How To Generate Internal Power

[Steve Rowe]

A video I did for woma.tv on internal power...
http://www.woma.tv/generate-internal-power-steve-rowe/

[charles]

Interesting. Thanks for posting it.

A question: what distinguishes "open and close" from "stretch and compress"?

[Steve Rowe]

You can open and close tissue withou stretching or compressing it.

[wetmarble]

I think it's ironic that you are using a relatively recent Western anatomist's thinking to describe concepts pioneered by Chinese physicians well over 1000 years ago in relation to Chinese martial arts.

[I-mon]

Great video Steve. Said a lot in just five minutes - do you have other videos demonstrating examples of the eight core skills?

[zrm]

Thanks for this Steve.

The connection between internal power generation in IMA and some of the more modern concepts in physio work is a topic that's come up a quite a bit in recent discussions with some of my kung fu brothers and sisters. Your video lead me to this interesting interview with Tom Myers who came up with the anatomy train concept. In it he mentions his previous experience in martial arts and some of his personal views regarding concepts such as qi and chakras etc etc.

[jim]

What a great clip Steve - thank you for posting this. I'm sending out to everyone I have in my immediate IMA community.

[middleway]

I think it's ironic that you are using a relatively recent Western anatomist's thinking to describe concepts pioneered by Chinese physicians well over 1000 years ago in relation to Chinese martial arts.

I completely fail to see the Irony there. Especially if the new explanation is more useful, which for a alot of people, it is.

Nice video Steve.

[GrahamB]

The video is called "how to", but I'm not getting much "how to" out of it...

G - once again swimming upstream

[Giles]

Thank you very much for that, Steve.

Is this the YouTube dissection video you refer to in your video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK49wx75FN8

Or do you mean a different one?

Giles

[Bao]

The video is called "how to", but I'm not getting much "how to" out of it...

Agreed. It was a "how works..", not "how to".

I liked the vid a lot though. Very straightforward and sort of demystifying. The IMA world needs a lot more of this kind of instruction. A lot.

[GrahamB]

Bao, I also think "myofacial" is a current buzzword that gets dropped in front of anything these days. It would be interesting to get Tom Myers take on how it applies to martial arts, and if it really does or not. Myers was getting so fed up of people jumping on his bandwagon that he declared he was now "over" the word because it had become meaningless these days due to exaggerations. I'm not qualified to know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5NwyzC6xso



and

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

[I-mon]

Graham, you don't sound like a respectful, interested person asking a genuine question. You sound like you're deliberately trying to be rude and just a little bit insulting, and that's generally not an especially good way to generate respectful, useful discussion. Maybe you don't realise that, I'm not sure.

[middleway]

I think there is a lot of resistance to the Myofascial thing. I have certainly encountered some from more traditional camps who prefer to talk about Jing, Chi, etc. It is even said by some like its a joke to even consider Fascia to be a factor in our motion on in the way we move as IMA practitioners.

But to many the understanding and resulting methods of training lines or chains of tissue actually helps the physical training directly . It isn't just a case of mental masturbation, which is refreshing in a world of esoteric terms in foreign languages, where definition of what they even mean is hotly debated. Ask 10 people what 'Chi' is and in my experience you will get 10 different answers, let alone Jing, dan tien, etc

I have been in contact with one of Thomas Myers early students and he presents methods of training this tissue directly to martial artists of various disciplines. He says he has seen leaps in athletic performance and overall movement skill from those he has trained, but i have not hard evidence of this.

The mistake people make IMO is that when they hear the use of the tern 'fascia' they assume that this is the ONLY important point and invariable start rolling their eyes ... "oh not this again!". But in the diagram that steve uses we can see that Bone, Muscle, Fascia, nerves, etc which are ALL vital components of connected structure and none should be shunned in preference of the other or the 'buzz' object of focus. I dont think anyone can honestly argue that the training and interaction of these tissues is somehow irrelevant to all movement, including the movements of the internal arts.

thanks
Chris.

[RobP3]

But to many the understanding and resulting methods of training lines or chains of tissue actually helps the physical training directly . It isn't just a case of mental masturbation, which is refreshing in a world of esoteric terms in foreign languages, where definition of what they even mean is hotly debated. Ask 10 people what 'Chi' is and in my experience you will get 10 different answers, let alone Jing, dan tien, etc

I've been working a lot lately with Ryabko's method of "moving tension", where you can establish a start and end point from one part of the body to another. Eg, shoulder to the fist. It is interesting how the tension can be moved around this way and how a kind of "mobile" power can be developed with it. It certainly partly accounts for Ryabko's incredible hitting power IMHO.

I have no idea if it has anything to do with Myofascials but I suspect it may have. The Russians have and continue to do a huge amount of research in this area. I'll see if I can get some video up shortly