What is elastic whipping energy?

[Frank Exchange]

I have heard this mentioned, and must confess that it is new to me.

I find it hard to understand how one could load the muscles or tendons with elastic energy, when the muscles themselves are not particularly elastic. I understand that the tendons are slightly elastic, that is part of their job, to help cushion the strains of movement on the bone and muscle.

Extension of the arm, for example, is surely not due to the elastic energy, but the contraction of the tricep, and other associated muscles.

Have I completely misunderstood the concept, or is it more an analogy, a method of explaining a relaxed way of hitting?

[stuartm]

Hi,

Souns like the whipping energy used to createFa-Jing to me. Complete relaxtion - squeezing every muscle in the body to direct energy into the fist for a second - then complete relaxation. Before WC i used to practice Tai Chi Boxing and Fa-Jing chuan under Erle Montaigues system. Erle decribes the process as sneezing, in that for a brief second your body becomes completely tense and throws it all its energy as you sneeze. It is this principle you apply to a punch. I still try and miantain this principle but scale it down as WC is more direct than Tai Chin which tends to be more rounded.

For more on fajing chuan go to :

www.kunzhi.com or www.taiji4u.co.uk

Hope this helps,

Cheers, Stuart

[Frank Exchange]

Hi Stuart

Sounds interesting. How does squeezing all the muscles in the body, then relaxing, direct energy to a specific location like the fist, rather than the hip or the shoulder, for example?

Anyone got any other interpretations?

[stuartm]

Hi Frank,

This is a difficult one to explain and easier to demonstrate. The energy i suppose is directed through the coiling motion practised in tai chi. For e.g. as the punch goes forward the hips rotate forward, and just before the punch lands the hips pull back and forearm / fist etc directs the energy into the fist. This all relates to the complex naure of arts such as Xingyi, Liu He Ba Fa, bagua etc. Youre probably beeter off reading some works by the following:

Bruce Kumar Frantzis - www.energyarts.com

Peter Ralston

Also - take a look at this :

http://pub5.ezboard.com/fjubeismartialartszonefrm12.showMessage?topicID=22 .topic

Sorry i cant be of more help, but was difficult enough to learn let alone explain !!!

Good luck in your quest for understanding!!

Stuart

[anerlich]

Imagine you are throwing a small ball. Most people take the arm back behind the body, "prestretching" the tissues - muscle, ligament, tendon - and throw by leading with the shoulder, then allowing the potential "stored elastic energy" to "whip" the arm and hand forward and throw the ball. Check out a javelin thrower for this move taken to the extreme.

That's my interpretation of elastic whipping energy. A good hook punch as performed in boxing requires its use. You pivot on the ball of the front foot, loading the iliofemoral ligament, the largest in the body, which loads the shoulder, which loads the arm, which sends the fist whipping into its target. All happens in a compressed time frame of course. To do anything different ends up with a push instead of a punch, lacking in power as it does not incorporate the entire structure into the punch, and overusing muscular energy relying on glycogen stores leading to early onset of fatigue.

The plyometric effect relies on saturing the musculature and connective tissue with potential energy via a depth jump, skip back, etc. which is then explosively released.

Tendons and ligaments cannot be contracted like the musculature, but they are elastic, like springs, and tremendously strong, a strength which can be exploited to provide this elastic energy.

In Wing Chun the same attributes and skills are available, albeit in a more compressed structure than either of the examples given above. But by correct alignment of the body and recruitment of as many joints as possible, it is still quite feasible to develop a "wave" of whipping energy with which to strike, throw, lift, kick, etc. Fa-jing was explained to me in this context by one of my teachers, who also used a "squeeze" or "flex" point concept in accordance with one of the earlier post above, to deliver what one of my teachers called "horse trembling power" in concert with the coordinated use of the body as detailed above.