Exercises for being more light-footed?

[JowGaWolf]

Yeah. They call it footwork.

I see it now. Not the footwork but the sinking.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I see it now. Not the footwork but the sinking.

Without the ability of sinking, your body can't vibrate like a fish, you won't have the ability to counter your wrestling opponent's force.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Without the ability of sinking, your body can't vibrate like a fish, you won't have the ability to counter your wrestling opponent's force.

I've seen a few people with vibrating bodies. They all involved a foreign body though...

 

[Anarax]

I've seen a few people with vibrating bodies. They all involved a foreign body though...

You definitely live up to your name you Dirty Dog

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Without the ability of sinking, your body can't vibrate like a fish, you won't have the ability to counter your wrestling opponent's force.

I've never once in my training vibrated like a fish. There are a lot of ways to counter an opponent's force in grappling.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I've never once in my training vibrated like a fish. There are a lot of ways to counter an opponent's force in grappling.

Some of my punches vibrate at the end. Not sure why. I just thought it was the fat shaking around lol. I tends to happen when I squeeze my fist very tight at the end of the punch. When I say tight, I mean that it's like I'm trying to make a diamond in my hand. My double punch vibrates when I punch the air.

I don't know any benefit of it. My best guess would be that it the vibration doesn't stay in contact with the target as long, Because of that more energy is transferred into the bag instead of rebounding back into the arm. This is the only time that I've seen the bag "jump" off my fist and swing. With my other punches the bag collapses and tends to "bounce up and down" instead of swing.

My son train what could be described as a strike with the shoulder. It's just a short burst of energy but it has a lot of force behind it. The best description would be "to shake someone off me," but the movement is much smaller and faster than a shake. Other than those examples, I have no clue what vibrating is or what it does. I just know that one year I didn't have it and the next year I did lol

You can see vibrating at the end of these punches. I agree with description of "Shaking" vs "Vibrating" What I feel is more in line with what a shake would be and not a vibrate.

:051 mark. My son and I strike the heavy bag like this. The only big difference is that we release that energy through our shoulder. I didn't learn this through any one. It developed on it's own through me practicing power connection through my punches. It wasn't a specific exercise like what we do on the bag until this year. Based on my son's effort this is a hard thing to learn right off the back. It's probably better to learn through connecting power through easier methods and then work up to this.

 

[Flying Crane]

Some of my punches vibrate at the end. Not sure why. I just thought it was the fat shaking around lol. I tends to happen when I squeeze my fist very tight at the end of the punch. When I say tight, I mean that it's like I'm trying to make a diamond in my hand. My double punch vibrates when I punch the air.

This sounds to me like you are using too much tension which tends to turn the punch into a “muscling” movement and separates it from the power coming from the body. It feels strong because you are exerting a lot of muscular force, but the power is less, with more effort.

You don’t need to squeeze your hand so tight. There just isn’t any need for it, it does not improve your punch. The fist should be comfortably tight, and just what that means can be determined from working on the heavy bag. But you do not need to squeeze so tight, which creates a lot of tension up the arm and into the shoulder. Instead, relax and let the movement of the torso drive that punch out.

If I notice a vibration in my fist at the end of the punch, then I take that as a clue that my power is disconnected and I am using to much effort and am muscling the technique. Time to re-examine my mechanics.

 

[Flying Crane]

This is an interesting video, and I think he is onto the idea. What he does not talk about, is how the feet and legs press into the ground to drive the hip rotation. He kinda vaguely talks about the legs rooting, but does not go into detail about making the legs deliver that power. It is possible to rotate the hips and torso with little or no power from the legs. In this case, the rotation comes from higher up. That fails to engage the power of the legs. This is lacking in a lot of what I see, and a lot of the discussion on this topic. People talk about hip/torso rotation, but say little or nothing about how the legs give the power to it. Maybe people are doing it, maybe they are not. But it is not clear and when it comes to instruction of others, that clarity is very important.

 

[JowGaWolf]

You don’t need to squeeze your hand so tight. There just isn’t any need for it, it does not improve your punch. The fist should be comfortably tight, and just what that means can be determined from working on the heavy bag. But you do not need to squeeze so tight, which creates a lot of tension up the arm and into the shoulder. Instead, relax and let the movement of the torso drive that punch out.

If I notice a vibration in my fist at the end of the punch, then I take that as a clue that my power is disconnected and I am using to much effort and am muscling the technique. Time to re-examine my mechanics.

I probably should have clarified squeeze tight. My fist formation is not the same that others use. I don't wrap my thumb around my hand so when I squeeze I'm not squeezing in the same area. My thumb is placed on the side of the fist, so I squeeze toward my fingers and not towards my palm. With this fist structure the fist will deform if the person squeezes too hard towards the palm. This fist structure also doesn't engage the forearm in the same way because of the direction of the squeeze. It allows a tight fist with a more relaxed forearm.

I have to keep this in mind when I talk about my punches.

 

[JowGaWolf]

People talk about hip/torso rotation, but say little or nothing about how the legs give the power to it. Maybe people are doing it, maybe they are not. But it is not clear and when it comes to instruction of others, that clarity is very important.

They are probably talking about it when they are teaching and see a student having trouble, but it will often be left out when "showing." Like in that video, it doesn't teach how to do it, it just shows what it looks like. Which makes it a bad instructional video on how to do something.

This is one of the learning cautions for using video to learn. Is the video showing or teaching? If it's only showing then a lot will be left out. Unfortunately a beginner won't know if the video is showing how to do something or if it's teaching how to do something.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I've never once in my training vibrated like a fish. There are a lot of ways to counter an opponent's force in grappling.

One way to counter a hip throw is to use your belly to bounce your opponent's hip away from your body.

One day I found that I had hard time to throw one of my opponents. I asked my teacher. He said, "He has just developed the bouncing ability that any time you try to make a body contact (your back touch on his front), he can use vibration force to bounce your body away." I liked that ability and I started to develop it after that day.

The "embracing" throw may look like you use your arms muscle to lift your opponent up. The key point is you use your belly to bounce your opponent off the ground. In order to do so, you will need to be in a low horse stance, sink down, change your bending legs into straight legs. Again, this is the opposite of the "light-footed".

As far as I know, not too many people have trained this skill any more.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This is an interesting video, and I think he is onto the idea. What he does not talk about, is how the feet and legs press into the ground to drive the hip rotation. He kinda vaguely talks about the legs rooting, but does not go into detail about making the legs deliver that power. It is possible to rotate the hips and torso with little or no power from the legs. In this case, the rotation comes from higher up. That fails to engage the power of the legs. This is lacking in a lot of what I see, and a lot of the discussion on this topic. People talk about hip/torso rotation, but say little or nothing about how the legs give the power to it. Maybe people are doing it, maybe they are not. But it is not clear and when it comes to instruction of others, that clarity is very important.

The standard Japanese drills I've experienced for this don't ever talk about using the legs (they focus on the hips and upper body), but the way the drills restrict the upper body mean you have to learn to generate the hip motion from the legs. This approach (a mental image of movement that is focused in one area, paired with a restriction in another area to force specific principles) is something I've seen in every area of relatively traditional Japanese MA I've experienced.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

One way to counter a hip throw is to use your belly to bounce your opponent's hip away from your body.

One day I found that I had hard time to throw one of my opponents. I asked my teacher. He said, "He has just developed the bouncing ability that any time you try to make a body contact (your back touch on his front), he can use vibration force to bounce your body away." I liked that ability and I started to develop it after that day.

The "embracing" throw may look like you use your arms muscle to lift your opponent up. The key point is you use your belly to bounce your opponent off the ground. In order to do so, you will need to be in a low horse stance, sink down, change your bending legs into straight legs. Again, this is the opposite of the "light-footed".

As far as I know, not too many people have trained this skill any more.

Sounds like it's similar to the principle of "replacing center" (my term for it - I've heard it called "taking center" among other things) in aiki arts, which I assume exists in Judo in a different form. We don't think of it as a vibration, though - it's just a way of moving mass (your center) in to displace other mass (their center).

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

The standard Japanese drills I've experienced for this don't ever talk about using the legs (they focus on the hips and upper body),

It seems to me that CMA emphasizes more on bend legs -> straight legs.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Sounds like it's similar to the principle of "replacing center" (my term for it - I've heard it called "taking center" among other things) in aiki arts, which I assume exists in Judo in a different form. We don't think of it as a vibration, though - it's just a way of moving mass (your center) in to displace other mass (their center).

One of my favor training drills is:

- Your opponent gets you into a head lock.
- You put both arms behind your back, use your belly to bounce him up in the air.

I like the "put both arms behind your back" training method. This way, you won't thinking about to use your arms lifting force.

I find out that many MA skills can be developed by "put both arms behind your back". Since you can't use your arms, you have to use your body.

 

[Flying Crane]

The standard Japanese drills I've experienced for this don't ever talk about using the legs (they focus on the hips and upper body), but the way the drills restrict the upper body mean you have to learn to generate the hip motion from the legs. This approach (a mental image of movement that is focused in one area, paired with a restriction in another area to force specific principles) is something I've seen in every area of relatively traditional Japanese MA I've experienced.

If that is typical, then I think it is unfortunate. Some direct instruction goes a long way. Expecting people to kinda figure it out means it takes a lot longer than it should, and many people will never figure it out. It’s a failure of the teacher, to teach.

 

[jks9199]

If that is typical, then I think it is unfortunate. Some direct instruction goes a long way. Expecting people to kinda figure it out means it takes a lot longer than it should, and many people will never figure it out. It’s a failure of the teacher, to teach.

Sometimes, it's not being unwilling, but not knowing how to teach it. I've seen a lot of people reach high skill levels, with a lot finesse and subtle technique -- but not know what they are doing. If they're honest, you seem them get frustrated working with students who can't get those subtleties and the teacher just can't show them what they're doing wrong... If they're not honest, it's uglier.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

If that is typical, then I think it is unfortunate. Some direct instruction goes a long way. Expecting people to kinda figure it out means it takes a lot longer than it should, and many people will never figure it out. It’s a failure of the teacher, to teach.

In some ways, it works well. In other ways, it seems to have exactly the problem you mention. I often wonder if the proper use of the drills was different at one time. Or perhaps it was lost in translation in coming to the US.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Sometimes, it's not being unwilling, but not knowing how to teach it.

Some direct instruction goes a long way.

This is why to teach principle/strategy is important. For example, if you teach your students to "attack one leg, then attack the other leg", your students may be able to create new techniques by themselves.

 

[Flying Crane]

In some ways, it works well. In other ways, it seems to have exactly the problem you mention. I often wonder if the proper use of the drills was different at one time. Or perhaps it was lost in translation in coming to the US.

The thing is, it isn’t difficult to teach. Anyone who can describe technique and movement should be able to do it, if they understand it. It isn’t vague or mystical. I’ve done it many times here in the forums.

But it does take a methodology to build the skill, and a lot of work. I guess if there is no methodology in place, then it can be unclear how to proceed. Understanding the goal is one thing, knowing how to achieve it is another.