It's All In The Hips

People who train in the martial arts realize that it's all in the hips. Well, mostly anyways. Your legs are your rooted connection to the strong Earth element, and tapping into that force, by gripping the ground, and using it to turn your body makes your punches, kicks, blocks, and other attacks stronger by atleast ten times.

Your punch in itself is powerful, even without hip rotation, but look at it this way. Imagine your hand as a chisel. If you strike something repeatedly with a chisel, you will eventually knock it loose, but it takes much more effort than if you use a hammer behind that chisel. Your hips are the concussive force that drives the chisel right to its' mark, making it more powerful, and more effective. Force = Mass x Acceleration. It's simple physics. A punch off of the shoulder has the mass of the arm and fist, and all of the acceleration that the pectoral and arm muscles can muster. Whereas, a punch coming from the ground up has the mass of the ENTIRE body behind it, plus the acceleration of the hips twisting forward, and the punch rocketing forward from its' chamber.

One of the first things you have to understand about hip rotation, is that you cannot and will not get a good hip swing until you have developed strength and stability in your lower body. After developing stability and strength in your lower body, the next step to achieving your full power is developing strength and stability in your core. The last, but not least important step is the strengthening of your arms and upper torso.

The last tip that I'll share for now is that without a proper stance, you won't be able to fully unlock the power of your hips. If your stance is too wide, too narrow, too deep, or too shallow, your hips will not become unlocked, and much of your power will be lost, and expelled in the wrong direction.

I hope you've found this article helpful. Until next time, have a blessed day.

A New Beginning

Hello, everyone. My name is Alex, and I would like to welcome you to my blog. For my first entry, I would like to let you get to know me and my background a little bit better.


I am seventeen years old, I am a lifetime resident of North Carolina. I am an avid martial artist, I currently take six classes per week. I study:

• Shotokan Karate(first degree brown belt)
  
• Ving Tsun Gung Fu(white sash)
  
• and Youn Wha Ryu(first degree blue belt).
  

I have studied several other styles in the past, including:

• Judo(white belt)
  
• Tsunami Ryu[an eclectic style, encompassing Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Aikijutsu, Bojutsu, Iaijutsu, Karate, Gung Fu, and several other styles](Junior Black Belt, Trainee Instructor)
• Tae Kwon Do(purple belt)
• and Tang Soo Do(purple belt)

My goal for the future is to teach, and own my own school, where all styles and forms of martial arts are accepted.

Aside from martial arts, I am a musician, a visual artist, and a writer. I play guitar, aswell as sing and write music; I take photographs and draw and I also write short stories and poems. If you have a request for a piece, just let me know and I should be more than happy to oblige.

If you have anything else that you want to know about me, just ask! I am a very friendly person, and would be more than thrilled to answer any questions you may have about myself, martial arts, or anything else I may know the answer to.

Until next time, thanks for reading my blog, have a blessed day.