Not necessarily.
The car doing 100 mph might be coasting on a major road with nothing in front of it, the car doing 80 might be doing that on a slick road with other cars in its path.
Just because an opponent has every advantage over you doesn’t mean you’re going to lose.
If your saying that W.Cs power comes from speed, you are completely wrong!
Miles Teg made one d4mnably excellent point when saying:
"Just being relaxed when punching is not going to give you whole body power neither is having your arms in exactly the right position when punching. Those 2 things in and of themselves are not going give you power when punching, it takes mental coordination. Adding speed to the equation just makes it more difficult to get it right. "
What I’m getting from this, is it’s not ‘just’ about being soft, but about whole body coordination, whether done ‘externally’ (whatever) or ‘internally’ (ditto). 2 paths, same goal, both ‘correct’ (ditto x2) YMMV.
That all said, relaxation is…not bad. That’s the motto of our school: “it’s…not bad” (joke- don’t kill me).
How do you swing a car at someone? A Fiesta on a chain does he11a good damage on someone. But remember: put the chain through the axles!
If your saying that W.Cs power comes from speed, you are completely wrong!
Well, at least ‘incomplete’. Imagine doing a punch & slowing the hand down till it’s barely moving. You’d be pushing the person rather than punching them - no penetration. no damage. So, speed of the strike is definitely a factor.
Speed v.s. accelleration
On Speed:
I had this discussion with a friend, and thought I might share his thoughts:
Lets look at this mathematically;
Force is equal to mass times acceleration (increasing and decreasing) F=ma
Momentum is equal to mass times velocity. (speed)
Kinetic energy, the energy a body possesses because it is in motion, is equal to ½ times mass times velocity squared, So where m is its mass and v is its velocity then K=1/2mv2 Due to this equation I believe speed is very important if I want to impart the greatest amount of kinetic energy into my opponent for the greatest amount of work or damage. Because the energy is greatly increased by squaring the velocity, speed is extremely important.
-Danny T
Some thoughts about acceleration:
A punch that is ‘declerating’ from 100mph when making contact might do less damage than a punch that is accelerating from 80mph to 100mph when it hits. When hitting an object, a projectile often does more damage if it is accelerating at the time of impact, than it would if it is cruising at a maintained speed when impact occurs. (There are several relative factors here).
I don’t see the “miles per-hour speed/velocity which you attain” as being less important than making sure you are still accelerating when you hit your target. Accelerating through your target may do a lot more damage than trying to consciously hit it at maximum speed. This is because once you have “attained your absolute maximum speed”, do you know what happens next? You begin to SLOW DOWN!
Example: FighterA can reach a maximum speed of 100mph but needs 12 inches to reach it.
FighterB can reach a maximum speed of only 75mph, but can reach that speed in 6 inches.
Who has more power when hitting a target 5 inches away?
Just some thoughts,
-Alex
Candle practice!!!
Have you guys practiced punching a candle flame?
There is a tecnique to this which requires speed and relaxedness and body unity, but for power I am not sure.
As many people have pointed out eloquently in other threads on the main forum, it is very difficult to apply Newtons laws of motion to the human body. f=ma and all that are all well and good, but are principles dealing with point masses, no friction, straight lines and all sorts of other simplifications.
For example, when hitting, do we want the best power, the best force, the best rate of change of momentum, the best transfer of energy, the best pressure (for penetration)? These are all related but not identical.
As TargetAlex has pointed out, these are complex issues, and saying speed gives you more power is a gross simplification of the issue.
Increased speed= harder strikes is indeed true, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL.
But in a fight other things are not equal at all. Accuracy is fundamentally important, as is sensitivity, the ability to change the direction of your strike, and to realise that you have missed your target and need to do something else. The amount of power you generate is also directly proportional to the mass used, punching with the mass of the fist and arm is very different to punching with the mass of the whole body.
Regarding the car analogy, if a car is travelling at 100mph it may indeed do more damage than one travalling at 80mph, but it will be a lot more difficult to control, and that much harder to stop when you realise you have taken the wrong road!
(Edited to add thoughts on mass)
Getting all mathematical
I read one of Yang Jwing-Ming’s books where he does something similar, except his went like so:
In White Crane, they’re trying to develop shocking/penetrating energy while maintaining defense, so at least half the training is on recovery of the punch after launch while getting a good whipping energy into it. In the chart with the book, it looked like V1= going to target, 2V at target, V2=going away from target. V* equals velocity.
I’m prolly not explaining that well, but I’ll press on. You relax, launch and connect, use the velocity, position, and a little distance to penetrate, but then bring it back (as the arm can only go so far) which creates the whipping energy as the power is transferred.
This is in his “essence of shaolin white crane” book, which is good on many levels for WC understanding of Jings (thats for firehawk hehe)