What Makes an Effective Technique

"Use your whole body!"

"Turn your hips!"

"HIPS!"

If no one's yelled any of these at you lately, you might not be training hard enough. Usually, you'll hear one of these go by when an instructor wants you to pull, strike, or punch with more power. But power in the martial arts doesn't mean work divided by time, it means the ability to achieve the goal of the technique.

When an instructor wants to see more power, they want to see a technique that would be effective.

Technical correctness is the primary way to make your techniques more effective because it makes them more efficient. In this case, technical correctness means body and bone 'alignment,' accuracy of the contact point (target), and the angle of contact.

(I have put alignment in quotes because we usually only discuss alignment in a static posture but it's critical through the entire process, so I have come to prefer the phrase 'body mechanics' over 'alignment.' But Trias used alignment, and so most instructors I've met in his lineage also say alignment.)

At Broad Ripple Martial Arts we say a technique needs speed, penetration, and a cross between whipping action and momentum to be effective.

Penetration is the most about correct form:

Penetration is a function of distance. If a technique is thrown too far away, then there will be no travel available to hit through the surface of your opponent. Remember, to break a nose, you hit the nose on the guy behind your opponent. Penetration is only possible if the striking implement is rigid. That rigidity is determined by bone alignment (e.g. the wrist must be held straight in a punch) and the angle of contact (e.g. throw a hook punch from too far away so that your fist doesn't make right angle contact, and tell me how much penetration you achieve). Making a correct fist and pulling the toes out of the way for a snap kick aid penetration.


Speed is about technique first and then about effort:

Efficient technique removes unnecessary motions and allows all of the effort to go into increase the speed of the technique. This encompasses keeping the elbow down when punching, staying relaxed, non-telegraphic movement. Keep in mind that the speed we're discussing here is the actual physical speed of the technique and not the apparent speed (the amount of time your opponent has to perceive a technique) although non-telegraphic movement aids both types of speed. Once your technique is 'correct enough' you can work to move faster and faster. Ideally, you want your technique to feel like it goes from a standing start to full speed instantaneously. Think about a sudden sneeze or a convulsive shiver, and try to make your techniques launch out as fast as that.

Whipping action and momentum:

First, let's be clear that these two characteristics are opposite ends of a spectrum. A large transfer of momentum (like a push) is about as far away from a snapping, whip-like strike as you can get. At the same time, a skilled karate player can throw whipping, snappy reverse punches that cause no damage through an entire tournament. So when we say a cross between whipping action and momentum we mean you need some momentum transfer and you need some snap. Some techniques (e.g. backfist) tend to fit better near the whipping action pole and others (e.g. hammer fist) tend to live closer to the momentum pole, but that's mostly a question of habit and tradition. In general, we add momentum to karate techniques by correct body mechanics, like turning the hips strongly in a gyaku-tsuki or a mawashi-geri. We add whipping action by pulling the striking implement back (after sufficient penetration is achieved) as fast as possible. This retraction can occur from the hips, as in gyaku-tsuki, or from the striking limb alone, as in oi-tsuki or kisami-tsuki.

Drilling to Improve the Three Elements of an Effective Technique

Penetration:
Since penetration is mostly about distance, rigidity of the striking implement, and angle of contact the best drill to improve is to work each technique on a substitute target. The Dojo has heavy bags, kicking shields, focus mitts, rebreakable boards and thai pads. All of these substitute (meaning not a human) targets give you the opportunity to work on penetration.

Make sure to work from different distances for each technique, learning where the optimal distance is if you don't move your base and how far you can move your base without losing balance. And always remember to hit through the surface of the target! The full extension of your technique should force your striking surface through the target's surface. You can check this by letting one or two slow motion techniques miss the target. Make sure a minimum of 2 inches of travel past the surface is possible before you continue.

As you are working on your penetration, there is no need to turn this into a cardiovascular drill. Keep the pace manageable and maintain focus on hitting the target squarely, without any give in your striking surface.

Speed:

The effective speed of a technique is as much dependent on the timing and deceptiveness of your application of it as it is on the physical speed of it. On the other hand, once you have the technique well-imprinted on your muscle memory, challenging yourself to throw it as quickly as possible while maintaining good form is an excellent training method. There are two basic approaches:

Starting from a static position, launch your technique as fast as possible to the target. Try to surprise yourself with how your technique gets to the target. And a target is absolutely essential -- doing this in the air forces you to apply the brakes to your own technique, which will not help your speed.

Carefully monitor yourself for technical flaws and do not practice the same 'wrong' technique twice! I have seen it written that each bad repetition of a technique takes 10 good repetitions to repair, and that it takes approximately 10,000 good repetitions to achieve mastery. Fortunately, even achieving a journeyman level of technical correctness is sufficient to put us head and shoulders above the crowd.

You can also practice throwing as many of a given technique as possible in a fixed amount of time. This drill is very advanced, because it is so easy to throw bad technique. If you find that you are throwing higher and higher numbers of your technique by using inappropriate body mechanics, bad distancing, or in any way other than speeding up your technique, you need to stop the drill immediately. Although even a bad technique might work, you don't need to practice to perform bad techniques. They come naturally.

So it's been said, a bad technique is one that isn't capable of having all 3 necessary characteristics -- speed, penetration, and a cross between whipping action and momentum. Although you might be drilling your speed, if you increase speed but make your body alignment or angle of contact so bad you can't generate penetration or momentum, you aren't helping yourself.

Whipping Action and Momentum:

The best tools for this attribute are a medium weight bag and the kicking shield. In general the 'ideal' cross of whipping action and momentum will cause the hanging bag to 'jump' off the hand, and not swing. If you combine the ideal amount of whipping action and momentum with proper penetration, the bag will fold around your hand, foot, or elbow AND the bag will jump.

If the bag swings gently, or your partner behind the kicking shield is pushed around, you are transferring a goodly amount of momentum but are probably not generating sufficient whipping action. If you pop the bag or shield and make a great cracking noise, but the bag stays still or your partner doesn't shift at all, you have great whipping action but insufficient momentum transfer.

It'll be obvious if you actually do these drills that it's not really possible to separate the three elements of effective technique. A zero penetration technique will have no whipping action or momentum; a slow motion technique won't penetrate the surface of a target. There are benefits to focusing on specific attributes of your techniques. A narrow focus will allow you to progress rapidly on those attributes. On the other hand, a narrow focus limits your growth overall. Drill these attributes separately, but don't lose sight of the overall goal: effective technique.

Happy training.

Who Succeeds in the Martial Arts?

Martial arts instructors have noticed that the most talented students often don't stay very long. If a person comes in who can do a reasonable imitation of all the basic kicks and punches in one class, learns Pinan Shodan in the next class, and goes and wins their first sparring match in the next class, most instructors figure they'll be gone before blue belt.

This seems backwards, right? Generally people that are good at something enjoy it, and shouldn't less effort mean more enjoyment?

My take on it is that most of these very talented individuals don't value what they are learning. It's the difficulty of the process that makes the rest of us so attached to our practice.

But if it's not the most talented students that usually stick around, who is it?

In my opinion, the majority of successful martial arts students have three traits:

1) Persistence -- they don't quit because they don't like to quit. When they aren't able to do something the first time, they practice it again and again and again and . . .

2) Emphasis on 'the right way' -- they believe that there is a right and a wrong way to do things, or at least that doing things the right way is easier and more efficient

3) Comfort with a social hierarchy -- they enjoy or are at least comfortable with the belt structure being a visible indicator of who is in charge of whom

Each of these traits give people who have them huge advantages in the first 3 - 5 years of martial arts training. But after that (which you might notice is generally after black belt status is achieved) they can become limiting.

Persistence becomes stubbornness and can prevent us from understanding new methods for training. Emphasis on the right way turns into 'the way I was taught must be right.' Comfort with the hierarchy becomes "I'm a big man on campus in my black belt" and leads to sloppy training.

It can be hard to see when behaviors that used to be very helpful to ourselves become roadblocks. And it can be even harder for an instructor 'pointing the way' for others to remember that behaviors that aren't good for the instructor might still be good for the less experienced martial artist.

A Karate Solution to a JiuJitsu Problem

A couple of weeks ago I learned a new takedown. The closest video example I've found is Chris Wells showing it as a 'spiral takedown' on youtube -- check it out.

At any rate, this sort of takedown is a whole new category for me. I've never practiced working from the collar tie position and I've never practiced reaching down to 'tap' a leg. It's pretty exciting to learn something so new. Of course, being completely new, it's something I'm no good at doing.

So now I've got a problem -- I want to be good at it, because it's an easy way to put some on their back with very little exposure to being thrown myself. And I'll probably see it in class again in, say, two years.

So how do I get better at it? How can I even remember how do it?

I hope everyone reading this is shouting "Practice it on your own!" at their computer screens. Because that's what it takes. But it's a throw and I learned it with a partner. And I don't have a convenient training partner. So one option, and it's a good one, is to find a training partner. If I could still train at Broad Ripple Martial Arts, I'd be able to rustle up some partners and some mat space. But where I'm training now, I still need to build those relationships. So in the meantime I need another option.

Fortunately, this is not a new problem. The teachers of the Chinese-Okinawan-Japanese arts solved this problem a long time ago. If I want to practice a partner technique without a partner I can use kata.

We learn kata as set routines. That's because we use kata to transmit the basic (and not so basic) techniques of Shorei Goju Ryu from teacher to student. But we can also use the concept of kata to practice any technique we want. Really, when you practice basic techniques like seiken-tsuki or han uchi ken you are doing a (very) short kata.

And that's how I'm going to practice my new takedown: In the air, without a partner. It'll probably look like goofy dancing to most people. But since I'll know what it means, I'll know it's making me better at tossing people onto the floor.

There are advantages and disadvantages to practicing this way, and understanding those can help you understand how to make your kata more effective training.

But that's for another post.

Want to Get Better Faster?

Here's a tip that helped me make my greatest gains in skill:

Practice every day!

Your first thought might have been "I wish I had the time." Maybe you thought "That's not easy at all."

But think about this -- how long does it take to throw all of your basic kicks? How much time do you need to practice moving your hand first when you throw a reverse punch?

Most of us don't have the time or the inclination to train for several hours every day. But everyone can spend five or ten minutes a day refining a technique, visualizing the form they learned the night before, or doing some light shadow boxing in front of the television.

Practicing everyday lets you focus on what you need to work on. By making a small commitment each and every day you will deepen your practice and speed your skill progression.

Here's what I'm currently practicing every day:

Thai style roundhouse kick

Lead hook (focusing on properly covering with the rear hand)

Sometimes I get carried away and work on the new throw I learned last week . . . and then I've spent 6 minutes on all three techniques.

What's your current practice? Start with one phrase from a kata or one basic technique, and let us know how it goes.

Welcome to the blog!

A number of the higher ranks at BRMAA have decided that we could use a place to share more content than what is possible on the mat and a blog seems like the perfect place for it! You will want to keep an eye out here for videos of our self-defense curriculum and kata. We'll also feature articles leaning more towards the philosophy behind what we do as well as theoretical exploration along with some suggested reading that you might find helpful.

As Sensei announced on the mat recently, we are working to raise the level of performance across the board and having access to some of what has helped to shape the higher ranks who are teaching you is one way to get yourself where you need to be.

Thanks for continuing on this journey with us and know that we are all still walking it together.