Sine wave movement

rayjag · Yellow Belt

I have read briefly of this before and do not remember the precise meaning. I am sure someone out there can elaberate.
Thanks in advance.

RJ

KarateEd · KF Sempai

As you advance up and down the floor or practice a form your body bobs up and down. This movement resembles a sine wave and thus the name. According to a video I found on YouTube, you begin your movement low and then move up as you step forward, finishing in the low position again. I think it is supposed to provide extra snap/power as you execute your techniques. Here is the link to the video: sine wave.

This concept is relatively new to me, so others on the forums may have more/better information.

Ed
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DWx · KF Sensei

Sine wave is generally only done by ITF practitioners, although some other Chang Hon schools may do it as well. It was originally introduced by the ITF as a way or introducing more power into techniques because it is supposed to utilise more mass than the standard linear motion used by most other MAs. Whether it does this or not is open to debate. I've never really come across an extensive study comparing the two. However to do a fair test will probably be very difficult. The whole mantra that "it is not the style but the fighter" holds true with comparing sine wave vs. no sine wave and I would expect that there are certain techniques too which favour either one way or the other. Personally, it works for me, its the way I've always done it, and to be honest I find the linear approach extremely unnatural, but then again my opinion is biased.

The main problem with sine wave is that it is over exaggerated way too much, either because of competition or simply due to a misunderstanding of how it is supposed to work. A lot of the videos you see are either teaching videos (like the one of Gen. Choi Ed posted) or tournament videos. Both of these are going to show an exaggerated sine wave. Sine wave is less about conciously going up and down and more about relaxing between each movement. I once had it described to me as having your whole body sigh. When you sigh normally your upper body relaxes and naturally goes down, this is what your whole body should be doing. Thus the bent knee comes from relaxing your muscles rather than gripping them to bend. You then push up above your baseline (the height you started from) and then drop back down to your baseline. The amount you go up should neither be greater than the amount you went down nor done faster, this leads to a smooth sine wave rather than the jagged version you sometimes get.

Stuart Anslow has quite a good article on it, as does TKDTutor.
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bushido_man96 · KF Sensei

I like Anslow's work, and I hope he gets another volume out sometime soon! I think he is on the money about the over exaggeration of the sine wave, especially as seen in tournament performances. From many of the ITF form performances that I have seen, the movements are too slow for my taste, and they are not conducive to forming combinations.

From viewing Anslow's article that you have posted, I would tend to say that my school performs the Chang On forms the 'very old' way. Maybe between 'very old' and 'original.' We are very linear in how we do the forms.
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