The Secret of the Three Essentials of the Martial Arts
In the martial arts, I don’t care if it is tae kwon do, fut ga, Shotokei, or whatever, there are three key ingredients. These three essentials are what makes an art an art, and they are why people become obsessed with the arts. Oddly, one of the ingredients is virtually unknown.
One of the ingredients has to do with pure, raw strength. Muscle mags are filled with advice on how to be strong, and everybody obsesses on strength. Oddly, strength is the least important of the three essential techniques I am speaking of.
The most important of the three essentials is technique. Technique is measured by how little you have to work to make a move work. If you need a lot of strength in your move, then your technique is lacking.
The second most important essential to good martial arts, and the one most people are missing, deals with speed. Interestingly, at least in the beginning, speed is absolutely vital to make a technique work. Yet strength is what everybody obsesses about.
Yes, people try to get faster, but it is an individual effort, and usually put aside when they chase strength. People believe that having more strength is going to make them faster martial artists, you see. Well, it will, but there are flexibility problems with the concept, and the speed gained is not always enough.
Speed must be developed in a fashion which tailors it to the technique. As knowledge of technique rises, so should the escalation of speed. In my over 40 years of martial arts I have found only one technique which develops speed in the proper manner.
The Speed Drill is based on a simple slap and grab motion of the hands. It makes entering all techniques as easy as swatting a fly. And every technique can be immaculately set up using this slap and grab drill.
So practice the strength of Uechi, and build the technique of Aikido. Work the sticky hands of Wing Chun and focus your concentration into the great nothingness through Tai Chi
Al Case has learned martial arts for 4O++ years. A writer for the magazines, he is the originator of Matrixing Technology and Neutronics. You can learn more about The Speed Drill here, or you can head on over to the main site and pick up his free ebook on Matrixing.