Newton's laws
   
     

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Newton's Laws of Motion
 
Familiarity with Newton's Laws of Motion will aid your understanding of our approach to partner work:

  1. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force

  2. Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration

  3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction

 

Objects in motion

When somebody punches you, do not try to stop the flow of force. If you stop it, the opponent will do something new. Your aim is to encourage the belief that the punch is going to be successful.
Any form of overt interference will alert the attacker's nervous system and cause them to adapt. When you stop the motion of the opponent, it instantly triggers internal tension and halts their progress.
This is a natural defence mechanism designed to prevent injury when we encounter a stationary object.


Inertia


If you are skilled at countering, you will employ subtle jing to control the trajectory of the opponent's attack without telegraphing your intentions.
You can also produce a jangling discord in the opponent and whiplash by adversely re-directing their forward momentum.

 

The energy of an object in motion increases with the square of its velocity. Or in even simpler English: when you’re hitting something, speed is more important than mass. If you double your mass, you’ll hit with twice the force. But if you double your speed, you’ll hit with four times the force, and so on. Quite handy to know when you only weigh 140 pounds.

(Anna Spysz)


F=ma


If you want to hit with power, be heavy and be fast. The mass is the amount of stuff (your body/arm/leg). Ideally, you want to employ as much mass as you can with each strike.
You accomplish this by whole-body motion and relaxation. Neigong, qigong and form train whole-body motion.


Relaxation

Relaxation is accomplished by letting-go of your surplus holding and tension. The greater the degree of relaxation, the more substantial your limbs will become.
Your aim is to be like a dead weight. We call this 'yin body' and it is studied in depth in the expert syllabus.


Speed

Speed striking teaches you to forget about being consciously strong or fast and to just tap the opponent. By playing 'tig' you realise that your limbs can move very quickly indeed when you stop trying.
To realise your potential, you must free the movement by removing the physical and mental blocks that prevent it from flowing smoothly.
Combine a heavy, whole-body action with the abandonment of tig and you have a very powerful strike that costs no effort and has very little commitment.


Pressure

This law is easy:
4 ounces of pressure. The less pressure you apply, the less resistance you will encounter. We have placed this at the centre of our syllabus.


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Page created 18 April 1995
Last updated 04 May 2023