Straight Lead. Teri Tom
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Название: Straight Lead
Автор: Teri Tom
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9781462907366
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Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulders’ width apart. Line your right toe up along the line so that your right foot makes about a thirty-degree angle with the line. See Figure 6.
Figure 6: The front foot should form a thirty-degree angle with the line that points toward your target.
Now position your left foot so that the line runs directly under the arch. Raise your left heel, à la Nadi, and turn your left toe in slightly. You should feel all the weight of your left side concentrated on the ball of your left foot. See Figure 7.
Figure 7: All of your power originates from the raised left heel.
Be careful not to raise your left heel so high that you have no more room from which to spring into action. An excessively raised heel will also cause you to be top-heavy, placing your center of gravity in an unfavorable position. Nadi recommended that the left heel be raised approximately half an inch.5 See Figure 8.
You’ll find Nadi’s influence on JKD in Bruce’s notes:
Unlike the traditional flat-footed practice, the left heel is raised and cocked, ever-ready to pull the trigger and go into action.
The left heel is the spark plug, or better still, the piston of the whole fighting machine.6
Compare these observations with their source, Nadi’s On Fencing:
The left leg is not just a prop. It is the spark plug, or better still the piston of the whole fencing machine. . . raising the heel ever so little, you cock the leg ready to pull the trigger and go into action.7
Figure 8: Raise the left heel just enough, but not so high that leverage is compromised.
What both Nadi and Bruce were trying to convey is that much of the potential energy that is unleashed by a fencing lunge or straight lead, respectively, is stored in that left foot. To properly release that energy, though, the heel must be raised, giving spring to the arch of the foot and providing a push-off point in the ball of the foot.
T H E L O W E R B O D Y
Moving up, we now need to properly align the legs. Again, they will be a little wider than shoulders’ width apart, knees slightly bent. We’ve just discussed potential energy in relation to foot position. The same applies to the legs, for it is the left leg that will exert pressure on the ball of the foot, causing the spring so necessary to the straight lead.
Because you will want to propel all your body weight forward, you do not want to waste any extra energy overcoming unnecessary inertia. This is why you want to feel all your weight, all your potential energy, concentrated on the inside, or medial sides, of your legs. If your feet are positioned correctly, you should already be feeling this. See Figure 9.
Figure 9: Left knee correctly turned slightly inward. You should feel all of your weight on the medial sides of your legs.
If you feel some of your weight rolling toward the outside of your foot, you will be slower to initiate the push-off. Again, we want to waste as little energy and time as possible, so not having your weight concentrated in the optimal position prior to throwing a punch is counterproductive, a bit like running uphill. This is why the left toe should be slightly turned inward. Doing this means that we’ll have less inertia to overcome when trying to spring forward. See Figure 10.
Also important to the storing of potential energy is what Bruce referred to as the “small phasic bent-knee stance,”8 The bend in the knees gives you greater flexibility and mobility, allowing you to spring into action at will. Obviously, if you start from a straight-leg position, you have nowhere left to spring from, and, therefore, no way of generating power. From a defensive perspective, bent knees allow you to give a little when receiving punches, taking some of the force out of a blow. And perhaps the most important advantage of a bent-knee stance is that it places your center of gravity in the optimal position—in other words, it enables you to achieve balance.
Figure 10: Left knee incorrectly turned outward.
Your weight will roll outward, slowing your punch.
B A L A N C E
“Center of gravity” is simply defined as the point around which an object’s weight is equally distributed. Suppose you were to throw a baseball bat. You would notice the bat wobbling around the fat end, where the majority of its mass is located. The wobbling occurs about its center of gravity. If, on the other hand, you were to throw a baseball, which is a symmetrical object, it would not wobble, because its center of gravity is located at its center. The way the human body is structured determines that our center of gravity is, for lack of a better word, the tush.
Position of the center of gravity is crucial to maintaining balance, and balance is something repeatedly emphasized throughout Bruce Lee’s notes. To achieve balance, imagine a line dropping straight down from any object’s center of gravity. If that line falls within the base of the object, it is balanced. See Figure 11.
It also follows, then, that the wider an object’s base, the more balanced, or stable, it will be. Think of a pyramid, one of the most stable structures—wide base, low center of gravity. Raising an object’s center of gravity decreases the amount of force required to tip it off-balance, or to move the center of gravity outside its base of support. In Figure 12, the model has a very wide stance, a wide base of support. If we were to draw an imaginary line from his center of gravity to the floor, it would fall within the base determined by his feet. Notice that when you have a very wide stance, you feel as if no one can knock you over. You feel stable. See Figure 12.
Figure 11: When in position, your front and back feet form two points of a triangular base. An imaginary line from your center of gravity to the floor should fall within the base of the triangle. This is the definition of “balance.”
Figure 12: This stance is too wide. While extremely stable because of the lower center of gravity, mobility is greatly compromised.
If your feet are less than shoulders’ width apart, you narrow your base of support, decreasing stability. Your center of gravity is raised. Notice how much less stable you feel. It would take less force to knock you over. Likewise, if you close the stance too much by lining your front toe up with the left toe, instead of the arch, you also decrease the base area and lose stability. See Figure 13 and Figure 43.
Figure 13: A stance that is too narrow does not provide enough stability because of a raised center of gravity.
The proper JKD stance, however, is designed to keep your СКАЧАТЬ