Something I really enjoy about watching movies like The 36 Chambers of Shaolin/Master Killer, or a lot of the other old Shaw Brothers and Jackie Chan movies, is that there was a significant amount of strength training the student had to do, before learning actual techniques. It’s a requirement in order to put the right energy behind a technique, and to make it work.
This holds true, today. Sometimes, it might be tempting to try to learn martial arts technique without having the proper strength training behind it. It used to be that teachers would not let you learn techniques before that strength was properly established. But now, in the age of the internet and social media, you can find instruction for almost every major technique for almost every martial arts style!
Generally, it’s best to use these videos and instructions as references to what you’re already training under the watchful eye of a teacher/coach. However, some might try to use them as their actual martial arts learning and training experience. Nothing all that wrong with that, per se. However, it may be the case that the proper strength training that precedes the technical learning of the technique might not have been laid down as foundation.
Thus, when techniques are sometimes performed, from a teacher/coach perspective, it might be seen as empty, because the foundational strength is missing. So, to that, I encourage students to make sure to support whatever martial arts techniques they are working on, to make sure to learn the foundational strength training for the particular techniques.