What is not brute force?

[Yeung]

Some ideas collected from the thread of a working definition of brute force:

Skill versus unskilled
Total force versus partial
Internal strength
Qi
Yi
Fangsong (let go or let loose)
Stretching
Stretch reflex (involuntary muscle action)
Elastic energy (stored elastic energy)
Neutralization
Autistic (without fear)

[BruceP]

Planing perfect curly curls off a plank

Drawing a strip of bark the length of your stroke without interruption

Prying a boulder from its terrestrial setting without snapping a bar

Finesse, angle of attack, light and firm with sensitive force.

[Yeung]

Sensitive force, another idea added to the list of what is not brute force.

[rojcewiczj]

If you are a brute, then all your use of force is brute force. If you are a cultivated person, then all your use of force is cultivated.

[Interloper]

Brute force is the use of unrefined physical movement -- untrained use of overt muscling. Non-brute force may be that which is made from (refined) manipulation of muscles and connective tissues that creates dynamic tensions from opposing forces, movements of a unified body (upper-and-lower plus connection of arms to the core) along a center line/central axis line, and the expansion or compaction of body tissues.

[windwalker]

Energy courses through the tissues, limbs, sinews, and vessels. Strength emerges from the blood, muscles, skin, and bones. Therefore a strong person has an outer robustness to their skin and bones, a matter of posture, while an energized person has an inner robustness to their sinews and vessels, a matter of presence. Training the energy and blood with emphasis on the energy will empower the internal. Training the blood and energy with emphasis on the blood will enhance the external.

If you awaken to the functions of these two things, both the energy and the blood, you will naturally come to understand the basis of strength and energy. Understanding what strength and energy are all about, you will naturally be able to distinguish between the using of strength and the moving of energy: the moving of energy will be felt in your sinews and vessels, while the using of strength will be felt in your skin and bones – extremely different things indeed.

https://brennantranslation.wordpress.co ... i-fa-shuo/

The better question might be what can one do using one method that can not be done using the other....

[lars]

Technique that allows the body to use less muscular energy to obtain the same goal

[Bao]

If you throw your whole body into the opponent, like in a typical Baji fist, would you this consider this refined force or brute force? What would be the difference here between the two?

[Niall Keane]

Jin as in "educated force" would involve using the dao of the opponent and returning it to him. Even something as simple as a straight punch should have consideration for the angle, range and timing of yourself and the opponent and maximise the effect desired.
All else is brute force of one degree or another.... it is not merely as simple as the connected IMA body versus isolated "external" strength, not by a mile. But many waste their entire lives focusing at this proverbial finger and miss entirely the heavenly glory... and can't fight for shit!

[Bao]

Chu Shong Tin use of "not brute force":



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prpt25hpOQk



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIA8MQjGRZ8


But then how can you demonstrate not brute force in an unrehearsed manner against an unwilling partner?

... Again, "not brute force"... But pretty humiliating it seems.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u7nAWevDVU

Can't really find many Tai Chi vids as clear and to the point in this matter.

[Yeung]

Has anyone tried the plyometrics exercise model?

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometrics.html

[Yeung]

The three theories of force, a translation from:
https://wikipedia.kfd.me/wiki/咏春拳
Give up the use of brute force
Neutralizing [incoming] force
Borrowing [incoming] force

From the videos of the late Chu Shong Tin, he punched by stretching his wrist upward, stretching his forearm forward with his elbow pointing downward, and stretching his shoulder forward. A standard strike with the lower two knuckles, and it will be much more powerful if footwork is added. There is no concentric muscle contraction or shortening muscle fiber.

[Wanderingdragon]

I like the clip, at 3:15 when Chu Shong states the very simple honesty " it's easy to talk, but when you actually try to do something, you won't be able to do it". It is not brute force when the body is doing the work and the mind is relaxed, this is the ability to control and act at will.

[dspyrido]

What is not brute force?

Anything applied that works (eg knocks out, locks up, throws) on an aggressive (absolutely resisting) opponent who is by far bigger & stronger than you (50% or more should do it).

Now use the same methods on smaller weaker person but feel free to add a bit of brute force just to be a bastard.

[Wanderingdragon]

Please notice the second clip which is focused on standard striking, you will see the top two knuckles finishing the strike, not the bottom three, the result of proper alignment. This is the body doing the work not the mind focusing on what to do.