Movement in Budo

Wonder how martial artists move so quickly?

With such force?

Learning a Japanese martial art requires adherence to correct technique and an understanding of the correct technique requires attention to closely related things like posture, kinesiology and balance. Efficient body movement requires a degree of mastery of all of these.

Relaxation

Martial artists, like those engaged in most other physical activities, must learn to relax. Tension is your enemy. After developing the ability to do some basic techniques in a relaxed fashion, the techniques must be practiced thousands of times to imprint the movements into the body and the brain. But the practitioner must always be relaxed.

If you want to throw a good front punch, you must relax your upper body including the muscles in your face. If you remain tense, effective punching is nigh impossible. Your “punch,” if you can throw it at all, will inevitably be slow and weak.

Physics

Kinetic energy, or “moving energy,” in this case the energy you deliver to whatever you are punching, is directly proportional to the mass you can generate by the use of your body mass and directly proportional to the square of the velocity (speed) with which your hand strikes its target. Said in a slightly different way, the mass delivered is how much of your entire body mass you can recruit into your punch and deliver to your target. If you double the mass you deliver, you double the kinetic energy delivered to the target. In other words, if you increase the mass you deliver from one unit to two units, you increase the amount of kinetic energy delivered by a punch from one unit to two units. You double the kinetic energy delivered.

To learn more about the science behind budo, read here!

Advance your rank with SMAA: Martial arts certification

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