Elbow/Pullback Position in AK?

[ArnoldLee]

During a short truce in the Crusades, a western knight was dining in the tent of a Saracen lord, partaking of his hospitality. Full of himself and drink, the knight boasted about the power of his western broadsword. To illustrate his point, he laid a length of thick chain over a log, and with one mighty chop, cleaved the chain in half.

The Saracen lord said "that's impressive, but can your sword do this?". He tossed a handkerchief into the air, and flicked his lighter, thinnner scimitar past it many times. It fell to the floor in dozens of smaller pieces.

Moral: No one Way works for all situations. Study many paths so you have the flexibility to select from many tools, to find the one just right for the situation you are in.

Until we meet again in that place where we are all one,

Dr. Dave

I love that story... here's some info from http://www.paddling.net/sameboat/archives/sameboat225.html

"If this sounds like a scene drawn from a nineteenth-century romantic novel, that's because it is. But the two men were real enough. The English knight was Richard Cœur de Lion, king of England; the tall man, Salah el-Din, sultan of Egypt and Syria. They were enemies, and their armies met in the Holy Land late in the twelfth century. The echoes of their conflict can still be heard today."

 

[rmcrobertson]

Cliches and generalities, no matter how useful to somebody's who's put a lot of time in at their art, don't help--and actively interefere with--the novice.
Does this stuff work for you? Sure, seems so. Does it represent the "right way," to progress? Sure. Is it a good way to teach? Seldom.

 

[Touch Of Death]

With respect to what I teach, I have elected to modify many components of techniques that have seemed to me to be just plain silly. Many chambered positions have been replaced with a positioned check at the heart or face level, including in SF1 & 2, LF1, etc. I teach my students to go from point of origin to point of contact...from the rear-hand check, into the strike. I do not teach straight EPAK, having added "chapters" in the book to include FMA and GJJ/BJJ, as well as JKD modified kickboxing and muay thai. In some cases I have kept the name, but changed the technique completely in order to incorporate desired changes. And to head off ire at the pass, I make no claims to teaching straight EPAK. I also inform students at each point in the road if the SD tech they're learning is from a) old kenpo (one borrowed form an old break-away school), EA kenpo, or a kenpo technique modified. I also teach them what the mods were, and why, and invite them to discuss with me after class if they desire to learn the "traditional" EPAK version of a technique. At that point, I reference the IKKA manual, and old class & training session notes.

I'm quite OK with not sticking to the way things are written in the IKKA manual...the way I learned them, and practiced them for over 15 years, before opting to make what I considered to be informed modifications, necessary for evolution. Kenpo is, to me, the best foundation art anyone in the world could study, and any serious student on a lifelong MA journey should spend at least 10-12 years, 3-4x/week training in kenpo. After that, they should move out of the house to see what the rest of the world has to offer. The vocabulary of motion learned in kenpo will forever serve to help them learn more, faster, because of the way they have learned to codify movements of the human body.

IMHO.

Namaste!

Dr. Dave

Sir,
Moving from point of origin is weak. Point of origin should be taugh in relation to starting points of reference for optimal motion. While I will grant you that pulling your elbow back too far will actualy slow you down, having your arm bent on the hip is the fastest and most powerfull thing you can do when you find your hand at your side. Linning your hand at your center, always, is fine; however, it is not the fastest and most powerfull thing you can do. To eliminate the thrust position from your art means you will always be slow when your hands are at your sides. Thrusting off the hip is every bit as powerfull as it needs to be because anchoring your elbow causes proper alignment.
Sean

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Sir,
Moving from point of origin is weak. Point of origin should be taugh in relation to starting points of reference for optimal motion. While I will grant you that pulling your elbow back too far will actualy slow you down, having your arm bent on the hip is the fastest and most powerfull thing you can do when you find your hand at your side. Linning your hand at your center, always, is fine; however, it is not the fastest and most powerfull thing you can do. To eliminate the thrust position from your art means you will always be slow when your hands are at your sides. Thrusting off the hip is every bit as powerfull as it needs to be because anchoring your elbow causes proper alignment.
Sean

Grampa used to say, "They can say it all they want, but that don't make it so". Consider a rear cross from boxing, starting at the temple or cheek instead of the hip. Fist explodes forward from point of origin, gaining momentum and back-up mass from the turning of the hipsand transition of weight to the forward leg. If we took two guys, put one in kenpo for a year learning the rear-hand reverse punch with transition to forward bow, and put another guy into boxing with the rear cross, I'd bet the greater power and blunt force impact would come from the boxer. But that's just my own opinion. And yo know what they say about those.

D.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Grampa used to say, "They can say it all they want, but that don't make it so". Consider a rear cross from boxing, starting at the temple or cheek instead of the hip. Fist explodes forward from point of origin, gaining momentum and back-up mass from the turning of the hipsand transition of weight to the forward leg. If we took two guys, put one in kenpo for a year learning the rear-hand reverse punch with transition to forward bow, and put another guy into boxing with the rear cross, I'd bet the greater power and blunt force impact would come from the boxer. But that's just my own opinion. And yo know what they say about those.

D.

I'm not arguing that the hands up position isn't more powerfull, I'm saying that eliminating thrust is ridiculous; because, outside the boxing ring your hands are at your sides all the time. It would be advantageous to know how to move from there. You can't argue that getting in a set boxing stance before fighting is faster than moving from point of origin. Being first happens to be important, in real life.
Sean

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

I'm not arguing that the hands up position isn't more powerfull, I'm saying that eliminating thrust is ridiculous; because, outside the boxing ring your hands are at your sides all the time. It would be advantageous to know how to move from there. You can't argue that getting in a set boxing stance before fighting is faster than moving from point of origin. Being first happens to be important, in real life.
Sean

Good point. So where do you practice staging a lead-hand backnuckle from? I was taught in "new" kenpo to launch it from the lead-hand-raised position in a neutral bow. In "old" / Chinese kenpo, it's delivered from a "fighting horse"...a sideways horse stance with the lead hand down near the beltline, palm towards body, and the rear hand up by the heart, but slightly more forward (better check position for the face). The lead backfist is drilled by raising it to shoulder height, then out, as if over the top of a medium-height wall btw you and the opponent. Good technique, fired from a position close to natural. Smoothing out the upside down "L", one can dgo from POO to POC, but that increases the likelihood of running into an unintentional check by the attacker (have to get past the hands to get to the head). Still, seems more natural to me than chambering.

But, having gone the rounds, I still chamber when I spar. And fight. Try not to, but end up doing it anyways.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Good point. So where do you practice staging a lead-hand backnuckle from? I was taught in "new" kenpo to launch it from the lead-hand-raised position in a neutral bow. In "old" / Chinese kenpo, it's delivered from a "fighting horse"...a sideways horse stance with the lead hand down near the beltline, palm towards body, and the rear hand up by the heart, but slightly more forward (better check position for the face). The lead backfist is drilled by raising it to shoulder height, then out, as if over the top of a medium-height wall btw you and the opponent. Good technique, fired from a position close to natural. Smoothing out the upside down "L", one can dgo from POO to POC, but that increases the likelihood of running into an unintentional check by the attacker (have to get past the hands to get to the head). Still, seems more natural to me than chambering.

But, having gone the rounds, I still chamber when I spar. And fight. Try not to, but end up doing it anyways.

I'm trying to visualize what you are saying; however, I will tell you what I would do. If I could I would leave my hand where it was, launch my body toward my hand, tap my finger tips to my chest and pull the back knuckle like pulling a bow string.
Sean

I'll just add that when doing alternating maces you pushed the guys hands down; so, you pull the BK off the opposite hip. Otherwise you waste an entire beat searching for a more disirable point of reference. Too slow.

 

[Dark Kenpo Lord]

C'mon people, you're guys are kidding right. Rainman was the only one that hit the nail. Can everyone say ATTACKING MACE, CROSSING TALON. People that want to eliminate what they think is useless movement in AK usually don't understand it.

Dark Lord

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

C'mon people, you're guys are kidding right. Rainman was the only one that hit the nail. Can everyone say ATTACKING MACE, CROSSING TALON. People that want to eliminate what they think is useless movement in AK usually don't understand it.

Dark Lord

Emanated into the room like a true and loyal dogmatist. Now we just need to get you your own TV station and a wife with a gaudi purple wig, and you can start pestering the public for donations.:fart:

 

[rmcrobertson]

Again, it's a lot easier to separate these discussions into simple either/or positions, binary oppositions, than it is to think them through. From different viewpoints, you're all quite correct...except that this "improvement," shortchanges students, and removes useful motion and ideas from kenpo.

Do you folks really think you don't have your own dogmatisms, your own sterile, frozen, and unexamined shibboleths? Why do you think the same tired stories keep coming up, again and again and again, the same easy fortune-cookie aphorisms, the same recycled and out-of-context phrases from Ed Parker's books?

The only difference is the different set of frozen cliches or pseudo-scientific claims ("starting points of reference for optimal motion," which is precisely what, "point of origin" is all about anyway, and just incidentally, "optimal," isn't limited to meaning straight-line, nearest and heaviest)---c'mahn. They're just as dead and crippling as anything you're attacking.

It's also possible, from time to time, that the innovative, creative, modernized, "better," eclectic, MMA types might just possibly perhaps maybe on occasion have something to learn from us so-called stick-in-the-muds. Just as I've learned from this supposed, "other," side, which I don't see as another side at all.

 

[pete]

EPAK as described in the Infinite Insights series is not the only, and arguably not the best, method of teaching kenpo. It has been stated many times, by several seniors that it isn't even the system taught by Mr Parker to his closest high ranking students.

I train in, practice, and have begun teaching a hybrid system which has retained more of the chinese roots than straight EPAK. It can be argued that "improvements" made in developing EPAK may have removed useful motion and ideas, and shortchanges students. It can also be argued that ongoing "improvements" will shortchange students as well.

I will not argue this one way or the other, simply because I am a product of my training, and you are a product of yours.

The point being is that it is mighty presumptuous to assume that someone who questions, changes, modernizes, etc. does so because they don't understand what is inside the box... just as it would be equally arrogant to think that one who follows a standardized system doesn't understand what is outside the box.

respectfully,
pete.

 

[Doc]

EPAK as described in the Infinite Insights series is not the only, and arguably not the best, method of teaching kenpo. It has been stated many times, by several seniors that it isn't even the system taught by Mr Parker to his closest high ranking students.

I agree. I know I wasn't taught that and never practiced a 'motion' based kenpo. Parker alway said he wrote those books for the martial arts in general and used kenpo as an example for the books. They are not the "bible" that some think.

I train in, practice, and have begun teaching a hybrid system which has retained more of the chinese roots than straight EPAK. It can be argued that "improvements" made in developing EPAK may have removed useful motion and ideas, and shortchanges students. It can also be argued that ongoing "improvements" will shortchange students as well.

Once again, I have no argument with that and agree with your assessment. Most of this comes out of a misunderstanding of what Ed Parker's commercial kenpo vehicle was supposed to be. It doesn't so much shortchange as it simply does what it was designed to do and be. Anyone who thinks they can get the "secrets of the Chinese" from a store front strip mall school full of housewives and kids taught by some "master" who advertises in the yellow pages is fooling themselves. It is definitely "kenpo lite." Those whose knowledge base comes from "kenpo-lite" and then choose to improve "kenpo- lite" would have their work cut out for them. I began study along side Douglas Wong under his uncle Ark Wong in LA Chinatown, who I discovered later also taught Parker. Therefore my perspective is much different, however Parker is the one who helpped me to truly understand my previous Chinese study when I met him.

I will not argue this one way or the other, simply because I am a product of my training, and you are a product of yours.

The point being is that it is mighty presumptuous to assume that someone who questions, changes, modernizes, etc. does so because they don't understand what is inside the box... just as it would be equally arrogant to think that one who follows a standardized system doesn't understand what is outside the box.

I agree with you totally so we don't have much of a disagreement, but I would like you to answer those questions regarding your statements that peaked my interests.

 

[pete]

'ya musta missed it... here it is reprinted for your convenience:

well Dr. C, here goes my attempt to put this into words.

first, the corkscrew as refered to by Kembudo-Kai Kempoka, is a punch i am interpreting to contain an inward rotation of the fist, from vertical to horizontal. If this done as the rear ankle turns the heel outward and down into the ground, going from neutral to forward bow, the corkscrew will use "torque", or whole body power focused into the first 2 knuckles of the fist.

A punch from a horse stance is deriving its power solely from the upper body, and the corkscrew will not change that. Therefore, "useless" if that is the goal. I'd be interested if there was another goal that this technique would leverage and not compromise one's anatomical structure.

Now, given that description of the corkscrew, it should not be used above the height of one's own shoulder... rather, the fist should remain vertical.

my previous post was more of a response to rmcrobertson, kembudo-kai kempoka, and dark kenpo lord. like the saying goes, "i'm just a product of me environment"

 

[Touch Of Death]

Again, it's a lot easier to separate these discussions into simple either/or positions, binary oppositions, than it is to think them through. From different viewpoints, you're all quite correct...except that this "improvement," shortchanges students, and removes useful motion and ideas from kenpo.

Do you folks really think you don't have your own dogmatisms, your own sterile, frozen, and unexamined shibboleths? Why do you think the same tired stories keep coming up, again and again and again, the same easy fortune-cookie aphorisms, the same recycled and out-of-context phrases from Ed Parker's books?

The only difference is the different set of frozen cliches or pseudo-scientific claims ("starting points of reference for optimal motion," which is precisely what, "point of origin" is all about anyway, and just incidentally, "optimal," isn't limited to meaning straight-line, nearest and heaviest)---c'mahn. They're just as dead and crippling as anything you're attacking.

It's also possible, from time to time, that the innovative, creative, modernized, "better," eclectic, MMA types might just possibly perhaps maybe on occasion have something to learn from us so-called stick-in-the-muds. Just as I've learned from this supposed, "other," side, which I don't see as another side at all.

Comming from an expert on dead and crippled dogma, I'll consider your opinion... hey what do you know, dead and crippled.
Sean

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

I agree. I know I wasn't taught that and never practiced a 'motion' based kenpo. Parker alway said he wrote those books for the martial arts in general and used kenpo as an example for the books. They are not the "bible" that some think.



Once again, I have no argument with that and agree with your assessment. Most of this comes out of a misunderstanding of what Ed Parker's commercial kenpo vehicle was supposed to be. It doesn't so much shortchange as it simply does what it was designed to do and be. Anyone who thinks they can get the "secrets of the Chinese" from a store front strip mall school full of housewives and kids taught by some "master" who advertises in the yellow pages is fooling themselves. It is definitely "kenpo lite." Those whose knowledge base comes from "kenpo-lite" and then choose to improve "kenpo- lite" would have their work cut out for them. I began study along side Douglas Wong under his uncle Ark Wong in LA Chinatown, who I discovered later also taught Parker. Therefore my perspective is much different, however Parker is the one who helpped me to truly understand my previous Chinese study when I met him.

I agree with you totally so we don't have much of a disagreement, but I would like you to answer those questions regarding your statements that peaked my interests.

Doc: I started another thread based on this idea (the Gospel according to Ed). I would be interested in oyur input, since you're one of the anciennes online right now. When you get a chance.

Thx,

Dr. Dave

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Comming from an expert on dead and crippled dogma, I'll consider your opinion... hey what do you know, dead and crippled.
Sean

:cheers:

 

[Rainman]

Bruce Lee in JKD, and many kick-boxing systems, do not have the chambered position, or even the back elbow. Doesn't seem to have hurt their combat capabilities any. Just a thought. I like Mr. Connasters website; has a joke about the definition of karate guys being those who like to get hit a lot, as evidenced by their hand placement on the hip during sparring. The post wasn't about sophisticated basics (because the guy doesn't even know what they are...not from kenpo), but about considering eliminating a non-useful training position. My girlfriend, with no martial arts experience, gets it. Why don't you? If you want to train back elbows, then train back elbows. I don't practice stomps with each step of walking; I practice stomps, when I practice stomps.

Until we meet again in the place where we are all one,

Dr. Dave

Why don't I get what? The post wasn't about sophisticated basics? Says who? One of many reasons the postion (and who says it is a "chambered" position that is only one interpretation) are the teks that have movements around this postion that I already listed.

If you train back elbows then train back elbows... Way too narrow for an AK black belt maybe you better stick to Kemubodms'a cobra kai... Got any more names to drop? So and so says...

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Why don't I get what? The post wasn't about sophisticated basics? Says who? One of many reasons the postion (and who says it is a "chambered" position that is only one interpretation) are the teks that have movements around this postion that I already listed.

If you train back elbows then train back elbows... Way too narrow for an AK black belt maybe you better stick to Kemubodms'a cobra kai... Got any more names to drop? So and so says...

And we all know the techs are infallible, universal truths waiting to unfold their inner glories to the faithful who contemplate them long enough. Names to drop...hmmm...yours from my christmas list? When did attempting to be well-read and seeking the company and input of seminal thinkers condemn one to be a target for such ire? Touchy, touchy.

As far as narrow, I think failing to train basics in isolation is a reflection of narrowness. Guess it just depends on perspective. Have you, never in your MA career, worked on a particular item more than others to improve your performance of it?

 

[Rainman]

And we all know the techs are infallible, universal truths waiting to unfold their inner glories to the faithful who contemplate them long enough.

Concepts theories and principles are what is infallible.

Names to drop...hmmm...yours from my christmas list?

Sharp as a butter knife aint cha'?

When did attempting to be well-read and seeking the company and input of seminal thinkers condemn one to be a target for such ire? Touchy, touchy.

What ever the attitude so be the response... try reading the Zen of Kenpo. And then read it again. Also look up Phd. Well read seminal thinkers... Look up Phd.

As far as narrow, I think failing to train basics in isolation is a reflection of narrowness. Guess it just depends on perspective.

There is nothing basic about basics. It is conceptually and physically impossible to isolate anything human down to one. There will always be a group of things working simultaneously to accomplish one singular goal... No one muscle, no one concept, and not one theory.

Have you, never in your MA career, worked on a particular item more than others to improve your performance of it?

1000 times slow for one time fast- desire perspire aquire- Your performance can only improve if you have an understanding of the nature of the thing itself or a skilled teacher who is showing you how to become self correcting.

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

And we all know the techs are infallible, universal truths waiting to unfold their inner glories to the faithful who contemplate them long enough.

Concepts theories and principles are what is infallible.

Names to drop...hmmm...yours from my christmas list?

Sharp as a butter knife aint cha'?

When did attempting to be well-read and seeking the company and input of seminal thinkers condemn one to be a target for such ire? Touchy, touchy.

What ever the attitude so be the response... try reading the Zen of Kenpo. And then read it again. Also look up Phd. Well read seminal thinkers... Look up Phd.

As far as narrow, I think failing to train basics in isolation is a reflection of narrowness. Guess it just depends on perspective.

There is nothing basic about basics. It is conceptually and physically impossible to isolate anything human down to one. There will always be a group of things working simultaneously to accomplish one singular goal... No one muscle, no one concept, and not one theory.

Have you, never in your MA career, worked on a particular item more than others to improve your performance of it?

1000 times slow for one time fast- desire perspire aquire- Your performance can only improve if you have an understanding of the nature of the thing itself or a skilled teacher who is showing you how to become self correcting.

Feeling a little teste?

Remember, I'm narrow. If I'm off to read about zen, it's going to be about zen, and not a collection of observations or sayings collected by a practicing mormon in the name of zen that has nothing to do with expansion into the void, contraction and extinction of the ego, or contacting the Other I (see...at the risk of sounding like I'm dropping names again...Ramana Maharsi, Paul Brunton, or Alan Watts). Parker was a seminal thinker in the MA. PhD?
No one thing occurs in isolation...true. I'll remind swimmers they're being restrictive in their thinking and limited in their practice by working on their stroke in the pool. And I resent that butter-knife comment. I've eaten too many pizzas to be anything other than bowling ball to you, pal.