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:
An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by a net force
Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration
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.
Page created
18 April 1995
Last updated
04 May 2023
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