Monday, May 26, 2014

the science behind the one-inch punch


popularmechanics |  Forget all those broken boards and crumbled concrete slabs. No feat of martial arts is more impressive than Bruce Lee’s famous strike, the one-inch punch. From a single inch away, Lee was able to muster an explosive blow that could knock opponents clean off the ground. Lee mastered it, fans worldwide adored it, and Kill Bill "borrowed" it. But if you’re like us, you want to know how it works.

While the biomechanics behind the powerful blow certainly aren’t trivial, the punch owes far more to brain structure than to raw strength.

Biomechanical Breakdown
To understand why the one-inch punch is more about mind than muscle, you first have to understand how Bruce Lee delivers the blow. Although Lee’s fist travels a tiny distance in mere milliseconds, the punch is an intricate full-body movement. According to Jessica Rose, a Stanford University biomechanical researcher, Lee’s lightning-quick jab actually starts with his legs.

"When watching the one-inch punch, you can see that his leading and trailing legs straighten with a rapid, explosive knee extension," Rose says. The sudden jerk of his legs increases the twisting speed of Lee’s hips—which, in turn, lurches the shoulder of his thrusting arm forward.

As Lee’s shoulder bolts ahead, his arm gets to work. The swift and simultaneous extension of his elbow drives his fist forward. For a final flourish, Rose says, "flicking his wrist just prior to impact may further increase the fist velocity." Once the punch lands on target, Lee pulls back almost immediately. Rose explains that this shortens the impact time of his blow, which compresses the force and makes it all the more powerful. 

18 comments:

Vic78 said...

I appreciate that people are discovering neuroplasticity(that's the advanced game). Bruce put his 10,000 hours in long before he moved to LA. You'll find the same thing with Kobe, Kramnick, and BJ Penn.

umbrarchist said...

They can't think of something as simple as mandatory accounting in the schools but then they didn't get it so do they want kids to have that advantage?

CNu said...

lol, wtf?

BigDonOne said...

In the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, "What difference does it make...??"

CNu said...

As much as you're on about it, to the exclusion of any other thoughts, (sorry 9/11 and sci-fi booklist) - I surely hope you have gainful employment as an accountant somewhere. I can picture you high up in the carbon and carbon bldg, fingers stained from long and meticulous back and forth into a pot of india ink...

CNu said...

I pictured Tom, swilling Stella, listening to music loud, organizing this and that so that grilling was a breeze today - every now and again, checking email and replying to your increasingly bizarre (and frankly embarrassing) outgassings. Like peeling a rotten onion to see how deep the blighted patch goes.


To answer your kwestin BD, I was disappointed when he turned his attention elsewhere, without conclusively establishing just how completely phukked in the head you truly are. See, this is why it's impotant for you to hang your own shingle and proudly put your freak flag on display - free of any editorial interference...,

Tom said...

Heh heh, oh, I see what BD's gettin at now! That sapsucker never gives up changin the subject, do he?


Only it's just I thought we had finally turned the corner and started talkin bout human beins, and then here he is agin with the damn dogs! Dang it!


Oh well .... Happy Memorial Day everybody ....

Tom said...

BD:


Q: Do you agree that races of people were generally formed by natural boundaries to transportation -- that is, by accident of geography?

umbrarchist said...

What is really funny is that I had a man who claimed to be an accountant say that he had no objection to the idea as long as it was done after he retired in six years. LOL

But I have also had a Swedish socialist high school teacher object to the idea on the grounds that the math would make capitalism seem logical to the students.

But double-entry accounting is SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS OLD. Isn't accounting among the first things corporations began using computers for in the 50s and 60s. But now we have grade school kids with smartphones more powerful than 1960s mainframes. So what is the big deal about kids knowing it like riding a bicycle? Are bicycles 700 years old?

Why is 4 years of English literature more important? That is what I got in high school. I don't even know it they had an accounting course, I don't recall any mention of the possibility of taking one.

And I didn't just say sci-fi book list.

The Tyranny of Words (1938) by Stuart Chase
http://www.anxietyculture.com/tyranny.htm
http://archive.org/details/tyrannyofwords00chas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9H1StY1nU8


But sci-fi generates dopamine.

umbrarchist said...

But what has Occupy Wall Street said that is of any long term value?

CNu said...

Um..., they coined and popularized the term 1%. I'ma go with the long-term utility of that over double-entry accounting and depreciation - which don't quite seem to have gotten traction quite yet...,

Constructive_Feedback said...

Brother CNu:


Do you have any record of what the remnants of the "Occupy Movement" did in response to the revelations about NSA Domestic Spying which was the talk of the nation about a year ago?


Why is it that the activist forces that have "COINTELPro" books as "required reading" on their bookshelves were so strangely silent and unmotivated to take to the streets in protest against the Federal Government domestic surveillance programs?

CNu said...

A search of Occupy Wall Street http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=occupy+wall+street and a search of Anonymous hereabouts would comprise the extent of my "records" http://subrealism.blogspot.com/search?q=anonymous

As for why the kufi/daishiki set was so quiet;

1. They have no technical skills and no technology platform or base
2. They got their asses handed to them by Cointelpro in the 70's
3. Federally coordinated beatdowns of Occupy and round-ups of Anonymous cooled a lot of folks jets

A lot depends on how coordinated you suppose Wikileaks, Anonymous, and Occupy to have been...,

Tom said...

Nothing. They're mostly white people after all.

Tom said...

At this point BD fled the interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Je2WxsqWA

umbrarchist said...

The utility of that 1% meme is incalculable even if it is worthless. The trouble is that reality does not care what human beings do and do not calculate.


Millions of automobiles owned by consumers depreciate a little bit every day regardless of whether or not it is calculated. But if it is not calculated and reported at least annually then our economic figures are out of wack for the entire planet. It means the way we think about the economy is wrong. We have this pseudo-growth that is really nothing but compensation for depreciation.



I have had one PhD economist say I was correct and that our textbooks are wrong. But how do prestigious educational institutions admit to having their algebra incorrect for 60 years? LOL

umbrarchist said...

I looked up something really funny a few days ago. I searched the website of the Catholic high school I attended.

The tuition is almost $10,000 per year now.

I don't know if they had accounting courses when I was there. No one told me and it did not occur to me to ask. They have two courses now but they are electives for Jr and Sr years.

$10,000 per kid and no National Recommended List. I wonder if a really good list could make it impossible for high schools to charge that much. What could I have learned in 4 years if someone had just told me the right books when I was 13?



Here is a library kid go in and stumble around in the dark.

CNu said...

Well, that depreciation is abstracted from the net available energy and scarce material resource calculus. That's only for tax and asset valuation purposes. The reason our calculations are wack is because they don't take into consideration finite material resources, period.

As far as the 1% goes, we need only consider Pikkitty's - Proustian though wildly popular - account of the political economics of the 1% as an extension of that invaluable meme. No, I believe that Occupy, Wikileaks, and Anonymous have done yoeman's work in the field of freeing minds. (we'll just have to see if asses follow....,)

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