Building the Stance Strength to Palm Power Connection with Kung Fu Staff practice and improve your Chin-na skills.
One of the best parts about learning classical kung fu staff like Earth Dragon Staff from Northern Shaolin is how much the power of your grappling techniques is improved.
Focusing on punching power is important and fun, but developing grappling power is also important. Punching means bringing power to your knuckles and aligning your wrists and elbows properly to support your knuckles.
To use palm strikes or to use your palms to seize control of your opponents’ arms or torso you need power in your palms and strong gripping strength. Neither palm power or gripping strength are required for punching and punch training does not develop these qualities.
A great way to develop the power you palm techniques and standing grappling techniques is practice a classical Kung fu staff routine like Earth Dragon Staff from Northern Shaolin with a heavy staff. Using a heavy staff immediately develops your hand strength and gripping power.
With a long routine like Earth Dragon Staff consisting of 88 movements and a heavy staff your hands get a huge workout with every repetition of the form. If you do 10 repetitions of a long staff form you will build up formidable finger, hand, and forearm strength.
More importantly you will also develop the synergistic power of using your legs and stance to turn your waist and your back and shoulder blades to drive the power of your forearms and palms. Putting the strength and power of your entire body into your palms and transmitting that power all the way to the tip of your staff develops great power for grappling and palm strikes. With a huge variety of movements, the staff form builds your skill in bringing the power of your whole body into your palms in many different configurations and angles. This makes it easy to power up your palms in any position and support your palms with your back, waist, and legs fully to make your grappling techniques irresistible.
In this series of videos, I explore basic staff techniques of Block, Press Down, and Thrust and lead into a series of Chinna, or standing grappling techniques, and break grab techniques to free yourself from an opponent’s attempt to seize and control you enhanced by using your stance power and staff techniques.