Body and Structure

[Labion]

Structure and balance go hand in hand. And as we know balance is everything. Without a proper structure we cannot obtain balance. Just as without balance we cannot obtain a proper structure.

There are many things that occur during a fight. Many mechanics people are not even aware of. This post will go into the base of everything needing to do with the body and its mechanics.

Mass and matter: everything is made from matter. That matter which is collected together to form an object or living creature has a mass. Mass is the total space something takes up. Just like energy, matter cannot be created nor destroyed. Just converted. Were i to take a box, and cut it into pieces, it still has the same measurements were i to put it together again. However rather than being one unit, i altered where it takes up space. I did not increase or decrease the space it originally had. It still has the same amount of matter.

Weight: weight and mass are not directly correlated. Weight is defined as the total amount of force generated by gravitational pull and the speed that object is moving.

Gravity on earth doesnt hold us in place. It is pulling us towards the core. The crust prevents us from falling down to it. However the pressure it imposes will forever exist. That is why if we jump we come back down. And when things fall they gain more speed overtime.

Force: force is calculated by mass multiplied by acceleration. The amount of momentum something has.

Work: the process of a driving force moving an object.

Acceleration: the rate of change in velocity. The body of an object and the direction/speed it moved.

Newtons laws of motion:

An object moving in a direction will forever move in that direction at the same speed unless influenced by an outside force.

Every action has a opposite reaction.
In order to move an object the force you generate has to be enough to overtake that object. How hard something is to move is the opposite reaction you receive.

If two equal forces moving at the same speed would collide none will move and equilibrium will be the result. In order for an object to move it must overtake the force it is receiving or find a different route for its force to pass without obstruction.

Energy takes the path of least resistance and energy moves in waves. Just like water. Water takes the shape of whatever you put it in as that will be the easiest shape to form and will be the shape of least resistence to create. However, just because something is easy does not make it the best route to take.

If there were to be a dam in place, the dam holds the water. The reaction the dam has towards the water pushing on it is enough to not have its structure or power collapse. It is able to handle the force it is receiving. If a crack were to appear in the dam, the water will start to spew through that crack. If the dam were removed completely, the water would crash and spread throughout the land. It still takes up the same amount of space. The only difference is the shape of the space it takes up.

In humans there are 3 main things which act as gateways for the ability to generate and receive force. This is based in skeletal structure, muscular structure, and connective tissue(joints, tendons, etc)

The skeletal structure is a frame. It gives the positioning for muscles to grow. It acts as something that receives force. In other terms the skeleton is the thing that holds the weight of muscles, organs, fat, etc. It obtains the reaction generated by your force.

The muscular structure allows for the generation of force. It also further supports your posture. If muscles are too tight it can prevent full range of motion. Which would jeopardise how that force manifests itself. Exerting too much force will limit performance as well.

Connective tissue(joints, ligaments, tendons) allows force to travel. How flexible you are and how much overrall force is able to enter and exit your body is determined by your connective tissue. Again, energy moves like water. The less flexible and conditioned the connective tissue is, the less amount of force is able to travel during an impact. Therefore leading to loss of power..

In one of my previous posts i said the human body is actually strong naturally. Over time people lock the ability to use all the strength they can truly generate because we don't technically need to use all that power. This is one reason. People tend to look at muscles for power, neglecting bone and connective tissue health. Everything acts as one unit. And if one of these things would be neglected, you can indeed injure yourself. The way bones break, muscles tear, or joints come out of place, is because the force generated is bigger than the space its able to take up. This can be because the speed of force was quicker than an object can absorb it, the angle of where impact happens isnt a proper channel for energy to pass through, terrible structure etc.

In combative martial arts, there are two main types. Arts that use force to fight force, or arts that use different forms/directions of energy to fight force. Hard and soft styles. A fight is not about generating the most force. It is about obtaining the path of least resistence to end the fight. Sometimes that means one powerful blow, other times it means being more timed with multiple strikes. No matter what style, these concepts of science apply to every combative art.

For people a bit more experienced, we know weight and height do not determine who will win a fight or even overrall fighting ability. But we do know bigger people can generate more force. Whether they can use it or not depends on many things including the ones mentioned above. But their ability to generate so much force comes from their distribution of mass. The distribution of mass is a position that will allow certain energy to pass. In simpler terms, distribution of mass is shape.

A wheel is good at moving because its shape allows it to. A cube is good at having weight on it as its shape allows it to. Different shapes allow for certain energies to pass. The strongest shape of all being a triangle, which allows the most direct force in the smallest distance. In martial arts every style has a stance. That stance is the best shape to execute certain mechanics which correspond to the theories of what can be possible in that system. Some systems use multiple stances whether it be in training or application. A common stance for both is horse stance. It lowers the center of gravity making it more difficult to move a person. But it also isolates the upper and lower body, making a person less mobile.

The way these concepts apply to striking will determine the overrall quality of your strike. A good strike should be powerful, well timed, accurate, and be able to overtake any force as well as not be easy to lose force when faced with obstruction.

This is exactly how the one inch punch is performed. Proper structure(distribution of mass), angle of attack(best position to exert your force), synchronization of your entire body(maximum force generation), and ability to pass all your force through an object(withstanding the reaction you receive)

Hail Satan!

 

[13th_Wolf]

Phenomenal stuff. You should write more of your insights on this and post more in general.


I notice that all of the lethal weapons which instantly cause bleeding and critical damage are triangular, they have a large backing mass which focuses pressure in on one point: blades, bullets. They all have the weight of the triangle at the back of them, the hilt of a sword, the cartridge of a bullet. The point of the triangle is the tip of either weapon.
Even non-lethal weapons such as a club or a hammer are usually built in a 'triangular' form, with the majority of mass, the bottom of the triangle, instead centred at the top of the weapon, the point of the triangle being the handle. The dynamics in the way the forces travel between lethal and non-lethal weapons reverse their energy distributions when you observe this in a trigonometric form. This is why naturally, those blunt weapons like clubs weren't favoured even as effective non-lethal weapons, only until the advent of telescopic batons and truncheons, which instead have a skinnier more centred mass and with truncheons and night sticks, are designed in such a way to add extra force from the second handle sticking out of it which is used for backing the momentum behind a blow. Alot of the ability we have to make effective non-lethal weapons is from the new materials which they're built from, whereas previously most materials we had access too didn't function well in a cylindrical baton format.