How Sherman Harrill increased his power with his strike from Seiunchin kata, what was involved was correct Energy Point Alignment

 

When I described how Sherman Harrill demonstrated how the augmented punch from Seiunchin kata created greater force in that strike at one of his demonstrations, I showed it in this post on my blog.

 

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-small-point-from-seiunchin-kata.html

 

 

When I described (actually shared photos) how Sherman found increased power with his augmented short punch from Seiunchin kata, by showing how even a light strike moved Garry Gerrosie explosively back from a that strike, I realized there was an explanation of what was happening.

 

In the kata this is where you hold your right wrist with your left hand and then strike forward.

 

What is occurring is that you are placing your full energy point alignment on that strike.

 

When your left  and wraps around your right striking hand what is occurring is that your energy points of your entire body are aligned when that strike lands.

 

Note: this explanation is something I learned from my T’ai Chi instructor, Ernest Rothrock, that when the energy points are better in alignment with a technique the result is a stronger technique. When I learned how this works I immediately realized this is what stronger karate did, by not making mistakes costing power, really not a secret, rather performance that was what was originally studied.

 

That which is occurring is that when the left hand grabs the right wrist it makes the bodies energy points more aligned. When that occurs there is more power delivered to the strike forward.

 

Of course you do not have to touch the striking hand to have maximum power provided you are correctly aligned, it just makes things easier. There are other methods to reach the same goal. However that is not my concern at this point.

 

What occurs is that when the left hand wraps around the right hand, that moves the left side of the torso forward more strongly aligning the energy points for the strike.

 

The hand does not have to wrap the wrist to obtain the same result. The hand or even one of several fingers might just lay across the striking wrist. Then again the  left open hand can just lie atop the right wrist without touching and that can make the alignment of the energy points complete and creating the perfect power in the strike.

 

This does not get into the other uses for this two hand formation, though there are many of them. Rather it is intended to just focus on one of them.

 

That day Sherman gave yet another lesson that keeps on giving.

 

The reality resulting from correct energy point alignment across our Isshinryu is best experienced. Once you are shown the difference it makes, then you are further convinced to work to improve your Isshinryu performance. And it is not magic for after all you are just better, more knowledge about why you were first shown how to perform your Isshinryu technique.

 

Some of my prior posts about how I learned about Energy Point Alignment can be found here.

 

 

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2017/07/correct-alignment.html

 

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2013/06/basics-of-energy-point-alignment.html

 

https://isshin-concentration.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-diagram-showing-energy-point-alignment.html