What does your Neutral Bow look like?

[eyebeams]

In a squared off kickboxing/boxing range, it's still oncoming kicks and punches, (Yes to the head on the street!) rules or not, and an exposed chin and throat will get you into trouble.

Well yes. Sensible tucking also helps protect against a variety of ye olde "street" attacks, including throat shots and choke attempts. Not tucking seems, thusfar, to provide a primarily ideological benefit.

 

[eyebeams]

Football and fighting......Apples and Oranges! But, to stay with it... Funny how, a running back is told to go head down (chin down) and flat back when ramming into someone.

Linemen have to start heads up because they wouldn't see much otherwise.

 

[Hand Sword]

Exactly why I said apples and oranges.

 

[MJS]

I wonder if I could get someone to back up a bit and give a little clarification for those of us who did not study EPAK kenpo from which it seems much of the terminology and concepts come from.

I see a lot of references to "body indexing", and its correctness or incorrectnes. Could someone please explain in plain English what this is referring to?

I have seen references to stances and positions being "anatomically correct", and would like to better understand the concept with regard to martial positioning. I certainly understand what the term means in the general sense, but am not sure I see how it can be strictly applied in the dynamic circumstances of the martial arts. Since a combat situation is dynamic and changes constantly, how do you support any claims that variations in things like stances will make it "anatomically incorrect"? One must contantly move, shift, and make adjustments to respond to a changing situation, so variations are guaranteed to occur during this process.

If a stance is "correct", I assume that means it is most stable. But is this in reference to the direction in which the stance is facing, assuming an attacker is in that position, or does it also consider an attack from a different direction? By claiming a stance is "correct", does this assume maximum stability from all directions, with regard to someone else's ability or inability to push you over? Or have I completely missed the idea and it is something else entirely? I guess I am wondering about someone who might purposely use a less-rooted, higher and narrower stance to increase mobility, for example. Is this somehow "incorrect", and if so, why?

A few threads ago DOC posted an exercise illustrating how having one finger out of place can compromise the stability of a body position. I tried the exercise, and I agree that it showed what was claimed. However, again going back to the notion that combat is dynamic and constantly changing, requiring one to constantly change in the blink of an eye in response, how can one really be concerned with things like the misplacement of a single finger, so long as the finger is not postioned where it could be caught by the attacker and torn off, or otherwise injured. Of course the more one trains correctly, the more naturally and accurately one will use good positioning, stances, etc., but I just wonder if some of these ideas reach a level of theory that may be true, but is impossible to effectively translate into practice. Only a robot can have constant and unwavering accuracy in performing a physical movement, and humans are not robots (i should certainly hope, anyway).

So if anyone involved in this thread could help clarify these things, I would appreciate it.

Slightly off topic, but this reminds me of a thread on here regarding Dillman. Dillman attempted a KO, which failed. He then goes on to state that the person having it done to them must have countered it by having his toe up, his tounge on a certain side of his mouth, etc.

I do agree though...there will be constant movement during a confrontation, so yes, I can imagine it'd be difficult to always maintain things in a perfect, textbook fashion.

Mike

 

[MJS]

bearing in mind that you are referring to sports where each competitor wears huge protective gloves, the reason why there is less likelyhood of being K.O.d might be because the fist can't actually reach the chin (when tucked in)...just because of the size of the gloves. The coaches will advise their competitors to 'tuck in' not because they understand the science so much, but they know that it is more difficult to hit a small target this way.

Take the gloves off, get rid of the referee, and I would suggest the 'chin down' would become a more viable target. Not only that, the chin-down would contribute to an overall lessening of your defensive posture and lead to worse problems than being popped on the chin...I'm quoting Doc here btw.

thoughts anyone?

I disagree. The gloves may play a small part in it, but even without the gloves, good hand position along with the shoulders, will play a big part in protecting the chin and jaw area.

Mike

 

[Flying Crane]

Not only that, the chin-down would contribute to an overall lessening of your defensive posture and lead to worse problems than being popped on the chin...I'm quoting Doc here btw.

thoughts anyone?

I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on this thought more deeply. In what way does it lead to an overall lessening of your defensive posture, and lead to worse problems? Thanks.

 

[JamesB]

I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on this thought more deeply. In what way does it lead to an overall lessening of your defensive posture, and lead to worse problems? Thanks.

from my own experience in being taught, the position and orientation of the head (and therefore chin) is important enough to pay considerable attention to. The way we test our stances is to assume the posture in question (i.e neutral bow) and have someone apply steady pressure from the direction in which the stance is intended to be strong. The arms can be held in certain configurations too, such as extending the lead arm to a 'palm heel' and chambering the 'rear' arm. It all depends on what you want to test.

In the above example, your 'helper' would then push against your extended palm, the goal being to try and collapse your arm+upper body. The idea of course is to assume a posture where your body cannot be manipulated within the context of this test. This is all done to verify that these specific postures that are being taught actually work when tested under load - i.e. there is a valid reason for training with that amount of detail.

I have found that holding the chin level results in a very stable and strong stance (without me actually exerting myself). However lowering my chin resulted in my entire upper body losing stablity - my extended arm would collapse and my body was inherently maniputable. The upshot is, my striking potential was severly reduced, but worse than this was the fact that my stance was unstable - someone could easily push/pull/tackle me or otherwise do harm (strikes to the body would hurt more also).

The position of the head goes way beyond a 'fighting stance' also - there are specific postures to defend against bearhugs, grapples, and all manner of attacks. The 'chin up' is appropriate in some senarious, in others it is not. I can't even begin to explain any further than this because underlying body-physics is beyond me. It's *very* cool when your shown how to do it though

Notice that Doc's initial 'chin up' comment was geared towards the formation of a 'correct' neutral-bow, the purpose of which is to establish stability and strength throughout the body - at no point has an application beyond this been suggested or implied, yet the direction of the thread immediately veered towards the 'they do it in sports/MMA' without considering what context was being discussed.

don't know if that answered your question..
cheers,
James

 

[Flying Crane]

from my own experience in being taught, the position and orientation of the head (and therefore chin) is important enough to pay considerable attention to. The way we test our stances is to assume the posture in question (i.e neutral bow) and have someone apply steady pressure from the direction in which the stance is intended to be strong. The arms can be held in certain configurations too, such as extending the lead arm to a 'palm heel' and chambering the 'rear' arm. It all depends on what you want to test.

In the above example, your 'helper' would then push against your extended palm, the goal being to try and collapse your arm+upper body. The idea of course is to assume a posture where your body cannot be manipulated within the context of this test. This is all done to verify that these specific postures that are being taught actually work when tested under load - i.e. there is a valid reason for training with that amount of detail.

I have found that holding the chin level results in a very stable and strong stance (without me actually exerting myself). However lowering my chin resulted in my entire upper body losing stablity - my extended arm would collapse and my body was inherently maniputable. The upshot is, my striking potential was severly reduced, but worse than this was the fact that my stance was unstable - someone could easily push/pull/tackle me or otherwise do harm (strikes to the body would hurt more also).

The position of the head goes way beyond a 'fighting stance' also - there are specific postures to defend against bearhugs, grapples, and all manner of attacks. The 'chin up' is appropriate in some senarious, in others it is not. I can't even begin to explain any further than this because underlying body-physics is beyond me. It's *very* cool when your shown how to do it though

Notice that Doc's initial 'chin up' comment was geared towards the formation of a 'correct' neutral-bow, the purpose of which is to establish stability and strength throughout the body - at no point has an application beyond this been suggested or implied, yet the direction of the thread immediately veered towards the 'they do it in sports/MMA' without considering what context was being discussed.

don't know if that answered your question..
cheers,
James

Thank you, that was the kind of answer I was looking for. Putting it into context, and explaining what is actually being tested, and what the goals are. Much appreciated.

 

[Hand Sword]

Don't worry about the trifles (I know I read that somewhere before?)Chances are, if it is a real encounter, you got caught unaware, so you won't be able to drop into a neutral bow stance anyway.

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Back to the "can you cite that?" garbage, eh? Do you know how many double-blind, RCT's have been conducted around the basic knee-jerk reflex to validate it as a measure of neurologic integrity? None. Zip. Nichts. Nada. Nein. Some people have brisk reflexes who are in dire shape; pristine athletes in the peak of health may have none. Yet, we know enough about neurology to recognize it as a sign of pathology in certain presentations. Oh yeah...that dickens of a word; context.

Some basic reflexes, and how we can measure them or screw with them.

Righting reflex: Eyes provided data to the brain, which rights the skull to a visual horizon. Look down the street without straining: This is the most neutral position for the skull and neck in relationship to each other (nope...sorry, don't have a citation; nor do I have the desire to hunt them down). Incidentally, it COMPARATIVELY is "chin up" compared to what most folks do when concentrating, which is to tuck their chins, and look out through the orbits with the eyes COMPARATIVELY looking up.

Tipping the chin down into partially flexed position creates subtle transient pressure on the nerve roots by closing down the neural foramen (particularly in flexion with rotation...which we happen to be in when we are turned sideways at the body but looking at an opponent, as in a neutral bow or sideways horse).

Experiment (I do this regularly to make a point about posture to my patients): Get a Jaymar dynamometer. It measures grip strength. Get a mean on 3 grips standing in a neutral position, staring of to the horizon (chin up...not "looking up", but not tucked either). Now, look down wih the chin, keeping the eyes looking off to the horizon. Take 3 measurements, and get the mean. On MOST of the population (don't inform them why you're doing this in advance...just do it, get the data, and see if it supports a null hypothesis) you will see a notable difference in a reduction of grip strength in the chin-tucked position.

Odd thing: It will also effect dysdiadochokinesia tests of the lower extremities. Osteopaths would say this was due not to neural foramen closure, but rather to stretching of the dura around the brain and spinal cord, effecting blood and nerve flow through the entire body. But, of course, there are no RCT studies to prove or disprove it. Just as there are none to support or disprove Chinese martial arts concepts like a "guideline" (and yet, we see it's effect on position in gung-fu, and health in TCM).

To be fair...if you're going to demand citations for unsubstantiated, esoteric or theoretic constructs offered by others on this forum, you should restrict yourself from making counter-claims that are just as unsubstantiated, without supporting research evidence. Did you require citations on the biomechanics of gait before learning to walk? Without them, surely your feet will not work. Just don't tell that to the infants curently busy working out how to put one foot in front of the other...might mess up their whole life.

I gotta get back to the hospital. The medical dieties, using their best methods of scientifically-proven care and intervention, are killing my father in law with un-thought out uses of meds, out of the context of the research of those meds, and the side-effects of these meds clashing, and causing more silly stuff to go wrong. But hey; they got research to back 'em and funding to inform them, so they must be right.

Regards (and offline for a spell, so hate mail will likely go unresponded to),

Dave

 

[Flying Crane]

Back to the "can you cite that?" garbage, eh? Do you know how many double-blind, RCT's have been conducted around the basic knee-jerk reflex to validate it as a measure of neurologic integrity? None. Zip. Nichts. Nada. Nein. Some people have brisk reflexes who are in dire shape; pristine athletes in the peak of health may have none. Yet, we know enough about neurology to recognize it as a sign of pathology in certain presentations. Oh yeah...that dickens of a word; context.

Some basic reflexes, and how we can measure them or screw with them.

Righting reflex: Eyes provided data to the brain, which rights the skull to a visual horizon. Look down the street without straining: This is the most neutral position for the skull and neck in relationship to each other (nope...sorry, don't have a citation; nor do I have the desire to hunt them down). Incidentally, it COMPARATIVELY is "chin up" compared to what most folks do when concentrating, which is to tuck their chins, and look out through the orbits with the eyes COMPARATIVELY looking up.

Tipping the chin down into partially flexed position creates subtle transient pressure on the nerve roots by closing down the neural foramen (particularly in flexion with rotation...which we happen to be in when we are turned sideways at the body but looking at an opponent, as in a neutral bow or sideways horse).

Experiment (I do this regularly to make a point about posture to my patients): Get a Jaymar dynamometer. It measures grip strength. Get a mean on 3 grips standing in a neutral position, staring of to the horizon (chin up...not "looking up", but not tucked either). Now, look down wih the chin, keeping the eyes looking off to the horizon. Take 3 measurements, and get the mean. On MOST of the population (don't inform them why you're doing this in advance...just do it, get the data, and see if it supports a null hypothesis) you will see a notable difference in a reduction of grip strength in the chin-tucked position.

Odd thing: It will also effect dysdiadochokinesia tests of the lower extremities. Osteopaths would say this was due not to neural foramen closure, but rather to stretching of the dura around the brain and spinal cord, effecting blood and nerve flow through the entire body. But, of course, there are no RCT studies to prove or disprove it. Just as there are none to support or disprove Chinese martial arts concepts like a "guideline" (and yet, we see it's effect on position in gung-fu, and health in TCM).

To be fair...if you're going to demand citations for unsubstantiated, esoteric or theoretic constructs offered by others on this forum, you should restrict yourself from making counter-claims that are just as unsubstantiated, without supporting research evidence. Did you require citations on the biomechanics of gait before learning to walk? Without them, surely your feet will not work. Just don't tell that to the infants curently busy working out how to put one foot in front of the other...might mess up their whole life.

I gotta get back to the hospital. The medical dieties, using their best methods of scientifically-proven care and intervention, are killing my father in law with un-thought out uses of meds, out of the context of the research of those meds, and the side-effects of these meds clashing, and causing more silly stuff to go wrong. But hey; they got research to back 'em and funding to inform them, so they must be right.

Regards (and offline for a spell, so hate mail will likely go unresponded to),

Dave

Thank you for this response Dave. I appreciate you taking the time to explain the WHY behind some of the things that are being said.

My own personal frustrations with this and other threads is that it seems often claims are made, but no reasoning is given along with the claim. I am not asking for scientific journal references, but just a little bit of the reasoning behind what is being said is helpful.

When someone just claims something vague like "body indexing in XYZ stance with your chin and hands in XYZ position is wrong, and leaves you in a weak and vulnerable position that will cause you all kinds of problems", but they don't say WHY this is so or just what the hell they are talking about, I have a hard time swallowing it, especially when we are talking about very minor differences in positioning.

I am still hoping that someone will give a clear, plain English description of what is meant by INDEXING, when used in these discussions. I keep seeing the term "BODY INDEXING" being tossed around, but again, without any clear notion of what is being said, it is meaningless to me.

I am always hoping to gain some insight from these discussions. My position is: if you make a claim regarding a better vs. worse way to do something, especially when the only difference is in the very minor details, then just explain it. I want to learn something, and I am giving anybody a chance to convince me of the truth of what they are saying. So please, take a moment and convince me. Don't just throw out jargon that those of us who have not studied the same stuff won't understand, and then expect that to suffice. Again, I am not expecting references to medical journals. I am an intellingent, well educated person and I have a high capacity to reason things out. If you can explain something in a way that makes sense to me, then OK, i'll be convinced. I don't need citations to prove it to me, because I understand that much of this stuff, especially within the context of the Martial Arts, has never been studied and reported on in that manner.

Only a couple posts on this thread, including this one, bothered to give a glimpse of the reasoning behind the claims that were made. Many posts consisted of a simple "no, you are wrong" kind of answer to a prior post. This helps no one. If the prior post was wrong, please explain why.

Maybe some of this stuff was explained years ago on Martial Talk, prior to my own membership. Maybe some of the people who have been around for that long get tired of saying it over and over. Well, most of us probably don't have the time to search out all the old threads in hopes of finding the spot where a particular point was defined three years ago, in order to understand a thread that is happening today. Without some explanation to the claims being made, I remain unconvinced. But with a convincing argument, I will be convinced.

Once again, thank you for this post, it is appreciated.

 

[Bode]

Flying Crane, part of the problem is, as you suggest, these topics have been hashed and re-hashed. Doc, from what I understand does get a bit tired of repeating and I can't say I blame him. I come on as often as I can and help out, but lately, that's been very little.

Dave wasn't suggesting that YOU wanted a citation or reference. I think he was replying to Eyebeams.

On the subject of what indexing is... Dave went off about it a while back in this series of post starting here

Basically, think of indexes as anatomically correct movement when moving from point A to point B that maximizes muscle recruitment and skelatal alignment. It's never as simple as "move your hand from here to here"... it's how you get there.

 

[Flying Crane]

Flying Crane, part of the problem is, as you suggest, these topics have been hashed and re-hashed. Doc, from what I understand does get a bit tired of repeating and I can't say I blame him. I come on as often as I can and help out, but lately, that's been very little.

Dave wasn't suggesting that YOU wanted a citation or reference. I think he was replying to Eyebeams.

On the subject of what indexing is... Dave went off about it a while back in this series of post starting here

Basically, think of indexes as anatomically correct movement when moving from point A to point B that maximizes muscle recruitment and skelatal alignment. It's never as simple as "move your hand from here to here"... it's how you get there.

Thanks for this reply, and I understand that Dave's comments were not aimed at me. I was just airing my frustration at how things sometimes get played out in the threads, and in this case I'm mostly on the sidelines watching the show, but i feel like i'm getting very little information from what is being said. Thanks also for the link to where indexing is discussed. I'll check it out, and hopefully it will put me into a better position to understand some of the things being said. Much appreciated.

 

[Doc]

Well, most of us probably don't have the time to search out all the old threads ...

I feel your pain.

 

[JamesB]

To get back on the subject of neutral-bows, I've just starting reading a book called "Opening the Energy Gates of the Body" by B.K. Frantzis. He's a Bagua/Taijichaun person. In this book he details the placement of one's feet during Chi Gung practice. He says:

"Begin standing with the outer edges of your feet somewhere between hip and shoulder-width apart....." and goes on to say "Feet are parallel"

The diagram in the book appears to show the outside of the feet to be parallel (toe-in basically) but it's not too clear that I can be definite about this. Although he does go on to say the following:

"Parallel placement of the feet means that the distance between the toes is the same as the distance between the heels, and one foot is neither in front of nor in back of the other". He also says that feet turned inwards is 'incorrect' as far as the subject of the book is concerned.

His point about distance between toes vs heel confuses me, it seems contradictory to the idea of the outside of the feet being parallel. Perhaps he means that turning the outsides of the feet inward is incorrect.

In my experience having the outside of the feet parallel yields a stronger stance. I would guess that this would not be to the detriment of 'chigung' practices but I don't know - this book I'm reading hints that maybe it is. Comments anyone?

:idunno:


james

 

[Michael Billings]

Glenn Haley, one of John Sepulveda's Black Belts, just gave me a copy of Ed Parker's KENPO KARATE Volume 1 THE BASICS. Written by Ed Parker and Tom Gow. Photos by Daniel L. Gow. Front page picture was Kealoha Parker (with a knife), Ed Parker, and Tom Gow. So two pictures of Mr. Parker in the photo.

Anyhow, it was copywritten circa 1967 by Thomas Gow. In it are very clear pictures, with anatomical alignment of Plate 1 Stances: Horse, Neutral & Front Bow. The Horse as in Infinite Insights Volume I; the Picture 1-3 Horse (Fighting Position); and 1-4 Neutral Bow and Arrow.

The interesting thing is that it is clear that the Fighting Horse is what many here are defining as a Neutral Bow. The Neutral Bow (Side View) clearly illustrates that the upper torso is rotated more to the front than is what is being described here. It allows the rear arm to be more available. Also of interest is the chin being up more in the Neutral Bow than in the Horse Stance (fighting), slightly.

Now the person in the pictures is a very dark haired, lean Edmund Kealoha Parker, Sr. I cannot scan this now, but will try to get this page scanned on Monday.

Doc I am certain has seen this. It looks a lot like a pamplet article you would give to your new students after they sign up. It is neat to see this.

-Michael

 

[pete]

I've just starting reading a book called "Opening the Energy Gates of the Body" by B.K. Frantzis. He's a Bagua/Taijichaun person. In this book he details the placement of one's feet during Chi Gung practice.

excellent book! i train in bagua under one of his students from the mid-seventies. the idea there is to maintain a connection through your feet into the ground, and complete a circuit by which your energy will flow. the only way for the path of the circuit to connect is to open the inguinal crease (or, kua) by relaxing the hip joints, keep the knee joints open and pushed outward so they remain over the feet (or big toe to be exact), and to keep the feet parallel from the outside so that becomes the apex of the circle and somewhere under the floor is where your energy path from your right foot will connect to that of the left.

the confusing part is that sometimes 'outside of the foot' is discussed as the outer or pinky edge in comparison to the 'inside edge' or the big toe side. sometimes 'outside of the foot' is used to describe the entire outside perimeter in comparison to the inside as the center sole. the former is generally used in physical weighting and direction while the latter is more for directing internal energy paths and connections.

further, the inside edge of the big toe (up to the ball of the foot) lines up to be parallel with the outside edge of the foot from the pink joint down... so, either upper inside or lower outside edges can be used as external guides in aligning the feet.

however the best way is to feel your way into the proper position internally. the i've been shown how the position of the feet become intregal to the unity of the lower body with the upper body. if the feet are not aligned properly, not only will the energy path be disrupted, but the lower back will remain closed. an open lower back and straightened spine are needed to unite the upper and lower.

i've found these IMA principles are completely compatible with Kenpo and the footwork found in Bagua is wild...

pete

 

[Doc]

Glenn Haley, one of John Sepulveda's Black Belts, just gave me a copy of Ed Parker's KENPO KARATE Volume 1 THE BASICS. Written by Ed Parker and Tom Gow. Photos by Daniel L. Gow. Front page picture was Kealoha Parker (with a knife), Ed Parker, and Tom Gow. So two pictures of Mr. Parker in the photo.

Anyhow, it was copywritten circa 1967 by Thomas Gow. In it are very clear pictures, with anatomical alignment of Plate 1 Stances: Horse, Neutral & Front Bow. The Horse as in Infinite Insights Volume I; the Picture 1-3 Horse (Fighting Position); and 1-4 Neutral Bow and Arrow.

The interesting thing is that it is clear that the Fighting Horse is what many here are defining as a Neutral Bow. The Neutral Bow (Side View) clearly illustrates that the upper torso is rotated more to the front than is what is being described here. It allows the rear arm to be more available. Also of interest is the chin being up more in the Neutral Bow than in the Horse Stance (fighting), slightly.

Now the person in the pictures is a very dark haired, lean Edmund Kealoha Parker, Sr. I cannot scan this now, but will try to get this page scanned on Monday.

Doc I am certain has seen this. It looks a lot like a pamplet article you would give to your new students after they sign up. It is neat to see this.

-Michael

Yes sir, I have a couple of copies of the "Basics Booklet." The 'fighting horse' generated so much confusion, Parker dropped it from the system. It was a carry over from Ark Wong's teaching.

 

[Doc]

Yes sir, I have a couple of copies of the "Basics Booklet." The 'fighting horse' generated so much confusion, Parker dropped it from the system. It was a carry over from Ark Wong's teaching.

To follow up; Parker had planned a series of these booklets, but some of the information contained within the first one was obsolete almost immediately as he changed things not only personally but commercially.

He further didn't like the reaction of students who, seeing him demonstrate something in print, cast it in stone and made any revisions of information difficult. For this reason, with one exception he never demonstrated anything again for mass consumption, choosing instead to allow someone else to demo ideas. When I asked him why he didn't do it himself he said, "People expect me to be perfect and never make a mistake, or change my mind about how to do something. Sometimes I don't even know what I want."

 

[Michael Billings]

I actually use the fighting horse, usually in transition, as it still has a good defensive function. It provides perhaps more stability in the depth dimension, albeit momentarily. It is still taught in the Chinese Kenpo system I came out of in the late 70's to early/mid 80's. I have been to seminars with them and it is still there in Book Set or for us in Two-Man Set.

-Michael