Power: This is what the board breaking in Tae Kwon Do and Karate are all about, right? What's the old saying? "If you can break a board, you can break a rib." True, though boards don't dodge and hit back. I would describe power in martial arts as the ability to generate force. Force enough to block an incoming strike, force to penetrate and damage a target, force to push or knock an opponent back, etc.
I was practicing a step-through punch on a padded shield in a rotating line of students a few years ago. The guy holding the shield said "I don't know what you're doing, but I can really feel your punches coming through the pad." What he felt was power. The target was large and did not require precise accuracy. It was stationary and did not require high speed. I was actually doing a combination of three things to generate the power my fellow student could feel.
1. I dropped my weight slightly when stepping forward and made contact with the punch at the moment my front foot began to stop and absorb my forward and downward momentum. Imagine bending your knees on a bathroom scale. The needle jumps, right? At that precise instant, if I weigh 160 pounds, I could hit as hard as a 200 pound person. There are disadvantages to dropping your weight, such as telegraphing, but that's another subject.
2. Mentally, I did not focus on the pad, I focused on the guy behind it. As a result, my brain didn't tell my fist to stop at the pad's surface, and it kept going. Visualization is important because the mental has a strong effect on the physical.
3. I was breathing out sharply at the moment of impact. Now I cannot completely explain how this works, but it does. When you breath in harmony with your strikes and kicks, you get a boost in power that is definitely noticeable. I've been kicked in the stomach and chest hard enough to knock me back several steps. When I breathed properly, it didn't even hurt. It's almost as if your body generates an energy shockwave which absorbs the incoming force. That's what it feels like to me.
So Visualization, proper breathing, and what Kenpo calls the "marriage of gravity" (dropping your weight) are some ways to generate power.
Speed: This is an interesting skill and one that can sabotage power and accuracy if you're not careful. I've seen over and over again how accuracy and precision begin to deteriorate if you speed up a technique combo too soon. Also, high speed often has the effect of reducing target penetration (you "pull the punch" in anticipation of the next move). It really is key to balance power, speed, and accuracy so they compliment each other instead of detracting from each other.
Speed is important because it allows you to reach a live target before it has a chance to move or block your strike. It's also important in Kenpo because of necessary timing. For example: if I don't follow my angled down block to an incoming kick with a groin kick of my own soon enough (Thrusting Salute), I lose the benefit of "borrowed force". In other words, when someone is trying to kick me and I suck them in by deflecting the leg off diagonally, they will step down forward. If I kick them while the their body is still moving forward, I add the force of their forward momentum to force of my kick. If I am too slow and wait until their kick plants down before kicking, then it's only my power because they are not longer moving toward me. This is a good example of power and speed complimenting each other. But speed must be controlled. A back hammerfist to the groin followed by a lightening fast upward elbow could send the strike right past the intended target (the jaw) before your attacker has a chance to react to the hammerfist. Timing is an important and needs to be used to control speed.
Accuracy: When I think of accuracy, I think of what I would call "placement accuracy" or the ability to hit precisely where you mean to. But when practicing with fellow students, what I would call "penetration accuracy" is required. You have to hit the target on a human body to be sure of your "placement accuracy", but you need "penetration accuracy" to hit them lightly so you don't cause undue pain or injury. I say "undue pain" because you cannot expect to train in martial arts without pain. But we should try to keep that pain to a minimum while staying honest with ourselves about realism. In a really fight, "penetration accuracy" becomes irrelevant. You just drive it home. But all the power in the world does abosolutely no good if you can't place it where it needs to go. And it's important to practice moves slowly at first to develop "articulate motion" before you start speeding things up. Fast looks cool, but without power and accuracy, it's useless flailing.
One concept I am still struggling with is that relaxing your muscles while you move can actually increase both speed and power (impact on the target). Ever tried power-braking a car? (Pushing the gas to spin the tires, but holding the car back with the brake) This is what happens when there is too much tension in the muscles, and I definitely flex when striking and blocking. I rely too much on the muscle tension for accuracy (I want intensity, but I don't want to kill my fellow students). There are some teens in my class who are very lose. They are quick, but they chop me in the ear or the shoulder sometimes when they are shooting for the neck. Being lose AND accurate takes practice. Being quick and accurate takes a LOT of practice.
Accuracy is much easier with straight punches and front snap kicks than with moves like a spinning back kick. Try having someone spin you around on a merry-go-round and toss a ball to someone standing stationary a short distance away. Now stop the merry-go-round and try it. Much easier! Turning the head first on spinning moves helps keep balance and improve accuracy. Kenpo doesn't use a lot of these because you are turning your back on the threat along with losing some important, solid structure (a grounded, planted stance). It does use looping back knuckles, windmill parries, and many other circular motions, which take some practice in slow motion before accuracy comes easily.
So yes, martial artists are on a quest to grow and develop from stooges to sexy fighting machines. Ok, I admit they probably don't think of it in these terms, and I probably should clarify that I don't really aspire to be a female spy. I just had to think of a highly skilled movie trio to contrast with the Three Stooges.
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