From: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: the_dojang-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: The_Dojang-Digest V7 #476 Reply-To: the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: The_Dojang-Digest Sat, 15 July 2000 Vol 07 : Num 476 In this issue: the_dojang: re: sine wave Re: the_dojang: The Sine Wave the_dojang: Re: Thanks for the support the_dojang: . ========================================================================= The_Dojang, serving the Internet since June 1994. 945 members strong! Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Replying to this message will NOT unsubscribe you. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe the_dojang-digest" (no quotes) in the body (top line, left justified) of a plain text e-mail addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. To send e-mail to this list use the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and online search the last five years worth of digest issues at http://www.MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Migukyong@aol.com Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 11:30:10 EDT Subject: the_dojang: re: sine wave I have no clue as to what this is suposed to do for martial arts. One of my students is a physicist, and she indicated that it wopuld not be possible for the human body to actually do a true sine wave. She also said that this is what happens when people without strong scientific backgrounds attempt to use physics and scientific terms. this is not meant to be a flame... only relaying what an expert told me. frank ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 9:36:55 PDT Subject: Re: the_dojang: The Sine Wave > from The Martial Arts Resource web site, and I have > a couple of questions about what the sine wave is, > and what purpose it serves. It is demonstrated via > an ITF Poomse. I am guessing that the sine wave is the > slight downward motion of the body at the knees prior > to launching a technique. (if that is wrong, please ignore > the rest of this post and set me straight). If this is so, > what is the practical use of this "dropping down" prior > to a punch ? This comes up every so often. The following is a good description of it, from list member and ITF diehard Dave Steffen :). Dave, hope you don't mind... Ray - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Steffen Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 18:54:32 MDT Subject: the_dojang: Re: ITF and the Sine Wave Hi Folks, It's after midnight, I'm rebuilding TeX on my workstation and it's gonna take forever... so I figured I might as well ramble on about the whole sine wave thing a bit... (warning: I'm only mildly coherent at this point!) For non-ITF'ers, a "sine wave" motion amounts to lifting and dropping the whole body weight during a technique. Take, for example, the cannonical example of sitting stance punch. The punching motion is initiated by dropping the body weight - i.e. you bend your knees. You then lift your body weight, again from the knees. The knees don't straighten completely, but they get fairly close. Then, as you drop back to your initial position, the punch happens. Boom! During this whole process, the punching hand is doing all kinds of things - but that's A) complicated, and B) only relevent to the punch itself. In general, the chamber for a technique (such as crossing a block) happens during the initial downward motion. So, every motion involves a "down-up-down" motion. This is in direct contrast to, say, every Karate system I've ever seen, in which the head _must_ stay level during any motion. Jim Orr wrote > Just wanted to thank everyone for the comments on the ITF / WTF > question. Special thanks to Dave Steffen for sticking up for the > ITF side! My pleasure. > I've completed testing for 8th gup ITF, and will stick with it for > now. On the question of applied power, I have found that most kicks > need power produced from the hip, while most punches and elbow > techniques make effective use of the sine-wave technique. More accurately, _all_ techniques make use of _both_ hip-twist and sine-wave. However, the hip-twist is more obvious during a kick, and the down-up-down motion is more obvious during a hand technique. The hip snap involved in a punch or block is subtle, and takes a while to develop. It's actually difficult to teach this, and it's difficult to do properly. Thus, we teach the down-up-down aspect of hand techniques first, as it's the more obvious and easily-performed aspect of the technique. Similarly for kicks, the down-up-down motion is much more subtle - but it _is_ there. We just don't worry about it at first. I personally start trying to get the "sine wave kick" idea across to my students at about blue belt, but I don't think any of them have really figured it out yet. > It is also interesting to note (off topic) that Bruce Lee, in his > "The Tao of Gung Fu" vol. 2, makes reference to generating power > from the sine wave, specifically, "the blow should land just before > the feet touch the ground, so the power is not lost through the > legs." (Not an exact quote.) If you watch him - or anybody that's got a good 1" punch - you'll see them drop their body slightly as they deliver the blow. That's the sine wave in action. John C. Black wrote > > > I would disagree strongly. The WTF doesn't use the sine wave - > > > their power theory is based on the same hip snap that most of > > > the hard styles use. OTOH, the ITF uses the sine wave theory, > > > which AFAIKT is unique. > > > > Yes, it really is unique. Could you explain, why this is so? The > > ITF propagates that it is the more powerful technique, if I'm > > correct. But why don't other styles adopt this sine wave motion > > too? > I have noticed that when I watch practitioners who seem to > demonstrate tremendous power, they use the wave motion "naturally." > They may not teach it, but when left alone, they feel it and do it. > (This is of course not true for everyone, but I have noticed it.) Very true - see Jim's Bruce Lee quote above. You can see the "sine wave principle" all over the martial arts, if you know what to look for. However, emphasizing it to the extent that the ITF does (even if just for teaching purposes) is unique, and leads to something that, from a non-ITF point of view, looks completely bizarre. ;-) > To me, the wave motion is one of those things that just don't make > sense at first, especially if you where taught differently. (As I > originally was). Amen, bingo, and other exclamations. The sine wave was around for a long time under the name "spring-style", but didn't come into its own (at least in the US) until sometime in the early or mid 80's, depending on how close to the General you were. (Footnote - an interesting thing about the ITF is that, although the art was officially "founded" back in '55, the General wasn't really done "founding" the art until sometime in '92, at which point he said he was done tinkering with it. AFAIKT, the General and/or the technical committee are still tinkering a bit, but what they're fixing are small things in the upper Dan forms.) Anyway, the point is, that I was (for various reasons) out of the ITF during this time. When I re-entered several years ago, and saw what ITF TKD looked like, I said to myself "That's not the art that I've been practicing!" I also said to myself "You've got to be kidding - that can't possibly be right!" I was wrong on both counts - but my reaction was the _typical_ reaction of someone seeing ITF TKD for the first time. It typically takes 6 months to 1 year for an experienced martial artist (read: black belt) to make the transition from whatever else they've been doing to the sine wave. Once they've made the transition, it's damned difficult, or impossible, to go back. > The idea of the ITF sine wave and the WTF idea of "hip snap" are not > the same thing, at least in my experience. True. The WTF hip snap is, AFAIKT, exactly the same kind of think that most of the Karate systems use. (I leave out Goju-Ryu Karate, which is a separate and very strange beast of its own.) The idea in these systems is to use a _big_ hip motion and not to let the head move up or down at all. When throwing a punch, for example, the hip on the _non-punching side_ snaps _backward_ to pull the non-punching hand back _hard_. When done properly, pulling the other hand back generates approximately 70% of the punching power. While all this is going on, of course the punching-side hip is snapping forward, and the punch follows the hip motion closely. (I.E. the hips snap, and a fraction of a second later the punch lands.) > When my students compete by USTU rules, I teach them the appropriate > pattern (TaeGuek) and they compete with it. Out of curiosity, do your students do the sine wave with the TaeGeuk forms? Peter C. Everett wrote > Dave Steffen wrote: > > ... > > As a student gets better at the sine wave, they can start making > > the down-up-down motion smaller and smaller.... So, the second > > point of view is that the sine wave is a faster way of getting > > the student to feel what generating power feels like. > > ... First, let me expand on my earlier comment: I'm just starting Aikido (tested for 5th Kyu the other night... it was good to be on the other side of the testing board for a change. ;-) Anyway, the beginning Aikido student performs all the throws using these enormous circles, both horizontal and vertical. There's one basic throw (katate-dori tenkan kokyo-nage, or some such) wherin the beginner walks their partner around in a big circle for a few minutes, then dumps them. Obviously not a combat-effective technique, but it's how you learn. The point is, Sensei said something to the effect that "The better you get at Aikido, the smaller these circles get." Exactly the same thing applies to the sine-wave. > What I take away from this is that the "sine wave" movement is > intended to force upon the student the correct muscle dynamics for > powerful strikes, but that the external, macroscopic motion is only > a training device. And, that the ultimately "correct" movement is > linear, but with the internal pattern of tension derived from the > training motion. Precicely. However, keep in mind that the forms are _always_ done with a "big" sine wave, much bigger than anything you'd ever do fighting. Higher ranks will use more subtle motions, though. I find that when I'm demonstrating something for my students, I'll emphasize something much more than I would otherwise. Teaching the sine-wave is difficult, so we tend to overemphasize the hell out of things, just to get the point across. > This raises the larger question of "training form" versus "correct > form" for application of techniques. I see lots of people doing > highly formalized, training-style techniques as if these were the > ultimate goal. Students in systems where their instructors broke > away too soon to get the whole story are being taught these > formalisms as the "correct" techniques. Interesting point. I've seen ITF people - 4th Dans, for example - who are still making their motions _WAY_ too big, because they haven't picked up on the idea of "This way to show a green belt, that way to show to General Choi." So yes, this happens. You also raise the intersting - and very large - topic of what happens when people "break away" from a master instructor. This post is already way, way too long, so I'll leave it at that. (But this is a topic that concerns me greatly - are the martial arts in general dying off because nobody sticks with the masters long enough to learn the whole thing?) > Training formalisms are useful, but they create the side-effect of > needing to un-learn the formalism in order to advance further. They > also help create the "too-much teach" syndrome, where instructors > find their own technique regressing to the level of their students > by sheer repetition of over-formalized techniques. My students have finally, through torturous paths, figured out the sine wave. (I took over a WTF club about two years back.) Now that they've learned the sine wave, and have a snowball's chance in hell of understanding some kind of power theory, I'm starting to take them _back_ to "real fighting" techniques. > I think there as a danger of creating armies of perpetual 1st Dan > practitioners who think that because their technique is hyper-formal > and received praise when they were 3-kup that this represents an > ideal, when in fact the moon has been permanently eclipsed by the > finger. Good analogy. That I'm going to sleep on. Emacs tells me I'm 223 lines into this mess, so I'm going to bed. ;-) ;-) - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Steffen Wave after wave will flow with the tide Dept. of Physics And bury the world as it does Colorado State University Tide after tide will flow and recede steffend@lamar.colostate.edu Leaving life to go on as it was... - Peart / RUSH "The reason that our people suffer in this way.... is that our ancestors failed to rule wisely". -General Choi, Hong Hi ------------------------------ From: Beungood@aol.com Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 14:03:20 EDT Subject: the_dojang: Re: Thanks for the support I just wanted to thank Master Hal Whalen and the members of Moo Ye Kwan Hapkido for thier support during my trial. On Wednesday Myself and a Detective Lt. were found NOT GUILTY by a jury of our peers. We were wrongly accused by a rapper (a fellow with an extremly lengthy history of violence, who threatened witness repeatedly during this) of Assault and batttereyt with a dangerous weapon (to wit Pepper spray) and simple a&B. it should have never made it past the probablce cause hearing. but due to certain issues (which i refuse to mention) it got pushed in to the limelight by the media. he would not submit when placedunder arrest for a disturbance he caused and neccesitated a spraying. It has been a year and a lot of sleepless nights ,but in this case the system worked and the justice was taken seriosly. Just wanted to Thank everoyne for thier kind words and encouragement it meant alot and helped immensly to know you were there for me! Yours in Hapkido, Jack Ouellette ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 13:14:31 PDT Subject: the_dojang: . ------------------------------ End of The_Dojang-Digest V7 #476 ******************************** It's a great day for Taekwondo! Support the USTU by joining today. US Taekwondo Union, 1 Olympic Plaza, Ste 405, Colorado Spgs, CO 80909 719-578-4632 FAX 719-578-4642 ustutkd1@aol.com http://www.ustu.org To unsubscribe from the_dojang-digest send the command: unsubscribe the_dojang-digest -or- unsubscribe the_dojang-digest your.old@address in the BODY of an email (top line, left justified) addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply.