique is like making tea. It can't be hurried and any attempt to do so will only ruin the drink.

It would be easy but very premature and terribly foolish for the novice to simply dismiss these fundamental techniques as being "useless." The same holds true for other, more advanced techniques that he or she will eventually learn. I'm sure that you've encountered techniques that just didn't work at first. I know I have. Still do. But with patience, some introspection, and lots of practice you've been able to see how they should be done, where your mistakes were, and suddenly they become functional!

When you learn a technique that doesn't seem to work well for you, ask yourself, "why?" What are you doing wrong? Sometimes the error lies in the physical execution of the technique but sometimes it is hidden in a less obvious place. Maybe it's your timing that's off - and that can be indicative of a mental/psychological error or block of some kind, can't it? Perhaps it's your approach to the application of the technique or your approach (physical, mental, or even spiritual) towards your training "opponent." Regardless, the error is thine. Find it and correct it. Sometimes it's the finding of the error that corrects it.

To say that techniques of the traditional martial arts are not effective (in self-defense) is a blatant display of one's own ignorance, and perhaps, one's unwillingness to put in the required practice (which is a nice way of saying "lazy"). In days long since past, professional warriors (e.g., policemen, soldiers, bodyguards, and their teachers) relied on these arts for their very survival. Back then, it was pretty easy to determine if a given technique worked. If it didn't, you died. Those who developed techniques that didn't work took their failures with them to their graves. For the most part, we'll never know what they were.

The techniques that did work are still with us to this day. If they didn't work, they would have been buried long ago. So, to say that the surviving traditional techniques don't really work is, in my opinion, a statement made by someone who has never learned genuine traditional technique...or who is unwilling, for one reason or another, to put in the time and training required to develop effective technique.

Beginning piano students dare not say that the classics are worthless and no longer functional! The masters who contributed to the creation of the traditional martial disciplines are our Bachs, Beethovens, and Mozarts.

To truly understand a technique and how it should be performed correctly requires at least 10,000 repetitions. In karate or kung-fu this isn't terribly difficult, considering that you can easily practice 100 punches each day. In 100 days you should be able to perform the technique correctly, more or less. That doesn't mean it can't be improved, though.

But that's not the same as making it workable. To be able to perform a technique effectively in combat requires much more practice. You see, the effectiveness of a given technique, whether it's a punch, a kick, a joint twist or throw from aikido or judo...involves much more than just being able to perform the physical aspects of the technique correctly. Much. More.

Back when I trained in forms of Japanese karate, I could not, for the life of me, get a roundhouse kick to work. Actually, it took MONTHS before I figured out how to do it correctly. I guess I just had a mental block and I couldn't imagine how to do it...but once I was able to throw a roundhouse kick, I couldn't figure out how such a kick would ever be useful in fighting! I suppose Mr. Lee would have told me to reject it because, as far as I was concerned, it was pretty useless...

Then came Baguazhang. At first glance, this art seems to have about as much in common with combat as a fish does to a bicycle. It would have been all too easy to simply toss it away as being some sort of pointless, flowery, Chinese bilge water. But I didn't. I stuck with it and studied it...in depth. I examined it carefully, examined myself, examined its strange footwork and body movements...and I practiced and then when I was sick of it, I practiced some more. And when I had problems making it work (which was pretty much all the time, at first), I stayed with it and figured out WHY I was having problems.

In any given martial discipline, at least a decade (or more) is required if one wants to truly understand the art. The problem is that most Westerners don't want to spend that much time in training. They want "instant martial arts." We're accustomed to having "instant food" (which isn't really food), "instant entertainment", and now we want "instant martial arts." But there isn't such an animal...never was, and never will be.

So, rather than absorbing what you find immediately useful and rejecting what you think is useless, just ABSORB.

BEGINNER'S MIND

 by Phillip Starr

Tsutomu Ohshima, one of Gichin Funakoshi’s last students (and now a senior instructor of Gichin’s legendary Shotokan style of karate) tells a story about his teacher that illustrates the importance of the basic techniques of the art. Originally a schoolteacher in Okinawa, Gichin had introduced karate to Japan in 1923. He passed away in 1958. In his last months of life, Ohshima would literally carry him up and down stairs whenever the master was scheduled to give demonstrations. A few days before his passing, Gichin was sitting up on the edge of his bed practicing the basic forefist punch. He turned to Ohshima and said, “I think I’ve finally got it!” Ohshima wept.

Mr. David Lowry, in his excellent book "Moving Toward Stillness" relates a story about the late kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) master, Mori Torao. Master Mori had studied his art under men who had had to use the sword in actual combat. Needless to say, the training was extremely severe; in fact, prior to WWII the art was often referred to as gekken which means "severe swordsmanship." Mr. Mori taught in the U.S. back in the 60's.

A friend of Mr. Lowry's attended a clinic conducted by Master Mori and arrived early. There he found the legendary Master already in his keikogi (practice uniform), preparing for the class. Mori asked the young man if he would train with him for a while. The young man held Mori in awe and was thrilled with the request. Now he would get the chance to see advanced kendo techniques and learn from the legendary master! He was shocked when Mori asked if he might practice shomen uchi which is a frontal strike learned by every kendoka (kendo student) in his first class. "I still don't have it right," Mori explained.

Students who are still in the junior stages of training envy their seniors who are learning the more advanced forms and techniques of our art. The instructor may call out a cadence and force them to practice the most basic punches and kicks, but you can bet that the juniors are watching (out of the corners of their eyes) their seniors in the corner practicing the advanced techniques and forms and longing for the day when they will learn them. They tend to judge progress by how much they've learned; how much they've acquired.

Several decades ago, a good friend of mine named John Hutchcroft, who trained in a style of Okinawan karate told me that students of that particular system never said, "Yes, I know that form," or "I know this punch." I asked why. He explained that to say that one knew the form or technique indicated that one had truly mastered it. Instead of saying that they knew a given form or technique, they would say that they trained or worked it.

It's a small matter of semantics, I know, but it does indicate how seriously these people were about training and true understanding or mastery of technique.

The legendary founder of Kyokushin karate, Masutatsu Oyama, once said that after 1,000 repetitions one could say that one could perform a given technique. Only after 10,000 repetitions could one say that one had mastered it. He was slightly more generous with forms; after 1,000 repetitions one could say that one had mastered a given form.

The legendary Xingyiquan teacher, Hong-I Xiang (who passed away in the 1980's), was known to practice his pengchuan (the basic punching technique of Xingyi) daily. Even after more than six decades of training, he focused on constant practice of the most fundamental techniques. Wang Shujin, one of the most famous twentieth-century exponents of Baguachang was known to train daily in the system's most fundamental form and exercise, the Single Change Palm.

Any given martial art system is finite; limited in scope and curriculum. There comes a time when there are no more new techniques or forms to learn. Having explored every road, the student finds him or herself with only one choice; to go back to the beginning. In this sense, the road is circular and the last teaching is also the first. The greatest secrets lie within the most fundamental techniques and movements. However, they cannot be grasped by those who have not yet traveled the whole length of the road or path.

In my school in Omaha, I had (amongst other things) framed Chinese calligraphy, the characters for which meant, "Beginner's Mind." This was not intended so much for junior students as it was for the seniors. Once one has "gone full circle," one must come back to the original "mind" of a beginner. Only after coming full circle and back to this stage can one truly grasp the more esoteric teachings of the art.

There is a saying that tells us, "The greatest secrets lie within the most fundamental techniques and movements. However, they cannot be grasped by those who have not yet traveled the whole length of the road or path."

Of course, there are some who, having reached a lower grade of black belt, assume that they have come "full circle." Puffing out their chests, they are proud of their accomplishments but the truth is that they have not come "full circle." They are still traveling on the "road." Those who have traveled its full length do not puff out their chests and rarely speak of their accomplishments. They have, after all, come back to the stage of "Beginner's Mind"; a blank slate upon which they will write and draw.

WHAT ARE YOU REALLY UP AGAINST?

 By Phillip Starr

Although we, as martial arts practitioners, constantly train to be able to effectively defend ourselves, very few of us truly understand what we could very easily be up against when it comes to the paved jungles in which we live and strive to survive. We hear and talk about “the street fighter” without necessarily knowing much of anything about these creatures.

To begin with, these animals aren't stupid or clumsy. They're smart and very tough s.o.b.'s. Many of them have a smattering of martial arts skill, just enough to make them really dangerous. They HAVE to be tough to survive on the streets. They're not compliant, foolhardy, dimwitted wimps. Not at all. And should you ever be accosted by one, you'll only get one shot. And it had better count...it must cause some serious damage because if it just causes a bit of pain, it'll just make him real unhappy with you.

For a time many years ago, I worked inside the walls of a state penitentiary. If you really want to know what a true “badass” is, this is the place to look! I remember one inmate nicknamed “Shorty” (you can guess how large he was). He looked like a human Coke machine and it was all muscle...no fat at all. He lifted weights daily and had a hair-trigger temper. If a guy like this ever got hold of you, you'd be looking at a real serious problem! It scared ME (none of us carried any weapons at all...nothing), so I trained extra hard every day to sharpen my skills.

And there many others like Shorty...not as big, but very strong and tough. The idea of fighting just a single assailant on the street is an error (a very serious one), Lone wolves don't survive for long and most thugs travel in packs. So the idea of spending a lot of time thumping just one guy is a bad mistake...let alone taking him to the ground and wrestling around with him in the mud and the blood and the beer...and gravel, broken glass, and whatever else is on the ground. You can bet that his buddies are in the wings and watching. They'll happily step forward and quickly turn you into a very icky wet spot on the concrete while you're engaged in your makeshift wrestling bout.

And anyway, the odds of a street thug who accosts you being armed with something is pretty close to 100% nowadays. If your defensive tactics/techniques against weapons aren't up to snuff, you'll quickly become a statistic.

Don't take your ability to effectively defend yourself for granted. Train hard, get fit. The bad guys are.

WEIGHT TRAINING FOR MARTIAL ARTS

 by Phillip Starr

No, this isn't a “how to” article; dozens and dozens of good books have already been written on the subject of weight lifting and more than a few on weight lifting for martial arts. It's actually about “resistance training”, which a large number of neijia stylists (those who practice taijiquan, baguazhang, or xingyiquan) firmly believe is counter-productive to acquiring real skill in their particular discipline.

Foo.

Past masters of these arts regularly used resistance exercises to toughen and strengthen certain muscles and muscle groups. There's no such animal as a martial art that requires NO STRENGTH to be used effectively. Most, if not all, of the neijia Masters of times past regularly practiced forms of resistance training, from weights to various other apparatuses. And anyway, stance training (standing in deep stances that stress the legs and hips) are actually forms of resistance training, right? Heck, push-ups, leg lifts, and the like are all forms of resistance training that make use of your body weight.

On the other hand, any so-called martial art that emphasizes the development of large muscles and requires the use of much strength in its application isn't what it claims to be. As Master Seiyu Oyata (10^th dan, dec.) told me, “Any martial art that requires a lot of strength to be effective is not really a martial art. Martial arts were developed so that the small and weak could overcome the large and strong.” And he was living proof of that.

In generations past, a wide array of devices were employed in resistance training. These included iron geta, “locks” (usually made of stone or concrete, they were quite similar to today's kettlebells), nigiri-gami (wide mouth jars that were filled with stones or sand, iron balls (usually quite large), and so on. Improvements in technology today enable practitioners to utilize modern ankle and wrist weights, dumbells and barbells, kettlebells, stretch-cords (surgical tubing works very well) and a wide variety of other such training aids. Different styles of gong-fu and karate seem to prefer different pieces of equipment. And most of them can be used into old age, I know; I use a number of them every day!

It's absolutely essential that one learns to train correctly and not hurry or over-do lest one injure oneself. Proper training enhances one's technique as speed and strength are very gradually increased. Such training is also excellent for overall health, including those of us who are now “senior citizens.” Resistance training comes in many forms; using one's own body weight is very common. For instance, push-ups, pull-ups, leg lifts, and holding a static horse-riding stance are a few such resistance exercises. A partner can be sometimes be used to assist with them (if the student is fit enough to handle such exercises). I remember standing in a horse-riding stance and having a partner holding onto my shoulders as he stood on my legs from behind. Then I'd have to squat down a bit...up and down for several reps. And with a classmate on our backs, we'd advance forward in a forward stance, being careful not to rise up (lest our teacher berate us) or stumble.

If you practice such exercises, it's important to train with them very regularly. Intermittent training pretty much guarantees injuries.