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Do you have a question? Post your question and I will try to answer! Q: I want to be a good fighter but I don't know the technique of fighiting. Please tell me how to improve technique. A: Just like an artist needs to understand the different paintbrushes and colour mixtures, and canvas types in different ambiences, before he can ever start expressing his emotions through art, a martial artist cannot express any artistry in fighting without first knowing himself, his body as a weapon and the movement he can use, better understood as techniques. Only after that stage will he be able to understand action and reaction, distance and timing. Martial art will then be meaningful as a personal expression of fighting using body movement to adapt to the threatening situation. In my view, to improve technique, you need to first harness your natural ability to punch, kick or strike with your limbs but slightly modified to hit with the correct weapon (1st two knuckles, forearm, elbow, knee, etc) that can be easily conditioned with some dedicated exercises. Do not go for the regimental study of basic form of karate as this will handicap you for the short and medium (and sometimes even in the longer) term. Refine your punch or strike or kick from the natural one you were born with, to the more technical one recommended by traditional style. Most important is that you always feel that you are throwing the maximum at your target, even if not perfect. Perfection will come when you gradually, but constantly try to imitate more effecient traditional technique. Some advise students to unlearn their natural fighting ability and re-learn the style of the instructor. I think that rather than doing that, it is best to reinforce your natural capability with better body weapons, dynamics, control of actions and emotions, evasion, countering, footwork etc etc. You will find that you will be moving towards the style anyway, but without losing the confidence that is inevitable if you go from one end of throwing a good heavy punch in a natural way to trying to learn a new way and unlearn your own way. I think that such a method will discourage a student who quickly realises that he has lost effectiveness and it will take many years of diligent training to find the new power. Move your personal ability and effectiveness towards a more perfect technique gradually, whilst improving also the other skills necessary in any fighting art ie control of aggrssion and emotions, shifting, leveraging the force of your opponent's techniques etc. Hope this is of some help. You will appreciate that it is difficult for me to answer your question in so many words. Regards ### Q: Thank you for a great website. I hope you can take a few minutes to share your thoughts. I have joined a school in New Jersey, USA. It is supposed to mimic Shotokan in stances and some kata. I have injured my hip due to improper technique. In Zenkutsu dachi everyone in the school keeps the rear foot pointing out . I guess my age is showing...66..after much research I found a Shotokan site that told me I was wrong and said knee and hip injuries will occur if the front stance is wrong Both feet should be straight ahead for joint stability. I want to continue training after this clears up...You seem highly knowledgeable so I'm asking you...should I get into another style with higher stances ? also..if I stay in this style with a corrected front stance what else am I doing wrong ....I know these are tough questions and you can't guarantee anything but your site impressed me....I want to train but I'm too old to train wrong. Thank you so much for your time...Respectfully, Dennis ### A: Before anything, thank you for the kind words. Karate has been my passion for 30 years now and I have had my share of self-inflicted injuries which come from bad training practices. Rest assured that it is not your age. Karate was meant for everyone, but infortuately, over the years, especially when it was being transformed into a competitive sport since after the 1920s, the scope and objective of doing it in the first place started to change and it started becoming a better fit for the younger athlete. Unfortunately, since the objective became more and more competition oriented, many instructors were trying to find ways of gaining longer reach to gain advantage on the competition mat. The loss of the stance form was in my view largely attributed to this. There are two types of joints in the leg - the ball and socket type and the hinge joints. As the name suggests, the ball-and-socket type has a large rotational range of movement whilst the hinge type has only one type of linear range. The knee is a hinge joint whilst the anke and the hip are of the ball-and-socket type.. Unfortunately, the knee is caught in between the other two high movement joints and is therefore the weak link of the leg if misused. On a normal forward leaning stance (zenkutsudachi), the Japanese would recommend a comfortable seated position with the weight distributed on the front leg, the pelvis facing 45 degrees from the front, tailbone in, and backleg toes pointing in the same direction of the knee. The knee should at this position, that is on a fighting position, not on an attack, be pointing downwards, and should always be relaxed and slightly bent. The feeling should be comfortable and you should be able to experiment by concentrating on leaving the front leg solid, and 'play' with the back leg pushing the heel against the floor, squeezing the gluteus muscles and the hamstrings, to consciously rotate the pelvic basin. Concentrate on seeing your belt always in a horizontal position and that the knot it moving in a flat horizontal rotation from say NE (if you are with the left leg leading) to North and back. This is a basic exercise which you should do even on warm up. Once you get the hang of it, the stance is used in combat. There are 2 mainstream arm actions. One uses the leading arm to attack or block and the other uses the reverse arm. So for clarity, if you are on a left zenkutsudachi, then the left arm is the leading arm and the right is the reverse arm. When using the left arm, the stance should normally remain with the pelvis to a 45 degree angle with the front leg. So if we assume the the front knee is pointing north, then the knot of the belt should be pointing north-east. Attacking with the front arm should leave the knot pointing to the NE and power should be generated through different dynamics, such as front leg shifting, gaining some reach into the technique, rising and dropping (even with an impetus of the front leg bouncing and stamping), and through vibration of the lower body, but all with tensing of the back leg (important to learn tensing without locking the knee as this is what will kill the knee). The toes of the back leg should remain as much as possible pointing north (with some tolerance perhaps to NNE depending on the suppleness in the ankle joint). The knee should remain pointing always in the direction of the toes. If you are attacking with the reverse arm, then the dynamics will change. You will probably need to rotate the pelvis through pushing with the back leg through the hip bringing the golfer's or baseball player's swing into the upper body to generate speed and hence percussion. However, both in baseball and in golf, the technique acknowledges the physionomy of the human being and actually suggests that the knee and toes move in the same direction. The same in boxing. In karate, it is the same but some expect to rotate the hip fast to generate the swing effect, having also a longer-than-one-can-handle stance, but also expect that the stance remains recognisable. This is very ambitious if not impossible. Freestyle karate today allows the raising of the heel of the backleg when doing such a technique in competition, losing the stance form as a trade-off. This makes more sense if you are looking for a long range attack with the reverse arm, and you want the swing of a baseball pitcher and hence you are jerking the pelvis through the hip from a NE direction to a North direction. Unfortunately, purists are trying to cross-breed two things without accepting the new breed that will result in the technique. Karate was not designed to injure the practitioner, but to leverage his body structure, capabilities and limitations into outperforming an assailant. There is so much a stance can go depending on the length of the lower limbs and the extent of suppleness. No person is the same as the other. But joints are the same for everyone (assuming what is normal). A joint forced against its nature will break. If the back leg toes are pointing say, East or sometimes also East-south-east, and therefore the knee is naturally pointing in that same direction, and you are trying to force the hip to turn to North, you are just putting torsion on the knee and the ankle, both of which have the foot part of the leg countering the force against the floor. One of them will give in! Listen to your body. That is my advice. Hope this has been of some help. Regards ### Do you have a question? Post your question and I will try to answer! ###
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