Zyaga Writing about whatever the hell I want, cuz it's the Interwebz!

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.