DANGEROUS ADVICE ABOUT HITTING AND POWER

There's a lot of bad information floating around the web recently about what it takes to hit hard and effectively in a fight for your life.

Some styles are advocating hitting with everything you've got and blasting through the target, even visualizing sticking to and coming out the other side.

Although this does emphasize the kind of destruction you need to cause to your attacker, and although it is better than playing the game of "scoring points" with so called "surface" strikes, it has a dangerous flaw: a little thing called "over-commitment."

Power generation is vital but when it sacrifices your balance in the super-high speed chaos of a real fight you can wind up on your ass if you miss by even one inch, or you slip on blood, or your attacker eludes you. In fact, you can hit dead-on, but because of the looseness, reactivity or defensive skills of your attacker, the expectation of impact and that his body will support your balance is a recipe for disaster.

The trick is to be rooted, balanced and hit with full body unity but to rely on YOUR OWN balance. If you assume the enemy will "be there" when your super-duper John Wayne haymaker connects, you're finished.

The way you do this is by developing Dropping Energy. Your target is the center of the mass you intend to hit (for example, approx 3-6 inches deep to the liver or kidneys, 2 inches to the neck, or 1-2 inches to the arms). Developing Dropping Energy allows you to develop power without chambering, winding up, over-committing your balance via over reliance on pure muscle but, most importantly, by "Containing the Over-travel" and redirecting your power back from the weapon to your root. You instantaneoulsy drop your body weight and then halt the drop, reflect it off your root and channel into whatever eapon you're using. This plyometric rebounding further reinforces your balance and reloads your weapons for further strikes with full body unity. It is the "mystical secret" behind the power of temple-trained tai chi masters (of which virtually none remain alive) that anyone can learn with practice--because it's really nothing but simple physics and body mechanics, made even simpler and more effective by John Perkins' Guided Chaos principles.

But can you really hit hard this way? Ask again after John Perkins has "tapped" you with a completely neutered Drop Punch.

You'll be the one who feels "neutered."