The connected body and the mechanics of Martial Arts

The connected body and the mechanics of Martial Arts.

By 

Lee Taylor

“Learn how to see. Realise that everything is connected”

Leonardo Da Vinci.

“Left toe triggers hip; right hip pulls back left shoulder; left shoulder catapults right fist. All that power building like a tiny ripple in the sea – until – Wham! It crashes down from where it all started.”

 The above was an explanation from Bruce Lee on his ability to generate power from the infamous one-inch punch. A punch that was described by fellow martial artists as “long distance ging” – strength from afar. 

 When practicing the one inch punch many fail to understand how such power can be generated from a short distance, this is often due to their concentrating on the contraction of an individual limb (in this case the hand or arm), rather than viewing the strike as a whole body motion. 

 For the majority of us, we have grown up and been led to believe that fitness is often gauged by the singular modalities of either strength or endurance, which in both cases rely upon muscular contraction/compression. 

 We know the body is made up of several systems that include muscles, ligaments and tendons, all of which connect to the skeleton and surrounded by skin. What has often been neglected in biology and movement science is what actually connects all of this together? “Are there really six hundred muscles in the body, or only one?”. 

You see, each of these systems is surrounded by a whole-body three dimensional network of structural support, known as the Myofascial system/web/network (Fascia). Understanding fascia is essential to the dance between stability and movement — crucial in high performance, central in recovery from injury and disability, and ever-present in our daily life from our beginnings to the last breath we take. 

Research into Fascia is a fairly recent development and has often been overlooked. 

Historically the fascia was always seen as simply a ‘filler’ in the body.  A substance that would be removed and discarded by anatomists during dissections as an obstacle in the way of seeing muscles, ligaments and bones.

Today the fascial network is considered a singular system, a continuous structure that exists from head to toe without interruption.  You can begin to see that each part of the entire body is connected to every other part by the fascia.

One of the elements that make fascia so unique, is that it relies on tensional forces, in contrast to muscles and joints which rely upon compressional loading.

Within the human body there have been several ‘lines’ of fascia identified (sometimes known as sling systems) as shown in the diagram.

We have often viewed our bodies much the same way we see the structure of buildings and other man-made structures, where their integrity lies in the continuity of compression from the highest brick to the lowest block of granite. In comparison, the skeleton is a stack of bones – a continuous compression structure – with individual muscles hanging off each bone to move it. However, the fascial continuity throughout the body suggests it acts like an adjustable tensegrity around the skeleton – a continuous inward pulling tensional network like elastics and bones acting like struts. 

To help understand the principle of tensegrity, it is best to look at the ‘Tensegrity icosahedron’, which is mathematically the most symmetrical structure. in its resting state, is extremely energy efficient. Distorting the shape requires energy and when that energy is released, it returns to its least energy state, a, normally, self-regulating and self-generating mechanism.

Tensegrity Model

It is like a spring that, when distorted, will bounce back to its original shape. But it is a very special spring. When a steel spring is in its resting state, there is no energy storage. Adding a weight, say a kilo, will stretch the spring a defined amount, say 10cm. Each additional kilo will stretch the spring an additional 10cm. When the spring is released, all the stored energy is immediately released, and the spring will snap back. If it is not restrained, it will bounce because of the accelerated motion. And, depending on how springy (elastic) it is, it will bounce and bounce and bounce, jerking up and down. 

The icosahedron, tensegrity spring is different and characterized as ‘nonlinear’. In the resting state, there is always some residual tension in the system, so it is never completely relaxed. If you add a kilo weight it may distort 15cms. But add another kilo and the distortion may only be 7cms, then 4cms, then 1cm. The icosahedron spring gets stiffer and stronger as you load it.  As you add more weight a great amount of energy can be stored with very little change of shape of the icosahedron spring. 

When released, there is not the sudden, total release of stored energy as there is in a linear spring, but a great amount of energy can be released early, and the last part can be released slowly and gently; a splashdown rather than a hard landing. This softens the blow and removes the bounce and jerkiness. As noted, not all the energy is released, some remains in storage.

Teaching point:Notice that during reaction drills such as jab and counter, how when applying the ‘wave energy’ principle how less energy is wasted in comparison to when relying upon muscular contraction, where by the lactic threshold and CO2 tolerances (a discussion for another day) are reached much quicker.

 These theories are evident particularly in the most basic of martial art positions, the fighting stance. I often use the analogy of the body being like a car engine, stand stiff legged and upright and the car engine is not running and the gear in neutral. Therefore, being much more difficult to react. Instead standing engaged with your knees slightly bent, the back foot raised (tension), you know that energy flows from deep within the system andthat you can bring energy up from the squishiness of your cells out to harden on the tips of your fingers. Your body is never completely flaccid; some tone always remains in the system. To get the maximum energy you screw yourself down and then explode with tremendous force from within, but never overshoot your mark. Pulling the force from deep within your structure is recruiting the entire body mass.

In a previous post, whereby the principle ‘Impulsive force’ was discussed, I used the example of Newtons second law of motion, force = mass x acceleration (F = ma) , and this remains consistent when exploring the fascial system and its link to martial movement. Striking a blow with your whole body creates a greater force than just striking with your fist, as you are increasing mass. In the standard western striking, the arm and fist are just hanging off the body mass and operate independent of it. In a conventional boxers blow, speed (a) is all-important as the mass (m) is mostly the fist, in the tensegrity model, the entire body mass is involved. When absorbing a blow, it reverses the process by soaking up the initial force, distributing it, and then gradually stiffing at the cellular level where the cells, rather than all the resistance landing on a local area. The bone breaking impact, rather than focused where the blow landed, will be he resisted by all your cells in a wave that spreads from the impact cite to a wall of billions of cells throughout the body, acting as perfect hydraulic shock absorbers, take up the blow. You go with the flow or as I often say, ‘natural progression’. 

LT

Complexity through simplicity…

(Complex = lack of understanding, Simplicity = learned the principles)