Biomechanics of Motion and Quietness

Hehehe.

 

The world record is 9 minutes and 8 seconds, for holding breath underwater without inhaling oxygen first.

In quietness, one consume less oxygen thus can hold breath for a longer time. But the consumption of oxygen is some what relative to the utilization of energy in motion. Maybe it will make more sense to discuss the breathing techniques to improve speed and power in punching in practice.

 

Do lots of cardio
Breathe out as you hit
Practice lots to shed wasted motion
Revel in the blood of your exhausted enemies

 

I don't really advocate 'standing still', although you might think something like that. I personally believe in having a range where you always react to movement. But I believe that reaction - for me - should be about reacting appropriately with positioning distancing and enticing at the same time looking for the opening for the counter. I am looking ideally to draw a committed attack that affords me an opportunity. I'm also looking for efficiency within that.

I suppose it's a safety first approach, and being still can cross the line in being unsafe when not used correctly (poor timing). Interestingly this loops back to what the OP was asking about to begin with. Stillness in motion and motion in stillness. Once you find this 'feeling' or understanding, you are never completely 'still'. You are always primed and ready to move somewhere even if it doesn't necessarily show, but you have to become intimately familiar with distance, positioning and timing.

But yes, being still externally would be used pretty sparingly if at all, but always economy of movements should be a consideration for me and to maintain "following". Momentarily standing still can turn into an invitation used as a trap. Or if you get it wrong you effectively trap yourself, which is never good..

"Arriving first" to me, does not always mean an offensive counter. It can mean also being (arriving) in any position or configuration that keeps me ahead of his "move". Ahead can mean remaining in safe distance and or advantageous positioning and or countering offensively. It becomes a matter of judgement.

On the other hand I believe in being familiar with different strategies and tactics, before you choose to major in those of your choice.

 

There are different cardiovascular responses to different muscle contractions, and maybe the following abstract can clarify a little:

Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 2006 Jan;26(1):39-44.
Cardiovascular responses induced during high-intensity eccentric and concentric isokinetic muscle contraction in healthy young adults.
Okamoto T1, Masuhara M, Ikuta K.
Author information

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine the differences in cardiovascular response between high-intensity eccentric (ECC) and concentric (CON) contractions, and to obtain the basic data applicable to resistance training in middle-aged and elderly individuals. The subjects who participated in this study were nine healthy men (age 24.1 +/- 1.3 years). ECC and CON were randomly selected, as each test consisted of a high-intensity (80% of peak torque) bout of 60 s of ECC and CON isokinetic contractions of the flexor carpi radialis. Systolic pressure (SBP), diastolic pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) during ECC and CON were measured using a Finometer. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was calculated by SBP and DBP. Rate-pressure product (RPP) was calculated by SBP and HR. SBP, DBP, MAP and RPP during ECC were significantly smaller compared with CON. It is clear that cardiovascular response by high-intensity contraction is smaller in ECC than in CON. High-intensity ECC has been suggested to exert only small stress to the cardiovascular system. Thus, being a contraction mode it may be applicable to resistance training.

 

Runcai - do you have a source for this specific statement (in bold):

is quietness the absence of voluntary motion or a specific mindset.

his whole thread seems very fluffy to me and I would appreciate someone explaining concepts in less abstract concepts.

 

Clear as an unmuddied lake Fred but about as helpful as a pool noodle in a pistol fight.

Great. So there is a slight different in cardiovascular activity in concentric and eccentric contraction. That doesn't change the basis of exercise science as it relates to cardiovascular conditioning or strength training for martial arts. It doesn't change how one would employ techniques for knocking unconscious, strangling, or breaking the limbs of one's opponent.

How did you think this was helpful exactly?

 

it totally has no practical application - a 60 second or even 6 second prolonged eccentric or concentric contraction has close to zero application in combat where theres a rapid change between different types of contractions.

Source:
Degree in Health Research and Exercise Science
Multiple internships in training and optimising performance in international sporting teams
Training and coaching under national weightlifting director
(and now i work in a healthcare field and my appeal from authority probably means crap all)

 

From a Wing Chun perspective, practitioners do not use concentric contraction in punching as it sort of slow down the punches while eccentric contraction yields additional strength and speed. I think it is the skill developed by practitioners in utilizing the stored elastic energy of muscle or simply the recoil effect after stretching.

 

I always knew it as "stillness", but can it be both - apply to both body and mind. I think it needs to be both in the context I understand the quote. Many words and phrases in ICMA have more than one level of understanding to them. That's been my experience anyway.

It's the nature of the beast to be quite honest. That particular phrase is an abstract thing I guess. It's about words, feeling, experiencing. It's all subjective. It's up to us to seek the subjective and inter-subjective truth in phrases like that. The experience is "the truth" of it. Beyond that I absolutely understand peoples desire for "proof", objectives facts.. That this does this, that does that, nice and concrete. no fluff..

I think one of the issues is that the very nature of categorising "internal" and "external" comes from a different place that is possible dealing in objective facts about the body. It's what in philosophy would be called a category error. Internal as I have said describes to me a modality of training. A meditative state is reached mostly by occupying the Yi/mind to doing various 'fine' tasks within the body - the nature of which has to begin in static or slow mode. This is all first person and experiential. So whilst some of how you can train is "internal". You and your performance is always a fluid interaction of internal and external components. The difficulty is in pinpointing which skills and attributes come about or improved directly by the internal mode of training. This is seriously pretty difficult I think. It's just much easier to identify a teacher who does things and trains in ways you like and if they feel like or offer something others may not.

I don't really want people only to take my word for it that the training works. What I would say as that it does change and improve what you can do, but not necessarily in the same way as other training modalities. They should compliment each-other not be set against each-other. I find that short sighted.

I could probably try and explain in somewhat of a vague way, borrowing from the work of others, stating my ideas that intuitively make sense but are vague in strict academic terms.

I'm starting to come back to the idea that the training modality really works on the neural recruitment level more than anything else. This is what allows for micro movements and adjustments that manipulate the fascia "suit", the bulk of the work is mental and the difficulty is in maintaining all these things mentally and bringing that into gross movements. Then you have these body mechanics which on the face of it might seem too intricate or difficult to use in the full speed of combat. But because they require the internal modality to really access those deep and small "bits".. In my opinion that's way we associate those things with "internal". But clearly if you came to test it, as in scientific experiments - how do you separate my internal and external aspects? I'm not sure

Sorry can't be of more help right now. Some people are trying, have tried. The basic and strongest way currently is to base it around the fascia suit.. I don't have the time to have a proper go, but I would love to one day see it all better explained in terms of both "classical" and "romantic".. We have no shortage of the latter obviously.

 

Thanks cloudz a I appreciate your critical approach and engagement.
I honestly would love to understand the concepts involved.

There have been plenty of internal practices that have been absorbed into modern sport training and practice, especially things like stress management, meditation and visualisation techniques. I would even argue that certain schools of weightlifting are akin to ninjutsu or internal training ideology.

I suspect that without the differing terminology and the loss in translation it causes, there may be a lot in this thread that I agree with and could actually find evidence for (both scientific and sporting performances in other sports)

But personally I strongly dislike terrible interpretations of science as another poster has done.

 

This is not correct in the slightest. The punches rely on concentric contraction of the triceps, anterior/lateral deltoids, and pectorals, just like any other straight punch. Additional power generated by counter pull of the withdrawing hand is by concentric contraction of the back muscles; lats, rhomboids, posterior deltoid, etc. The same goes for power generated by the stance; it is concentric contraction.

The only concentric contraction is the contraction of the antagonist muscles slowing the punch during practice where you're not hitting anything and you have to manually stop your momentum.

 

Are you guys still debating internal vs external?, internal is not a fighting system, it is something that will improve your fighting system, but you still need to learn a style first, the internal training will make you better at your style and also free you of the restrictions of your style.

 

Remind me again what your training is?

 

Were these "internal practices" really absorbed into modern sport training and practice? Weren't they always there from the start?

Coming from a hard-style background into the soft-style schools, there isn't much new under the sun. However, this doesn't mean everything is the same. Let me illustrate... Hard-style (external) at its roots is mostly about maximum damage/effect over the shortest amount of time. This is not something that can be done over a longer period of time without being in really good shape/condition. Soft-style (internal) at its roots could be described as mostly about efficiency of motion. This is something that can be done over a longer period of time as overexertion is mitigated by relaxation, pacing, and understanding the details of efficiency.

Both hard-style and soft-style training benefit from conditioning and efficiency of motion, so in this regard, both can use tools such as visualization to improve performance. I don't see this as a new thing.

What is new is the availability of knowledge in modern times. Before, the best way to learn to pace myself in a fight was through experience. The best way for me to learn efficiency of motion was by being in such good shape that I didn't gas out and get sloppy.

Learning to relax and learning the detailed mechanics to become more efficient was not easy to do because a teacher was needed that could show the best ways. Hence, the number of soft-style schools that can only teach the basic stuff because there is no teacher around that can bring the students to a higher level.

This could be changing. With the availability of information increasing on biomechanics, it could be possible to reach higher levels more through experimentation (e.g., science) than in times past.

 

Hard and soft are just 2 different ways to apply different forces.

Here is a simple example. If you want to use your leg to bounce your opponent's leg back (or apart), you can do the following 2 different ways.

1. Bend your leg, keep your heel "up", spring and straight your leg back, land your foot about 6 inch behind the starting position. You end with your heel "down" on the ground. By using this method, the starting force is equal to the ending force. Since you can feel the force at the early contact moment, you may feel this force as 45 degree downward "hard" force.

2. Bend your leg, keep your heel "down", spring and straight your leg back, land your foot about 6 inch behind the starting position. You end with your heel "up" from the ground. By using this method, the ending force is greater than the staring force. Since you don't feel the force during the contact moment. You can only feel the force increase gradually, you may feel this force as 45 degree upward "soft" force.

 

Interesting YouKnowWho. Our school's use of hard and soft is quite different than what you describe above. It all starts with the weapon used. Hard weapon used against softer target or soft weapon used against harder target.

Hard weapon (e.g., knuckles) penetrates through great pressure (over a small area) to cut and break. Soft weapon (e.g., palm) causes vibration or a destructive wave to penetrate. Since soft weapon spreads the force out more on the surface, it requires offset timing (or multiple smaller hits) to cause smaller waves to form and collide causing an increase in magnitude.

Don't I sound smart?

The training difference is that you can learn to be effective with a hard weapon with speed, accuracy, and power (which isn't really needed for some weapons like a really sharp pointy object). For a soft weapon, speed and accuracy, but the power must be developed in specific ways that include relaxation to add in the offset timing elements, IMHO.

So we get terms like hard and soft force, but really they don't mean a lot, to me. "Soft force" can be used with a hard weapon, but there isn't really a need to develop this outside of a career in Martial Arts, because the damage is through maximizing force through a smaller surface area. On the other hand, "Hard force" can be used with a soft weapon, but this tends to ineffective because the force is spread out, so training soft-style is pretty much mandatory when using soft weapons. IMHO.

 

The term "Biomechanics of Motion and Quietness" is developed from the term 动静之机 which means the mechanics of motion and quietness by Xu Yusheng (1921) in his book entitled Taiji Boxing Postures with Drawings and Explanation, Chapter 6: The Taiji Boxing Classic Annotation. "Biomechanics" instead of "mechanics" is use to limit it to muscle movements between extremely fast (motion) and extremely slow (quietness).

 

Do you do anything other than post quotes from books? Do you have any thoughts or experience of your own to draw on?

 

Is it the speed of the motion or is it linear acceleration/deceleration?

Can quietness be achieved while moving quickly while limiting rapid linear acceleration/deceleration? Sort of like a water mill. It takes force to start but not a lot of force to keep it moving with the river.