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I read your counter review on the Walu Earth punch by Jack Lannom. I respect other people's opinion but if I may correct you in many points. Sometimes to believe a person must feel, and in this particular style you must feel to believe.

I studied Walu with Lannom for over 2 years and have experienced the impact of an earth punch through five phone books myself. Lannom is a very powerful hitter. The energy is absorbed by the phonebooks but when you remove your shirt, you have redness from the impact even after being hit through 5 phone books. To Jack's defense, here are some points I can clarify.

Point 1- If the muscles are not tensed at impact, how is enough energy transferred from the attacker's body into the opponent's body to do damage, and how are the small bones of the hand protected from injury?

At impact there is some obvious tension to prevent hand damage but for the most part you are striking loose. The key to the punch is to stay relaxed and come out of the punch faster than you strike. I can tell you that the impact is incredible though. Obviously nobody is going to stand there to allow you to strike them but the punch is a powerful as he mentions. You will also note that the person receiving the strike is standing in a relaxed stand as to not give the hitter any resistance, the energy would travel back into the hitters hand. I can also tell you that he is relaxed at impact or how would you explain that I've seen Lannom strike two slabs of concrete with a cotton fist holding an egg in his hand and not breaking the egg after breaking the slabs.

As I said in the counterpoint, the body must be tensed at impact to impart the energy of the body's mass into the punch. Imagine hitting a ball with a solid bat that transfers the energy of the mass of the hitter down the bat into the ball. Now imagine hitting the ball with a bat where the handle is separated from the barrel of the bat and only connected to it by a short rope so that the barrel may only strike with its own mass. Which ball do you think will be hit harder and travel further?

Are you saying that in the earth punch the goal is to retract the hand quicker than you punch it? Why not punch just as quickly as you retract? This would give one a better chance of the punch not being avoided or blocked.

What happens if the opponent resists the punch, as an opponent would, and the reactionary force does travel back into the punchers hand? I teach that one should punch with the entire body relaxed for speed and quickness, tense entire body upon impact to transfer all the forces from the body to the target, and then relax the body for a quick retraction of the punch before any reaction forces can bounce back to the point of impact.

Stunts do not make something true. Charlatans, frauds, and entertainers have used stunts for centuries to fool people, or in the case of the martial arts, supposedly to prove the validity of some martial art technique. I cover the subject of breaking in detail in the breaking topics, but simply put—breaking is not that difficult. As long as you hit the proper material, with the proper weapon, in a proper manner, you are able to deal with pain, and are not afraid of injury, you can perform some astonishing breaks.

Concrete's strength is in its compression, it is weak against lateral forces. When force is applied to the end of a concrete slab, concrete is very strong and is able to resist a tremendous force. When the force is applied to the middle of one side of the slab, the concrete will break easily. When you try to bend concrete, it shatters. That is why bridge spans use pre-stressed concrete. Concrete, with rebar and tension from steel cables, can support tremendous lateral forces.

Concrete is composed of Portland cement and an aggregate, the rocks or sand that is added to it when it is mixed. Cement by itself is weak; its strength comes from the size and strength of the aggregate. The breaks you see using concrete are really using cement blocks or slabs, not concrete, Decorative cement slabs for the yard are very weak, the aggregate in them is coal cinder, since the name ‘cinder blocks.’ Depending on its composition, cement is easy to break, but it does impress spectators. If you want to test the breaking skill of a “master,” have the master break a ½” plywood board.

Eggs have always been used in stunts. The shape of the egg determines its strength, not the thickness of its shell. If a force is applied to the sides of the egg, it will break easily. If the force is applied to the ends of the egg, it will resist a tremendous force. I remember testing the force required to break an egg while I was in studying architectural design in college. We used a special press that applied force gradually until failure and then displayed the amount of force that was being applied at failure. I don’t remember the exact measurements, but when the force was applied to the sides of an egg, it failed at only a couple of pounds of force per square inch. However, when the force was applied to ends of the egg, it failed at around 700 pounds of force per square inch, which is a lot. Therefore, any demonstration that uses force applied to the ends of an egg to prove a point is trying to fool you.

I once watched a street performer in London. He was at least 60, thin, but toned and hard. He had a steel bar that was about 3" wide, 1/4" thick, and 3' long. He extended his left forearm and used his right hand to smash the flat side of the bar against the forearm until the bar was bent to about 45 degrees. He then threw the bar into the air and it clanked onto the street. He asked anyone to try and bend the bar back straight. Some tried bending it with their hands and some jumped on it, but it would not bend. The old man picked up the bar and beat it on his forearm again until the bar was straight. He was very good at pounding his forearm with steel. How useful was this talent? Not much, other than for earning some extra money on the street; although, I would not want him blocking one of my punches with that forearm.

The point of this story is that people who train to punch hard are able to punch hard, regardless of their martial art. Invent any type of punch you can think of, and then practice it every day. After a few months of practice, you will be able to demonstrate powerful punches, but that does not mean the punch is the best way to punch.

Point 2- There are 10 levels of force in the Earth Punch. What not 9 or 8 or 7?

He has mastered this punch so well that he can hit you at different levels of power from 1-10. I have experienced up to his 5 and holding 5 phonebooks and a pad.

Are you saying that if the master punched a device that measures force, he could consistently punch with 10 different levels of measurable force? I doubt it. I can say anything I want to say, but that does not make it true. It is always surprising what some people will believe if they believe in the person making the statement. It reminds me of people who believe that the Bible is the literal “Word of God.” When asked how they know this is true, they reply, “Because the Bible says it is true!”

Point 3-The assistant claims to be a 30-year practitioner of Taekwondo-What happened to him, has he forsaken all logic and reason?

That is 100% true, Mark is a TKD practitioner for many years but when he discovered Walu he felt in love with it because you are taught the opposite of karate or TKD which is to stay relaxed and unsegmented. Walu is an internal art and not an external art. TKD is segmented vs Walu which is unsegmented as far as I can remember from 2yrs 20yrs ago of taking TKD.

In Taekwondo, we teach fighters to relax and not just throw different attacks, but to go with the flow of the fight and attack any opening with the appropriate attack. I don't know of any martial art that teach students to stay tensed, it slows you down and saps energy.

I'm not sure what you mean by unsegmented.

Internal and external are terms used by martial artists to describe how their arts differ from each other. Internal arts emphasize the use of the mind to coordinate a relaxed body, as opposed to the use of brute strength. They stress the internal development, circulation, and expression of qì or ki, and then they apply this to their training and the external techniques of their styles. External arts emphasize fast and explosive movements with a focus on developing physical strength and agility, which comes from a relaxed body, and then they use ki to enhance their techniques.

In actual usage, these distinctions are blurred. As I discuss in the Ki topic, ki is not unique to the martial arts. Practitioners of any type of physical endeavors speak of learning to get into the “zone” where everything seems to work perfectly. As people become proficient at something physical, they all develop ki, the mental aspect of the physical action; ki is not some mystical power.