Jamie, If the "one inch punch" is so effective/real why did Bruce have to touch/push/unbalance his demo partner before he delivered the punch? It has always looked to me like he gaffed it. Fact or Hollywood? This great athlete's "one finger push up" is done with a finger and thumb. As tough as even that is, the thumb is never referenced only the finger? The fastest strike in the animal kingdom, to me has always appeared to be a coil/vertical strike as opposed to a coil/horizontal strike or a coil/down strike. I don't see contact before the strike being effective for any thing but distance or to unbalance.
Friday, February 20, 2009
For Jamie Clubb--One Inch Punch??
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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5 comments:
Challenging Bruce Lee now. I like your style. Straight in for the most hotly debated and religiously defended area of martial arts. Aren't there states over there where you can be flayed alive for daring to question the Little Dragon?
I know that if you start a discussion in any martial arts magazine's letters page or internet forum with anything along the lines of "Where is the actual evidence that Bruce Lee fought any real fights?" (it's all anecdotal by the way) or "How would Bruce Lee fair in the UFC?" you are asking for a never ending stream of angry debate with many people verging on fundamentalism. Google it.
For me, Lee's notes published after his death in "The Tao of Jeet Kune Do" show some remarkable insight. His interviews brought into the mainstream ideas regarding anti-stylism and cross training that had failed to get widespread media acceptance four to six decades previously, first in the UK and then in France. He was still ahead of his time, of course, and in the end it was the UFC paradigm shift of the early 1990s and Geoff Thompson in the UK that really gave the right wake-up all. Clyde Gentry's book "No Holds Barred" on the rise of MMA gives a wonderful tribute to Lee and laments that he was a double edged sword. He had strong ideas about martial arts, but sadly his filmwork only served to hugely propagate the martial arts mythology and mumbo jumbo.
A great book to read on the "warts 'n all" Bruce Lee is Davis Miller's "The Tao of Bruce Lee", a companion book to his equally candid "The Tao of Muhammad Ali" (Miller was a long time friend of Ali's and even sparred him in a kickboxing versus boxing demo match).
Anyway, where were we? The one-inch punch. I am not sure about the push to unbalance. I only see Lee using a exagerated example of good body mechanics. There is a lot of disagreement regarding how to produce the most effective stationary strike. Peter Consterdine www.peterconsterdine.com teaches the "double hip", Russell Stutely www.russellstutely.com something he calls "wave form" that goes into the vertical as well as horizontal whiplash you were discussing. There are many others and I used several of the UK's top instructors to demonstrate their take in my DVD "Cross Training in the Martial Arts 2: The Anatomy of Combat" (little plug there). For me, I find that the rough consensus is simple. You generate force from the whole body, using the hip to drive forward and the striking tool, be it hand, elbow, knee or shin, comes through last. It is the same balistic effect you get when you skim a stone, throw a discus etc. The strike has to come from a short distance because that is all you are given in a real life situation - conversational range.
Jamie,
Bruce Lee!!! If you want to see how quick the human psyche reaches def con 3, suggest maybe Clyde Beatty wasn't all he was cracked up to be. They will discredit his mother if necessary, in defense of "Pig Iron Pete". LOL I don't think by just accepting something, without breaking it down and analyzing we never understand it or learn from it.
I have read "The Tao of Muhammad Ali" and it is a brilliant read. Brilliant also are your writings on cross-training which I hope you don't mind if I post the link here: http://www.clubbchimera.com/?p=529
Cross-training was the issue I was addressing in starting the "European/American Style" of wild animal training. The great ones combined a number of styles, added their personal "style" to the point where what they train/present is no longer defined as a distinct style. Add to that some had to bring the animals in through the side of the arena instead of the back and their skill style cross-overs are obvious. The ones who stayed with a definite style never went beyond that style and everything they did stayed the same. The great riders combine a French style with a German style with a classical style, with their own style. A pure style may be good for demonstration purposes and for understanding the style, but if you stay with "one style" you go no further then what that style went. Combining the best of many styles is when advancement and the setting of new heights of achievement starts.
In regards to the one-inch punch, I see Bruce push the demo partner. I see his solid base, unbalance. To me it looked like getting a horse to lower his head away from pressure. As you place your hand on his poll he will resist. If you "rock" his nose with your other hand, unbalancing his shoulders, while keeping pressure on the poll his head will drop. Getting something to go away from pressure is virtually impossible with out unbalancing the base/support. If you can't make that unbalance, if you are vigilant/on high alert in a combat situation and strike at the moment of the unbalance, you will have the upper hand.
Wade
"In regards to the one-inch punch, I see Bruce push the demo partner. I see his solid base, unbalance. To me it looked like getting a horse to lower his head away from pressure. As you place your hand on his poll he will resist. If you "rock" his nose with your other hand, unbalancing his shoulders, while keeping pressure on the poll his head will drop. Getting something to go away from pressure is virtually impossible with out unbalancing the base/support. If you can't make that unbalance, if you are vigilant/on high alert in a combat situation and strike at the moment of the unbalance, you will have the upper hand."
Unbalancing is an interesting issue. A lot of grappling arts are big on breaking a person's posture before they can get proper leverage. In what Geoff Thompson called "Three Second Fighting" (pre-emptive striking) unbalancing is often done through soft skill methods rather than anything physical. No chi energy here just a question of the old "look mate can we talk about this?" Bang!
Geoff said he often engaged his opponents with a question before he hit them. Peter Consterdine said he would use a relaxed shoulder drop with his pre-fight gesturing and use the word "look". It often prompted his enemy to involountarily relax before he hit him.
Jamie,
"Preemptive striking" is more effective then strength in hand to hand combat given it's psychological impact, and I think that is what,in addition to unbalancing the base, Bruce does here. Bruce Lee placing a hand on you, in a combat situation has to be unsettling, even before the move is delivered. It is the "squeezing" of an opponents hand in the opening handshake, or as you referenced, "mate, can we talk about this, before you take their head off of their shoulders. It has made Ninja so effective, striking before they know they have been struck, and that is the value of your "cross training," and not staying with "one style". If the gun is shot out of your hand, you better know how to defend with a stick.
My son Eric was very successful as a wrestler in an independent wrestling league that utilized folk style, free style, and greco-roman. He became very proficient as free style wrestler which emphasizes a first strike, with speed and quickness, and attacking your opponents feet or base. He still holds the record in Illinois for the fastest pin at 3 sec. and has a two year record of 76 wins and two losses. All of his wins were by pin, under 32 sec. His two losses were to the same opponent in regional 5 state tournaments in the 3rd period by points. I preface this, to again point out the importance of "cross training."
In watching my son take his second hiding by the same opponent, it dawned on me that he had studied film of my son, who's first move was always a single ankle grab, which was very successful given his speed and quickness. Every time he blocked the first move, and used his greco-roman style, which emphasizes strength and upper body control, to lock up head to head, and force my son into 3 periods. He discovered my son's "Achilles tendon." My son had become a "one trick pony", who's speed defeated his opponent's in 30 secs. My son had not developed the endurance to go into the 3 period. Assuming my son would face him, in the Nationals tournament two months later, we went home and studied greco-roman wrestling and discovered an arm jerk used to unbalance your opponent. At Nationals, sure enough after 4 day's of elimination, it was my son and his nemesis(mine to, I have to be honest, LOL) in the championship round in the 117 lb class.
As the match started, and my son instead of shooting for the ankle, walked up and head and shoulder locked up with his opponent, his opponent had a look on his face of joy, as my son had "walked right into his game." That look was instantly replaced with shock, as my son arm jerked him off balance, shot in for the single angle grab, and pinned him in 17 secs. I had studied his videos also, and discovered he was a "one trick pony" too, just a different trick. My son "preemptive struck." Didn't do what his opponent expected, instead did what his opponent didn't expect.
That was in 1997 and that 117 prick, who defeated my son twice, but not a third time, was named Raffaele Santiago. People suggest that I take things to serious, and to intensely. I, in turn suggest they are wrong.
Vitali Klitchko vs. Bruce Lee? I say Lee win's given his speed and quickness but he has to hit him 4 times. But if Klitchko hit's him one time, Lee goes down.
Wade
Interesting discussion, Wade. Both Lee and the ninjas are not the best historical figures to discuss actual fighting prowess. We have little actual verifiable evidence of either's real life ability, although I do enjoy Lee's interviews/writings and ninjas were what got me into martial arts in the first place.
For the record, I don't believe in learning by accumulation. My brain is no longer wired into putting complex combinations and prearranged forms together. I use different systems to acquire experience rather than mix styles up. I don't see martial arts as things, just ideas, concepts and records (often distorted) of other people's experiences. As the great Japanese poet Basho once said "Don't seek to follow in the footsteps of masters; seek what they sought".
I enjoyed reading about your son's exploits. Amateur wrestling is a wonderful sport and I am fascinated by the range of styles. I grapple a lot these days mainly in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu both with and without the gi. No gi crosses over beautifully into amateur wrestling and we have a lot of freestyle wrestlers cross training at the club I go to. No gi aka Submission Grappling/Wrestling is comparable with the old Catch-as-Catch-Can wrestling popular before Pro Wrestling became "Sports Entertainment". Incidentally, and as an aside, I know an historian who set to write a book revealing that many of the old pro bouts were worked even as far back as the days of Hackenschmidt (sp?)
What came through in your description was not necessarily the techniques acquired by your son though other styles, but rather the approach. Having an open mind he was able to adapt and work out his opponent. Well done to you both for thinking "outside the box". The most celebrated combat sport example of this, I guess, was Ali's match against Foreman. A more beautiful psychological dissection and research of another fighter I have never seen.
Away from pre-emption and cross training, you might be interested in this article I wrote a few years ago: http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/Jamie_Clubb_3.asp
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