Okay, guys, there's a concept I've been trying to wrap my head around. It comes from Euro martial arts, it basically deals with swords, yet it would seem a universal principle, but some of the implications are hard to accept intuitively. So I'm asking for the FMA/real stickfighting perspective on the following.
It seems pretty obvious that the hand is faster than the foot(step). I can begin and complete a swing or stab with any weapon faster than I can complete one step.
However, it's also pretty obvious that you don't usually commence attacking someone from within reach. You usually have to step to do it.
So I'm outside of reach, and I want to hit my opponent with a weapon.
Let's say I (1) step and swing at the same time, as fast as I can. The foot being slower, looses the race, and my swing goes by, missing the target before my foot brings me close enough to actually hit him. Obviously bad.
On the other hand, I could (2) start my hand moving AFTER I start my foot moving. Step and hit. Only problem here is, I'm stepping close to him BEFORE swinging my weapon...he doesn't even have an attack of mine to worry about yet, all he has to do is discern an open target on my body and hit it, which he can easily do because I'm stepping towards him, he only has to use his hand speed and not his stepping speed to reach me. Probably bad.
Now, if I start swinging my weapon at the same time I star moving my foot, then I'm at least throwing out an attack for my opponent to deal with, thus helping to deal with the second problem...but what keeps me from running into the first problem I stated? How do I make my strike land at the same time my foot brings me within reach to hit, if I start swinging my weapon at the same time I start my step?
The answer, at least according to people who know more about swords than I do, is that I (3) have to slow my hand down when making an attack from out of distance with a step (or two...if I make two steps I have to slow my hand down even more)
And according to them, not only is it a fact of biomechanics that I have to live with, but it has upsides, like being able to redirect a slower moving attack more easily in reaction to whatever counter my oppnent uses.
But a couple of quibbles keep jumping into my mind. The most major being, doesn't force = mass times velocity squared, or something like that? A sharp blade might not need to have much impact force to cut flesh, but what it it's a stick instead, or our man has on some sort of protection? Do I have to use the "false" time of option # 2, with it's attendant vulnerability, if I need to hit as f'ng hard as I can? Perhaps the most important question, has anyone ever heard anything even remotely like this explanation in FMA or other martial arts?
