tension movements in forms

[Daniel Sullivan]

Actually, the appearance itself of tension in Sanchin isn't important. It's the fact that you are tightening the right muscle groups in the correct combination and spacing/intensity that the teacher is looking for with his eyes and hands. It may be that a very slender person may not display visibly the tightening - I've run into this before with a rail thin student - and then the disrobing becomes less important.

Not sure if an emphasis on visual confirmation of tension is what you meant to convey, but I just wanted to clarify this for anyone else reading.

Emphasis on visual confirmation is what I was referring to, but also, there is not any emphasis on tighting specific muscle groups either.

But my question has been answered between you and leadleg. Sounds like there is supposed to be a degree of dynamic tension performed, but you are more concerned with the breathing half of it than the muscular intricacies.

Yes.

Daniel

 

[dancingalone]

I was told ,long ago and this is my interpretation of that conversation, that it is more of a pause,grounding oneself, recovering energy,focus,before resuming a powerful attack.

Over the years the various explanations I have heard for slow, tense movements in forms are:

• strengthening component (not sure this one really makes sense since you will get little physical conditioning from a movement that only lasts 3-4 seconds at the most)
• to be able to demonstrate proper body mechanics for power at a slow speed without the speed component to help disguise things
• opportunity to recenter or refocus before continuing the form
• from a bunkai viewpoint, it may be a hint that there is a particularly violent application that should be practiced slowly with your partner to avoid injury
• pure aethetics - forms are better as performances when they have a range of speed and intensity rather than all fast and all powerful all the time

Pick one, some, or all of them.

 

[bluewaveschool]

I've just mentioned this in passing with another KKW BB. He stated there is indeed dynamic muscular tension in the forms, at least the way he was taught. The example given was the diamond block in Keumgang. He is Chung Do Kwan lineage.

<shrugs>

I do not know what the official KKW guideline is one this form, but I was able to google and find references to performing the diamond block slowly and with force, which fits the basic description of dynamic tension. Sounds like there is variance on this topic as well.

Interesting, as in the past our school claimed a CDK lineage. I haven't pushed that statement much lately, as I'm trying to actually find someone that can give me the name of the guy that started the school, so I can ask HIM why we make that claim.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

We do not practice KKW or ITF hyungs, so I cannot speak to that length about dynamic tension. For those of you familiar with TSD, some associations use a great deal of dynamic tension (Chun Sik Kim's Internataional Tang Soo Do Federation, for example). However, there is very little dynamic tension in our association's forms. I can think of only one in all the pyung ahn forms; Pyung Ahn Ee Dan's first movement from the right hand high block coming back to the ear before the upper cut strike. Bassai, Chinto, and Kang Song Kun all have some movements in there as well. The only forms that we have ever been taught that has more than a few moves of dynamic tension is Ship Soo, and Wanshu (which our KJN threw out of the curriculum years ago).

 

[andyjeffries]

However, there is very little dynamic tension in our association's forms...Bassai

Out of interest, how do you pronounce Bassai? The 'ai' sound doesn't seem possible in Han'gul, unless you use -a -i and pronounce it "bass-ah-ee". The Karate pronunciation I heard a while ago was Bass-eye so I guess you use that, but why a Japanese term in a Korean martial art.

Sorry to hijack the thread, just interested. We can happily make a new thread if preferred...

 

[dancingalone]

I'm sure Benjamin will explain, but I suspect his GM is from a time when it was common to use and possibly mix Japanese and Korean terms. In any case, I am not sure how much point there is to insist on using the Korean variant for Bassai (Pal Sek) if you are practicing essentially a Japanese kata anyway.

I say Japanese because there are Okinawan karate versions of the same form. They can differ quite a bit.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

Yeah, I know we pronounce it from the Japanese term, and I would guess that Dancing is correct, we also use Naihanchi instead of the many Korean terms for those three forms.