Too little, enough, too much?

A place to share ideas, concerns, questions, and thoughts about women and the martial arts.

Moderator: Available

Post Reply
User avatar
Dana Sheets
Posts: 2715
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2002 6:01 am

Too little, enough, too much?

Post by Dana Sheets »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep2rovVDZYI
Master Takemi Takayasu shows you the strengthening work as it is performed on the island of Okinawa. The strengthening work must be a part of the training of any budoka who looks for maximum efficiency. It helps to be able to block painlessly, and to increase the power of your strikes. But, be careful, the strengthening should not be practiced without caution, there is a risk of body injury. It is to be performed with intelligence and according to a precise and gradual method.
Did you show compassion today?
wes tasker

Post by wes tasker »

I guess, to my mind, the question I often ask of these and similar practices is - too what end?

Are they practices that work when you're young and will gradually start to damage your body more and more, or will they actually give you results that increase over time? Do they contribute to the mechanics of your system that will deepen, or do they rely on you being "in the gym/dojo" every day punishing yourself?

In one of the Kuntao styles I practice we have a series of "arm pounding" exercises whose primary purpose is teaching power generation from the waist, and the secondary purpose is toughening the front and back of the hands and all four sides of the forearms. But we also do this with both internal herbal formulas and a special liniment. And most importantly of all, gradually.

One thing that stands out about some of the things in that video is that they relied on "strength" rather than "structure". At least to me......

-wes tasker
Stryke

Post by Stryke »

I dont think that was too extreme at all .

I`m confident though different folks will see different things .

all the breaks were done sanely , that baseball bat didnt seem to be swung to crazily .

I dont see how it can be used to comment on mechanics as none were shown , it was as stated strengthening and conditioning .

I think it`s probably the best conditioning clip i`ve seen .

Most will just see it as hard conditioning though i suspect , see a bat imagine the worst , see a peice of timber break imagine it`s 4 by 4 hardwood .
User avatar
Dana Sheets
Posts: 2715
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2002 6:01 am

Post by Dana Sheets »

Practices that forge the body also change the mind.

One of the main ah-ha moments that happened to me a couple years back when doing a program on the Brain and Reading was the fact that when you learn something, anything, you change the wiring in your brain. That wiring can change temporaily or long-term and often-used circuits get insulated so they're work faster.

So in the video there are things that are about increasing strength of body and others are about an increase of spirit or determination.

If a few whacks with a stick keep you from taking pills for depression or allow you to live in greater harmony and persistence outside the training hall - then dojo-only could have major benefits off the floor.

I've grabbed Heather more than once for a theraputic round of conditioning after a particularly stressful workday.

However, if you're doing that kind of training with little or no understanding of possible consequence and getting injured on a regular basis to please a teacher or seek acceptance among a peer group - then the training is obviously detrimental.

That's why I try to be particularly mindful of new students during conditioning drills. A sudden change in the color of their face (really pale or really flushed), a major change in breathing pattern, a look of fear in the eye...

We do the training to build people up, not to break them apart.
Did you show compassion today?
Post Reply

Return to “Women and the Martial Arts”