HARNESSING NATURAL MOVEMENT IN MARTIAL ARTS

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Monya Gorelik is an Israeli martial arts coach, researcher, and practitioner with over 40 years of experience in martial arts, natural movement, and yoga. His innovative work led him to develop a unique fractal biomechanics model of natural movement—Kinegenesis—and to decode the principles and symbols of Daoism as an ancient biomechanics of natural movement. He further created Formless Flow, a comprehensive training system that integrates the science and art of natural movement. Kinegenesis and Formless Flow are the foundational elements of ISAI (Israeli Science & Art of Integrity). This system embodies his holistic approach to movement in general and ISAI martial arts in particular.​

Monya holds an M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science and has also received formal education in music and painting. Between 1994 and 2005, he served as the Secretary General of the Wushu (Kung Fu) Federation of Israel and was an accredited European Wushu judge. He has taught ISAI at the Charles Orde Wingate National Institute for Excellence in Sports as well as at the theatrical college Data.

For over 30 years, Monya has coached full-contact Kung Fu and ISAI martial arts in private groups and individual sessions, training personal bodyguards, bouncers, and elite athletes—including members of the National Judo team and a European Junior Champion.

HARNESSING NATURAL MOVEMENT IN MARTIAL ARTS

1. What do martial arts practitioners aim to achieve in their movements?

It is widely agreed that martial artists strive for movements that are:

• Cost-effective
• Fast
• Precise
• Easily adaptable at any moment
• Elusive
• Powerful and martially effective
• Safe and healthy for the performer

How can we attain all these qualities in our movements? This is undoubtedly one of the most critical questions in any martial art. I propose that these attributes are inherent in natural movement, which has been refined to perfection by Mother Nature, the Creator, or Evolution over hundreds of millions of years. I also believe that no scientist or coach can compare to this natural development.

2. Natural Movement and its characteristics

Definition: Natural Movement refers to movements that closely resemble innate patterns applied under existing conditions to solve motor problems. There is a theoretical construct of Pure Natural Movement, free from cultural or social influences. I argue that the closer our movements are to Pure Natural Movement, the more desirable and valuable they become. Typically, our movements are shaped by societal and cultural norms from birth, thanks to our highly developed innate mimicry abilities. To shed unnecessary cultural and social automatic movement patterns and return to Natural Movement, biomechanical analysis and correction are essential. Existing biomechanical theories may not sufficiently address this challenge, leading to the development of fractal biomechanics, known as Kinegenesis, which complements current biomechanical theories.

3. Kinegenesis: The Recapitulation Theory of Natural Movement and ancient secret knowledge

The Central Nervous System (CNS) governs all our movements, including innate reflexes, learned movement patterns, and both voluntary and involuntary actions. This regulation is known as Motor Control. According to Kinegenesis, human Motor Control comprises eight hierarchical levels, each encompassing the previous ones. These levels control different groups of joints:

Level	Group of Joints
1. Amoeba	Rib joints
2. Fish	Vertebral joints
3. Amphibia	Shoulders and hips
4. Reptiles	Elbows and knees
5. Mammals	Wrists and ankles
6. Apes	Fingers of the arms and legs
7. Human	Tongue
8. Future Human	Motor control based on future vision

This Recapitulation Theory of Motor Control in Kinegenesis outlines the sequence in which bodily movements develop, defining the order in which different body parts participate in each movement.

Kinegenesis identifies a Universal Natural Movement Pattern (UNMP), termed "Fish Play," which can be ebbing or unebbing. The following illustrations depict the Natural Movement principle trajectories for each main body part, such as palms, elbows, shoulders, feet, knees, pelvis, chest, and head.

NEW AND REVOLUTIONARY WAY OF TRAINING

It will not be exaggeration to say that everybody wants to look and feel vital and healthy, move elegantly and effortlessly, have proud natural posture and nicely formed body. In other words, all of us have a dream - to feel and look naturally attractive, harmonious and energetic, graceful and strong.

This is a dream of almost all of us, but in most cases this dream is hard to achieve. 

BACK TO MOVEMENT FUNCTIONALITY

Movement functionality is all we need if we mean movement.

First of all, we have to ask ourselves what is a movement functionality? 

After that, what does it change in our definition if we add the word "natural"?

Great majority of people instinctively understand the meaning of this expression. Nevertheless, this instinctive understanding can be not sufficient if we want to go deeper with this understanding and especially if we want to train movement of any kind, sport or motor skill.

FIRE IN THE STORMY SKY

I already published my theory and proved that ancient Daoist principles and symbols belong to ancient biomechanics as Emperor Fuxi formulated it.

According to this theory the phases of cycle of motion received in ancient times poetic expression.

Emperor Fuxi, which name means propagator or disseminator in Hebrew (interesting that the name of his wife is Nuqva, which means female in Hebrew) invented Fuxi Bagua or eight trigrams of Fuxi and used these trigrams in his biomechanical model.

BOUNCE-PUNCH AND ABSORPTION-PUNCH

It is a well-known fact that most of our movements have the very same origin – our natural, inborn locomotion. The only exclusion might be fine motor skills like writing, piano and most other musical instrument playing, drawing with a pencil and so on.

Humans' bipedal gait has a lot in common with the quadrupedal gait of the great majority of mammals. During walking or running our arms actually simulate the forward limbs movements of quadrupeds while they walk or run, even though our arms assist us in keeping balance and rotating the torso and don’t participate directly in the propulsion of our body.

Therefore, we have to expect that when considering Martial Arts movement our punches would also have a lot in common with quadrupeds' manner of locomotion or movement in space like walking or running.

EXERCISING IN DIFFERENT SURROUNDINGS AND NATURAL MOTION

Exercising is extremely important for our health, for both physical and mental well-being.

Health and well-being are considered and intuitively understood as a natural phenomenon, something inborn, something that in ideal conditions could be found everywhere, until the rational human mind diverts it from it's course.

There are many forms of exercise, but currently I would like to speak about physical exercises related to movement and strength development.

Over the past few years, many coaches began to speak about returning to a natural state of health and physical abilities by means of CrossFit training in natural surroundings,

LIGHTNESS IN TAIJI CHUAN, SAIM IN FORMLESS FLOW and UNIVERSAL BEAUTY

One of the most important features of Taiji Chuan is lightness. The lightness is the source of sensitivity and some Masters consider sensitivity as a purpose of Taiji Chuan.

According to "The Classics of Taiji Chuan" practicing lightness opens the door to the realm of exceptional sensitivity. Finally, even "a feather can be felt". Practicing the lightness with every movement leads one to the most advanced techniques and highest achievements in Taiji Chuan.

The final achievement of this process, according to Daoism, is Wu Wei or Non-action in the midst of action.