Tang Soo Do Use of Hips

[stoneheart]

I read in passing on another board that TSD uses a different hip method "opposite" from how Japanese karateka utilize their hips.

Can someone explain this further?

 

[Makalakumu]

It's not exactly opposite. Some of it is similar. For instance, when attacking, the hip rotates back and forward. When blocking, the hip rotates forward and back. Some karate systems reverse this and some do both the we described above and the reverse way. Shotokan, another art I have trained in, does both. At higher levels, TSD also does both.

 

[stoneheart]

When blocking, the hip rotates forward and back.

So if I remain in place and perform a simple upper block, I still rotate my hip forward first and then back? Doesn't this lose power?

 

[Makalakumu]

So if I remain in place and perform a simple upper block, I still rotate my hip forward first and then back? Doesn't this lose power?

Actually, this creates more power, because the hip rotation drives/whips the arm upward into position. I visualize this technique as a forarm strike to the neck and I picture whipping it into the target.

 

[stoneheart]

Thank you for the explanation. That's certainly different. I'll have to give it a whirl myself and see if I can make it work for myself.

 

[Kyoshi]

Shotokan, another art I have trained in, does both. At higher levels, TSD also does both.

Actually, the use of the hips in Shotokan is very different than the use of the hips in Tang Soo Do, at least at the fundamental levels.

TSD does what I would call a "Double Hip Rotation" with their basic blocking techniques, ergo, they open the hips for the frame (or 'chamber'), then close the hips upon the actual execution of the block, with the hip and the blocking limb always traveling in the same direction.

Orthodox Shotokan on the other hand, normally rotates the hips in only one direction during the course of the block. The frame is done with the hips in the 'closed' position, meaning the hips are facing dead forward to the front, and the block is executed with the hips opened to a half-facing position (hamni), with the block and the hips traveling either in the same direction (rotation) or in opposite directions (counter-rotation), dependent upon the block being executed.

When one watches the execution of the basic blocks being done side-by-side by a practitioner of Shotokan and a practitioner of Tang Soo Do, this difference in the core fundamentals of these two sister styles is almost impossible to miss.