word, the tush.
Position of the center of gravity is crucial to maintaining balance, and balance is something repeatedly emphasized throughout Bruce Lee’s notes. To achieve balance, imagine a line dropping straight down from any object’s center of gravity. If that line falls within the base of the object, it is balanced. See Figure 11.
It also follows, then, that the wider an object’s base, the more balanced, or stable, it will be. Think of a pyramid, one of the most stable structures—wide base, low center of gravity. Raising an object’s center of gravity decreases the amount of force required to tip it off-balance, or to move the center of gravity outside its base of support. In Figure 12, the model has a very wide stance, a wide base of support. If we were to draw an imaginary line from his center of gravity to the floor, it would fall within the base determined by his feet. Notice that when you have a very wide stance, you feel as if no one can knock you over. You feel stable. See Figure 12.
Figure 11: When in position, your front and back feet form two points of a triangular base. An imaginary line from your center of gravity to the floor should fall within the base of the triangle. This is the definition of “balance.”
Figure 12: This stance is too wide. While extremely stable because of the lower center of gravity, mobility is greatly compromised.
If your feet are less than shoulders’ width apart, you narrow your base of support, decreasing stability. Your center of gravity is raised. Notice how much less stable you feel. It would take less force to knock you over. Likewise, if you close the stance too much by lining your front toe up with the left toe, instead of the arch, you also decrease the base area and lose stability. See Figure 13 and Figure 43.
Figure 13: A stance that is too narrow does not provide enough stability because of a raised center of gravity.
The proper JKD stance, however, is designed to keep your center of gravity within the base determined by the placement of your feet. Your lead foot, rear foot, and trunk form the triangular base. Your foot position offsets the weight of your trunk. If we were to draw a line from your trunk to the ground, that point on the ground would be the third point of the base. I’ll talk later about upper-body positioning, but at this time, just know that the slight crouch keeps your center of gravity within the base of support. The weight all around your center of gravity is equally distributed. If we were to draw a line from your center of gravity to the floor, it would fall in the center of the triangle. See Figure 14.
Keep in mind that this is the general JKD stance, in which your weight is distributed about fifty-fifty between the front and rear leg. When we get into the mechanics of the straight lead, you’ll actually offset that balance slightly. Also know that while widening your stance may make you more stable, you will sacrifice mobility in doing so. Again, aim for a little wider than shoulders’ width. Experiment and strike a balanced trade-off between stability and mobility.
Figure 14: The proper stance strikes a balance between mobility and stability.
Finally, remember that “phasic bent-knee”? One of its purposes is to lower the center of gravity, contributing to a more stable stance. Keep this in mind when we get to the chapter on mechanics. One of the most common problems JKD students run into, in executing the lead punch, is that they often will straighten their legs instead of rotating their hips. This causes two problems. One, their center of gravity overtakes their front knee. Their center of gravity, therefore, falls outside the triangular base, causing imbalance. Two, straightening of the legs raises the center of gravity, further contributing to instability. Both will result in less force production and in lack of mobility. Also know that your stance may slightly widen when you are working at kicking ranges. See Figure 15.
Figure 15: Once your center of gravity overtakes your front knee, it falls outside the base of the triangle. You’ll lose not only balance but leverage and power as well.
On the subject of balance and stability, Bruce was heavily influenced by Edwin Haislet, who argued the importance of body alignment. The greatest contributor to balance, Haislet argued, is foot position. Your feet, of course, are connected to your legs, which are connected to your trunk, which in turn is connected to your arms. So proper alignment must start with correct foot position. The arm, according to Haislet, is merely a “vehicle of body force.” The fist may get all the glory, but it’s really only along for the ride. Your body does all the work. And this starts with the stance. You will have to experiment to find the width of stance for optimal stability and mobility, but always remember that your center of gravity must fall within the base determined by your foot position.9
T H E U P P E R B O D Y : C A T S A N D C O B R A S
A N D G R E A S E D L I G H T N I N G
When we discuss the JKD stance at rest, think of yourself as storing potential energy; at any moment you may uncoil and lash out with tremendous power and speed. With this in mind, you’ll want to hunch your back a little, which gives you more space for uncoiling at the shoulder. This serves to decrease your target area as well and puts your right shoulder in a position to protect your chin or roll away from punches. In describing this storing of energy, Bruce had this to say:
Slight crouch—balance evenly on your right foot and the ball of your left foot, with your knees slightly bent—more on the order of a cat with his back hunched up and ready to spring (except that you are relaxed), or like a cobra coiled in a relaxed position. Like a cobra you must be able to strike so that your touch is felt before it’s seen.10
Compare with Nadi:
To fence well is to be greased lightning with the potential forward speed of a coiled spring. Like the cobra, a fencer must remain coiled in a relaxed position having at the same time the potentiality of leaping from absolute immobility to top speed, power and precision. The guard position is the only position from which one can attack efficiently. Like the cobra, the fencer must be able to strike (with the point of his blade) so that his touch is felt before it is seen.11 See Figures 16 and 17.
From Figure 16, you’ll see that there is a slight bend at the waist (but remember to keep your center of gravity low), and the back is slightly hunched. The point here is that you want be slightly curled up—to protect yourself by making yourself a smaller target, but also to give yourself more room from which to uncoil. You’re storing more potential energy from which to unleash that lead punch.
T H E P O W E R L I N E
When we think of stances, we usually think of a static position, an at-rest position. But we’ve already established that the JKD stance is designed to maximize mobility and force production. We stand in the on-guard position so that when we do hit, we’ll be in the most favorable position to relay force. With this in mind, we need to consider what proper alignment will look like at the point of impact, and one of the most important elements of the stance at impact is the power line.
Figure 16: The slightly coiled JKD stance. The back is slightly hunched, and the right hand is completely relaxed.
Figure 17: Side view of upper-body coil.
The power line is the reason why we punch “thumbs up,” as opposed to the palm-down fist we see in modern boxing. It’s also why we use the bottom three knuckles as our striking surface instead of the top two knuckles used in other martial arts.
The power line is quite simply determined