Dr. Dave and Orbits

[marlon]

I'd noticed that point too, and that is in direct violation to what I've been taught in white crane.

That would be a direct violation of what I have been taught and teach in kempo. Otherwise, it is not the waist driving the power. To be claer, when we speak of the center we are not speaking of the center of the drawing on the floor, correct?

Respectfully,
marlon

 

[punisher73]

I don't think the intent of the video was on how to do a proper circle, but to teach how to make orbits in your technique and start to learn "rounded corners" and how they can add to your technique.

In online conversations I have had with Dr. Dave, he has always talked about how SGM Parker used large circles in his movements and advocates the same. I doubt that Dr. Dave and his experience wouldn't know how to generate power using the waist method and has commented as such on CLF and how it relates to kenpo.

This is the problem with videos. It teaches a specific lesson and people look at all the "missing stuff" that wasn't there when it wasn't the point of what was being illustrated.

 

[marlon]

I am pretty sure that Dr.Dave knows how to generate power. We are simply discussing the videos themselves and in relation to our MA experience, and not commenting on what Dr.Dave knows or does not know.

Respectfully,
Marlon

 

[Touch Of Death]

I am pretty sure that Dr.Dave knows how to generate power. We are simply discussing the videos themselves and in relation to our MA experience, and not commenting on what Dr.Dave knows or does not know.

Respectfully,
Marlon

The small circle examples he gave make me wonder.
Sean

 

[Flying Crane]

I don't think the intent of the video was on how to do a proper circle, but to teach how to make orbits in your technique and start to learn "rounded corners" and how they can add to your technique.

In online conversations I have had with Dr. Dave, he has always talked about how SGM Parker used large circles in his movements and advocates the same. I doubt that Dr. Dave and his experience wouldn't know how to generate power using the waist method and has commented as such on CLF and how it relates to kenpo.

This is the problem with videos. It teaches a specific lesson and people look at all the "missing stuff" that wasn't there when it wasn't the point of what was being illustrated.

The thing is, from the Chinese perspective, the circles are meaningless if they are not properly connected to, and driven by, the foundation. Circles for the sake of circles don't give you anything. Connecting those circles to the foundation was not even mentioned in the videos, and in the demonstrations it was clear that the connection did not exist.

Unless of course Kenpo has an entirely independent theory on circles...

 

[Flying Crane]

That would be a direct violation of what I have been taught and teach in kempo. Otherwise, it is not the waist driving the power. To be claer, when we speak of the center we are not speaking of the center of the drawing on the floor, correct?

Respectfully,
marlon

well, I don't have a drawing on my floor, but I'm talking about bracing the feet against the floor and using them to press and drive against the floor, directing that power up to rotate the hips and torso to drive any strike, circular or straight.

 

[marlon]

well, I don't have a drawing on my floor, but I'm talking about bracing the feet against the floor and using them to press and drive against the floor, directing that power up to rotate the hips and torso to drive any strike, circular or straight.

yep. we are pretty much on the same page

 

[ATACX GYM]

I only just came upon this thread.I think that the best person to clarify his position and thoughts on the matter visavis the posts that have populated a portion of this thread is Dr.Dave himself.I'm one of the Kenpo men who cock and fire,load and explode as boxers do.I see no reason to NOT do that; I simply add those movements to the motions that I have trained in Kenpo and other martial arts...including a variant of Shaolin Kempo Chuan Fa that I was first taught 17 years ago and now hold rank in.

well, I don't have a drawing on my floor, but I'm talking about bracing the feet against the floor and using them to press and drive against the floor, directing that power up to rotate the hips and torso to drive any strike, circular or straight.

There's alot of this in Kenpo.

 

[Flying Crane]

I only just came upon this thread.I think that the best person to clarify his position and thoughts on the matter visavis the posts that have populated a portion of this thread is Dr.Dave himself.I'm one of the Kenpo men who cock and fire,load and explode as boxers do.I see no reason to NOT do that; I simply add those movements to the motions that I have trained in Kenpo and other martial arts...including a variant of Shaolin Kempo Chuan Fa that I was first taught 17 years ago and now hold rank in.

I have no reason to believe Dave is not aware of this thread and he is of course welcome to comment and clarify anything. Dave does post here on martialtalk, tho he is more active usually on kenpotalk.

There's alot of this in Kenpo.

There SHOULD be a lot of this in kenpo. A big criticism I have of how a lot of people execute technique, regardless of what system they practice, kenpo or otherwise is that they lack this principle. They fail to connect the foundation to the technique, so the technique is driven by arm strength alone. Sure, that can be effective all by itself, but connecting to the foundation is stronger and gives you the turbo kick that arm strength cannot give you, especially if you don't happen to be big and strong.

Most people believe they are in fact engaging the foundation. They do pivot. The problem is, there is no real connection between the pivot and the technique. The timing is off and the connection fails, so even tho they do actually pivot, the pivot didn't give them anything. They end up simply changing stances, changing positions, but that change didn't give them anything, didn't accomplish anything, didn't power the technique at all. But most people don't realize there is a disconnect. They will swear up and down that they are doing this, and yes they are "doing" it, but it is meaningless because they are doing it incorrectly.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I have no reason to believe Dave is not aware of this thread and he is of course welcome to comment and clarify anything. Dave does post here on martialtalk, tho he is more active usually on kenpotalk.




There SHOULD be a lot of this in kenpo. A big criticism I have of how a lot of people execute technique, regardless of what system they practice, kenpo or otherwise is that they lack this principle. They fail to connect the foundation to the technique, so the technique is driven by arm strength alone. Sure, that can be effective all by itself, but connecting to the foundation is stronger and gives you the turbo kick that arm strength cannot give you, especially if you don't happen to be big and strong.

Most people believe they are in fact engaging the foundation. They do pivot. The problem is, there is no real connection between the pivot and the technique. The timing is off and the connection fails, so even tho they do actually pivot, the pivot didn't give them anything. They end up simply changing stances, changing positions, but that change didn't give them anything, didn't accomplish anything, didn't power the technique at all. But most people don't realize there is a disconnect. They will swear up and down that they are doing this, and yes they are "doing" it, but it is meaningless because they are doing it incorrectly.

HHHHMMMMMMMMMMM.:mst:

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Hadn't seen this. In those vids, I intentionally violated floor-up power generation from rooted stance, in both methods. My intent was to illustrate how a point of origin can be found in a number of outer perimeter nodal points, using different C&P. It was, by design, arms and a little bit of waist, only.

Upright posture is not ensured in combat, and in keeping with the ideas of variable expansion and use of the 3-D universal pattern, if we are driving a strike ina line around the center, we can modify the line of attack and angle of entry by keeping the relative path fixed to a changed axis. I never got to expand on that idea.

Another reason I intentionally did not demo what the larger paths of travel looked like when executed from a rooted stance and driven from a center, was my involvement in a wreck not long before these were shot. Engaging my core musculature at the stage of injury recovery I was in while shooting this would have aggravated some disc herniations even more, leading to several days in bed on pain meds. As it was, I doped up on pain meds and whiskey to be able to move enough to shoot these pieces; they were relevant to a discussion that was active on americankenpoforum.com at the time.

Sean -- I also dissociated smaller circles from core for my "crappy kenpo mockery" demo, because that's typically what I see. Folks who generally keep it small and quick and choppy, tend not to elongate thier motion nearly enough to require any backup mass or centrally driven rotation, leading to an inability to see it.

On a different -- but related -- note, spent a lot of years in Tien Shan. My prof started out all motions from the ground, up. Once you learned that, he INSISTED that it was an elemental way of moving, that inherently possessed certain limitations, including a predictability your opponents could use against you. He posited the formation of a moveable center; that all basics and forms be revisited, and explored being generated from the dan tien point, out, rather than the ground, up.

Our relationship to the ground is not a constant; it changes in moments. Moving from a transitional center, rather than a predictable fixed point (the floor), allows us to generate energy into a strike from compromised postures. Not so if it always has to start at the floor. His final application of this idea was appreciated when we took to the air. Lots of training time spent on doing hand/foot combinations from jumps. In kenpo terms, a bit like executing 5 Swords while flying through the air throwing a Hwarang-Do triple chicken kick (leaping front, roundhouse, spinning back crescent), interspersing the hand strikes into the time spaces between the kicks.

I liked the idea of it, and it certainly looked cool & felt dynamic. But looking back, I think that may be where I got some of my pre-injury chronic back issues from... why the Chiropractor walks like an old man for the first couple hours each morning.

Meanwhile, every kenpo lineage I've trained under drives home driving from the floor, up. Been a source of disagreement between myself and other guys about the footwork in Short Form 1, with others saying the footwork is concurrant with the execution of the blocks, and me asserting that the block is driven by the footwork, as the feet screw into the floor and the winding motion unleashes through the body, from the floor up, and out the hand.

Ah, well... whaddya gonna do?

D.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I can't disagree that there is crappy small circle stuff out there, but if you make a joke of it, we small circle guys want to know what the joke is, and we aren't seeing it. Short one has us covering to the rear and not stepping through in reverse; so, that might be part of your problem right there. You don't squat and screw it in, you swing your leg straight back and off the line of attack. It is much easier to perform. Save for the blocks, falling straight forward or falling straight back is what short one teaches. It is a very relaxed form, Sir.
Sean

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

I can't disagree that there is crappy small circle stuff out there, but if you make a joke of it, we small circle guys want to know what the joke is, and we aren't seeing it. Short one has us covering to the rear and not stepping through in reverse; so, that might be part of your problem right there. You don't squat and screw it in, you swing your leg straight back and off the line of attack. It is much easier to perform. Save for the blocks, falling straight forward or falling straight back is what short one teaches. It is a very relaxed form, Sir.
Sean

See? I disagree with that interp/purpose of SF1, right off the bat. White Belt form, white belt foot maneuvers, entry level basics. Swinging is the end goal, but should be introduced during a revisitation of the White Belt material, at a later date. At first, a simple step-through to the rear. It's the opposite direction of the first real foot maneuver drilled in kenpo (the step-through, forward).

Later, in Orange, stepping rearward into a rear twist, and twisting out. Later still, swing-gate maneuver.

 

[Touch Of Death]

See? I disagree with that interp/purpose of SF1, right off the bat. White Belt form, white belt foot maneuvers, entry level basics. Swinging is the end goal, but should be introduced during a revisitation of the White Belt material, at a later date. At first, a simple step-through to the rear. It's the opposite direction of the first real foot maneuver drilled in kenpo (the step-through, forward).

Later, in Orange, stepping rearward into a rear twist, and twisting out. Later still, swing-gate maneuver.

Reverse step-throughs are not simple. If you don't want people fighting with them, you shouldn't teach it as a base.
Sean

 

[Flying Crane]

Firstly, thanks for jumping in here Dave and giving some additional background info. Particularly about the crash-up, being in the middle of healing is gonna change how things look.

On a different -- but related -- note, spent a lot of years in Tien Shan. My prof started out all motions from the ground, up. Once you learned that, he INSISTED that it was an elemental way of moving, that inherently possessed certain limitations, including a predictability your opponents could use against you. He posited the formation of a moveable center; that all basics and forms be revisited, and explored being generated from the dan tien point, out, rather than the ground, up.

Our relationship to the ground is not a constant; it changes in moments. Moving from a transitional center, rather than a predictable fixed point (the floor), allows us to generate energy into a strike from compromised postures. Not so if it always has to start at the floor. His final application of this idea was appreciated when we took to the air. Lots of training time spent on doing hand/foot combinations from jumps. In kenpo terms, a bit like executing 5 Swords while flying through the air throwing a Hwarang-Do triple chicken kick (leaping front, roundhouse, spinning back crescent), interspersing the hand strikes into the time spaces between the kicks.

regarding the bit above here, I'll say that this is not true from my own experience. Our method in white crane is all driven from the ground, but the progression of training eliminates any predictability or broadcasting of what is coming. On a very basic level, we train the foundation with an actual foot pivot to drive the full body. But that is just a foundational training tool to get us going. While it always remains fundamental to how we train, the progression is that we can throw the technique without that foot movement, but the foot movement taught us how to engage the full body. Instead of moving the foot, the foot is pressed and driven into the ground to power the technique, with torso rotation. But even that begins to disappear as one's ability increases. No matter what stance one is in, or even no stance at all, the feet can always press in, as long as you've trained properly and understand this. When my sifu throws a tech, it looks like it's just the arm. But when he demonstrates for us, we hold his feet, legs, and hips while he throws the tech, and we can feel the explosive power that he is using, still from the ground up. You cannot see it, but you can feel it when you put your hand on him. It is always driven from the foundation, from the ground.

If the movement initiates at the dan tien, then I believe the feet are left out of the picture, or only engage after it no longer matters. You still get some sort of torso engagement, but it lacks the leg power and the stance, power from the ground. I do not see it as having limitations, or broadcasting what is coming, as long as the progression in training is done properly, and it's understood that the big movements that do broadcast are only tools to teach a skill, and not how a technique would be thrown in real life.

Meanwhile, every kenpo lineage I've trained under drives home driving from the floor, up. Been a source of disagreement between myself and other guys about the footwork in Short Form 1, with others saying the footwork is concurrant with the execution of the blocks, and me asserting that the block is driven by the footwork, as the feet screw into the floor and the winding motion unleashes through the body, from the floor up, and out the hand.

regarding the next piece above, I completely agree with you here. I was taught in kenpo to make the step and block simultaneous, but it always felt like it was missing proper power. I wanted to learn what my teacher was teaching, so I worked on it that way, but ultimately I have to disagree with that method. Stepping and rooting, "screwing in" as you call it to deliver the block, I believe is the stronger way. As skill improves, the lag time between the step and the rotation and block is reduced until it essentially disappears, but the skill is established and that screwing in is still there even tho it's not visually perceptible.

See? I disagree with that interp/purpose of SF1, right off the bat. White Belt form, white belt foot maneuvers, entry level basics. Swinging is the end goal, but should be introduced during a revisitation of the White Belt material, at a later date. At first, a simple step-through to the rear. It's the opposite direction of the first real foot maneuver drilled in kenpo (the step-through, forward).

Later, in Orange, stepping rearward into a rear twist, and twisting out. Later still, swing-gate maneuver.

Now here I find disagreement. From my point of view, you've got the progression backwards, if I am understanding you correctly. The big movement should always come first, because that lays the foundation and teaches the skill. As skill improves, the big movement gradually decreases to a small movement, until it is undetectable, but the power source is still engaged and is still happening.

I understand that the big movement is somewhat more complicated compared to the small movement. But starting big will instill the concept and the skill building from the beginning. If you start small and expect to expand the movement later, then habits have been instilled that need to be broken. Ultimately, smaller movement is the goal, not big movement. Big movement, as I've stated above, is the tool to train you which enables you to get to the small movement and still have power with the small movement. Otherwise, it's just small movement limited by the raw strength of the arm and shoulder (in a puch, for example).

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Movement from gross, to subtle.

 

[Yondanchris]

Hadn't seen this. In those vids, I intentionally violated floor-up power generation from rooted stance, in both methods. My intent was to illustrate how a point of origin can be found in a number of outer perimeter nodal points, using different C&P. It was, by design, arms and a little bit of waist, only.

Upright posture is not ensured in combat, and in keeping with the ideas of variable expansion and use of the 3-D universal pattern, if we are driving a strike ina line around the center, we can modify the line of attack and angle of entry by keeping the relative path fixed to a changed axis. I never got to expand on that idea.

Another reason I intentionally did not demo what the larger paths of travel looked like when executed from a rooted stance and driven from a center, was my involvement in a wreck not long before these were shot. Engaging my core musculature at the stage of injury recovery I was in while shooting this would have aggravated some disc herniations even more, leading to several days in bed on pain meds. As it was, I doped up on pain meds and whiskey to be able to move enough to shoot these pieces; they were relevant to a discussion that was active on americankenpoforum.com at the time.

Sean -- I also dissociated smaller circles from core for my "crappy kenpo mockery" demo, because that's typically what I see. Folks who generally keep it small and quick and choppy, tend not to elongate thier motion nearly enough to require any backup mass or centrally driven rotation, leading to an inability to see it.

On a different -- but related -- note, spent a lot of years in Tien Shan. My prof started out all motions from the ground, up. Once you learned that, he INSISTED that it was an elemental way of moving, that inherently possessed certain limitations, including a predictability your opponents could use against you. He posited the formation of a moveable center; that all basics and forms be revisited, and explored being generated from the dan tien point, out, rather than the ground, up.

Our relationship to the ground is not a constant; it changes in moments. Moving from a transitional center, rather than a predictable fixed point (the floor), allows us to generate energy into a strike from compromised postures. Not so if it always has to start at the floor. His final application of this idea was appreciated when we took to the air. Lots of training time spent on doing hand/foot combinations from jumps. In kenpo terms, a bit like executing 5 Swords while flying through the air throwing a Hwarang-Do triple chicken kick (leaping front, roundhouse, spinning back crescent), interspersing the hand strikes into the time spaces between the kicks.

I liked the idea of it, and it certainly looked cool & felt dynamic. But looking back, I think that may be where I got some of my pre-injury chronic back issues from... why the Chiropractor walks like an old man for the first couple hours each morning.

Meanwhile, every kenpo lineage I've trained under drives home driving from the floor, up. Been a source of disagreement between myself and other guys about the footwork in Short Form 1, with others saying the footwork is concurrant with the execution of the blocks, and me asserting that the block is driven by the footwork, as the feet screw into the floor and the winding motion unleashes through the body, from the floor up, and out the hand.

Ah, well... whaddya gonna do?

D.

Thanks for chiming in Dr. Dave!

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

...If the movement initiates at the dan tien, then I believe the feet are left out of the picture, or only engage after it no longer matters. You still get some sort of torso engagement, but it lacks the leg power and the stance, power from the ground...

You are correct, and the dissociation is an intentional one, allowing the feet to be contending with one attacker, while the hands contend with another, all while flying like a crazed kamikaze through the arena of multiple opponents. Not saying I agree with it, but he was the boss, so we did it anyway.