ForGranted
White Belt
Many kung fu styles talk about using the power of tendon. I am not a kung fu guy so this really interests me. How can tendon generate power? Everyone please shares some of your thoughts.
Tendon and power
- Thread starter ForGranted
- Start date
This the first that I've heard this in the environment of Kung Fu. There are exercises that help strengthen tendons and ligaments but nothing that specifically states to use tendon to generate power. When it comes to Kung Fu the general rule is to use full body to generate power, collapsing power, and expanding power. For example, don't just punch with arm, punch with body.
Where did you hear the discussions about using the power of tendon?
ForGranted
White Belt
Many chinese masters say that. Like using the tendon not muscle sort of stuff. It is a common thing right?
I think you're right, I've hear that too ....somewhere, but my Chinese sifu didn't use that explanation. Anyway, it never made a lot of sense to me from a Western perspective where muscle, mass and movement are seen as generating power.
Tendons, ligaments and bone alignment on the other hand are essential parts of structure and how we create the kinetic linkages that allow us to efficiently focus and transmit power. But that's a different thing.
I guess I find all the talk about power generation, etc. so much easier to understand if someone skilled shows me how to do it. And even then it can be very difficult to learn!
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ForGranted
White Belt
Interesting! I know little about chinese arts, just want to learn more about it. IMO it is very underrated. Do you have any sources on the structure? I would love to study it.
CMA power generation guidelines:
- All power come from below -> up and back -> front.
- In CMA, there exist no straight punch, all punches are circular. Power generation is like a flying bullet. It may look like it's flying in straight line, but the bullet is rotating.
- All power come from below -> up and back -> front.
- In CMA, there exist no straight punch, all punches are circular. Power generation is like a flying bullet. It may look like it's flying in straight line, but the bullet is rotating.
Gyakuto
Senior Master
A tendons elastic properties do contribute to the overall tension developed my a muscle.
This explains it very well.
This explains it very well.
Will try to find and link an article I read on this subject recently. The jist of it was that the model we've been using of our skeleton as a sort of scaffolding for the body is insufficient, that the fascia and connected tendons throughout the body create a tension that greatly supports the skeletal structure along with muscle. The article claimed that mathematically, bones and muscle alone cannot withstand the forces put upon it so fascia and tendon are being studied as the "missing link in the chain" so to speak. I do have a book with a short section where the author claims that as you age, you should be using less muscle and depending more on tendons to make up for the loss of muscular strength. The one concrete example he gives is making a fist. Balling up the fist and clenching it vs - laying hand flat on its back on a table, then using the tendons in the palm to lift the four fingers (minus thumb) then instead of curling them into a fist, the fingers are folded over the palm. The thumb is then tucked and pressed to the side of the index finger. I've tested the fist on the makiwara, it is effective without clenching the muscles. His main point though is to use tendons to fold the hand into a fist as opposed to using muscles the clench it. Supposedly, it is an exercise to get a person used to the feel of using more tendon and less muscle. No idea how this would translate to the rest of the body.......
It's not Kung Fu, it's Karate. And it's not 'tendon', it's 'tanden'.
Other terms used are 'hara' and 'dantien' or 'seiken tanden'.
Often illustrated in Sanchin Kata.
Sanchin – Abdominal Breathing – Core and Tanden
“In Karate, Seika Tanden or using Hara is literally bracing your core or creating IAP (Interabdominal Pressure).” Sanchin Kata is an isometric workout that has been passed down via the Nahate system over the ages. In Sanchin, Fukushiki Kokyu, or abdominal breathing, is utilized to maintain a...
It doesn't generate power as such. It provides a stable platform for power to be generated and delivered.
ForGranted
White Belt
Hope you can find it. Btw, what is the book name?
O'Malley
2nd Black Belt
They're probably talking about generating full body power vs isolated muscle contraction. If you remove the slack from your connective tissue (including the tendons and fascia), there will be lines of tension through your body, which will connect the various bodyparts together. The tricky part is to stretch the tissue, which creates (ex)tension. The instinctive thing to do is to contract the muscle, which actually cuts off the extension along the line (= no whole-body movement possible).
It is then possible to make all the muscles extend/contract along those lines simultaneously (if one part of the body contracts, the opposite one extends). This has several consequences, two of them being: 1) the total power generated is the sum of the power generated by each muscle + the elastic tension along the lines; and 2) the movement is not driven by the linear force created by the contraction of an isolated muscle, but is driven equally by the front of the body extending and the back closing. As a consequence, even small movement is harder to stop and generates a lot of power. But technically, the power still comes from muscle, not the tendons.
I'm leaving things out (and frankly I don't fully understand it) but I hope this helps a bit. Here's a couple of demos to get you thinking:
isshinryuronin
Senior Master
While "tendons" are certainly part of the power chain, I think you've scored here. This is a much more likely explanation of the OP's incongruous statements:
Immediately seemed to me as red flags.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Been in CMA for over 30 years, trained with a lot of old and not so old Chinese guys, not sure I have ever heard that before
O'Malley
2nd Black Belt
IIRC, the Yi Jin Jing is also known as "muscle tendon change", and it's a pretty famous practice...
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Yeah, I know about that, trained a bit.... did not think it was relevant to the question about all strength coming from the tendons
There are 2 kind of CMA teachers.
- The 1st kind only care about how to land his fist on his opponent's faces.
- The 2nd kind only like to talk about "internal this and internal that ...", "Yi -> Qi -> Li", "The body is Yin. The mind is Yang", ...
IMO, as long as you can use your fist to knock down your opponent, why should you care about it is muscle power, or tendon power?
Is the Google search function written by C++ or Jave? Why should you care as long as it works?
Will pm you the book name and author. Its honestly not one I'd recommend spending money on. It has some interesting stuff but also some hokey stuff. Haven't had a chance to find the article, busy with work.
You obviously know waaaaay more than me. But.....there are sports sources, medical sources etc digging into the tendon and fascia thing. I think there is relevance to us. We all talk about the internal aspects of skeletal alignment etc, seems like this could possibly relevant in the same vein
