The subject of how to move and generate power in the Chinese martial arts has customarily been illustrated in colorful and at times poetic metaphors that have endured generations and translations.
Many describe the specific actions and habits of animals (eagle turns its body, rhino gazes at the moon, carp jumps up from the water). Others try to impart states or phenomena of nature to specific martial arts ideals (cloud hands, tornado kick, falling flowers). Some simply relate commonly known activities and objects of daily life to similar martial movements (single whip, silk reeling, fair lady works the shuttles). Even mystical, mythical or supernaturally heroic images are used as guides (immortal pointing the way, black dragon wraps around post, separating earth and heaven).
While these images can be understood and appreciated to varying degrees by practitioners and spectators alike, they are not always specifically instructive. These days, we are accustomed to learning in ways informed by the reasoning of science. We readily understand concepts when they are broken down into their constituent components, such that we can then examine them to see how they interact.
Traditional Chinese martial arts are seldom examined or explained in this manner. Tradition and romance have been the operative influences promoting these passed-down images as instruction. While correctly descriptive, these images can sometimes be vague to the contemporary mind.
Master Henry Gong, a teacher of traditional Changquan of the Nanjing Central Guo Su Institute lineage, has conducted research and made the effort to base his teachings on the science of biomechanical principles often obscured by Chinese metaphors. Central to this teaching is the concept of lower spinal rotation and its contribution to demystifying essential concepts of Chinese martial arts.
From a tool of Utility to an Instrument of Art
As a machine, the human body is an amazing feat of engineering. We are able to adapt and perform physical tasks with very little training as to how our bodies will accomplish them. Even simple functions such as standing uprights, walking, or bending require and immense coordination and control of muscles as they operation on the skeletal frame and connective tissues. Today, the most advanced technology in robotics can only crudely approximate specific physical feats that have been mastered by a child.
After early development reaches the point of upright walking, we thankfully don't have to give much thought to the general mechanics of our activities. It's as if our will is a passenger that is chauffeured around town in the vehicle of our bodies. It directs where we're going but isn't concerned with the complications of how the vehicle is operated.
We do, however engage in and refine specialized skills. Activities such as hammering a nail, pitching a baseball, or typing on a computer keyboard can be performed after a few moments of acquainting ourselves with the task. With repetition, we gain skill in these tasks and achieve them with increasing speed, precision, and efficiency. This is the exact same method employed in martial arts training.
Practice a kick a thousand times and you develop the ability to perform that kick faster and with more power. With enough repetition of a specific movement, the body acquires what is commonly called muscle memory. The movement then becomes virtually automatic. If you've seen the movie, /The Karate Kid/, you've seen this type of learning dramatized as the teacher slyly ingrained self-defense movements into his young student by assigning him with specific tedious household chores. Still, this is the martial arts in a somewhat crude state. This is not implying the results of such training are unimportant or ineffective.
Repetition is a very important part of learning and conditioning. It allows one to act without intellectual involvement, freeing the mind to focus on the objective, not the mechanical act. Physical skills requiring precision from surgery, to modern combat, to ballet, to playing a musical instrument are accomplished by fundamental skills honed through repetition. A musician practices musical scales on their instrument to train the ear and hands, but music is not just the skillful performance of scale exercises.
In the case of martial arts as well as other disciplines, the art is not just a collection of individual techniques. This is what it means to say proficiency of individual martial arts techniques alone is rather crude. For the art to come alive requires understanding and mastery of the underlying principles of how the body generates and applies energy.
When there is a sense of awareness and feeling of these forces, the martial artist can then modify the application of techniques to the variables of combat. The martial artist then becomes adaptable and creative. Only then can those individual techniques coalesce and become external elements of an internal foundation. That's when it becomes an art. This is a common link among masters.
The Axle of the Wheel
In seeking the essence of the Chinese fighting arts, we must literally go to the center of the issue; how the body most effectively issues and applies force. The most universal reference as the source of power in Chinese martial arts is the waist. Just as the concepts of internal/external power vary among schools and styles, so too does the manner in which waist power is approached.
The issue at hand is not what is the best technique for employing waist power, but what specific role does the waist region play in how the human body physically relates to the world in which it moves.
Structurally, the waist is the point that separates the upper and lower body (the transverse plane) and is the location of our center of gravity. Individual proportions of the upper to the lower body vary, but the waist as we refer to it is the point of delineating where the mass of the upper body is borne upon the base of the spine (sacrum).
The sacrum is the keystone of the pelvis, meaning that stability and movement of the lower body directly affects the upper body's area of engagement. Said another way, in most activities, the body below the waist is the base of postural support while the upper body orients and engages in activity in relation to that base. The only times these roles are altered are when the body's relationship to the earth is altered by the use of other body parts as the structural base (handstand, walking on all fours) or suspended (swimming, falling, mid-leap).
In all cases, control of the waist is key in connecting and coordinating power of the upper and lower body. The waist is a region, not an anatomical part like an eye or a toe. It should be clarified as to what exactly is going on in this area that is so important to Chinese martial arts. Particularly, we're talking about the muscles and connective tissues of the lower back, which play an enormous role in activity of the waist.
When we look at the skeleton, we see that the only bone and joint structure connecting the upper and lower body is the spine. The spine alone cannot hold us up. Without the constant engagement of the postural muscles of the lower back, our upper body simply cannot remain upright, let alone help coordinate the forces generated in the upper and lower portions of the body.
These muscles are not held static like the cables supporting a suspension bridge. Their tension is regulated to help maintain posture and balance. Dramatic actions beyond maintaining posture are also achieved by these muscles in conjunction with the abdominal muscles, such as curling forward, arching back, and twisting of the torso.
Some martial arts practices equate the waist with the hips. This is very similar to the way the hips are used in other sports such as boxing or baseball. In these examples, power from the lower body is generated through rapid, sometimes explosive positional shifting of the hips by the muscles of the legs. The waist (lower back, abdominals) in this instance is engaged to unify the upper and lower body into one unit of motion. As the hips shift, the upper body shifts in tandem. Power generated in the lower body is transferred to upper body action. This would be more correctly called leg power than hip or waist power.
The subject of waist power in Chinese martial arts, though, concerns itself with more than merely providing a firm muscular link between the upper and lower body. Waist power is the finely controlled rotation of the lower spine (lumbar region). When we move the waist in Chinese martial arts, we are speaking of the twisting of the waist in reference to the pelvis. The axis of this rotation is the spine.
The lower spine acts as the fulcrum of this waist movement. It is important to note that this rotation should be initiated at the lower spine. Simply gaining autonomous control over the upper body's turning in relation to the hips through the use of the oblique abdominal muscles alone is not sufficient to maximize power with the lower body.
The twisting motion of the oblique abdominals alone places most of the spinal rotation closer to the mid back (thoracic region). This is a disadvantage in two ways. First, it causes the spinal joints of the mid back to rotate further to achieve the same degree of rotation that would be achieved if the lower spine were also actively engaged in the movement. Stress is placed on these mid spinal joints as they reach their full range of motion, especially when inertia from the upper limbs is added to the rotational force.
This can be harmful, and damage may be caused to these joints with over aggressive twisting in this way. The second disadvantage, without active engagement of the muscles of the lower back, you will not have the support that enables maximum power transfer between the upper and lower body.
An optimal sequence of rotation uses the oblique abdominals as the gross amplification of the movement originating in the lower spinal region. As waist power is in relation to the base (that being the sacrum and pelvis), the twisting of the waist should be initiated from as close to that base - and the center of gravity - as possible. Smaller rotations near this base can have larger effects further from this source. Just as a small motion at the waist starts a wave of motion up the length of the a whip that increases in power and proportion as it travels to the tip, the twisting of the lower spine initiates torsional force that is supplemented as it travels to the extremities.
Furthermore, since the muscles of the lower spine that govern posture are used in the spinal rotation, the force generated is tied into the whole body's structure. Having sensitivity and control over the source of posture, stability, and power allows other parts of the body to act free of unnecessary or counterproductive tension.
This in conjunction with coordinated, proportionate breathing and the focused intent of the mind is essential to the balance of internal and external power. Its origin is internal, its expression is external. In some senses, this is a restatement of traditional wisdom, but the understanding behind these conclusions is undeniably modern, and an important asset to contemporary practitioners of Chinese martial arts.
Paul Weisz is a student of traditional Chanquan under Master Henry Gong in NYC. Previous studies have included Sem Pai Kenpo, Shotokan Karate, Muso Shinden Ryu Iaido, Hung Gar and contemporary Shaolin Kung Fu.
Master Henry Gong has been practicing and teaching traditional Northern Shaolin Long Fist for over 30 years in New York City. The core of his technique lies in what he terms Lower Spinal Rotation ®. His term LSR ® deals not only with the scientific principles, but also includes concepts and exercises that allow a person to truly feel and understand this movement not only for martial arts, but all athletic and daily activity. He is the author of a book and has produced two DVD's that deal with the subject of LSR in daily applications and martial arts. For more information, visit lowerspinalrotation.com and shaolinglongfist.com
first published in:
Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine
July / August 2005
