sheong jip jeurng receiving palms technique

The style of Kung Fu strive to be as efficient as possible. All extraneous movements are discared. The less one moves the faster one is. If you like the philosophy of Kung Fu click now to get your enrollment started.

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Minimal Movement

by: Kevin Kawada

Minimal movement maximum power is one of the philosophical guidelines behind the art of kung fu. What does it mean to have minimal movement? When this concept is applies to martial arts it means that a practitioner should strive to shorten both the amount of movement and the duration of individual movements such as blocks. Let’s use the traditional rising or upward block seen in most tae kwon do and karate systems as an example. On the karate rising block most people tend to extend very far above their head in an effort to generate more power when blocking.

However, this much movement is a waste and every effort should be made to shorten and condense the movement down to what is essential to keeping the practitioner from being harmed. I other words once you have dissipated the power of the oncoming attack any more movement is superfluous and a waste both time and energy. When I say that this extra movement wastes time I am really only talking about the extra split second it would take to issue the block. All blocking techniques are defensive in nature.

But, when taken in the context of a fighting situation these extra split seconds all add up. If one could shave off a split second off the time it takes to block he would literally be twice as fast as his opponent.

All blocking techniques are defensive in nature. What this means is that anyone expecting to block an incoming attack must either move twice as fast as their opponent or must move less in order to counter. This is because if we were to measure the actual distance from the attacker’s fist to the defenders nose. In order to block an incoming technique one must consider reaction time. Even the most expert of fighters still have a small amount of time that it takes their body to see the attack coming, process what tot do , then react appropriately. Now how does one block fast enough to overcome these hurdles? One must first go from seeing thinking, reacting to seeing, reacting. This can only be done by training, in repetitious type of movements until the reaction is built into the persons’ subconscious.

The one caveat to the minimizing of movement in blocking is to not sacrifice ant power. Remember that all blocking is really striking. When blocking the arm you are really striking the arm in an attempt to cause damage to his main weapons which are his hands. When blocking the legs your goal is to damage the legs as he kicks at you. So the trick is to move as little as possible while still having tremendous amounts of power.

All blocking techniques are defensive in nature. What this means is that anyone expecting to block an incoming attack must either move twice as fast as their opponent or must move less in order to counter