“Shoulders down! Shoulders down!”, my old Aikido instructor, Kimura Sensei, used to bark at us regularly. I remember being constantly reminded of the importance of the “One Point” (tan tien, hara, or the center of gravity located 2 inches below the navel), the fallacy of relying on “Chikara” (too much strength or tension), and his familiar “Shoulders down!” command. Today, over 45 years later, in a different training hall, teaching a different martial art, I often talk about one’s hara and the problems with over-tensing the wrong muscles at the wrong time. You will often hear me tell students not to let their shoulders “float”, especially at the point of impact while executing technique.

Man, I hate to write too much about technique because one cannot avoid getting too detailed or analytical; as in boring, haha. The best way to learn to technique is always through practice, practice, practice…though it’s gotta be done correctly and with purpose. However, it is possible to enhance a foundation of good, focused practice by a (small) serving of the sensei’s perspective – even if it means I have to write a few paragraphs.

I like to use the rather mundane image of squeezing a toothpaste tube. Nope, not talking about doing it neatly from the back to the front and rolling up the empty portion. I mean the simple process of squeezing the tube to push out just the right amount of paste onto the brush. At a minimum, you need two opposing forces to elicit the squeeze – usually your fingers and your thumb, or perhaps even laying the tube on the counter and just pressing down with your thumb. Try to imagine having the strongest thumb in the world (and only your extended thumb), and trying to squeeze some paste out of the tube when it’s floating in gravitationless space. I think you get the picture; it would keep on floating away from you, spinning and turning…until you could get it between your thumb and some solid surface, like the closest spaceship wall. In other words, the squeeze needs two or more opposing forces to result in the desired thrust, projected in a perpendicular direction. This tandem coordination of forces is not unlike what’s required for an effective scissors action (topic for another note). In our example, if you wanted to place a small dollop of paste on your toothbrush, a gentle squeeze would do it. However, “push punches” in karate do not accomplish anything. If you wanted to launch some paste across the room…you’d have to add some oomph and explosive force to achieve the desired result – picture jumping up and landing on the tube with both feet =:o (that would probably launch the whole tubeful of paste into the air and splat on a distant wall!) A decent punch is no different – to be effective, you need a strong base, compression, explosive thrust, and a small tube opening (small strike surface); hopefully aimed right at the target.

Explosive compression…On a really basic level, the reason you even have to utilize these forces to create compression is that there are two forces in our environment that you need to make use of: 1) Good old Terra Firma – or the ground beneath you that holds you up, and 2) Good old gravity – or the force that wants to make you fall on your face;) Intuitively, you know that if there’s no firm ground support beneath your feet, you’d slip around helplessly anytime you tried to project force on any nearby surface, right? And if there wasn’t any gravity, you wouldn’t even be able to stay in one place and just float away. So these two basic parameters are always operating on us from the top and from the bottom – and every angle in-between. In an ideal model, with a perfectly horizontal floor, resistance/grip/support from the ground is perfectly 180 degrees opposite to the gravitational force. Just imagine a powerlifter trying to execute a “snatch” with very heavy barbells. When he pulls and throws the barbells above his head, he strains and holds the rod 180 degrees up in the air. This enables his huge and well trained muscles (especially those in the legs arms and shoulders) to battle the gravitational force of the 500 lbs+ barbells through proper tension and balance of everything in his body – at least for the few seconds needed to record a good snatch. Imagine how long he’d last if he lifted the same barbells to a 90 degree angle either in front or in back of him…he would seriously hurt himself in the process of dropping the weights.

We all know that a decent gyaku-zuki ends up being delivered by one or two of your knuckles. We also know that the process begins at the opposite end – with the sole of your back foot firmly planted on the ground. This is where the initial movement and thrust comes from. Your connection and traction to the ground is so very important, but only half of the compressive force. What many fail to do, is to close the loop by compressing down on the shoulders and all of the associated muscles at the time of impact, to be able to truly project force into the target via the fist. (More advanced students know that there are other forces in action at the point of impact – like compressing your inner air cavity and large connective muscles throughout the body as happens with a good kiai) Unfortunately, “air punching” doesn’t really teach you this part of the process; at some point, you need to be punching a solid target for this part of the lesson to sink in. Alignment and proper tension at the point of impact on a heavy object are vitally important, as the powerful forces unleashed, will “pop out gobs of paste” from wherever the tube has a weak point – translating to hurting a misaligned/weak wrist, elbow, shoulder, back, etc; when upi punch.

As I said at the beginning, I usually avoid writing too much about technique, because the way to develop technique is through actual, purposeful, repetitive training. Whenever I do write up something about technique, it ends up sounding technical (what else?), and overly analytical. Just training by itself, however, can become rather one-dimensional. Transformational or deep-down, positive changes in oneself can sometimes begin from the outside-in (What the “Biggest Loser” often tries to do). More often than not, transformation happens from the inside-out. In karate-do, as in life – it is really within one’s heart and mind that dreams/inspiration/transformation begin; these translate into actions, which then gets one moving towards fulfilling one’s potential and reaching one’s destiny.