The Way of Least Resistance

There is an old rule of thumb in martial arts: 1,000 repetitions to get the basic idea of a movement, 10,000 repetitions to get it more or less right, 100,000 to get it near perfect. And that's just a movement.  We've not yet talked about application .  Application takes much, much more practice. Let's put it in the perspective of some other art - say, music. You might want to be a world-class jazz guitarist, playing lead solos off the cuff, with no two performances alike.  And that's how jazz is meant to be played.  You're responding to your environment: the other musicians, the crowd, the venue, its atmosphere, your own mood, the time of day... practically anything and everything. So what does it take to be a good jazz guitarist?  100,000 repetitions of scales won't cut it.  I don't know what the figure in repetitions is, but it's going to be a lot higher.  Actually, it's measured less in terms of repetitions than it is measured in time . ...

Introduction Most martial artists share the goal of “hitting harder”. This is usually expressed in colloquial terms as hitting with “more force” or “more power”. But even a basic knowledge of physics will tell you that “force” and “power” are not the same thing. Which is it that makes you hit “harder” – force, power or both? And is it more helpful to talk in terms of something else such as momentum? Understanding force Many people think of “force” in very nebulous terms (perhaps explaining such misappropriations as “The Force” in Star Wars). So what is “force” as understood in physics? Force is something that enables you to cause an object with mass to accelerate . In other words, it is Newton’s famous formula: f = m x a . Using this formula people commonly argue that in order to hit “harder” they need to – 1. maximise their mass; and 2. maximise the acceleration of their attack. For the most part this is true: if you have a big mass and accelerate that mass well, you will maximis...