Keys to Success - Power

When we talk about power in the martial arts, we are concerned with the ability to transfer energy from you to your opponent. There are several aspects to this power. When used together, these aspects compliment each other and create an exponential increase in power.

The first aspect is the principle of the muscular strength of the weapon. When talking about a punch, this involves the strength of the muscles, which cause the hand to move. These are primarily the muscles in your arm, but can also include the muscles of the shoulder, chest and upper back. Punching a heavy bag or working out with weights can help increase your power by strengthening these muscles.

The second aspect is body rotation. By turning your body, much as a baseball player does when he hits a baseball, you are able to generate additional power through rotation. The rotation of the body involves muscles from your lower leg up through your upper back, so you are able to use muscles that you might not associate with a simple punch.

The next aspect is weight shift. When we go from a back/fighting stance to a front stance, we are moving our weight slightly forward. In the back stance, we have our weight balanced equally on both feet or slightly more on the rear foot. In the front stance, 70 percent of the weight is on the front foot. This moving slightly forward with your body weight adds that much more force to your punch.

Another aspect is the speed of movement of the weapon. A small BB thrown at you is not likely to cause much damage. In fact, you might not feel it at all. However, if you take that same BB and shoot it out of a gun, it would definitely hurt and could seriously injure you. The weapon is the same, but the speed makes the difference.

The last aspect is the size of your weapon. If I punch with the full surface of my fist, the energy will be spread over approximately 7.5 square inches. By changing the angle of my fist and striking with only the first two knuckles, I can apply the same power to less than 2 square inches. This small change in hand position increases my power four fold.

Except for the first aspect, all these things are related to technique and not strength. This is why we have such a heavy emphasis on kata. By learning the appropriate techniques, you are learning to increase your power. When you are able to put all these together, they have a synergistic affect and the impact of your martial arts techniques will be more than you would expect.

A discussion of power would not be complete without mentioning one other point. If I am attempting to break a board and I am using all of the above-mentioned aspects, the board will still not break if I stop my strike at the surface of the board. You must strike through the board to break it. This is even more true when striking a person. The human body is much more flexible and capable of absorbing a strike without damage than a board is. Whenever you are striking any target, make sure your strike goes through it.

Donnie Chaffin,
3rd Dan