Vinny's Martial Arts Biography
I began my martial arts training in 1967. My first style was Tang Soo Do, a Korean version of Karate. Three years later I started Tiger-Crane Kung Fu. Then in 1974 I began studying T'ai Chi Ch'uan. One of the concepts that really caught my attention in Tai Chi was how to create energy releasing power. In all the books I read and in all my study, I could never quite grasp how to do that. Then in 1986, I had a big insight: "It's a slingshot". A slingshot has two components, a handle and a set of rubber bands. When you draw back on a slingshot, you create potential energy. When you let go, that potential energy changes to kinetic energy and now it does work for you, it shoots the pebble. I realized that our body has the same two components, the skeletal structure and the muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Once I had this first realization, I began to understand how to make it work with individual movements. Martial arts movements are similar to dance in that almost anything can be a move, but if you focus on a specific movement such as swinging a bat or throwing a ball, that narrows things considerably. The more I looked at individual moves, the more I understood how to make the "slingshot" work. Over the last 30+ years I have been seeing more and more of the Spring Power principles and how to incorporate them into sport moves.
I believe that Spring Power is a truly revolutionary movement and power development system. It is a much more efficient than using muscle power. With Spring Power you will get more power for less effort, better balance and alignment, decrease sigificantly the amount of tension we all carry and promote better short term and long term health.
I would like to help as many people as possible whether individually or as part of a group or team to learn Spring Power. It can be learned for health, sports or sef defense and I believe will make a dramatic change in how we look at movement and developing power.