The past year I feel I have learned a lot from doing a boxing class once every second week with an experienced coach. My Boxing Coach is also a professional fighter so he is both a talker and a more importantly a doer. Boxing relies on efficient mechanics to generate power. The laws of physics are always there though sometimes karateka or martial artists are like Mulder from the X-files…thinking there is something “extra” out there. So my boxing experience is making me question the mechanics of movement in karate. Why? A student asked me the question of how he can start to move like Gary O’Neill?
Much of karate kihon and ido geiko are done with flat feet, the heels are dug in, the toes grip the floor and the underneath side of the foot is fully engaged with the floor. We are taught that this is necessary to generate power in stances like sanchin dachi, zenkutsu dachi kiba dachi etc. In my opinion this approach is correct, but only up to brown belt or shodan level. Aside, I always advocate that after Shodan, a student should start exposing himself to other schools of fighting like boxing, judo, wrestling, sambo, jiu jitsu etc in line with advice from Musashi in his Book of 5 rings. Now this is so such that he becomes a beginner again and questions anew what he has learnt. The martial way is an endless journey seeking more knowledge and perfection of technique and ultimately character growth and spiritual wisdom. This requires questioning and introspection ( according to Sosai Oyama).
Returning to sanchin dachi. When you are “locked” into sanchin dachi, there is very limited hip rotation that can be achieved as your flat feet anchor your hips. Further we punch keeping our shoulders very square, preventing shoulder torque further removes twisting/ rotational power from our punch. Like I stated before this is good structure for beginners up to brown belt level as many people are really “floppy” when they start martial arts. The one arm flies this way, the other in the opposite direction, one foot pointed that way the other another, some toes curled into the ground others just weirdly placed…anyone who has coached beginners knows this well.
I recall it was during my years in the late 90 while training at Shihan Hennie Bosman’s Welgemoed dojo that I first started lifting my heels slightly off the ground in sanchin dachi, this allowed my foot to pivot on the ball and thus my hips could rotate more and I could drive my punches more powerfully. Now that I relate my sanchin dachi to my fighting stance and relate this back to boxing, I feel that more natural body mechanics is more effective for generating power. The beginner’s sanchin dachi I have amended to suit my requirements for generating power efficiently with correct mechanics of movement. So my toes are no longer gripping the floor, but they assist in pushing my ball of foot in pivoting, my hips now rotate much more, shoulders rotate too. On jodan punches, like boxing, I tuck my chin in beside my shoulder. No longer do I try to have internal tension to think that I am being strong, only a fraction of muscle effort is needed upon impact combined with an explosive kiai! Students get confused with internal tension and become rigid fighters later, they are fit but run out of breath after a minute of fighting! The internal efforts and tension sucks up all their energies…it’s like trying to drive your car with the hand brake engaged! Remember the principles of karate, soft overcomes rigid, good boxers move softly on their toes mostly just like Gary O, Michael Thompson, Andi Hug etc.
Now let’s discuss the physics behind a flat foot rotation using a simple exercise. Try to rotate or spin your body through 360degrees, like a dancer or Michael Jackson. Would you do this the most effective way on two feet or one foot? Obviously one foot. Now concentrate on how your knee feels when you try to spin on a flat foot. Now finally try to spin on your heel and then also the ball of your foot. How does that feel? So this little experiment should convince you that by rotating on the ball of the foot the movement can be executed the fastest and with control. Rotating on a flat foot will hurt your knees and you will be lucky to make 180degrees before friction with the floor grinds you to a halt.
An additional consideration is the surface that you spin on. The Bellville dojo of Shihan Kenny had 3 different surfaces overtime, but the longest part was a wooden floor. However this was varnished, whereas at Oyama Sosai’s dojo the timber was untreated and felt sticky during winter and very slippery during summer. One could possibly do a full rotation on a flat foot at Honbu during summer months as the floor was that slippery. These days most dojo’s have synthetic surfaces similar or exactly the same as those used in tournaments. These surfaces are not as rigid as timber, they are softer and easier on the body when falling down. But being soft means that one sinks slightly deeper into them and this increases friction and the resulting forces on the knees when rotating with flat feet as is required in kihon, ido geiko and kata. These surfaces could infact result in more knee injuries when karateka get into their 40s if they have been training say 20years or more.
I recently had a long run of knee problems which happened after a training session which inckuded throwing doubles and triples of the same leg jodan mawashi geri’s. Two days later I was limping as my right knee was so painful. I eventually had an MRI scan done and saw a knee surgeon, thinking like 8 years before an arthroscopy would return my knee to good working order. However this was not to be, instead the surgeon said that I did not have the knees of a twenty-something year old, there was degeneration and osteoarthritis. Based on this he would not operate! I was dejected. After 4 to 5 months I decided to have a cortisone injection which helped within a week. Following I started thinking more carefully again about the back foot rotation. I suppose weighing 115kg did not help and the surgeon advised me to reduce my weight to at least 100kg as I was 15years out from a knee replacement. Hence my advice that for longevity of joints, especially knee joint, the transfer of foot-floor friction forces must be minimized by using the pivot of the ball of the foot.
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