During my last training time with TST, around 1980, I told him about some of my martial art experiences in the USA. I told him about a bet I made with the owner of a bar I was drinking in that I could stand on one leg standing straight up and he could not push me back. I weighed about 150lbs. The bar owner was close to 300 lbs and had been a professional football lineman. We gripped each others wrists and I stood straight up only on my right foot. He proceeded to try to push me, but could not push me over no matter how he leaned into me or how hard he pushed. I won the bet and a week later I was asked to visit the Minnesota Vikings training center to give some demonstrations on standing to some of the Vikings players and staff, but I also demonstrated my hitting power against their current Defensive Linemen. It may be rudimentary to transfer force to the ground in this way, but if you want to contend with 285 lb muscleman whose job it is to push people for a living you better anchor yourself to something. And, yes, westerners are impressed by the demonstration. I wonder if he got the idea from my story that I told that day or if he had done this kind of demo before that time.
I had never seen him do it in the years I had studied with him, but maybe some of the older students have. Also, when I have given this demonstration I have always let the other person try standing on one leg as well, but they always just fall back when just a little effort is applied to them. Linking to the ground in this way seems to be quite effective in a contest of this sort, but I would not use center of mass in this way when normally trying to punch and kick. Maybe guys like Che Tsoi or Coconut have seen him do this demonstration before I mentioned my experience to him. Fun to watch! ( When giving this demonstration I have also leaned backward a bit instead of just standing straight up as well, as it clearly shows you are not resisting their force in a ordinary way that they are familiar with.)
When I did these demonstrations I would stand straight up and not lean forwards at all but just absorb the force with my COM directly over my standing foot. When I first started doing this Demo, I and the person pushing would grab each other by the wrist so that after I did it straight up I would also lean backwards so my upper torso was behind my base foot and still be able to stand against them no matter how hard they pushed or leaned into me. If you examine how the average person pushes something you will see that they lean into whatever they want to move and are basically doing a squat at an angle.The glute and hamstring muscles will move your COM forward but the quadriceps muscles drive the COM up making you for lack of a better term lighter. If you can stand with a relaxed straight stable spine and hips and absorb the force placed against your hands to your COM and not react in any way with the quads but only with the muscles that will propel your COM forward it is relatively easy because most of the force and mass of the person pushing is going in the wrong direction and is wasted.
If you take the average person and have them stand on one leg and have them try to resist your push, they literally have no physiological response to the stimulus other than to try to lean forward so they fail miserably. After I first saw TST do the demonstration at the Conference I tried doing it not by holding each others wrist but by placing hands palm to palm and found it a bit easier and then it allows you to use one arm against their two arms which looks a bit cooler. The reason I started using this demonstration and later told TST about it was because when I was a bouncer in bars I only weighed 150lbs and was not intimidating looking to anyone and most people I had to deal with were bigger and stronger than me.
I found that when had to literally push someone out of the bar and if they did not swing on me where i would have to engage them in a more harsh fashion I was able to push them easily no matter how hard they resisted to their amazement. One guy actually asked me how much I weighed and I just answered with the old saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. So I decided to try the demo out with friends in this controlled way and it worked pretty good and always amazed them. I should add also that this is not the way to use COM in WC as I would not resist force in any way and would not go to the ground with the force but use it to move and strike instead. I can not speak for TST so others may want to speak for his way of doing it. This is just my view of it. – Marty Anderson