Origination of Power Broken Down as Extension of Fist

I have a firm belief that in TKD you should teach the elbow strike before you teach the punch and the knee strike before you teach the kicks. However, because I always taught for other people, I adhered to their systems. I never started in class with those moves, at least not at white belt, but in my private lessons I did. 

When I left my school, to which I still remain loyal, I started teaching private students out of my garage or at a public park. The first upper body strike I would teach was the elbow and before we moved onto kicks I taught the knee strike. My reasoning was simple; it was all about the origination of power. 

A proper punch’s power is generated from the stability of one’s grounding to the present surface plus the rotation of the hip plus the acceleration of the arm, this will equal the amount of force on contact by the fist. Now when technique is applied to the punch you can break this down even further; explaining that the hips rotate, the arm is released from the chamber and the most applicable direction for the guided fist is followed, with conviction and commitment. Eventually at a higher level, you divulge to the student the concept of clockwork, with in the body movement, and that the body must move in unison. They can’t always break the movement down step by step, but eventually they would merge the pattern into one fluid motion and have a punch formed from it. 

However, I always found that instructors were coming up with kids that had pretty weak looking punching skills. So I broke it down like this; you are standing on the ground. In this moment you are nothing more than an inanimate protrusion from the ground in which you stand on. In order to create power a motion must occur, for this purpose the motion is you’re feet grasping the solid surface and turning the hips. The rotation of the body is what is going to propel the upper body; this motion is then coupled by the positioning of the arm. For this explanation, being from a chambered position, your upper body transfers that motion to the shoulder then to the elbow, the acceleration from releasing the chambered upper forearm is…STOP!!! 

That is exactly where I would stop. Just when they would think they were going to learn how to punch I would identify to them the extension of the hip as being the elbow. (I really believe it’s the shoulder and have had difficulty teaching the punch with particular students, so I started them even further back at how to shoulder shrug someone.) 

The elbow for all intents and purposes is the first extension of power. So why would you not teach the elbow first I asked myself, and from that day on I did. This proved to be a wise move because by the time we were punching the body movement of each student was so correctly ingrained into them that their punches rolled out naturally. Ground, to hip, to shoulder, to elbow, to fist. (Or any hand strike that requires that much force) but it was through this break down that I was able to ease off of the, later explaining of clockwork and the body’s movement in unison. I did not have to, they were doing it naturally because I stopped at the first extension of power. 

Kick equation works the same way; Ground, to hip to knee position to foot. Again, knee would come first so that was what I broke down first. (Obvious kicks will object to this notion, but that should be self-explanatory) 

Now to venture even further I feel I must explain some of my background. First was TKD, I fought in TKD style tournaments for years, ITF and WTF style. Then I moved into kickboxing fighting, where I quickly learned I did not know how to box. I learned boxing in a 4 month training program, just to understand the basic ideas, which really taught me that I already had great punching skills, just did not know how to use them. But then I progressed to fencing, sure there were other things in between there, but they don’t apply to this article so I will exclude them. It was at this point, fencing, that I learned that the sword was merely an extension of the hand. I was a natural to fencing for more than one reason, but the main reason was because I knew how to use my hands in combat. TKD taught me distance concepts and angles, and boxing taught me how to be tricky with my hand skills. 

I still fence a little, love it, but for the most part it just got me thinking even further. The sword was brought to Korea during the Paekchedynasty, and the first type of sword on record was the ring pommel sword. Swords were introduced to the Koreans through trade with Japan just as the gun was introduced to Japan by the US. Where exactly does that leave us?

This leaves us at the most recent extension of the hand being the gun, or at least for personal defense, in the extension of power timeline. Before there were swords, there were sticks, the sticks were sharpened and then for some modifications occurred that altered the stick into a new weapon. I.e., the Nunchaku, three dimensional staff, the bow staff… But now we are at the gun.

My TKD system that I grew up in introduced a new ancient weapon at every stage of black belt but they never introduced the gun. This makes since, as most students are juvenile, but what about for the adults that are old enough for a hand gun license, or the 18 year olds that can own a rifle. (Based on Texas law) I’m sure at this point in the article I have taken a turn drastically for the worst. Most readers are going to argue my points here, I’m sure, but that argument just reminds me of the movie 3 ninjas. “Real Ninjas don’t use guns”, to heck they don’t, maybe back then, when they did not have guns, but now we have a further extension of power and I feel as though it should be taught. Modern day Ninjas, or assassins, use some pretty high tech guns actually, with silencers. They also use long range rifles and in some cases even missiles and things we can’t, and shouldn’t attempt to purchase. 

I will leave the thought at this; first teach the extension of power from its start to its finish, not the other way around. I promise you a better yielded crop of students, and secondly get it out of your mind that the only weapons we should embrace are the ancient ones. The art of TaeKwonDo is not really a weapons based art anyways it’s for hand to hand combat, or arguably hand to assailant’s weapon combat.

Just as you would not teach a student to misuse a sword or a bow staff, you would never imply that they learn the improper ways to use a hand gun. You don’t have to even teach them how to use these; you can just explain the concept and let them decide, as adults, if they want to learn they will. At this point they can get a CHL or take a shooting lesson. I still find bow shooting fun and not just because of Burt Reynolds.  And by no means would I ever condone sensuously using these things, but if someone comes breaking into your student’s home, or family’s home what’s more important, that they used what you taught them or that they survived?

Everything we do requires prudence and discernment, but what skill is more acceptable, telling the Judge that you shot the intruder or that you sliced their knees off with a sword and let them bleed to death or perhaps decapitated them? One sounds crazy the other sounds reasonable, you figure out which one that is.

Moreover I must conclude with this; I hope the situation never arises, or you never put yourself in the place where anything discussed in the above article is necessary.

Go in peace.