The Art of doing sanchin without doing sanchin kata

In the last sanchin kata post I looked at the mysterious (to me at least) connection between upper and lower body sections and its importance in punching. Here I intend to use examples from beyond Goju Ryu and Karate to illustrate this connection. As noted this connection is the most important, or prominent, but there are many other lesser connections that need to be contributing to a punch’s delivery, these also should not be floppy!

Doing Sanchin without the Dachi

Holding the starting press-up position in place, the plank, is an example of when the pelvic floor simply has to be engaged to make the position strong. If you are floppy rather than engaged the posture will sag. You can see this sagging in many adult beginners and a lot of younger kids, when they attempt press-ups. In fact kids can perform some hilarious attempts at press-ups due to weakness or age-related under-developed musculature.

This is an instance where engaging the pelvic floor and deep core muscles is essential to maintaining posture, it is roughly equivalent to the static sanchin dachi of the kata where you are immovable. Everything is strong and pulled in at the waist with a lifted or rotated pelvis. This part is often grossly exaggerated thereby negating the positive effect. When trying to get the connection message across to kids I call this the ‘Michael Jackson’.

When performed correctly this form of connection has many martial applications but is pretty useless in isolation, with stability there needs to be mobility.

Adding Mobility to Sanchin Kata

Using the pelvic floor to lock-in the stance is often achieved by Goju Ryu people but when it comes to punching the connection at the waist is often lost, i.e. it becomes floppy. The stability gained in sanchin can be used to resist in Goju Ryu training practices such as kakie but mysteriously does not transfer to punches. This is NOT universally true, I’ve trained with some exceptional Goju people who can engage their pelvic floor and have fantastic punches.

I personally think that because the sanchin kata shime testing tends to be on the hard side the external muscles are emphasised to the detriment of the deeper muscles, such as those of the pelvic floor. However, once the Goju Ryu person learns to lock in they become stronger but as the shime testing still emphasises the hard the soft is neglected. This means that there is no transfer of the connection from stability to mobility. Hopefully, that makes sense, if not the following example should.

I watched a great video of pro-MMA fighter Ross Pearson circuit-training with a tornado ball. To get the benefit from training with this device the connection simply has to be present. If not rather than smashing it from side to side with force the ball would be waved from side to side. I have never used such a thing but remember the first time I tried a similar exercise with a dumbbell at Uni, I was surprised at the intensity required to chuck a relatively light weight about. The video clip shows this exercise and others being performed well, the deep core muscles are being engaged.

The connection requirement to successfully get the tornado ball moving is the same as that required to successfully manage a whipping punch and to produce power at the waist. Mastering the tornado ball will help you power your punches and is a way of doing (one aspect of) sanchin without doing sanchin kata!