Back to the Books
This week I was on Zoom class with one of my black belts’ classes, and he was taking a student through a pretty heavy review of principles. Watching that session got me thinking. It had been a little while since I last read Mr. Parker’s Encyclopedia of Kenpo cover to cover, and just as long since I’d sat down with Mr. Mills’ personal additions to it.
So today I started my re-read. I didn’t get far before I had to stop and think, because the very first entry hit on something I’ve been talking about for years: speed.
“You Move Too Fast”
As students of Paul Mills Legacy Kenpo, we hear it all the time: we move too fast. Some of the people saying it obviously never really watched Mr. Parker move-and I mean MOVE. But I digress.
Whenever I made the case for speed, one argument came back at me more than any other. It goes like this: Kenpo strikes are designed to be fast and performed fast, but the gaps between the strikes are where you wait. You wait for your opponent to react and to set up your next strike. You wait to recalibrate and re-examine the situation.
I do see a use for that pause. But in my experience, it usually belongs once the attacker is on his back, not in the middle of the exchange.
Hit Fast, Hit Hard
Mr. Mills taught us to hit fast and hit hard, and the physics backs him up. The principle we lean on in Kenpo is Newton’s second law: force equals mass times acceleration. On the mat, we usually just call that force “power.” I know, I know, there’s a different physics formula for ‘Power’ (power equals force times velocity, but that’s another conversation).
F = m * aThe more acceleration you build in the preparation for your strike, and the better you engage your mass with proper timing, the more force you deliver.
Now look at what the “wait between strikes” approach does. You can have fast strikes, but if you stutter between them, your power drops. The moment you stop or hesitate, you lose all of the acceleration you built. You’re starting over from zero on every strike. A sound wave has variation. There are peaks and valleys, but no stops. Likewise, a sequence of strikes should have changes in rhythm and emphasis that serve what is happening, but should never stop. Deceleration has a purpose. It can help you recover, redirect, or prepare the next action. That is very different from a hesitation that exists simply because you have trained yourself to stop between movements.
There’s a second trap. Power flatlines when your speed levels off and your acceleration drops. Speed becomes momentum rather than acceleration. That’s where timing for emphasis comes into play. At some point you hit your peak acceleration. If you’re already at your personal maximum, you can’t simply move faster. The only way to get more acceleration is to decelerate at the right moment so you can accelerate again. Up and down, like a sound wave. And, of course, the resistance of the target at impact slows your strike naturally, so some of that deceleration is built in. That’s the moment to be accelerating again, not the moment to stop.
The First Entry in the Encyclopedia
Here’s what stopped me on page one of Mr. Parker’s Encyclopedia of Kenpo:
“Accelerated Moves — (2) Rapid moves that gain momentum with each additional move.”
Reading that brought back a conversation I had with Mr. Mills years ago. He told me:
“Sean, your Kenpo should look, fell, and sound like a soundwave. Up and down, accelerating, and then at the right time, decelerating. If your acceleration becomes a constant, our power flatlines, becoming momentum, not force.”
You change it, he explained, depending on your timing for emphasis and whatever the situation requires. Moves that build on each other, with no dead stops in between, and a rhythm that rises and falls on purpose. That’s the difference between fast hands and real power.
Hit Through, Not At
One of the keys to striking with power is to hit through the target, with mass and acceleration, rather than at it. The moment you aim at a target, your brain puts on the brakes as you approach it.
Take the strike to the side of the neck in Sword of Destruction, or the Paul Mills version he called Swords of Fury. If you aim at the neck, you will subconsciously start to slow down as you approach the landing zone. Your acceleration dies right before contact.
So don’t aim at the neck. Aim at the inside of his right ribcage. If you’re striking slightly downward, aim at his right kidney. Now the neck becomes something your strike passes through on the way, and you hit through your target instead of at it. This is great for Contact Manipulation as well, moving your opponent to attempt to setup your next strike.
Acceleration is key. Mass is key. Targeting is key. There are many ways to engage your mass, but the only way to preserve your acceleration, and keep it from settling into momentum, is to hit through targets, not at them.
To me, that is what makes Mr. Parker’s definition worth revisiting. “Rapid moves that gain momentum with each additional move” asks us to consider the relationship between movements—not just the speed of each one in isolation. One action contributes to the next, the rhythm changes, and the emphasis shifts.
And suddenly, I can hear Mr. Mills voice again.
“Your Kenpo should look, feel, and sound like a sound wave.”
Sean Carey, Professor of the Arts
Kokoro Martial Arts
Train It With Us
These are exactly the principles we work on every week, in person at Kokoro Martial Arts and online over Zoom. I’ve been teaching Kenpo over Zoom since 2019, to color belts and black belts alike.
Our online Paul Mills Legacy Kenpo classes meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00 to 8:45 pm Central. New students start with a trial of two private Zoom lessons and two group classes at no charge, and we don’t do contracts.