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In 1971, about six months after I began karate training, I expressed to Sensei my awe at how many different weapons we have in our hands alone—punch, knife edge, palm heel, spear hand, ridge hand, etc. and how, depending on which kick used—front kick, back kick, wheel kick, crescent kick, etc., we can hit any part of an opponent’s body with the blade of the foot, heel, ball of the foot, etc. Sensei ( a martial arts veteran of 15 years) just looked at me, smiled and said, "Well, yeah, after all, it’s just scientific dirty fighting."
I laughed at the simple bottom line of his synopsis. I had begun training because I wanted to learn to take care of myself. I grew up in an area where once in a while one had to know how to fight. This was one thing for which I never had much talent, but I did know that it wasn’t civilized to kick the knees out, finger spear to the throat, or lift a knee to the groin-housing-group. That was then. This is now. Sensei was right. we are training to "fight dirty," but we do so very scientifically.
By "scientific," I don’t necessarily mean "strategic" in the sense of warfare, or even to imply the need for a game plan. I’m talking about adherence to the physical sciences. The arts of punching, kicking, and stretching should all be executed within firmly grounded principles of anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, and physics. While in-depth discussions of any of these areas have filled innumerable textbooks, one does not need to have a PhD. in biomechanics, nor be a head NASA aeronautical engineer (read "rocket scientist") to grasp and be able to apply many of the basic and useful concepts of these natural sciences. And since it is also beyond the scope of this short essay to expound in any great length on any of these areas, perhaps the mere mention of some of them will whet your interest enough to inspire further research.
According to the old familiar song, the "head bone’s connected to the neck bone"
but how many are aware that the arm bone’s connected to the hip bone? Many of us twist our hips into our punches, but did you know that the humerus is directly attached the iliac crest? A single muscle, the latissimus dorsi, (the "lats") is largely responsible for our ability to deliver an effective punch.
Knowledge of the major muscle groups and the biomechanics of blocking, punching and kicking is important when it comes to avoiding karate injuries. Proper anatomic alignment of the muscles and bones used for the execution of strikes and blocks is critical if we wish to avoid things like tendonitis, ligament damage and very serious muscle tears.
I think most of us are now aware of the dangers of ballistic muscle stretching that was once normal practice. A quick look at the simple "knee jerk" reflex helps illustrate the point. When tapped just below the knee cap, we notice that the lower leg kicks. The reason is as follows: When the neuro-tendon spindles of the tendon of the upper leg muscle (the "quads") are rapidly stretched, the neuro-muscular spindles in the muscle itself immediately fire a rapid contraction. The ballistic stretch effectively does the same thing.
Rapid stretching causes rapid reflex contraction. Therefore the ballistic stretch can actually tighten us up especially if we are not conditionally limber or if the muscles are cold. It does not take much deduction to see the importance of warming up and loosening up before a workout.
One of the habits we developed at birth was breathing. Normal inspiration is caused by contraction of the diaphragm. This muscle is bell-shaped so that contraction of any of its fibers pulls it downward. During inspiration the internal intercostals (muscles between the ribs) relax, the externals contract, causing the rib cage to rise. During maximum breathing, the increase in chest thickness can account for as much as half the total lung enlargement. Ordinarily, expiration is entirely passive. However, if forceful expiration is required, as in Sanchin kata or in a kiai, the diaphragm can be pushed upward powerfully by active contraction of the abdominal muscles against the abdominal contents.
The external intercostals also depress the rib cage thereby decreasing the front-back diameter of the chest cavity.
This now brings us to a word that most people hate more than push-ups. It’s PHYSICS !!
You know you’re really in trouble when you start to see Greek letters appearing in the formulas, but it’s not necessary to master the math to understand some basic principles and concepts of the world of mechanics.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is unfamiliarity, in a scientific sense, with terms like mass vs weight, speed vs velocity, linear and angular momentum, acceleration, force, energy, power and collisions. We use a lot of these terms very casually in our attempts to try to define what we think we are doing, but when our listener has a physics background, communication will break down and mental blocks can paralyze our understanding. But taking one term at a time, with proper everyday analogies and examples, this stuff can actually make sense (believe it or not), and can be adopted and applied.
Figure skaters, air hockey tables, billiard shots are everyday things that demonstrate the laws and principles of physics without the need for calculations, and can help illustrate these basic concepts as they relate to the martial arts.
In lieu of the widespread notice lately given to karate in the Western world, we are often unaware of the large impact forces involved in the martial arts. Although seemingly immersed in violence, the fighting arts are graceful and are well grounded scientifically. Years of training usually help us develop an intuitive feel for that scientific foundation, but too many people still think you can use the palm heel strike to drive the "nose bone" into the brain, or that you can puncture the heart with an upward blow to the solar plexus. Still others feel that the formula F=ma explains every physical property of every karate technique.
Perhaps in addition to attending hands-on seminars to learn new techniques, new kata, new weapons, etc., we should have classroom symposiums complete with chalkboard and overheads on the knowledge that the Ancients, with no hi-tech research equipment available, miraculously conferred to our arts of scientific dirty fighting.
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REFERENCES
Textbook of Medical Physiology, Fifth Edition,
Arthur Guyton, W.B.Saunders Co.,1976
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