Archive Results for ' Tips & Tricks'
Tuesday Tips: Remember to be lazy
I’ve covered various ways about how you can switch up your training regimes, etc like using your punching bag as a replacement for working out. Often we try to remember to get enough practice in, and when we do practice we also like to count it as our exercise, which is okay but we need to keep one thing in mind: Remember to be lazy.
It’s not often that we are told being lazy is an okay thing, but in Martial Arts I often find it’s one of the best attributes a Martial Artist can have. Now, before you misunderstand, let me brief you on exactly what I mean. The more we work at becoming better and more powerful, in the future we can actually dilute our own Martial Arts. The man who is lazy doesn’t work at how he can become better or more powerful, he works at how he can become more lazy.
Just imagine for a moment, that there are two different people who have happened to become Martial Art rivals. Each has worked at becoming better for the same amount of time, but one has worked at simply learning more and more techniques and becoming more knowledgeable, while the other simply worked at being able to defeat his opponent in the least amount of movements. The man that knows many techniques and many styles may be able to out perform the lazy man in stunts and showmanship, but the lazy man will have a much higher advantage in a real combat situation. Why? Because the lazy man has trained at learning to win with the least amount of movements. The lazy man has trained to a much greater degree by just realizing that those who don’t have to do much to win are the true masters. Less is sometimes more.
I’ve often heard that the greater you become in Martial Arts, the bigger you become. Obviously, this is a joke, but the implied message is that as you become better in the skills you’ve learned, they are no longer an effort for you and give you nor your body a challenge. Thus, many of those who advance higher in their Martial Art have to also exercise on the side if they wish to maintain a good shape. It all makes sense when you think about it. Are you more impressed when someone fights an opponent for five minutes before defeating him, or when the man defeats his opponent within the first couple of moves? Ponder on this subject and attempt to come up with your own conclusion, since it doesn’t have to match mine.
Tuesday Tips: Going with the flow
When it comes to grappling, throwing, etc going with the flow is very important. In Aikido, the person who is having the technique applied to them is known as uke. I’m going to use this term for the duration of the article, but it really doesn’t matter what Martial Art we’re talking about. I’m just speaking of grappling and the like, in a general sense.
One of the biggest key points that I’ve been learning in Aikido is to make sure that when I’m the uke, that I’m going with the flow. There are many out there who see this as unrealistic, like when they watch videos of Aikido demonstrations. Yet, the reason behind why the uke does this, is often misunderstood. I believe the leading cause to why they have concerns is because they’ve never studied in an art that covers these topics. When you’re being manipulated, the problem with not going with the flow is that you’re only going to injure yourself. That’s not to say that you can’t attempt to resist in certain ways, but you’d better move with the movement or you may regret it afterwards.
For instance, if you’re being thrown and you don’t move with the throw, it’s not going to deter the nage(person throwing you) any, at all. It’s only going to hurt you even more than if you were to move with the throw. The same applies to arm locks. If your opponent(nage) has you in an arm lock and you straighten your arm out and try to resist the lock, you could wind up with serious damage. The problem with letting your arm go straight is that it is then easy for your opponent(nage) to accidentally hyper extend your arm, or possibly even worse, which isn’t a fun thing to do.
Most people focus on simply reversing techniques or evading them, but chances are that at some point in your life(of sparring, etc) you’re going to be caught off guard and evasion is not going to be an option. It’s at times like that, that you really need to know how to make sure you limit the amount of damage that is going to happen to you. Landing wrong after a throw may not be so bad on the mat, but if it happens to you outside on the pavement, you’ll wish you had landed correctly.
Tuesday Tips: Aggressive Relaxation
I’ve had problems in the past(and still do to a degree) relaxing when I’m sparring. I’ve always tended to throw a punch with a good amount of stiffness. Even if most people don’t notice it, its been there. My instructor has told me about it, and others as well. The problem isn’t necessarily that the impact itself is tense, it’s the motion.
This reminds me of the way my arms use to be: Stiff.
My method for trying to filter out this stiffness and adapt to becoming more relaxed has always been to shake things out and try to slow down. I use to argue a bit with my instructor over this sometimes. He’d alert me to the fact that I was using too much strength(muscle) or was too tense while we were sparring, and every time I’d try to slow myself down. The problem with slowing down is that now he’d step his game up just a bit more and completely dominate me. Either I’d be dominated or I’d be tense(but still keeping up). I would get frustrated at the fact that he’d tell me I have to be able to do it all. I must be relaxed while maintaining speed, but also packing a whopping of a punch if I decided to choose to. I like to refer to this as Aggressive Relaxation. And for the longest time I couldn’t get it down. I felt like I wasn’t gaining anywhere in that area even as I improved in other abilities.
Finally, one day while I was sparring with him, it hit me like a brick to my face. The solution for me was so simple. “Open your hands!”, is what suddenly came to my mind and for some reason I followed its command. The moment I opened up my hands and stopped trying to hit was the first moment I began to be able to fight relaxed. Rather than worrying about throwing a fist or a punch, I was simply throwing my empty hand out. This allowed me to feel how I should be throwing my fists. I could tell the difference significantly. When my hands were open, I was able to easily release a fury of punches out, but not become tense because I wasn’t focused on what happened when my hand hit. My hand would simply tap or slap my sparring partner, enough to prove that had I closed my hand at the last moment, they wouldn’t have gotten off so easily.
Once I got the feeling down of how it should feel, I was able to use fa-jing and at the last moment close my hand into a fist and put power behind it all. I will have to work at it for a long time to perfect it though, but I’m okay with that, as long as I know I’m progressing. Standing still is the most frustrating thing for me.
Everybody is different and so the method that is needed to produce relaxation will be different for others. But for me, for some reason I had it built into my subconscious that the moment my hands closed became the moment that I was going to tense up. Maybe it’s that I wished to bash or break through whatever my hand came into contact, or maybe not, I’m not really sure. All I know is the instance that I changed that one little attribute to what I was already doing, my eyes were opened.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suddenly the most relaxed fighter, nor is it something I don’t still have to work at, but the most important thing is that I now understand it all. Therefore, the tip for today is to try this method for you if you are having the same problem as me. It may or may not work for you, but it can’t hurt to try it. Already, because of this small change, which caused me to not only realize the change but feel it, I can now throw punches with my fist closed that are quite relaxed. There are times I still get too tense, but I know what and how to work at it. Just rest assured that you have something holding you back from becoming more relaxed, but it can be found and eliminated. I’m sure there are other things holding me back from becoming even more relaxed, but I’ll be sure to find them over time.
Think Simple
Simplicity is the key to success for more than just Martial Arts, but I believe people even tend to forget about it in their own training. The problem is that we get so involved in moving forward, that we actually end up taking steps backward. Fancy tricks and moves can look great, especially if they’re done on the big screen, but in a real life threatening situation they are not always the most efficient moves to be pulling off.
Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the movie Forbidden Kingdom
For instance, I’ve seen a lot of Martial Arts show how to defend yourself if someone were to grab a hold of your shirt, shoulder, or neck, etc and break free from it. This is a common issue that happens all the time. Whether it’s in a bar fight, a random drunk, a school bully, etc one of the most seen tactics is for the aggressor to grab a hold of their victim. The usual method is some sort of lock or joint manipulation to remove their hand from you and gain control over it. While I believe this to be an invaluable tool, I also think we need to be reminded of the obvious simple methods that we may be better off using sometimes, that always seem to slip our minds. Instead of taking the time to apply a joint hold or lock(which can still be very fast), why not simply send one of your free hands to their throat or face? This option may not be viable depending on the situation you get yourself in, or even more so if you’re an officer or someone who wants to end the fight with as little damage to either person as possible(maybe like an Aikidoka?), then a joint lock or hold that can more gracefully force your opponent to remove himself from you would be a good choice.
Another tendency is that we like to try/use special moves. Moves that we see on TV, in Movies, etc that are all very appealing to the eyes, but may or may not have any real place in an actual fight. While the most efficient fighting might not be the most entertaining, it serves its purpose and that’s what actually matters. Remember to keep in mind the efficiently of a movement when considering the usefulness of its application.
Then again, if you’ve got the moves and can handle the situation, why not add a little flare to your style? 
Tuesday Tips: Amplifying Energy
Earlier today I went home to take my dog for a walk during lunch time as I often do. Today it was quite cold even though I was bundled up with my coat, gloves, etc. The worst part about it was that the wind was blowing at a considerable speed. When walking, one would almost be thrown off one’s balance as a step was taken.
Anyway, I came to a very short but narrow path, where I take my dog through because there is a hill on the other side. The path is surrounded by bushes, small trees, and all the rest of the usual things. The branches in the small trees often get in the way as you’re trying to pass, so usually I just push them out of the way with my hand and keep walking. However, today as I was pushing a branch out of the way, the wind immediately picked up as the branch cleared my hand and it came whipping back and smacked me in the side of the face. At first, it surprised me a bit because of how much speed and force it snapped back at me. Obviously, this didn’t injure me at all, it was just quick and sudden. What’s interesting is that it wasn’t just the force that I had pushed onto the branch that sent it back that fast. It was also the wind.
It was immediately brought to my attention exactly how much more force can be generated when one force(the wind) works with another(the force of me pushing the branch back and out of the way). Lately, I’ve been reading a book called Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere. It’s a great book if you haven’t ever read it or heard about it. When I understood how the force of the branch could be amplified by the wind, I realized exactly why Aikido uses the principles it does.
I like to take occurrences like this as a challenge. Basically, I’m going to challenge myself to little by little, use less strength and rely on amplifying the energy my opponent is already lending me. I don’t believe that this applies only to Aikido(or Aikido related Martial Arts), I believe it applies to ALL Martial Arts. In fact, most(if not all) of Aikido’s principles, or rather the science behind it, can be applied to most(if not all) other Martial Arts as well. There is an Aikido dojo pretty close to me and I’ve been considering going so I may sign up if I’ve got the time.
Will I then rely on Aikido as my foundation for everything? No, of course not. For those who don’t know, I’ve never been partial to any Martial Art, nor will I ever. I believe each Martial Art has aspects about it that allow you to enhance yourself beyond where you are already. There should be no questions such as “Which is the best?”, the questions should be “Which will enhance the areas I’m weakest in?” and “Which one do I want to take?”. A friend once asked me if I ever studied Aikido further would I then rely on it more than the others to which I responded, “Of course not, I’ll use those skills to take down my opponent gracefully, then chain punch his face in.” Everything is important, nothing is useless, it just has to be used in the right situation.
It may be a round about way of saying it, but I’m just trying to get an informal challenge out to you guys( and girls ) to try working on using technique over strength. Strength should be used as an amplifier, not the source of power(energy).
Slight Variation
The Art of Holding by Marc Tedeschi
Sometimes when we are doing various moves(especially locks, holds, or any other kind of move that may use pressure points) we come across decisions on which move would be more effective. Many times we don’t think about the small differences between slight variations, or maybe we don’t even know of them. If you’re having trouble following what I’m trying to get across, don’t worry, I’m going to give an example.
I recently stumbled across two really interesting books this past weekend while shopping around in the local Half Price Books store near me. I picked these two books ups: The Art of Holding: Principles & Techniques and The Art of Throwing: Principles & Techniques, which are written by Marc Tedeschi. They are both really good books so if you happen to see them at you’re local bookstore sometime, be sure to pick them up!
In the Art of Holding book, the author briefly mentions two types of chokes: arteries and windpipe. This is what he had to say:
Choke holds are often used to render an opponent unconscious, assist throws, or weaken an attacker during grappling. Choke holds to blood vessels are considered safer, since an attacker can usually be revived. Choke holds to the windpipe are not safe, since damage may require immediate surgery to prevent loss of life.
What sparked my interest is the fact that a seemingly insignificant difference can actually be a very big deal. I’m sure there are a lot of you out there who are thinking “well, choking via the arteries versus choking via the windpipe is a big difference, a totally different move” and I agree to a degree. But, if you happen to be at the backside of someone and wrap your arm around his throat, it takes very minimal effort to move from choking one way to the other. To me, there is a very significant difference in the possible end results if I do this move. Sure, if I happen to be in a real life threatening situation, either one will probably do the trick but if I’m just practicing with a friend or sparring then I obviously want to be aware of the possibilities. Now, I’ve always known about the windpipe and to be careful of it, but something just hit me when reading the authors book. The question now is, “How many more slight variations are there?”
I know I for one will be paying more attention to the little details of the moves I make and what I’m trying to do. In a friendly sparring situation, I want the most effective method yet the least deadly. In a real life threating situation, I want to be using the moves that take down my opponent the fastest while making sure he doesn’t get back up. Just keep these things in mind in all that you do.
My Photo's
Categories
M&G Fitness
- Playground Training (for Warrior Dash / Tough Mudder)
- M&G Fighter Workout
- Spartan Warrior Workout
- M&G Weighted Workout
- Look like a Spartan
Japanese
Archives
Mud & Guts
M&G Fitness
Friends
Email Subscription
What I'm Doing...
- @tanoshimini おはよう！ in reply to tanoshimini 13 hrs ago
- @memrise Maybe I'm missing it, but is there a way to see how many users there are total? Would be nice to know Im in place 770 out of X ppl 13 hrs ago
- @tanoshimini I'll be a repeat customer. :D in reply to tanoshimini 1 day ago
- @wanikaniapp Yayyy. Can't wait to try it out. :D in reply to WaniKaniApp 1 day ago
- More updates...
Popular Posts
- Tutorial: C# XML Serialization
- AJATT SilverSpoon
- The 3 Best Ways to Read Digital Manga
- Usenet for Dummies
- Kana Reading Material Resources