Hey. Ando here from SenseiAndo.com and Happy Life Martial Arts. Today, it's
my honor to be standing here with Sifu Matt Ember, longtime practitioner of Kung
Fu San Soo and, more importantly, my teacher for over 20 years. So, if you like the
content you see on my site or if you don't like the content you see on my
site, well, I'm gonna have to share the credit and the blame with this guy right
here. Is that fair? <Okay. <Yeah. So, today, instead of listening to me yammering as
usual, Sifu Matt was kind enough to throw in a challenge to you, and give you a tip
to help make your martial arts a little more powerful. Are you ready to go? <Ready.
Let's do it.
Okay. So, here we go. Thanks again for doing this by the way. <You're welcome.
<All right. What do you got there. <I've got a six-pack ring. <Wow. So, you were up late
last night preparing for this today. Drinking. <I do the best I can. <Thank you
very much. <Give, give, give. That's my motto. <So, these are beer rings or soda can rings.
<Soda can rings. Whatever. It's your standard six-pack ring, mostly used to kill wildlife.
<Excellent. Trapping tip. <Today we're going to do a little party challenge. Fold the
ring up and fold it again so you have basically one ring. <So, the six rings
become one. <Six rings become one ring. The challenge is snatch the
pebble from my hand. No, the challenge is can you break this ring? <Okay. Can you break this ring?
That's the challenge. <Can you break this ring? <All right. <It's harder than it looks. Should I go? <Go for it.
Yes. Very nice. Now, I can tell you that may have looked easy, but I did try this
a few years ago when he first presented this concept, and I think my finger is
still jammed from it and I definitely pulled something in my shoulder.
I haven't tried it since and it's more than likely I will not be doing it again on
camera today. <Oh, come on. <Maybe I'll add it at the end if I do it. So, where in the world did you start this?
And why is this important? <Why is this important?
That's a bigger question I can't possibly answer. But where did I start?
<I learned this trick in 1979 at a high school party that I was
at, and the strongest guy in my high school used to do this as a party trick
to prove how strong he was, which was unnecessary. But then one day he called
me over into like a coat closet and said, "Hey, I'm going to show you how to do it.
This will be really cool because-- look at you! And if you can do this, people
will be amazed. <Like Royce Gracie in the UFC. If the smallest guy can go in and
beat everybody, then this is cool. <Sure. I'm just like Royce Gracie in the UFC.
So, he taught me the trick and and now I'm going to talk about it with you. <All right.
Help me! <Okay. Well, your hands are a
little bigger than mine. I can get three fingers in there, but two fingers is
fine if you got bigger hands. Two fingers is fine. It doesn't matter.
I can do it with two. It doesn't matter. <Yeah. <The real key is the relaxation, the slack
on the rings. You don't want any tension or pretension on the rings.
Just let the rings be as slack as you can make them. You know, keep your
hands together. <Okay. <And then take a breath because you need something to
expel. You need to breathe in so you can breathe out. <Okay. <You have to breathe out
to deliver power. So, you take a little breath, bring it in, and then remember you're
only going to here. You're not, it's not about getting it all out wide and exploding
the universe, it's just about exceeding this flexibility. So, if you get to about
here and you haven't done it, it's stretched to here, give up. <Okay.
<So, it's just to here. <So, don't break my back. <Yeah, don't break your back. It's not about
full extension, it's just about acceleration to here. <Okay. Oh, man.
[BLEEP]. You're a terrible teacher. It must be you, it's not me. Just... oh, wait.
<20 years.
<Oh, wait.
Don't look at me. Don't look at me.
Okay, so, cool challenge. What in the world does this have to do with martial arts?
<Wow. Not much. <Okay. <No, no...
It's about maximizing your delivery of power, especially if you're a smaller person.
Ando is, what-- 5'10"? <6', thank you very much. <6'? You're 6'? <Low self-esteem.
I am an honest 5'7" and I am an honest 143 pounds, so, I'm not gonna overwhelm
anybody physically. I'm not gonna be able to grab somebody and push them and have him move.
If he resists at all, I'm the one who's gonna move.
He's bigger, heavier, and stronger, and younger, faster... I don't wanna talk about it.
So, what is it about? It's about-- to get "sciencey"-- it's about the difference between speed
and acceleration. Speed is how fast something is going. Miles per hour, feet
per second. Acceleration is the rate of change in that speed. Zero to 60.
How quickly can you get there? And that's acceleration. The speed you end up going
is 60, but how quickly can you get to 60? <Yes. <And with the rings, if I can have one more of those. <Sure.
<Sure. <With the rings, you're talking about a piece of
plastic and plastic is flexible. And what I want to do is exceed its parameters of
flexibility quickly, and then they snap. But if I do it slowly, they stretch.
And the application to martial-arts is, let's say I'm going to do a leverage. A simple
simple leverage that we've all learned. And if I apply this gradually or slowly,
I'm using whatever strength I have against whatever strength he has.
Guess what happens when he decides to use his strength? Nothing. I don't get the
leverage. I can't even turn his wrist if he holds still.
It's not gonna work because I'm smaller than him. But if I can exceed, if I can accelerate quickly,
I might be able to exceed his flexibility parameter. And if I do,
if I snap it as opposed to apply it, if I snap it, not only can I cause the movement
that I want, but I might be able to break this. But if I apply it more and more and
more and more and then maximum, I'm never gonna break anything, because he's not
even gonna move. <Right. So, it's about the snap. And I'm not even talking about
using my legs. I'm talking about just my body. My torso, my arms, my hands.
<If you add the legs then it's even... <If you add the legs, you can extend this
whole concept down to the ground, which is torquing. The torquing from the ground
up to your feet, to your hips, to your waist, your core, to your shoulders.
All that stuff. And dropping your weight, so that you're using the biggest muscles
that you possess. Your quads, and your glutes, and your
hamstrings. You're using those biggest muscles as part of what you're using to
generate power with the same acceleration
that I'm doing when I snap the rings with my hands and arms. <So, that's pretty
powerful information, because I think a lot of people focus on the ideas,
generally, of speed and power. So, they're thinking if my muscle is bigger that's
better, and if I can move my body faster in
general, that's better. But either way, if you're still not applying the
acceleration, if you don't have the explosiveness of it, or that kime,
that moment of pure commitment of everything, then the techniques still are
gonna be very difficult to make effective for a smaller person. No matter
how much muscle you add or how fast you think you are, unless you're
committed to that moment of explosiveness, then the technique doesn't
work as well. Is that a fair way to... <Yeah, that's exactly how I would think of it.
You know the phrase "speed kills", and that's good you want speed,
speed is a great neutralizer. Speed gets you to a place quickly, but
really I'll just use a simple word-- snap. <Mm-hmm. <That acceleration is the snap.
And the snap is what gets it done for me as a smaller person against him, because
if I don't have snap, he will overpower me every time. <Which is a great contrast
with the snap versus tap, if you're doing something like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
or a submission art, people are always looking, kind of like, for the slow stretch, which
is like the flexible ring. You're stretching the ring to give your partner
the time to say, "Okay, okay, okay. I see where this is going." But in a street
application, it's more likely you just pop. So, you go faster than they can even
realize that they're in danger, so that you... < They don't have a chance to tap because
they're already broken. <Right. <It already happened. It's past tense. And you know,
now you're getting into the difference between sport and reality. And I love
sports. <Right. <So, I'm never going to be anti-sport of any kind. UFC, MMA,
whatever, basketball, I'm in. <Right. <But actual combat, actual street level "I
live, you die" situations, I don't want you to tap out. That's the last thing I'm
looking for. <Right. <I'm looking to break something and move on. Right. Great.
I think that's an important talk. If you want to keep up with Sifu Matt and get more
tips from him, well, you're out of luck, my friend. He doesn't have a website. He
doesn't really care about you. But that means you're gonna have to keep coming
back here, so make sure you thumb up this video and--or give this video a thumbs up
I should say-- yikes, and don't forget to hit subscribe. Until next time, thanks
again, Sifu Matt, and keep fighting for a happy life.