<p>Regardless of the martial arts style, the ingredients required to develop competent real life fighting skills are somewhat universal. It is important that a martial artist builds their craft on a foundation of solid principals and an understanding of how these principals work and how they can be further developed. Body mechanics and movements must be understood as they relate to each technique. In this way, one can learn to use their whole body when executing any technique thereby, maximizing power and speed while achieving maximum effect with minimum effort. Through this unifying involvement of the whole body into a specific effort, one’s actions and movements become more natural to their body and more efficient. Proper punching and kicking is not a natural thing for the human body so one must train for the use of proper techniques so as to make what is intuitively unnatural feel natural. Written by Kiyoshi Paul Jackman 7th Dan 4 Time World Koshiki Contact Karate champion and