The Bruce Lee quote is being taken completely out of context. When he said that in his interview it had nothing to do with how a technique was executed, it had to do with a comparison between Japanese Karate and Chinese Gung Fu. Bruce never said you lead with your hip. What he said was..."You get your whole hip into it, and Snap it!"
If the hip leads it becomes a "tell" that let's the opponent know what is coming. When you are fighting/sparring you focus on the center point of your opponent's throat where it meets the collar bone. This allows you to use peripheral vision to see their movement in their shoulders and hips. This is how boxers and fighters intercept techniques being thrown at them.
The strike initiates with the "weapon" you choose to use (hand/foot), THEN it is driven forward by pushing off the ball of your foot, up through your leg, hip, core rotation, shoulder, into the arm to the fist. At the moment of impact everything used to propel the strike should "lock" for an instant before being retracted. Of course in the case of kicking the energy is diverted into the striking leg before it progresses up to the shoulder, although the core is still rotated forward at the hip line.
If you focus on "hip first" it creates a bigger movement that telegraphs your intent to strike or move. This allows your opponent to "read" that intent and counter your movement. Is the hip critical to power in striking? YES! Is it the first thing to move when executing fast, powerful techniques? No. It is the connecting mechanism between the speed of the striking appendage and the power of the "driving" base.
it seems like your just starting martial arts... so focus on easier things to learn.. for a kick or punch, the hip always moves before the leg or arm... even just practicing half the motion of a kick or punch can help you learn how to draw the power from your hip... the whip motion is the action of the limb being your arm or leg.. in Chinese wushu they teach this same idea.. its the motion of getting the arm or leg back as fast as it hits the target, pretty much you don't want to leave your arm or leg out after you strike.. just practice foot/hip as one motion and the rest as the second motion.. now for the motion of you foot, its the motion of the strike.. stance has a lot to do with which way you foot will go... most of this you can ask your teacher.. if your learning on your own you may never learn the motions right.. how do you know your motions are right or wrong.. good luck
Frazier knows the impact.
Should the hip movement be before the punch or at the same time?
Ted Wong - ''Let the hips initiate the motion.''
''It is very important that your hips rotate slightly ahead of your shoulders, to obtain maximum power.''
Bruce Lee - ''like a whip'', ''[like an] iron chain with an iron ball attached to the end''.
Jeremy Lynch - ''From the rear leg and goes through the hip, the shoulder is than activated...''
''The rear heel literally snaps around and should be kind of in alignment, or close to alignment with the lead foot; that drives the hip into the punch and as the hip goes forward the shoulder goes forward...''
''the timing is leg, hip, shoulder, knuckles'', ''chain reaction''.
