GrahamB wrote:You're drifting off into vagueness again. What I mean is show me how angles and leverage don't matter against somebody who is 'good'. I think, in the real world, those things do matter.
It's difficult to really describe or consider without ridiculous seeming hypotheticals yet it's plain to observe.
So lets say you throw a punch at something, you hit it, transfer some energy, maybe damage it maybe move it, whatever. Or a push, whatever.
When you make contact with a thing, if it doesn't stay put, then the amount of energy you effectively transfer to it is affected. If it moves toward you maybe there's more energy in the exchange. If it moves away from you, it's taking less. Go back to my Zhong Ding article for a couple thousand on that idea.
So in some instances in that punch or push, there's going to be an absolute limit of power, the old power stage of the attack. The attacker's body is going to be stiff because they are trying to apply their strength, and it's going to reach a maximum size or extension, their "reach".
At that point, when they are maximally extended and stiff, you may be optimally loaded to release energy into that structure. They are at maximum Yang, where Yin waits.
Think maybe like their fist and body is the arrow your point of contact is the string, and the rest of your body is the bow that stores the jin. Part of your body pulls the string to store the potential energy in the rest.
Or maybe they withdraw and give you more to work with. Maybe you neutralize with a micro rollback at the point of contact and get to that maximum a lot sooner.
There's a story about an external boxer that tried to surprise Yang Lu Chan and jumped at him with a "Black Tiger Steals the Heart", the report is Yang depressed his chest and expanded it back, like a ball deforming and re-rounding, he landed like a million miles away with his hand still extended in the punch position.
And I DO this, I'm just not that great at it, getting better all the time. Their tension and strength is the bridge, trying to move around it just robs me of the connection.