Commentary from Instructor Dave Hebler

“Strength and effective power”

Women are not the weaker sex or automatic losers in physical confrontations with men. This fact, combined with the view that any attack is a life or death situation for the victim, tells me that at a bare minimum, to at least go down trying; and in a life or death situation, what do you have to lose? One question that I often receive in my counter-assault workshops is, “Do I have to be strong and powerful to defend myself?” The answer is yes, you have to have strength and power, but in truth you probably already possess sufficient amounts of both to be very effective. You don’t have to be Mike Tyson to be capable of defending yourself (although it would help if you were Mike Tyson).

Many of us are familiar with the story of the little 100 lb. middle-aged woman who was in her home when she heard her teenage son screaming. Running outside, she was horrified to discover that the car her son was working on had slipped off the jack. He was underneath the car and being crushed to death. Instantly the woman lifted the car off her son. She picked up some two thousand pounds! In the process she cracked a few bones and tore some muscles but she actually lifted an automobile. How could this be? Where in the world could this little woman get the brute strength to lift an automobile? The strength came from her mind. She was horrified and frantic when she saw the car crushing her son and in that state of mind she thought of nothing but saving him. It never entered her mind that it’s impossible for a 100 lb. Woman to pick up an automobile. She simply did it.

The point of this story is that under certain circumstances, with sufficient motivation and determination, the human body is capable of performing some truly unbelievable feats of strength and power. Martial Artists call this force Chi or ki. Generally speaking, Chi is the ability to generate and magnify the body’s potential for power to a level far beyond what is produced normally. This is done mainly by concentrating and directing the body’s entire resources toward one specific goal, focusing this force on one small area and unleashing it in an explosion of pure power.

We have all seen demonstrations of board breaking and brick breaking and the like performed by Martial Artists. These demonstrations serve to illustrate the kind of power that the human body is capable of producing. What most performers don’t usually say is that virtually anyone is capable of doing the same thing with a little training. And, anyone includes you.