Sine Wave

[Jason T Gatts]

Is there any evidence (that anyone here is aware of) that the "sine wave" actually adds power (or anything) to a technique?

Have there ever been any kind of tests run to compare a technique with and without the sine wave?

Any personal experience noticing the difference?

[Dennis Monk]

If you mean that weird looking bouncing that some schools are teaching, my answer would be no.

[jwinch2]

Tangental waves are the way to true power

[Eliz]

My weak understanding is the Sine Wave uses gravity to help generate power. In practice, I don't have a clue wether it is effective or not.

I was originally taught quite the opposite - there should never be any bouncing or height variations in forms.

There are a lot of different philosophies surrounding forms and the execution thereof. I believe they are just that, different philosophies surrounding the execution of forms.

Understanding that forms are a mirror of the fight, I would have to ask - how many times have you seen someone "bounce" into a punch or a kick while sparring? I haven't seen too many. Lots of slide kicks, skip kicks, fake/punch combinations - I can't recall seeing someone actually bounce WHILE delivering a technique.

[hizaguchi]

Sine Wave Article

That's a pretty decent article on the idea of the sine wave.

As far as I know though, the best way to maximize your power is to work on perfecting your technique. If there were any tricks that would make a drastic difference in your power, there wouldn't be any debate on them. You don't see people arguing about using your hips to make power, do you?

I say, first you work on the technique. Get your bone allignment, hip rotation, footwork, and breathing down right. Then you can experiment with other ideas and see what works for you. I'm still too busy perfecting the technique though.

[Bugeisha]

What we used to call "sine wave" we now refer to as natural motion. We allow the body to naturally rise and drop as we move.

This is one of those topics that will likely never stop being debated. Both sides are pretty sure of themselves. I, for one, can strike harder if I drop my weight as I strike. This may be due to some vectoring effect of gravity. It may be due to the increase in relaxation I am capable of during an instant of free fall. It may just be because I've practiced that way thousands of times, and we tend to become skilled in whatever we practice.

[Chrono]

I thought it was the amplitude and the frequency that counted.

[LeVampire1]

Sine wave was what the General liked to see. It wasn't meant to be bouncy-bouncy all over the place, but rather a slight up and down motion with your movements. Of course, it will look and feel awkward at first, but it does add power.

As an example, get into a nice front stance and a middle punch. Then take the bend out of the front leg, and almost stand up straight and have someone else put their hand over the punch. Now let the person punching fall back into that front stance again, and whomever has their hand over the punch will feel force forward as you're going down into your stance. That's sine wave. Now imagine how much more force is there if you're in constant motion with sine wave.

[Brandon]

Sine wave was what the General liked to see. It wasn't meant to be bouncy-bouncy all over the place, but rather a slight up and down motion with your movements. Of course, it will look and feel awkward at first, but it does add power.

As an example, get into a nice front stance and a middle punch. Then take the bend out of the front leg, and almost stand up straight and have someone else put their hand over the punch. Now let the person punching fall back into that front stance again, and whomever has their hand over the punch will feel force forward as you're going down into your stance. That's sine wave. Now imagine how much more force is there if you're in constant motion with sine wave.

Another great example of that is to actually position your fist just mere centimeters from the other person's chest and do the same drop. It WILL push you back with suprising force without doing anything other than dropping your weight. Combo that with an actual punch, and I am sold. I have been skepticle of the "bouncy" technique until that had been demontrated. I am now changing my entire line of thinking. If you take a look at the forms from General Choi's Legacy cd, you will see that all the forms demonstrate the use.

Click here for demonstrations of Sine Waves in Taekwon-do forms

[DragonMind]

I'm sorry, but Po-eun just looks silly done that way. If you watch Chun-ji carefully, all he is doing is raising his foot about 6 inches every time he steps, then sort of "falls" into the punch/block. Any extra power generated by that would be negligible IMHO since the distance is really too small for gravity to have much effect.

[Brandon]

I'm sorry, but Po-eun just looks silly done that way.

I do totally agree that it looks silly as hell! However, IMHO a fast six inch drop of 180 pounds can create an impressive force. Drop a 180 pound barbell on your chest from six inches. Ouch! I fought the idea for a long time myself. I think it is great to see a discussion on the topic.

[hizaguchi]

The mechanics of dropping a barbell and punching while sinking are very different. In the punch, the full extra force from the dropping weight would only be directly additive if you were punching straight down. Since you are instead punching horizontally, the total force of the punch and the drop combined (which is often cited as the advantage of the sine wave method) is the square root of the sum of the squares of the forces. (Vector mechanics. Think of the punch and the drop being 2 sides of a right triangle, with the resultant power being the hypoteneuse.) That will give you a better idea of the actual power increase. Then you have to take into account the forward momentum lost when you shift from moving forward to moving downward.

[Brandon]

Thanks for that break down. I guess if it helps power at all, I will try to use it. lol I also have to admit that in sparring or in a street situation the Sine wave would fly right out the window for me.

[ezzthetic]

I know this is putting karate on a tkd thread, but I made a journey from practicing horizontal torque for power to submitting to nature. Boxing at the highest level employs the best of both worlds. Here's an account of karate master Shigeru Egami:

Master Shigeru Egami was a very active karateka during all his life. He practiced the modern karate styles. He tried to correct errors in his practice by searching for true technical effectivity. His account:

"One day I decided to find out if my tsuki was really effective and what was actually necessary to make it effective. Considering that I could not experiment on other people I found only one solution, ask every type of people to punch me in the stomach with all their might. This way I would be able to study the quality of each blow. I received blows from karatekas, boxers, kendokas, judokas, etc.

The surprising and depressing results of this study were that the tsuki in Karate was the least effective of them all. I found out another shocking fact: the longer and more seriously a karateka had trained, less effective were the tsuki.

The strongest blows were those of the boxers. Another surprising fact was that blows by people with no training whatsoever were extremely strong.

I was terribly shocked with these results. What could explain this? What did this mean? What is truly effective then?

Roy Jones Jr is a master of this art, as is James Toney. Winky Wright is very good at this as well (see his fight vs Felix Trinidad) but he does this with his jab exclusively, so he isn't knocking guys out.

I've also seen this is something practical Hsing-I seems to concentrate on in terms of basic body mechanics. To me, Hsing-I at the basic level is the art of falling on the opponent.

The point of my post and Egami's story is that this is revolutionary stuff to certain arts, but not to the punching game. It looks very silly when it is stylized like that though and few boxers learn this as a complete system.

[Brandon]

I've enjoyed all of the responses. For a comic treat Click HERE

[Spookey]

Dear Brandon,

Loved the clip...the IRONY is this...the plaque in the rear is Korean Hangul...it appears to read "In Ne" which in English translates as PERSERVERANCE!


TAEKWON!
SpooKeY

[hizaguchi]

Dadi's story reminds me of my wife. She's never had any type of training, but she can punch harder than anybody I know. And she reminds me of this fact often. The basic physics that govern the power of a punch are very simple, but there are so many muscles and joints involved in the execution that it is very difficult to pinpoint exactly what some people do differently. They just happen to naturally have it right. Maybe too much practice with overly strict techniques cause us to unlearn some things.

Kicks are totally different though. They are comparatively simple techniques. That's my favorite thing about TKD. I know exactly what to do to get the most out of my kicks, and I work on those things until I get them right. This always yields noticable results. I don't have to debate with myself about whether or not I'm approaching my training correctly. I just know how the technique should be done, and I work to teach my body to do it that way. I wouldn't be surprised if an untrained person could out punch me, but their kicks wouldn't even be close.

[ezzthetic]

Dadi's story reminds me of my wife. She's never had any type of training, but she can punch harder than anybody I know. And she reminds me of this fact often. The basic physics that govern the power of a punch are very simple, but there are so many muscles and joints involved in the execution that it is very difficult to pinpoint exactly what some people do differently. They just happen to naturally have it right. Maybe too much practice with overly strict techniques cause us to unlearn some things.

Exactly, you can only teach general theory and get the ball moving step by step, but in the end all the variables mean each person must individualize his approach. Stylizing this type of motion too much is like trying to cram an elephant into a coke bottle.

[hizaguchi]

There is a thread on a similar idea over on Bullshido. Evidently, it is common knowledge among boxing trainers that you cannot teach someone to punch with alot of power... they have to be born with it.

However, the martial arts punch does have its benefits. Even if it is not always the most powerful punch, it does make a point of stressing important details like bone allignment, which could save you from an injury. Also, if you are not just a naturally good puncher (I'm not), it does provide a model of effective technique that you can use to increase your power. And, since the only explanation I can think of for why an untrained punch can be stronger than a trained one is that some people just naturally get the complex movements right, it seems logical that if you practiced enough with the typical MA punch and an open mind, you could eventually hammer out all of the snags in your technique and be left with a punch that is not only powerful, but also structurally sound.

And I just realized how severely we've derailed this thread.

[DragonMind]

There is a thread on a similar idea over on Bullshido. Evidently, it is common knowledge among boxing trainers that you cannot teach someone to punch with alot of power... they have to be born with it.

Of course, "common knowledge" is often wrong; flat Earth anyone? I would suspect the real issue is the amount of time needed to get someone into the ring and making money. What trainer wants to spend years trying to teach someone to punch when they can take a "natural" puncher and get them into the ring sooner?