Economy of Motion

Less is better! Often the comment, as to Isshinryu, is that it works with out those wind up type techniques seen sometimes in kata competition and sport training facilities for sport karate. One is flashy to impress and the other is to economize energy and provide less detectable technique.

Tells are those actions that are more detectable to an opponent. Tells are a term used for sparring and competitions but as to fighting I am not sure I would waste precious moments trying to determine if the attacker is projecting some "tell" that I can use against them. In my very limited experience fights, not necessarily violent predatory stuff, of the socially driven kind tend to go very fast once it goes physical. The only tell I want to see is when the attacker enters my clear zone, i.e. gets in range.

Regardless of tells the goal in a fight first is to avoid it, second is to not get hit, and third is to act the moment your perceive they are in range, if you can, which could be done visually or when the first strike rocks your boat.

Economy of motion is finding that equilibrium between the motion of say a strike to the power needed. You do not put anymore motion in the arm for a punch then is necessary. You let your body mass, momentum, bring the power to the table and the hand and arm move only so far. Look at it like a piston in an engine. When it cycles through the four strokes there is a point where the compression is the highest and the power generation the greatest. It does not fire until it gets to that point and the stroke if to long or to short diminishes power, ask any one who has raced cars on a quarter mile.

To much movement provides to much time for the attacker to turn your lights off. It can take you to far out of range and you will lose effectiveness and so on. A lot of Isshinryu kata teach to cock the hand for a strike all the way back to the waist. This is ok for basics or intro to the system and instruction in form and movement yet there comes a time when that is no longer valid.

The best example I can provide for Isshinryu practitioners is the story of the vertical fist. Originally all Okinawan karate used a twist motion/punch where it came all the way from the waist and then all the way to full extension with arm locked and fist moving from vertical to horizontal. Yet, when you watched those same practitioners in kumite they all dropped the twist punch and tended to always punch with a vertical fist. In addition they seldom held the fist at the waist for a strike nor did they drop it back to the waist when punching. The hands/fists remained up in front, naturally held, to protect and to punch.

It is a great system to teach the basic and fundamentals of any system but one must graduate to a more efficient process, i.e. reduce unnecessary movement/motions, etc. Watch the old, old boxing matches of the early nineteen hundreds like Max Schmelling and Jack Dempsey and you will not see Mr. Dempsey dropping his hands back to his waist to knock out someone in the ring.

Lousi L'Amour hits at this as well in his biographical book the wandering man. He too was a fighter of sorts. Be mindful of how you do kata and how you apply karate techniques in kumite, sparring, practice, training and see if you have any disparities. Remember that kata and basics are the blueprints but to build the entire house takes a bit of adjustment as you go along to make sure the building is cost effective.