Elasticity in Uechi movement

[Bill Glasheen]

A crowd gathers around Paul Maruyama, left, as he
enlists the help of Robin Chalcraft, 8, of Monument,
who uses the mallet, or kine, to pound the rice that
sits in the mortar, or usu. The Mochitsuki, or rice-
pounding event, was held on Colorado College’s
campus in Colorado Springs.

After pounding, the mochi is shaped into squares or balls and added to soups or coated with a red bean and sugar sauce, sesame seeds and sugar, and soybean flour and sugar. Its elastic nature symbolizes strength, and its white color, purity.

"The mochi signifies long life and, if you stretch it, it doesn't come apart easily, so it signifies tenaciousness for the rest of the year. That is why mochi is so popular at the beginning of the year," Maruyama said.

- Denver Post


For the karateka practicing Sanseiryu kata, there is a mindset that must be applied to make it work. This is not your white-belt Sanchin where the practitioner flexes muscles and shows what kind of beating can be taken. It's not the shodan Seisan where the student engages in simple thrusts and strikes. Sanseiryu is the domain of the mature athlete. And once you "get" how Sanseiryu should be done, then you're supposed to revisit Sanchin and rethink your entire approach to martial arts. Or so they say...

We all have our means of communication, and that largely depends on culture and education. For the Okinawans teaching the average fisherman/farmer, there must be a concept that the student can relate to. For them, it is the elastic nature of mochi. Every Okinawan can relate to mochi.

For Americans, it's a different story.

As a systems physiologist and part-time physical trainer, I understand the the physiology involved, and the concept of plyometric training. Think of the possibilities in terms of 3 different types of "spring" movement.



..... COMPRESSION/EXTENSION

Here are some common compression springs used in devices such as a Bic pen or even an automobile suspension system.




Now look at these motions, and visualize the compression spring.

..... ..........
......... Squatted Jump ................. Depth Jump



.......... TORSION

Check out these common torsion springs.




Now look at these motions, and visualize the torsion spring.

..... ..........
..... Seated MB twist ........... Partner MB twist



..... FLEXION/EXTENSION

Rather than use a spring (which I could...) I will instead use the modern pole valut pole to illustrate this concept. Here's the great Sergei Bubka storing energy in a flexible rod. What happens next seems like magic.




Now look at these motions, and visualize the flexible rod.

..... .......... ..........
............ Back Toss ......... MB Lateral Bends .......... Push Away



.......... FROM INANIMATE TO ANIMATE

The elastic springs and rods are examples of a capacity to store energy in a passive fashion. We can also use chemical, hydraulic, and electrical analogies here. But with the human body, we have more than the passive elastic properties of human muscle. We have an active neuromuscular response to rapid stretching in the form of the dynamic stretch reflex. Plyometrics aren't about building muscle; they involve learning about and enhancing that neuromuscular response.

Sanseiryu is all about discovering and taking advantage of these motions. And when you get it right, then you should be taking all that back to Sanchin kata. Once you do, the "Uechi robot" goes out the window.

Understand that everything in Uechi is understated. This means that the final compression is slight, the torsion subtle, and the flexion not much more than a hip tuck focus and slight abdominal crunch.

Some side notes... Gushi sensei could not overemphasize the need for all whose Sanseiryu he viewed to capture and utilize this type of elastic energy. And with my Fuzhou Suparinpei, I find that it begs the practitioner to take those concepts to an even higher level.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Mention flow in forms, and the knuckle-draggers start snickering. You hear jokes about taiji granola eaters, chi-meisters, and issues related to sexual orientation.

Let the macho robots snicker.

You cannot fully capture the energy of elasticity in Sanseiryu if you don't learn to flow. If your kata look like this...

............. Ichi...BOOM....stop
............. Ni.....BOOM....stop
............. San....BOOM....stop

...then you are doing shodan-level Uechi. And IMO that label is being more than generous. Twenty years of practicing shodan-level Uechi will make you an older shodan.

Watch this little kid box. (Thanks, TSDGUY!) Do you see this kid stop between movements?

............. SUBFIGHTER.COM

What you see here is a person flowing back and forth from one arm technique to the next. Here the concept is pretty simple to model. Think of the classic pendulum.

.............

In the case of the boxer, maximum potential energy is achieved halfway inbetween the strikes in these flurries. At that point, the athlete is triggering the dynamic stretch reflex to the max. The combination of the neuromuscular energy and the passive viscoelastic properties of the muscles leads to the next strike, where potential energy is minimized and kinetic energy is at a max. The follow-through leads to the next potential energy max.

This kid has also learned to use bobbing and weaving as a means to store and release energy. A bob comes right back at you as a right cross. A weave is converted into a hook. In the end, it's an insane display of energy and athleticism.

The pendulum goes back and forth...

With the Uechika practicing a form like Sanseiryu, the art of it all is learning how to follow/flow through from movement to movement so that one conserves energy, maximizes speed, and takes full advantage of neuromuscular energy. Flow and elasticity go hand-in hand to create fast, fluid power.

Or you could just call it chi...

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Sanseiryu isn't sanseiryu without all of its energy displayed.

There were three degrees of freedom of motion discussed when talking about elasticity.
I mentioned COMPRESSION/EXTENSION
I mentioned TORSION
I mentioned FLEXION/EXTENSION

I mentioned FLOW from one state of max potential energy to the next. Potential energy converted to kinetic energy, which converted back to potential...

But we can't just consider lead-footed thrashing in Sanseiryu. The advanced Uechika puts his/her track shoes on and moves.


........ TRANSLATIONAL MOVEMENT

One of my fellow Uechika at U.Va. won the intramural boxing championships two years in a row. (He won his weight division AND was voted best boxer of all weight divisions.) If not for a broken nose, he might have one a third. Mack Fischer once told me one of his secrets. To him, what distinguished him from the next guy was his ability to put leg movement into his punches. When Mack hit you, his legs were driving forwards AS he was crushing your jaw.

To understand the concept, think of this Medieval scene.



In this very vivid display of enormous power, each party is engaged in absolutely zero upper-body movement. Instead, the momentum of their masses - from the driving of the horses' legs - is what gives that thrust that can knock-off and/or kill the man on the horse.

One can think of the charging elbow movements in the same manner. Beginners spend way too much time and energy swinging their arms. Instead, powerful driving movement of the legs forward can give a simple, strong elbow posture all a person needs to blow right through a weapon-holding opponent. In application there is no fine-motor fooling with the weapon. Circling arm is nothing more than a feeler as the charging Uechika explodes into and through the center of the attacker's torso.

No "blocks" needed.

The expert Sanseiryu practitioner moves like a waterbug across the floor. The longer the movements, the better. Two of the best displays I've witnessed in my life were Jerry Sereno (Kanchin on his sandan test circa 1980) and Jim Thompson (on tape at the 33rd anniversary of Kanbun Uechi's death).

For the Uechi practitioner on application, it isn't just elbow techniques. I've had more than a few "discussions" about this on the Forums but... I once learned a pretty nifty exercise from Marty Dow, which he picked up in the Shinjo dojo. In it, the practitioner learns to do a reverse punch while charging forwards. WHILE charging forwards. In one example rear hand is crushing jaw while rear leg is still driving. Depending on which arm is hitting, you can use a pulling front leg as well. It's all in the lower vs. upper body timing.

You have to see all these technique applied to a heavy bag to appreciate the devastating power involved.

- Bill

[WY]

Dear Bill Sensei,

Great posts. Thanks for that. Although I don't practice Uechi-rytu myself, I think you've very eloquently described concepts that all karate people should be aware of.

One question I have though, is how do muscles actually store energy in plyometric type exercises? I can see how springs work, but I can't quite visualise the analogous situation when it comes to muscles (as they obviously don't work the same way). Or maybe I'm just missing something obvious?

Regards,
Wayne Young

(edited for speeling:)

[Bill Glasheen]

Fantastic question!

Humans are one of the most difficult things for engineers (biomedical engineers to be exact) to model. Biological materials have the most complex properties both as passive materials (such as elasticity of skin or muscle tissue) and active devices (such as a fully-functioning muscle). But we engineers try anyway. Engineers are very good at one thing - making assumptions and approximations. The simple models we build help us understand concepts that otherwise would be difficult to explain.

On a very, very simplistic level, a muscle or set of muscles can and does behave a bit like a spring. I'll give an example.

Ever wonder how a simple gun works? It is not possible for you to pull the trigger fast enough to get the hammer to hit the end of the bullet with enough momentum to cause the explosion in the shell. Well if you pull any gun apart, invariably you will find a compression spring in it. Why? Well...the way the gun gets its energy to be released with fast kinetic energy in the hammer is to store energy in the spring. This your fingers can do with the slower pull against the high resistance of the spring. Once you have that stored energy in the spring, then you let it go all at once.

Now...how do you click your fingers? If you take your middle finger and move it to the heel of your hand as fast as possible, you cannot get enough speed to get it to "click." But if you put your middle finger against the thumb and slowly push against it, you can store potential energy (in terms of muscle tension) between the middle finger and the thumb. Then you let it go all at once.

The spring doesn't look like the muscles, the nerves that control them, and the ATP that is the source of energy. But in that situation, the neuromuscular system effectively behaves like a spring in its ability to store and suddenly release energy.

Now to karate... Every wonder why we have a pigeon-toed sanchin? If you watch the way most people do Uechi, you may never figure it out. But if you watch a very old Uechi Kanei doing a front kick, your eyes see something that is unbelievable. A normal human (and an old one at that) can't get his legs to go out that fast, right? Hmm..

But... If you view the turning in of the legs as a kind of cocking of a trigger, then the concept suddenly becomes obvious. All those 180 degree turns before front kicks are not for naught. Watch Uechi Kanei do a kick. He isn't a bloody robot. His body moves in a wave like a dragon as that kick goes out.

What he does is toe in, and tuck the hip under just before he releases the leg. He is storing energy in his legs like that - just like the spring in a gun. Then the movement continues to a point where he lets that stored energy go all at once.

How all that happens with nerves and muscles and stretch reflexes is complex. Some of it is passive, with the stretchy properties of muscle tissue. But it's more than that. We can store energy (even for a few milliseconds in continuous motion) by pre-loading (pre-stretching) muscles and adding in a little bit of tension as the load increases. And if we do that pre-stretch (loading) fast enough, we trigger the dynamic stretch reflex. That's a natural reflex that keeps us from hyperextending. The force of that neuromuscular response is proportional to the speed of lengthening of the muscle (dL/dt for you Calculus wonks).

Or...think of it like a spring that can store and release energy.

- Bill

[MikeK]

One can think of the charging elbow movements in the same manner. Beginners spend way too much time and energy swinging their arms. Instead, powerful driving movement of the legs forward can give a simple, strong elbow posture all a person needs to blow right through a weapon-holding opponent. In application there is no fine-motor fooling with the weapon. Circling arm is nothing more than a feeler as the charging Uechika explodes into and through the center of the attacker's torso.

Bill, some of that sounds very much like Shotokan. I'm starting to think both styles contain the same elements but flip when those things get taught and to what degree they are emphasized. I'm going to have to watch some vids on that kata.

[Bill Glasheen]

Mike

It is true that Uechi Ryu starts in shallow stances (in Sanchin) and finishes with quite a few deep stances (in Sanseiryu).

Wayne

In the above post, I neglected to mention key details that get to the bottom line.

A spring stores energy (Force = deltaL * spring_constant) with compression, stretching, torsion, or bending. That happens due to the properties of the atoms within the iron material. Move them out of their "ideal" orientation, and the attractive forces between the atoms come into play. The spring favors its lowest potential energy configuration, where all atoms are aligned just so.

A muscle sort of can do the same thing in a passive manner, like the way a rubber band works. That's a slightly more exotic chemical structure. But a muscle also stores energy via ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP is adenosine and three phosphate compounds. For every phosphate that the biochemical pathways in your body are able to load onto adenosine, you add in energy. For every phosphate that you break off of adenosine, you release energy. A properly rested muscle is loaded with ATP, and there is plenty of creatine phosphate around to re-load it when you start breaking those phosphate bonds.

So getting a muscle to behave like the spring storing energy is partly a passive thing. Even a dead muscle is elastic. But it's also a matter of stretching it so it has room to contract. Contraction happens when ATP bond breaking causes the actin and myosin fibers within the muscles to pull by each other like crew boats with their oars plying the water.

Getting that to happen all at once involves:

* Having your adenonsine all loaded up and ready to go as ATP

* Prestretching to stretch the muscle like a rubber band

* Prestreching to get the actin and myosin fibers plenty of room to move by each other

* Finding a way (through active and reflex controls) to get the nerves controlling the muscle to send a MASSIVE signal to that muscle at just the right time.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

One final note...

That TRANSLATIONAL MOVEMENT (a.k.a. "jousting") is just another method of expressing kinetic energy. This the student does by prestretching with a slight squat, and then charging forwards with multiple steps of the legs.

Like the pendulum above, Sanseiryu is about flowing back and forth between potential and kinetic energy, and doing so in a most efficient AND powerful way.

And now you know why the Okinawan Uechi instructors just throw their hands up, and say "Mochi!" It's a metaphor that works for them.

And the granola heads just say "Chi!" Sorry... IMO, that approach deserves some flack.

- Bill

[MikeK]

Bill, are we doing some of that during the elbow in Kanshiwa?

[Bill Glasheen]

I allude to that, Mike, without us explicitly doing it. Kanshiwa bunkai is done in a very, very simplistic manner. Crawl before you walk before you run.

To be fair, there are many interpretations of the horse stance in Kanshiwa. I don't like us freezing it on any one application.

When I do our dojo-specific variations of Seisan Bunkai, I have a way of doing that just as prescribed. It's tricky doing it in a way that doesn't hurt the training partner, but I believe we have that worked out just fine. For folks who test above shodan level, I have them pull in our own dojo bunkai in various places where we feel it appropriate. It makes for a very interesting testing experience in front of outside dojo instructors.

- Bill

[WY]

Thanks for that,

I can see what you mean about giving the actin and myosin fliaments an optimum amount of room for the molecules to "grip" and slide. However, I'm not sure I can picture how prestretching the muscles can optimise the amount of ATP available. It's been a long time since I studied physiology. Also, another thing that I don't get is the idea of engaging the stretch reflex response in plyometric exercises - I wouldn't have thought the muscles would be sufficiently stretched for it to kick in.

Just in case you think I'm being difficult - I absolutely believe in the benefits of spring-like mechanics, coiling/uncoiling etc. I just don't understand the physiological mechanisms.

Cheers,
Wayne Young

[Dana Sheets]

So Bill - one of the issues that CMA (Chinese Martial Arts) practitioners have with karate way karate is trained today is that we break it all down too much (crawl, walk, run). And that we should start students at a higher level of body coordination.

Thoughts?

Do you think there could be a way to steepen the learning curve for this kind of stuff?

[maxwell ainley]

Dana ,I will step in before Bill .

I teach a process that as experimental elements ,but at first it looks unflexible because its contained ,the flexibility unwinds with the learning curve attached to the process .
I attempt to slowly unwind elastic elements from sanchin first ,and the learning curve on this always seems to vary ,you do get a slightly different spin on this methodology ,before it hits seisan and onwards to sanseirui ,thats what I call the contained outward unwinding ,with individual inputs that make it human ,can it be speeded up ? my verdict on this is ,overall very little .but once the true experimental stages start yes .

[f.Channell]

Bill,
Excellent post! I was training with Sensei Shinjo summer before last when he broke down the 3 kata in the following way.
Sanchin-balance, strength
Seisan-speed his words "speedo"
Sanseiryu-mochi or tenguua.

I then went nuts trying to find out what tenguua was since the translator didn't know. I e-mailed Gary K. and he hadn't heard of it.
Then a full 6 months later I was reading a chinese fairy tale to my daughter and there was the word tenguua.
A Chinese word for a chewy taffy.

He used a hand movement similiar to playing an accordion to demonstrate it.

F.

[Bill Glasheen]

Fred

Shinjo sensei is a good man. Unfortunately I've never gotten enough time with him.

Sanchin-balance, strength
Seisan-speed his words "speedo"
Sanseiryu-mochi or tenguua

There's something I ponder, Fred. I've heard it said that after one studies from sanchin through to sanseiryu, that one should then circle back to sanchin.

I think about that statement on many levels. On the one hand, I try very hard to get my students to see sanchin elements in every advanced technique they do. One big reason I do that is to teach them how to teach themselves the move. When I teach them the principles of sanchin, then I want them to deduce how all the advanced motions are done. I believe this simplifies things both on an intellectual and - more importantly - on a subconscous level.

But there's one other aspect of this circling back that I ponder. After sanseiryu mochi (or sanseiryu tengua), is the student then supposed to circle back and attempt something like "sanchin tengua"?

Have you seen Dana do sanchin? This of course she gets from working with Nakamatsu sensei. So she's not all alone out on this limb.

One other thought... If one believes that each of the three Uechi forms (sanchin, seisan, sanseiryu) should be the unique domains of three properties of fighting (strength, speed, and elasticity) respectively, and that they generally don't mix, then I think it worth mentioning that the Fuzhou Suparinpei I practice/teach has all three of these elements in it. "Lost kata" or not, that's a pretty interesting thing to consider.

Wayne

You do appear a bit confused. Don't worry...there are many elements to it. If you haven't given enough time for everything to sink in, then all the pieces and parts may not gel.

I'm not sure I can picture how prestretching the muscles can optimise the amount of ATP available.

Whether a muscle is prestretched or fully contracted, the ATP is still there. It being fully replenished has nothing to do with the length of the muscle (stretched and ready to contract, or contracted).

I mention ATP because if you want to think about the elastic or "spring-like" properties of movement as metaphor, then one must consider ATP as an element that contributes to the overall effect.

If you get too reductionist in nature here, you may lose the overall metaphor. It's sort of like looking at the elements sodium and chlorine, and not being able to see salt.

Also, another thing that I don't get is the idea of engaging the stretch reflex response in plyometric exercises - I wouldn't have thought the muscles would be sufficiently stretched for it to kick in.

This too can get a little complicated, but not too much so.

There are actually two different neuromuscular reflexes to consider: the static stretch reflex and the dynamic stretch reflex.

When you are stretching, it's the static stretch reflex that fights you. It keeps you from overextending yourself. For folks who get into advanced stretching techniques, they actually use a bit of physiological trickery to get around this. The acronym CRAC stands for Contraction, Relaxation, and Antagonistic Contraction. The goal is first to quiet the static stretch reflex in the agonist muscle so as to maximize the degree of stretch possible.

When you are doing plyometrics and when you are doing general physical movement that has a lot of natural "elasticity" (even a simple jump has this), then it's the dynamic stretch reflex that you are dealing with.

The static stretch reflex is proportional to the length of the muscle (L).

The dynamic stretch reflex is proportional to the speed of lengthening of the muscle (dL/dt).

It's the dynamic stretch reflex that you're working with in plyometric exercises. The gurus tell you that for instance in bunny hops, what's important isn't so much how far you go down (how much the muscle is stretched). Rather what is important is the speed of the eccentric vs. concentric movement (how rapidly the muscle is stretched). It's how fast you go down and up. You want to imagine yourself bouncing like a rubber ball. Any freezing of movement completely kills the effect.

The faster/stronger you prestretch the muscle, the stronger the dynamic stretch reflex. This is why in advanced plyometrics, you do extreme things like jump off of a bench and leap. The depth jump is a classic example.

...............

One thing that you should realize is that this dynamic stretch reflex can be trained and enhanced with plyometrics just like your basline strength can be enhanced with strength training. So in other words if your baseline dynamic stretch reflex is so...

.......... Strength of reflex contraction = k*dL/dt

Then plyometric training might leave you with such...

.......... Strength of reflex contraction = 2k*dL/dt

By the way, hope you took calculus and know what a derivative is.

So Bill - one of the issues that CMA (Chinese Martial Arts) practitioners have with karate way karate is trained today is that we break it all down too much (crawl, walk, run). And that we should start students at a higher level of body coordination.

Thoughts?

I think there is a kernel of truth here.

The problem I see is that too many folks tear things down in their martial learning and they don't build it back up again. But if you don't take a complex movement, break it down, and study its parts, then you're almost guaranteed not to do it right unless you are an extremely gifted person.

Personally I like to tear things down to their elements, practice each and every element, and then slowly build it all back together again. And I like to do that all in the same "lesson." This way you get both precision and essential synergy. I believe if you don't do the whole process, then you'll never discover the "magic" of the movement.

Do you think there could be a way to steepen the learning curve for this kind of stuff?

First you need to understand the basic elasticity concept, and have a teacher who is good at teaching and nurturing it.

Beyond that, I'm banking on modern plyometric training and classic Olympic lifts to steepen my own learning curve, and that of students who care to put in that extra effort. And then you need to spend time putting it into practice in your kata. Drill, drill, drill.

- Bill