Commentary from Instructor Dave Hebler

“STABILITY, ACCURACY AND FOCUS”

STABILITY: In most cases, it is essential to have a good solid and stable platform from which to perform the physical movements. A solid foundation is a fundamental requirement to obtain maximum effectiveness and the best way to acquire and maintain a solid foundation is to bend your knees and drop your weight. When you do this, you need to have your feet apart at least as wide as your shoulders and keep your upper body erect. Once you are there, try and stay there throughout the physical movements. I mention this because a fair percentage of students seem to have an almost instinctive tendency to try and rise up and come down on their opponent when they attack. Just realize that when you are up in the air, you lose your foundation.

ACCURACY: To hit a target you have to be accurate. This is a statement that is obvious to everyone, and yet in actual practice, all students require training to be able to hit what seems like the most simple of targets. The plain fact of the matter is that we all have to learn the proper method of delivering a strike to a target to achieve anything close to the required accuracy. Generally speaking, you have to acquire an expertise in delivering a weapon to a level where you can consistently make contact within an inch of your intended contact point. Any miss greater than that runs the risk of missing altogether or being totally ineffective. Frankly, unless you can hit the intended target, you might just as well save your energy.

There is a method of delivery that, with practice, will achieve a high degree of reproducible accuracy. Deliver the weapon from its starting point, wherever that may be, in a straight line directly to the target you want to hit. This method has an additional benefit beyond accuracy, which is speed. Because a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, for all practical purposes, it is also the quickest. With a hand strike, another way to achieve accuracy is to make sure that when you deliver the strike, keep the elbow low and close to your body. When the elbow rises away from the body, you are very likely to not only lose accuracy but control, speed, focus and power as well. The same rule applies when delivering a foot strike; execute the strike in a straight line directly to the target.

FOCUS: Where and how you focus the force of a strike is of paramount importance. You can deliver a strike to a target with full power and speed and not do any damage unless the force of the strike penetrates the target. For example: suppose that the target is the chin. If you focus the force of the strike on the point of the chin, you will find that you have accomplished very little if anything. On the other hand, if you focus the force of the strike on the back of his neck, you will drive the weapon through the chin and thereby accomplish a great deal. Remember, you must focus the strike so that you drive the weapon through the target rather than just at it.

How do you practice driving through the target when you are practicing with a partner? Obviously you can’t actually contact the target on your training partner. The answer is to drive the strike past the target without making contact. This will allow you to fully extend your strikes as you would in a real situation while at the same time working with a partner without causing injury.