In the article, Larry makes note of how some practitioners in Southern China have a type of "hollow chest" stance. He noted it without making any conclusions as to whether the form served any functional purpose.
I've tested more than a few thousand peoples' sanchins in my day, and I'm a big believer in spinal posture. Those who know me know that I believe our style to have the capability of being both striking and grappling art. And those who know me understand my emphasis on total body training and balanced conditioning. All this leads to me using sanchin both as learning and diagnostic tool. Often I can look at someone's stance and tell if they have a fundamental problem that needs to be corrected elsewhere in their training.
Recently I came upon a dojo where I found a preponderance of individuals that had a kind of "hunchback" syndrome. If you view the spine from the side, you see a curving out of the spine in the thoracic (chest) region. Now everybody's spine curves out a little in the thoracic region, and curves in a little in the lumbar (lower back) region. In sanchin, I teach people how to minimize that curvature so that the spine can serve as a conduit of energy inbetween the lower and upper body. (When you listen to me talk, you'd swear I was a chi proponent, wouldn't you??) Now it's one thing to find an occasional hunchback in the class. But when you find a lot of them, it's often indicative of a fundamental problem in training.
After spending some time talking to the class about how they might "correct" this problem, we stumbled on the cause. Basically, their supplemental strength training program (mostly calasthenics) was unbalanced. They were doing lots and lots of pushups, which strenthen the front of the chest. There were no exercises for the antagonistic muscles on the back. Now combine an imbalance between agonist (in this case the chest) and antagonist (in this case, the back) along with no stretching exercises for the agonist, and you have created an instant postural problem. Tight chest muscles draw the shoulders forward and the spine over. Hunchback!
But it's more than aesthetics. Trainers have been preaching for years (sometimes to deaf ears) how important it is to get opposing muscle groups properly balanced in their strength (never mind trying to get people to stretch). As an example, studies show that when an athlete gets a strength ratio between quadracep and hamstring to go anything over a 3 to 2 ration, then you end up with a significantly higher probability of getting a hamstring injury. See a football team with lots of hamstring injuries on the bench? Chances are the players were doing powerful squats and too little hamstring work. And just because the agonist muscle is strong does NOT mean you will be fast and powerful with it. It works this way - your body is either going to get injured or it's going to protect itself. If you develop a very powerful extensor movement, chances are your body's stretch reflex system is going to inhibit you from using it 100% in any motion. Functional self preservation. So it's like putting a powerful engine in a car, and never allowing the car to go in high gear.
My personal preference is to do very little "sweat" work inside the dojo. I encourage my students to engage in balanced strength routines outside the classroom. Yes, I know how busy everyone is and how much they want the karate instructor to make them sweat and lose weight. Fine - a good thing to do in a beginner's class. But truth be told, it is not possible to exercise the entire body without the aid of equipment.
An it's not just a "modern" thing either. Way back in Fuzhou province, George, Marty Dow and others uncovered all kinds of training equipment that people used to build stronger bodies for the style we study. And those who sniff how it's not "traditional" basically make me chuckle. Go to any "traditional" Okinawan dojo and you will see quite an eyeful. In Alan Dollar's book, he has a whole chapter on Iron Body Conditioning and Tameshiwari. OK, so you see the requisite jars (kami full of sand, and even sashi stone locks used on ancient wooden gates. But you'll also see <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote
Don't you just love tradition? You'll also see tires bolted to makiwara for sokusen training, and pictures of bats being broken by shins where the label clearly states Louisville Slugger. How Asian! How traditional! Someone please play some wailing Okinawan music while I use a rolling pin on my shin!The primitive weights of Okinawa are often made of concrete or transmission gears from old military vehicles.
So why am I babbling? Well what I'm trying to say is that we need to train using the best available resources. Our ancestors used what was available to them. Any decent dojo is bound to have at least one PE major in the group. Way back in the eighties I consulted the varsity strength coach at my university and developed a strength program that was to be integrated in with the rest of our training. The strength coach INSISTED that the program be about the WHOLE program, and not just the weights.
Or....you can make your students sweat in class by doing lots of pushups, situps, and squatting exercises. And you will be instrumental in developing inbalanced bodies that are at high risk for injury and far below peak performance.
It's your choice.
- Bill
