Kenpo Power Principles | ART OF ONE DOJO

so on today's episode I want to kind of you something a little bit fun a little bit different this is more of an observation and sharing the perspective on martial arts because you know as we study different arts across different styles we see that oftentimes the same ideas are done but different ways so recently I was watching other channels and watching how other styles perform and study their power principles and basically a power principle is how your body generates the power in your strikes because I mean individual parts of our body are strong so I can stand here and punch them punch the attacker with just my arm might generate some power but not as much as if you put your whole body into it so I was just kind of watching how other people do it and I've noticed that a lot of the concepts were there but they were categorized differently or they were explained differently or a completely different perspective so I just thought this would be fun to share how we do it in American Kenpo and invite all of you to discuss how you guys learn it so an American Kenpo we have three basic power principles and they are backup mass gravity or gravitational marriage and to work and the concept is basically simple it's the whole idea is you know an individual body part can be strong but to get a full impact and affecting this you need to put your whole weight and energy behind it so in the concept of backup mass it's literally translated as - you're using the masses your body to backup your weapon if I was going to elbow him just say any Cell just put my arm out I don't generate a whole lot of power and I might be able to check them a little bit might do a little something but it's not full power so what I want to do is put my whole body weight into it so instead of standing here if I were to drive into it it generates much more power because you know you're putting kinetic energy and momentum into the strike so that's back up mass torque is basically twisting rotational energy so if you took a rubber band and you twisted it and you let it go what happens it unwinds you're building up energy that way so in the context of a strike if I were to stand still and just deliver strike to the body just standing here okay I can generate some power but how much power can i generate if I rotate into it so rotating your whole body weight so you twist if you drive into it a round kick is a great example with a round kick you don't just lift that leg up and kick you twist your hips and that lake snaps out gets the power you need we also break torque down into two categories in tempo we have direct and indirect and basically what that means is direct rotation is I'm standing right here I'm rotating towards the attacker this is a deep penetrating strike I'm rotating and delivering a full strike into the body so it started to fit into it then we have indirect which means we rotate in a way this is kind of more for like exiting moves you're escaping you're leaving but it's kind of more of a whip strikes so stop just here you're kind of do enough whip so if that's direct direct rotation and an indirect rotation the last one is gravity or gravitational marriage this one is basically the same principle as back up mass but instead of going forward we're going on the downward trajectory and I'm gonna lower this dummy for a little bit in this one because this was more effective safe safe throwing a front kick to your opponent and that you've actually cancels their height defending forward so they're gonna be a little bit lower you're not gonna be able to do much gravitational strikes that someone who's standing above you so so imagine I came in with a kick and I'm landing I want to kind of drop a hammer fist maybe across this neckline if I stand right here okay not bad but rotate into it definitely get some power but in the context if I'm coming off with a technique and I'm landing I don't want to just go kick land strike I'm losing power I'm losing momentum my body is already coming down and it's our path why not use it so instead of just kick land strike I would kick and strike with the landing kick right with the landing use that little bit of extra boost he can kind of make difference of the effect working or not those are the three main principles we have at mass gravitational marriage and torque with torque being indirect and direct it's important to not only be powerful if she strikes but you got to be able to control that power you could be the coolest badass out there just doing these powerful strikes but if you can't control it you're not you're not quite ready should be I was at a class once a visiting dojo my instructor and I were working out together and we had two guests come in and he was a black belt in some other art I don't even know what it was but we were doing drills and we were doing hard drills soft drills but the whole time he was going full power full power each time which is cool that has its applications but when you're trying to work something out break something down to practice it sometimes you want to take it slow and work with it well he wouldn't do it and my instructor basically said dude you know take it a little light on this we're just kind of demonstrating and his answer was oh I'm sorry sir I can't come on my power kind of answer that you're a black belt you can't control your power when instructure says well here's not a black belt you know when you're at that level of proficiency you have to be able to regulate your energy you need to be in control so once we teach the power principles we also like to do drills where you're staying with your partner and we kind of like stands right where you're gonna make contact with like a reverse punch and we take turns going back and forth and basically the idea is you start off throwing a punch and stopping as close to you can without actually hitting them you go back and forth and you try to just graze their shirt and as you go from there you add a little bit more a little more and of course the other partner works on conditioning tightening their stomach and eventually you know we start into some contact because the truth of the matter is once you become proficient with your strikes we need to be able to regulate your power so you should be able to go from 0% contact to 100% contact and every step in between if you can't control it you need to work on that because then you're not at the level you should be if you cannot control your strikes now for those of you familiar with that Parker he was blazingly fast and he did lots of demonstrations where he utilized a lot of power however if you YouTube some footage with him and Frank Trejo and I'll try to put the link in the description below there's a really cool dental that he did several years back where Frank Trejo stood there and Ed Park was with all sorts of strikes and he was just going full power but he stopped right at the grazing point and he did like not just one or two it was like a flurry it was really impressive watch and you see Frank Trejo just standing waiting for it to hit but the control was immaculate so that's just kind of what we teach so we learned the three basic power principles and then we learned control so basically that was just kind of a fun drill I wanted to share with you it's an observation I've noted I'm always interested to hear out the perspective so I'm asking all of you now how'd you learn it those who are studying martial arts in your system what power generation do you have and how is it's hot I'm really curious to know your perspective in your story thank you so much for watching I always appreciate your support in our Channel please like subscribe and share and be sure to click that Bell notification so you are always up to date with new episodes thank you so much