Getting the Shocking Force

Today I was reminded of an important lesson in training. It's simple, but there is a story, which is good for people that come here to read stories.

I've felt for a while that my shocking strikes, particularly straight shocking and turning the body shocking, have been a bit weak. Not only that, but I felt they kind of made my back hurt, so I figured I must be doing them incorrectly. Discouraged, I reacted by doing fewer of them. The situation did not improve.

Finally, I've decided this situation is not acceptable any longer, and that aspect of my training must take priority and be addressed. I broke out the Lion system videos the other day and watched. Then I thought about them and played with them, but I still only had a little success. Then I did it again today, taking time to write down the requirements of the strike that are presented on the video, the physiological methods by which the shocking force is generated, and my observations of things not spoken about but plainly done in the execution of the strikes. After studying my lists for a moment, I set to doing the strikes, and I did a gracious plenty of them.

I had to start by doing them essentially in slow motion, feeling my way through them, trying to discover where the change from 'slow' to 'fast' occurred and determine what my body should be doing to make that happen. Pretty soon, by remembering the video (in which I saw things that I hadn't before noticed), paying attention, and experimenting with myself, I started to feel what seemed correct. A few more strikes later, paying close attention to what I was doing and feeling, it started to set itself like concrete. Before I knew it, I was at a regular striking cadence, feeling strong at least three out of four times, and glad to be doing it. One of the kids asked me if I knew I was making the whole room shake.

Then I rested and did it again later, and again later, and again later, etc., performing all-in-all around five hundred straight shocking strikes interspersed with the shocking palm strengthening posture in the middle position. Then I applied what I was learning from it to the turning the body strike, and it made my back hurt from the word go.

Experimenting and remembering old lessons I had learned about the proper positioning and use of the waist and then contemplating the physics of the situation, I realized my problem almost at once, tried the strike again correcting for it, and felt no pain. Within a few strikes, my power was increasing, though it's not yet to the level that my straight shocking is. I did a few more of them a couple of times, but I've decided to focus primarily on the straight shocking to build the foundation before moving on. By the end of the week, though, I expect to feel the strength I've been missing for over two years of training those strikes.

The big take-home lesson I got was something I already preach but wasn't intelligent enough to practice in this case: if you want to get better at a strike, review the requirements and then do it, a lot, intelligently.