Seattle Wushu Center

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"Upper & lower body in unity".....many may understand it consciously, however it takes years of training for the body to understand it.

Arms are bridges; they don’t generate power.

One of the easiest ways to tell if someone is practising the forms properly is to look at how the arms are integrated with the body when they generate power. Time and time again, I see practitioners, sometimes supposed masters as well, striking with the arms isolated from the body instead of generating power with the entire being. Your arms are the conduits to deliver power, not the generators.

There are three main ways of integrating power into your strikes:

1. The Drive: for example, in Boxing, power is driven from the feet, directed by the waist, and delivered through the fists. This is extremely effective and easy to see. This is why so many people limit themselves to the Boxing engine even when their arts require different engines at times (such as Wing Chun, Tai Chi, and Xingyi).

2. The Ballistic: arts such as Systema utilise this method extremely effectively. This is done by consolidating the forearm, wrist, and fist and “swinging” them into action. Have a look at how the battering ram is used, and you can see how the tool doesn’t generate power but the people swinging it do.

3. The Invisible: a hidden way to generate explosive power is done through the structural elasticity of the body. There are many ways; for example, one of my favourite ways is to draw power into the Dantian, direct it into the Mingmen, then spiral the power down into the heels and up into the eyes of the fists. Unfortunately, because this is hidden, while it is highly effective and instantaneous, it is rarely taught. If you try to copy the movements without knowing the internal pathways, you will never generate enough power to disrupt your opponent.

All these different engines are equally valid, but you must choose the correct engine according to the situation.

BTW, when you do the Jian, make sure you know how these engines are integrated into the movements. Please don’t just swing the Jian around like a stick.