Dynamo Concepts Training Videos: Biomechanical Training - Russian Stick Twirling

After the few Cossack dancing patterns we presented in this previous post in the Dynamo blog, it's time to take a look at another method of training biomechanics, i.e. quality of movement, in Russian Martial Art and namely, stick or saber twirling. 

Once again I would like to point out here that it is practically impossible to practice biomechanics and tactical skills in the same training drills. What you need to do is cultivate good quality of movement and the ability to generate power in non-tactical drills and then develop tactical awareness in another, totally different series of drills.

And herein lies the ingeniousness of folk-style Russian Martial Art: the biomechanics were taken care off through a series of training methods with a high social and entertainment factor! By learning to dance, young men practiced powerful pelvic and hip rotation, both components of tremendous importance in power generation. Then, by practicing stick or saber twirling, core stability, coordination and relaxation of the arms was developed, resulting in pure ballistic movement. This means that, when the time came for youngsters to study actual fighting methods, their body would not presents constraints in the learning process.

Enough with the talking: this is a short video presenting only a few stick twirling patterns that you could try out. Now, I only used baseball bats in the video, because I had just moved back to Greece from Sweden and my stuff was in boxes in a storage facility, so I could not find where my sticks were! This means that you should first try the exercises with something lighter, say a pair of sticks made of oak. 

How do you practice these drills? Well, make sure to have fun and don't go all OCD, counting reps, sets and rest intervals. You should literally fool around with the patterns and make sure that you can execute them slow and relaxed before you add speed and power, or else the momentum of the stick might rip apart your wrists or shoulders. Take it easy, and enjoy the process. You should expect a dramatic imporvement in your fist fighting skills after a few months of this type of training. PM me if you have any questions.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos: Biomechanical Training - A Few Cossack Dancing Patterns

One of the most common problems in martial arts training arises when one is trying to mix up biomechanics of power generation with tactical skills acquisition in the same drill. In my almost thirty years in martial arts training I have witnessed more than a few times instructors trying to embed good biomechanical habits in their students (with comments such as "swivel those hips!" or "exhale sharp!") while they are sparring under live conditions. Well, let me - once again - be the bearer of bad news: training biomechanics and tactics in the same drill is impossible! If one has not learned to extend the back hip when punching, it is not a good time to learn it when he is being punched back!

Now, what I love about Russian Martial Art, or to be more precise, the folkstyle aspect of RMA, is the availability of numerous non-tactical drills that the practitioner can use to develop solid biomechanics of power generation, separately from the drills with tactical or technical content. I have only seen similar biomechanical drills in Chinese 'internal martial arts', and especially BaGua, but the difference here is that RMA drills are also fun to practice: for those of you who do not understand what I mean, I suggest you try some Russian stick or sword twirling or maybe some Cossack dancing patterns and then 'walk the circle' BaGua-style and tell me which is more enjoyable to practice.

In the two videos I'm posting today you will find a few Cossack dancing drills. The point of those is to teach the practitioner to coordinate pelvic rotation with hip rotation, in order to improve foortwork, punching power and kicking power. For most people in martial arts the expressions 'turn from the hip' and 'rotate the pelvis' are considered to describe one and the same movement (god knows why). Well, these are two separate movements that, if coordinated, can tremendously enhance your ability to express power.

I certainly hope these videos will be of value to you, make sure you let me know if you have any questions. In our next blog post we'll present a few stick twirling drills.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro 

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos: How to Breathe for Performance, Practice Drills

In the previous Dynamo blog post, we explained the two roles our breath plays during an activity that requires power generation for a significant amount of time. A friend who read the post inquired about drills one can use in order to prime the 'body as bellows' type of breathing, and that is what the Dynamo Concepts training video I am posting today is all about. I learned a great number of these 'vibration drills' from A.I. Retuinskih, founder of the ROSS system, and I came up with a few of my own variations down the road, for more sport-specific applications. The ones you will find in the following video are the most basic and the most important ones. You can practice them as part of your warm-up before any type of training, to elevate your heart rate and lubricate your elbow and shoulder joints before more strenuous activities, but also as part of your cool-down routine, to relax both your muscles and your nervous system. Besides embedding the 'body as bellows' type of breathing to your body, the drills will also help you relax your arm muscles and develop 'heavy hands' for strikes.

One last thing: through the following drills I hope you get to see that the funny huffing and puffing that passes as 'burst breathing' in some Russian Martial Art circles is just a defective version of the body as bellows principle: your breathing has to be coordinated with your movement so as to ensure it corresponds to both the physiological and biomechanical needs of your activity - otherwise, it will just get you hyperventilating, tense and panicky in no time.

I hope the video is of help to you. Please let me know if there is anything I could explain further.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro 

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos: How to Breathe for Performance

I don't know why, but way too many people in martial arts circles project mystical properties on breathing. And people who want to take advantage of other people make sure that confusion is perpetuated and as widely spread as possible - in a few words, ignorance sells seminars.

I hate to be a party pooper, but breathing is just a physiological process, that helps provide energy for the activities involved in... well, life. Now, if an activity demands lots of energy, breathing performs one more role, namely that of delaying the onset of muscular fatigue: you breathe faster, thus you exhale more often, so you remove the excess carbon dioxide from your blood, so you slow down the acidification of your muscles - no biggie there either. Let's take this one step further: if your activity involves generating significant amounts of power or absorbing significant amounts of force, then your breathing acquires one more role, this time a biomechanical one, that of stabilizing your core, in order for your limbs to have a stable platform to generate power from.  - simple as ABC!

In case you did not notice, in both cases above, physiology AND biomechanics, it is your exhalation playing all the important parts: removing excess carbon dioxide AND stabilizing your core. So, the basic idea behind the performance breathing method we use in the Dynamo Concepts system is to emphasize exhalation and the rest will take care of itself. I was first taught this method of breathing by A.I. Retuinskih, founder of the ROSS system. Down the road, through personal communication with Dr Vladimir Tikhonov, a sports scientist working with the Russian kettlebell sport national team, I found out that this the exact same way elite kettlebells athletes breathe during the later, most fatiguing stages of their sets.

In the following video I am explaining this method of breathing that, in the ROSS system, is known as 'using the body as bellows' and I am using the kettlebell snatch lift in order to demonstrate one type of application. Besides my work with kettlebells, I have applied this breathing technique with my students during bag and focus mitts work and have found out that it helps keep the heart rate significantly lower during intense effort exercise.

Go ahead and check the video, then, and If there's anything I could further explain, just send me a message. Please keep in mind that my breathing in the video is a bit more pronounced so that it can be audible - you definitely don't have to breathe so loud, but you sure need to coordinate your breathing with the rhythm of your movement.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos: Long Power, Short Power, whatever...

Well,  I am embarrassed to admit that this is my first post for 2013. To my defense I have to say this has not been out of laziness, but because I have a number of training projects currently going on, so my brain is somehow always occupied...

Enough said - today's Dynamo Concepts Training video is a sequel to the previous one on punching power and, at the same time, an answer to a question a couple of friends of this blog posted some time ago: "If I am to recruit my joints consecutively, I need a lot of space in order to the distal part of my kinetic chain to develop maximal speed. What if I have to use 'short power'?" Honestly, I believe the term 'short power' does not exist (it could be something used for a nonsensical title of one of those useless Systema RMA instructional DVDs). Whether you have to generate long-range or short-range power, your body does not have two types of muscles, one for each type of power, and definitely doesn't generate power in 'different modes'. The only thing you can do is limit the degrees of freedom around a joint, by creating rigidness through muscular tension (once again, 'tension' is not necessarily a bad thing) - basically, you remove one or more links of the chain, so the movement ark becomes shorter - and the end result is, of course, less speed than if you could use all joints consecutively, but still, maximum speed and power under given circumstances.

Check out the following video to see a couple of examples. If there's anything I could further explain, just send me a message.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro
 
P.S.: Once again, I apologise for the quality of sound :-)

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos: A Tip to Significantly Increase Your Punching Power

With this blog post being 'the one before Christmas', I just wanted to share a small gift with the readers of this blog, and, given that we're into martial arts, I suspect that a gift that will improve one's punching power will be appreciated by most :-)

Anyway, this video is all about maintaining rigidity at the wrist, so that the object I am striking an opponent with is the forearm-fist complex, which has significant mass. By making sure that, when striking with the fist, there is no movement at the wrist (limiting the degrees of freedom at the wrist, if you prefer), we limit the amount of kinetic energy that would otherwise be dissipated in our own soft tissues (and very delicate ones, since there are many things in one's wrist that can get very screwed up).

From a teaching perspective, it is quite often not enough to state that the wrist should be rigid, since a lot of students have never practiced this action, so their local muscles and nervous system are in no way primed to do this. The drill which is demonstrated in the video does exactly this: with the help of a partner the exact muscles needed to limit degrees of freedom at the wrist are activated. I suggest you go ahead and practice this drill a few times before you strike the focus mitts of the heavy bag. I guarantee you will be surprised by the results!

That's all for now, folks! I hope you find this video of help. Make sure you send me a message in case there is something I can explain in more depth.

Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays to you, your families and loved ones!

Spyro

P.S.: Once again I apologise for the sound quality of the video. When you're filming in the garden you cannot quite know when the alarm of a neighboring house will go off. Still, you have to admit that an image of summer in Greece can be quite heart-warming in the middle of the winter.

 

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos - Interlude: The Spinal Wave and Drills

In this fourth part of our series of Dynamo Concepts instructional videos, we're dealing with a power generation 'plug-in', the spinal wave. By plug-in, I mean that the wave of the spine can be added to any of the three basic movement patterns, in order to further enhance power output. There is nothing exceptional in the spinal wave - it is just one more application of kinetic linking which is one of the five principles of maximizing power, that we have described in part 2 of this series of videos. I should point out here that, if this movement seems to you large and telegraphic, it is only performed this way in training, not in application. A very important guideline in the Dynamo Concepts is that we train in full range of motion and we apply in the range of motion necessary. A big movement can be trimmed down to a short one, by restricting degrees of freedom. On the other side, if one only trains short and tight, it is not possible to perform longer movements by adding degrees of freedom that are not available in the body.

I believe you will find the drills included in these spinal wave videos very effective in increasing your power output potential - in my personal experience, the kettlebell jerk is the best of them, since additional resistance can be added, by using heavier and heavier bells.

I hope you find this video of help. Make sure you send me a message in case there is something I can explain in more depth.
Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos, Part 3: Generating Power in 3-dimensional Space

This is the third in the series of Dynamo Concepts training videos, dealing with generating power to all directions from a static position, including the basic drills for priming basic movement patterns. Any action we perform should be powered by either one or a combination of these movement patterns, otherwise it will be lacking power. Another idea that emanates from these movements is the rhythm of power generation: since we can generate power by loading and unloading our structure in specific ways, our ability to apply force depends upon which part of 'the beat' we find ourselves. We will have the opportunity to elaborate on the subject of rhythm later in the series.

The first two of these movements I have been taught by Alexander Ivanovich Retuinskih, founder of the ROSS system and I believe it is worth noting that he also uses these exact same movement patterns for a series breath training exercises, aiming to improve integration of movement and breathing.

I hope you find this video of help. Make sure you send me a message in case there is something I can explain in more depth.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro 

P.S.: The drills might remind you stuff you have seen in traditional Chinese martial arts. Please keep in mind that power generation is not a cultural issue :-)

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos, Part 2: Five Principles of Maximizing Power

Here's the second from the series of videos I have promised to post on this blog, this time with the Dynamo Concepts system's five principles of maximizing power. This is plain sport science here, people, stuff that good boxing coaches (track and field coaches too) have known for years.

In a nutshell, these principles are:
1. Ballistic movement: 'casting' the limbs
2. Kinetic linking: recruiting my joints consecutively, from proximal to distal, timing recruitment in such a way that the movement at a distal joint is created at the exact moment that maximum speed of movement has been developed at the nearest proximal joint.
3. Continuous movement: preserving momentum of the moving limbs, flowing from one direction to another.
4. Stored elastic energy: using connective tissues (both parallel and serial elastic compnents of the muscle-tendon complex) as rubber bands that stretch and spring back into their resting length, adding an additional force component to that of muscular contraction.
5. Rotational movement imparts additional kinetic energy to the moving limbs and involves more muscle groups in each movement.

I hope you find this video of help. Make sure you send me a message in case there is something I can explain in more depth.

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro

Dynamo Concepts Training Videos, Part 1: System Structure

So, it's been a while now that I've been somehow quiet through this blog, since many changes have happened in my life this year and frankly, there hasn't been enough time to think and ponder upon training ideas. On the other side, within the past few months I have taken some time to film a number of training videos, in order to help some friends who live far away to put some of their martial knowledge into perspective, so that they can make their training more substantial and productive. After giving it some thought and discussing it with a few close friends, I decided to make these videos available to everybody, through this blog. In any case, it is my belief that the knowledge I'm trying to convey through the videos has been out there and available to everybody all the time, as long as they took the time to think themselves instead of hiring a master to 'reveal' it to them. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the videos and make sure you drop a line in case I can explain something better. Please keep in mind that these are home videos and sometimes the quality leaves a lot to be desired - can't control background noise, can you?

This first video I am posting today is about the Dynamo Concepts system structure: Use your body in the most efficient way, affect the opponent's body in the most effective way, develop tactics and use them according to your strategy - that simple!

Train smart, train safe, be your own instructor,

Spyro

Wrestling made easy

The purpose of this blog post is to provide a short report of the Dynamo Wrestling [1] Concepts four-month course. I will try to analyze the concepts and principles which were explored during the course, describe the training methods that were used, and share our conclusions.

DYNAMO WRESTLING CONCEPTS – WHAT?
Dynamo Wrestling Concepts is the teaching and training methodology we use at the Göteborg Dynamo Club to provide students that have no wrestling background with a good understanding of wrestling concepts and principles and a firm grasp of basic technical skills (throws & takedowns) and tactical options (arm-drag, duck-under, slide-by etc) within a relatively short amount of time. The basic idea behind this program is to teach wrestling skills mostly through open drills and games, with as little technical instruction as possible.

The Dynamo Wrestling Concepts course was held for the first time during the period September-December 2011.

DYNAMO WRESTLING CONCEPTS – WHY?
A question you might come up at this point is “why bother teaching wrestling to the students of a Russian Martial Art Club?” The reasons are actually numerous – let try to explain a few:
First and foremost, we commonly describe our work at the Dynamo as ‘one human body – one set of movement skills – endless possibilities of application’. It is of the utmost importance for practitioners to understand that the same set of power generation movements that they learned during the entry level training at the Dynamo, and then applied during a three-month fist fighting course, was applicable with practically no modifications at all in the wrestling course.

Another reason we consider wrestling important: it is an excellent teaching tool for understanding the mechanics and experiencing the kinesthetic sensation of an ‘ideal throw’. In my experience, about 90% of the throwing techniques I have learned in various martial arts over the years follow the same set of biomechanical guidelines and when executed correctly, give the thrower the same - very specific - ‘feeling’. In modern Russian Martial Art, throws are often performed and demonstrated through small joint manipulations or with minimal contact, so the subtle technical nuances can become very complex. Practitioners often become overwhelmed by complexity so they never actually get to ‘sort out’ what makes a throwing technique successful. Wrestling provides the simplest possible context in which the guidelines of throwing techniques can be implemented with very direct actions that make the application of forces obvious and easy to understand. Once the student has acquired the feeling of a good throw through simple means, it is natural to progress to more sophisticated applications. The opposite (progressing from the complex to the simple) makes for a very bad educational approach.

Wrestling provides with some of the most typical applications of what in judo is known as ‘the push-pull principle’, i.e. changing direction of attack when the opponent resists in one direction. This principle is tremendously important for any type of martial art practice because, in combination with rhythmic and continuous movement for power generation, it provides a way to understand and experience the sometimes mystical and hard-to-grasp concept of ‘flow’. Thus, wrestling promotes flow – simple as that.

Finally, wrestling drills are an excellent way to develop muscular strength and aerobic/anaerobic conditioning.

Charles and Henrik demonstrating wrestling flow/soft work. Neither of them has any wrestling experience besides approximately sixty hours of training in the Dynamo Wrestling Concepts

DYNAMO WRESTLING CONCEPTS – HOW?
In the process of first explaining the contextual logic behind every wrestling technique before proceeding to develop specific skills (explaining the ‘why’ before the ‘how’), here are the steps we followed:

1. We described the main task of the activity of wrestling in the simplest way possible, i.e. ‘to bring the opponent off his feet and depending on the context (sport wrestling or restraint and control tactics), either on his back or on his face.
2. We described the task of ‘throwing an opponent down’ in terms of simple physics: we explained the concepts of center of mass and base of support and how an object topples over if the projection of its center of mass falls outside the base of support.
3. We explained how, by placing the opponent’s weight on one of his legs, his movement and power generation become restricted, plus a number of options for throws present themselves: we can either apply force in three directions to move his body so that his center of mass moves outside his base of support, or we can attack his supporting leg (either with our hands or our legs) to remove support from underneath him.  This way the main task of wrestling is reduced to a much simpler one – to apply force on the body of the opponent so that his weight is supported by one leg only. This task definition is nothing else than what the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, was referring to as ‘kuzushi’ or ‘unbalancing’, but in my experience, students understand what they must do much better when asked to “bring their opponent’s weight over one leg”, than when asked to ‘unbalance the opponent’.
4. After defining our task in the simplest terms possible, we proceeded in discovering the means to achieve it – our question was:  “how and where do we apply force on the opponent’s body in order to bring his weight over one leg?” At this point the main wrestling grips were introduced: the elbow-collar tie-up, the underhook and the biceps tie-up. Although the grips were specifically demonstrated, a ‘game’ could have been used instead where students are asked to push and pull their partners around the mat, so that the most effective ways to grip and apply force would eventually present themselves. I decided that, at this point, ‘re-inventing the wheel’ could have been constructive, but not time-efficient. The drill we used instead asked of the students to combine the power generation movements they learned during their entry-level training with the force application points dictated by the basic wrestling grips to move their partners forwards and backwards, left and right, or in a spinning movement. The conclusion reached was that it is relatively easy to bring the opponent’s weight over one leg by moving him to one direction, then suddenly switching towards another. The first version of the drill was performed using only one of the basic grips each time. Gradually the drill became more complex with the students switching from one grip to another.
5. The next step was to discover ways to attack the opponent once his weight had been brought over one leg. In this step, the concept of ‘hyperfunction’, from Aleksander Retuinskih’s ROSS system was introduced, and a small number of specific force applications were presented. Finally we practiced various rhythmical footwork drills that helped seamlessly connect the power generation movements from the breaking of balance, to entering, to performing the throwing technique. All these new elements were inserted in the previous pushing and pulling drill, thus resulting in something that started looking like… well, wrestling!
6. Finally we ended our exploration by introducing ‘fighting for grips’ in the upper body, since specific grips offer a positional advantage that allows us to bring the opponent’s weight on one leg without him being able to resist (for example, if we manage to position ourselves to his side or his back). The pummeling drill (and pummeling contest drill) was introduced at this point and a small number of specific attacks demonstrated.

DYNAMO WRESTLING CONCEPTS – RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS
As I said at the beginning, the Dynamo Wrestling Concepts program was implemented for a limited period of time, since the goal of the Dynamo Club is not to train wrestlers, but to develop all-around combat skills through training underlying fundamentals (‘the essentials’) that are as generally applicable as possible. We prefer not to allow students to acquire stylistic habits, but rather develop the ability to understand the needs of various contexts and adapt to them.

In this sense, there were significant aspects that although  included in our training, did not receive special mention – an example might be the idea of defending against having one’s weight brought over one leg and counterattacking by redirecting the opponent’s force. The current plan is to revisit those aspects in the future.

Based on my experience after training in martial arts for over two decades, the results were quite impressive – students with absolutely no wrestling experience whatsoever were able to execute throws in a dynamic environment (against fully resisting partners) that I wasn’t able to after two years of judo training. The embedded Youtube video features two members of the Dynamo, Charles and Henrik practicing wrestling soft work, and might give you a sample of what was achieved in a very short amount of time. All in all, I believe there is tremendous potential in teaching wrestling (and any other combat sport or fighting style, for that matter) using a constructivist approach.

I would be very interested to any feedback and suggestions the readers of this blog might have, so you’re welcome to leave your comments or send me an e-mail.

[1] I am using here the term 'wrestling' with its broadest possible meaning: that of competing against an opponent from a standing position, with the goal of throwing each other down, without the use of strikes. I am not referring to the Olympic sport of wrestling or any other specific style of wrestling with or without a jacket. I am also not referring to submission wrestling.

A great big thanks to Vadim Kolganov, SAMBO Master of Sport (http://www.dynamosambo.co.uk) for his valuable insights and feedback regarding wrestling tactics techniques and training methods, and Luis Preto (http://www.pretomartialarts.com), whose book Fencing Martial Arts: How to Sequence the Teaching of Techniques and Tactics provided great insight on how to construct a basic curriculum.

On soft training in martial arts: Part 4

A series of posts on the subject of softness and soft training in martial arts, wouldn't be in any way complete without the taiji (tai chi) perspective. In this fourth, and last, installment of the series, my good friend Glenn Gossling, Chen Taijiquan practitioner and instructor, offers his insight on the subject, viewing soft work as tool that allows for development without injury and accelerated recovery. A very big thank you to Glenn and the other three contributors to this collective post, Grigoris A. Miliaresis (who wrote about the Ju No Kata of Judo), Mark Lajhner (who wrote about soft training in MMA and combat sports), and Thong Nguyen (who wrote about the use of soft work as a tool to sharpen awareness of movement). I would also like to thank the readers of the Dynamo blog, whose enthusiastic response to this series of posts exceeded my expectations by far!
 

FEAR INOCULATION OR, LISTENING TO A SLIGHTLY SCARY STORY AGAIN AND AGAIN

Everyone knows that taijiquan is based around the principles of yin and yang, hard and soft. Still, it is comparatively rare to see taijiquan used as a martial art, or to see its hard side. Chen style taijiquan preserves both, but even when working with the ‘hard’ it is still important to maintain the principles of good posture, relaxation, and coordination between breath and movement.

My experience of taijiquan and other martial arts has shown me that achieving a balance between stress and relaxation is essential to all good martial arts training, both hard and soft. Taijiquan begins by teaching and emphasizing the soft, but it still leads to the hard. The methodology is that soft slow movements can be used to teach clear and precise principles and techniques while gradually conditioning the body. A similar principle is used in systema where the slow squat and the slow press up are core to body conditioning.

My approach to teaching is to focus on relaxation, or to put it another way, non-tension, as rather like Saussure’s structural linguistics, taiji is - from a philosophical point of view - a system of difference without positive terms. There are two aspects to non-tension, the physical and the mental.

Before doing ‘hard work’ the person has to be physically capable of doing it. A degree of physical conditioning is essential. It sounds obvious, but most of us have been gung ho enough at some stage or other to injure ourselves by trying to do something we weren’t ready for (remember the one arm hand stand push up craze? or is that next year?).

In simple physical terms, this means working within our capabilities, but at a sufficient level to challenge ourselves. How do we know what that level is? Tension is the indicator - for example, if someone goes rigid with tension and falls over while doing a pistol (a form of one legged squat), then to develop they should do an easier exercise – simple squats or negative pistols (ie just a controlled descent). Moving them to a harder exercise such as pistols with kettlebells may not be beneficial to them at this basic stage.

Digression 1 - Stress is a comparatively new concept first outlined by the Slovakian/Hungarian scientist Hans Selye in 1936 as a short hand for what he called General Adaptation Syndrome. The English word ‘stress’ is actually a bit misnomer as in mechanical terms the concept is closer to that of strain. A simple mechanical example may help explain what explain what Selye meant – if you apply a sufficient external force to a piece of steel, the steel will temporarily deform, but it will pop back into shape when released from that force with no great harm done. If a much too large force is applied the piece of steel will be permanently deformed. Similarly, if a repeated force is applied to the steel, microscopic stress fractures may occur that could lead to an eventual catastrophic failure. Biological entities such as humans are slightly different to a piece of steel in that they are able to adapt. If you apply an external stress to a bone it will flex or break. If you repeatedly stress a bone without breaking it the bone will adapt, build in density and be able to take greater degrees of stress. Selye’s work found an underlying pattern to stress which is illustrated in his 'human function curve'.

(image from www.stress.org)

There are a number of key considerations here:

• Stress isn’t all bad
• Stress can help you develop
• Work at a level that is below the ‘breaking point’
• Allow sufficient time for recovery

The human function curve can be used to explain two of the ways that soft and hard work interrelate. First, soft work allows you to build incrementally towards hard work allowing development to occur without injury. Secondly, soft work can be used to accelerate recovery.

For example in Chen taijiquan we have a ‘hard’ form called the Pao Choi (‘Cannon Fist’). This form uses a lot of stamping and ‘fajin’ (‘explosive power’). It has been known to cause splits in the shin bones and strains to the tendons if progressed to too soon. The softer ‘Yilu’ form that you do first allows bone density to gradually develop by applying lesser stresses. It is important to be able to do the harder form without excess tension as if you do it while tense or in poor posture you are much more likely to injure yourself. Even when you know the Pao Choi it is still important to do the soft form as the prolonged interlinking of breathing and movement encourages a relaxed state that promotes recovery. As a rule of thumb it takes between three and five years to get to the Pao Choi.

Master Ren Guan Yi performing a shortened version of the Pao Choi form - his power generation is tremendous!

Humans, however, don’t only operate on a physical level. They are also subject to mental or psychological stress – and in particular fear. Again, as with physical stress, a degree of mental stress can lead to a positive adaptation, but excessive mental stress can lead to or reinforce negative adaptations. This is particularly the case when dealing with fear.

Digression 2 – The anatomy of fear: The amygdala, a small almond shaped part of the brain just above the brain stem, is the body’s alarm system. It is one of the oldest parts of the limbic system and as such is capable of emotionally ‘hijacking’ the brain. The amygdala monitors what is going on and decides on the body’s emotional response. The process by which it does this is profoundly unconscious and can happen very quickly. Sensory information from the eyes or ears goes to the thalamus, where the information is split. The main part of it goes to the neo-cortex for detailed analysis, and a smaller portion goes to the amygdala and hippocampus. If the hippocampus - using a quick but inaccurate memory system - recognizes the sight or sound as a threat, the amygdala prepares the body for action while waiting for more accurate confirmation from the neo-cortex to see if it really should be frightened. The amygdala sends impulses to the hypothalamus for activation of the sympathetic nervous system (which controls the fight or flight reaction). The metabolic rate rises and a variety of hormones are released: dopamine (for concentration) and noradrenaline (aka norepinephrine), adrenaline (aka epinephrine), CRF (the main stress hormone of the body) and endorphins (to dampen pain). If the neo-cortex agrees that there is something to be frightened of the body can then proceed to a full state of fear. It is around this moment that you may become aware of it. You may notice the increased heart and respiration rate, you may feel a tightening in the stomach, tunnel vision, tension around the throat and neck, trembling. This will all have occurred in under a second and most of it will have happened completely unconsciously. If on the other hand, the neo-cortex decides that there is nothing to fear the amygdala relaxes its responses. However, a number of hormones such as cortisol will already be in your system and can remain there for some hours. This can be problematic as a number of small stresses can have a cumulative effect. (for more info on the anatomy of fear see: www.absolutetaichi.co.uk/articles/an-anatomy-of-fear)

Again the concept of the stress curve is useful. A small amount of fear is good. It focuses the attention and encourages development. Larger amounts cause an emotional hijacking by the amygdala, which stops you using your cortex – the thinking part of the brain. Chances are you’ll already have experienced this at some point in your life (if you have ever done an exam where you read the test paper and could not remember what you read by the time get to the end of the first sentence, gone blank in an interview, or been at a loss for words in an argument with a loved one). You can monitor other people’s or your own stress levels during training from breathing patterns. Fast breathing correlates strongly with fast heart rates. Most people’s performance begins to break down at heart rates of between 115 and 145 beats per minute, with a severe breakdown of performance at above 175 bpm. There is an important difference between people breathing hard because they are working hard and breathing hard from stress – exercise makes you redden, fear makes you pale.

An emotional hijacking can happen during a fight or training, often just momentarily, but that can be enough. Your brain responds with shock at someone throwing a punch. You inhale sharply, hold your breath, tense up. One of the downsides of this is that being tense, when being hit, makes it hurt more. Another downside is that if you are tense you will move poorly making you easier to hit. Yet another down side is that your reactions may become exaggerated (bigger than necessary), easier to read, avoid and counter. And finally, if your cortex isn’t involved you will not be able to judge the situation or response accurately.

This is bad enough in a fight, but during training it is worse, because not only will you not be learning appropriate responses, but you may very well be ingraining poor ones. I regularly see this in people who have trained ‘hard styles’. You present a relatively soft or slow punch to them and you get a fear reaction from them – typified by big jumpy moves and large blocks – the problem with this is that the stress state becomes a habitual response that is easier and easier to slip into.

The point here is that if someone is physically capable of hard training, they can start it, but you may find that their stress levels can quite quickly stop them getting any benefit from it. If all that is happening is that they are getting hit, getting hurt and learning to be frightened of being hit this isn’t training.

What is required is to build up to hard training with soft training so that bit by bit the mind can mentally adjust and realize that it is something that it can deal with. This is a process known to psychologists as ‘fear inoculation’. The repetition of set forms allows the brain to understand that there is a set story and that it has predictable and understandable patterns. This is why children like to hear the same slightly scary fairy tale over and over. So, the brain is programmed with a set of responses to being hit softly, how to move, avoid and deal with it. It has reference points. Then you can ramp it up, but it is important to try to work within limits that can be dealt with, moving in and out of the comfort zone. Bit by bit the limits increase and as the fear diminishes you can find that actually you can take a good hit. (for postmodern martial artists – an understanding of these narrative structures also is useful because then you can see how to disrupt them in unexpected ways)

It is necessary to understand that the cortex has no direct way to control the amygdala. The rational part of the brain has no direct means to tell the amygdala, a primal and unconscious part of the brain, to stop being frightened. What you have to do is work with your breathing. Your breathing connects to an even older part of the brain, the medulla oblongata in the brain stem. The medulla is the brain’s interface with the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system comprises the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). By slowing the breathing you can directly engage the sympathetic nervous system to encourage relaxation.

If you understand this from the outset you can train yourself to co-ordinate movements and breathing so that all your basic training works to create a state of relaxation. Thus when you start hard training, the body already has some ‘slack’ and it will take a bit longer to create stress reactions. Similarly, as the patterns are ingrained they become easier to use to recover from stress. By linking movement with breath it means that you can use movements to encourage good breathing patterns when it is difficult to breathe (such as when you are winded) This is another advantage of using set forms in training. Finally interlinking breathing and movement is demonstrably effective for power production (for more on this see: www.absolutetaichi.co.uk/articles/breathing).
However, even when you do all this, you will still occasionally come across something new, that takes you by surprise and you may still get that moment of panic where you inhale sharply and hold your breath, but from working through this many times in the past, hopefully you will have conditioned some good reactions to this response.

Thus, when looking at hard training overall, you can say that if the body is ready to do it the mind should be as well, but throughout the training attention should be paid to stress and excitement levels to keep the metabolism at a level where you can still work and learn through conscious engagement. Yes it is good to push. As students develop they may even come to quite like getting a good hit, after all it teaches you something about yourself. You learn exactly where you hold your fear and tension and so just as the soft work prepares you for hard work, the hard work deepens the soft work.

Glenn Gossling

Glenn Gossling has been studying taijiquan since 1988 and since 1996 has been a student with Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang, 19th Generation Lineage holder and current Chen family inheritor. He is a registered grade A instructor with the Tai Chi Union of Great Britain. He has also been an instructor of Dayan Qigong, Changquan kung fu and Stav, as well as having studied Systema, Muay Thai and kickboxing. For more information visit: www.absolutetaichi.co.uk

On soft training in martial arts: Part 3

In the third part of this series of guest posts on the value of softness and soft training in martial arts, Thong Nguyen a veteran martial arts instructor and teacher of dance offers his own unique perspective on the subject: soft work as an essential component of developing body awareness and perfecting movement BEFORE proceeding to dynamic application. For those of you that haven't read the previous installments of the series, here is Grigoris A. Miliaresis' post on the Ju No Kata of Judo and Mark Lajhner's post of incorporating soft work in combat sports. What I personally find most interesting in this series, is that each of the contributors approaches the subject from a rather different viewpoint, continuously offering additional insight. Enjoy the post!

SOFT WORK: DETECTING SUBTLE NUANCES OR, 'THE FLY LANDING ON A FEATHER'

As a lifelong teacher of dance and martial arts I find soft work and kata an invaluable tool for learning any skill. Kata can range from the stationary exercises found in Qi Gong to Judo's slow moving Ju No Kata, to Kung Fu's dynamic forms. They serve to develop and educate a understanding of the body on a somatic level with minimal brain intrusion.

I consider kata to be the body's ultimate muscle-body-memory trainer. It helps students in evaluating their internal, physical and mental processes. The kata itself is but a part of the benefit. The greater benefit is in how the students learns to find and remove their debilitating barriers/habits in attempting new and unfamiliar tasks. A self-imposed learning curve if you will, stemming from a lack of confidence and connection to their own bodies. The slower the kata the better it permits the students to pick up on subtleties in order to correct them. Imagine trying to detect the weight of a fly that has landed on a kettlebell you're holding, as compared to one that has landed on the tip of a feather in your hand. Slow work enables your whole body to move and feel like that feather. You'll better detect nuances and variances in movement. When a student finally "sees" his body and its idiosyncrasies it is like the first time he heard a recording of his voice - he can't believe it isn't the sexy voice he always thought he had.

At my dance studio, the first thing a beginner is taught are foot patterns: where to go directionally, on which foot to step and where. Then, they're introduced to the foot work; how the foot first contacts the floor- heel, ball, flat, toes, inside edge of toes etc. Then, styling: how the upper body accompanies the lower body during the weight shifts. Next comes rhythm, timing and synchronicity to music. Only after these are reasonably executed is a partner added. The recipe is methodical and by the numbers, which begs the question: "How would that translate in application on a crowded dance floor?" The following video shows me dancing with a girl I'd only just met that night. Once ALL knowledge, coordination, mobility, timing, rhythm and consistent results are addressed and resolved, the "hard work" phase comes naturally with regular exposure, practice and experience. This is the method I use in teaching martial arts. Without it, "free-play" is a messy blur. With it, things come into focus and start to make sense.

There are no shortcuts or panaceas for building lasting skills, only a clear understanding of what to do, how to do it, when to do it and the determination to do it. Real learning can't be rushed. Katas provide a way to groove and polish the essential basics. Learn the techniques (soft work) in order to throw them out (application of hard work). Professionals know if they can't perform under a controlled scenario, they will never last a real one.

Enjoy your Path,

Thong Nguyen

Thong Nguyen was born into a martial arts family. His uncles were masters of various Asian arts and his father was a Judo champion. This provoked a curiosity and an openness at an early age. He holds Dan grades and teaching certificates in Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Filipino, Vietnamese and Russian martial arts. He has been teaching dance along with martial arts for over 38 years based in Washington, DC. He developed KaizenTao (www.kaizentao.com) 24 years ago as an amalgamation of his primary expertise in Dance, Chinese and Japanese arts and professional sports. His students are renown for being a fun and respectful group of people spanning a wide spectrum from professionals at the forefront of local and national security to dedicated martial artists to those with no experience in combative forms. He also worked as a fashion photographer in Paris, Milan, NY, LA, and DC.

On soft training in martial arts: Part 2

Softness and soft training in martial arts: what is it, is it really necessary, how do we practice for it, how much, how often? After last week's first part of this series, a guest post by Grigoris A. Miliaresis on the Ju No Kata (“form of gentleness”) of Judo, today Mark Lajhner, a former Judo competitor, MMA competitor, and currently MMA coach, shares his own perspective on how we can benefit from soft work and most interestingly, by 'investing in loss'. I found this post most fascinating - I hope you enjoy it!
 

SOFT WORK IN MARTIAL ARTS - SHOULD WE DO IT?
There has been a lot of debate whether soft work should be included in martial arts training. Before we start to do that let us define what soft work is. According to my friend Spyro Katsigiannis (who asked me to write this article) we could describe it as follows: "In Soft work we practice using real force and energy but in a slowed down time framing, so that the startle reflex is minimized - there is no fear response, because there are no fast threats leading to spastic reactions". To me, this description brings to mind the Ju-No-Kata from Judo as well as the absorption drills often used in Systema.

The goal of soft work is to "prime" the martial artist to react in the most biomechanically efficient way in a stressful situation.  It can be done in a free manner, just "playing" with forces our partner is giving us, or while exploring a specific technique, like in nage komi in motion in Judo (throwing exercise without partner resistance).

Systema absorption drills are an example of non-technical soft work training. When people first try them, they usually find them weird and not quite credible as a training method, because they are missing the point of the drill, which is priming the body in generic movement patterns. But in order to develop fight worthy skills we need to go past priming and into the specific technical realm. 

Although priming drills can be effective as a supporting tool, I don't think they are necessary. We can benefit from soft work if we do it in a context of the martial art we are practicing. Here are the examples of soft work that I often give my athletes:

• Nage komi (throwing practice) in Judo or wrestling
• Slow motion grappling sparring
• Grappling & ground and pound flow drill (it can be both slow or faster, but I recommend it being slower)
• Striking flow drill: we use only 50 % of speed and 5-10 % of power
• MMA  flow drill using the same principles as in striking flow drill

Slow motion grappling sparring is a form of soft work training and can lead to a significant increase in skill development.

All of these methods give us time to think and execute our techniques with precision, limit the startle reflex and are actually quite enjoyable, since full-on sparring is demanding, not just physically but also psychologically. They eliminate (or minimize) competitiveness in training, which can sometimes limit our learning. Many of my athletes report a significant increase in skill development from just one of these sessions. 

Numerous fighting moves come to us quite naturally (headlock, trips, the double leg takedown, elbow cover, fading), but at the same time, there are a lot that don't (slips, bobs and weaves, most throwing techniques), so how do we practice those until we become proficient? The answer is pretty simple: slowly and deliberately. In order to explain this, an analogy from computer lingo might be helpful: if we imagine the reflexes and instincts that evolution has equipped us with as a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), we need to ‘progress to Windows 7’ by enhancing some of our instincts and completely overriding others.

Except the above mentioned drills, there are other "soft components" of training we can include in out sessions. Back in my days as a Judo competitor, I made a terrible mistake by always training with "balls to the wall" intensity. I thought that if I always gave 100% of my effort and fought until there was no glycogen left in my body, trying my hardest to never be thrown, I would eventually become a champion. This is a mistake that cost me dearly:  I was only able to place 3rd in the nationals, and I became a real live encyclopedia of trauma (many injuries and surgeries). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for intensity, but it has it's time and place. This is a very broad theme and we don't have time to go into detail in this article but I will give you an example of this principle: there was this young guy in my Judo club that became national senior champion at the age of 18 in my weight class - very talented, with gymnast-like moves, great physical attributes and impeccable technique. During Judo practice, he was repeatedly ‘destroyed’ – he was getting thrown many times by many people. At one time, I manhandled him so badly in sparring, that he stopped midway through our randori, calling me a savage and asking me "what kind of Judo is this" because I was relying on my strength to "bend him down" instead of trying to throw him. While I would never stop a randori for any reason other than injury, and was mad at him for doing so, I eventually got to learn a lot from watching him train. He might have "lost" a lot of randoris, but he devastated his opponents in competition in spectacular fashion and became one of the youngest champions in Serbia. At the same time, I was struggling to also become a champion but it simply never happened.

So what was the secret of his success? When I did randori practice, I wanted to throw people for sure, but I mostly wanted to dominate them. He, on the other hand, wanted to practice technique and often put himself in dangerous situations, even if it meant that he would get thrown. For example, he deliberately let people try uchi mata on him so he could redirect the force and counter. Does he get thrown many times in training? You bet! But his matches usually end with him performing a spectacular ippon (an equivalent of knockout in boxing) on his opponent because he takes risks in training and learns from them. In my mind this is also soft work. Why? By giving yourself the permission to fail, you are not struggling against your opponent's forces at that moment, and there is no psychological pressure.

The point of this example was not for me to tell you what a ‘stud’ I am for dominating my teammate in training, but to explain that his training principle was far superior to mine.

I might have trained wrong during my Judo career, but it all changed when I switched to MMA and it paid dividends. I just wish I had done it sooner. As humans, we all have limitations, both physical and mental, and by training sub-optimally, we can hit those limitations earlier than necessary. That usually leads to injury, lack of motivation and often, quitting training altogether. 

By including the softer components, we can make our training more efficient, more to the point and a lot more fun.

Mark Lajhner

Mark Lajhner is the founder and chief instructor of the Kaizen MMA Academy, in Belgrade, Serbia (www.kaizenmma.com). A distinguished Judo competitor and national team member, he made his debut in MMA in 2005 and retired undefeated in 2008 as the best Serbian MMA fighter in the 85 kg category. He has studied MMA and Submission Wrestling with August Wallen, one of the world’s most renowned MMA experts. He has also competed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Submission Wrestling (Grappling) and Freestyle Wrestling winning numerous medals in these sports. Mark is a Judo black belt and a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He is a certified MMA, Thai Boxing, Submission Wrestling (Grappling) and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor.

On soft training in martial arts: Part 1

The text that follows is the first in a series of guest posts on the subject of softness and soft training in martial arts. The starting point for this series was the Ju No Kata (“form of gentleness”) of Judo – a rather cryptic set of prearranged techniques that was developed by the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, around 1887, that supposedly epitomizes the principles of the art, especially that of yielding, or gentleness. It is most interesting to add here that Professor Kano came up with this particular method of practice when the number of people studying Judo had increased to the point where he could no longer personally advise everyone during free practice [1]. I personally consider Professor Kano the most important martial arts innovator of the 20th century and a genius of an educator, but my training in Judo has been limited to a couple of years and included almost exclusively hard training methods, so I can’t say I understand the knowledge which is ‘encoded’ in the Ju No Kata. What I decided to do then, is turn to my friends for a little help: I asked a number of martial arts instructors from different disciplines to watch the Ju No Kata on video,  and ponder upon the use of soft training methods in order to distill principles and increase martial skill in the style they are practicing.

The first contributor in this collective post is my good friend Grigoris A. Miliaresis, the closest person I have met to what I would call a ‘scholar of Japanese martial arts’ that also happens to be a seasoned journalist. I am sure that you will enjoy his post as much as I did!

JU NO KATA: ILLUSTRATING JUDO’S MARROW
I’ll always cherish the memory: the main mat of the Kodokan Institute in Tokyo filled with tens of hardened judoka from all over the world, with ages varying from early 20s to late 70s and ranks from 2nd to 10th dan, many of them high-level competitors, sitting quietly, mesmerized by two Japanese “obachan” (lit. “aunties”) performing the Ju no Kata, probably judo’s most misunderstood form and the one that judo founder, Kano Jigoro thought as the container of the quintessence of his system. Apparently all those people seemed to share Kano’s idea; either that or the sight of the two middle-aged diminutive women performing it with a precision that would bring tears to the eyes of a USMC drill sergeant and a grace that would put to shame his niece, the ballerina, really got their attention.

It’s hard to grasp what the Ju no Kata is all about. The techniques are almost unrecognizable for those who only know competition judo and, worst of all they are performed at a glacial pace that defies any idea of effectiveness or practical application. “The throws aren’t even completed”, I usually hear the critics of Japanese martial arts cry in despair. “What is this? And how can this embody the essence of judo? This is not even training”. Well, it is training. And it does embody the essence of judo, provided the viewer is conversant with, well, judo, as well as with the way the Japanese do and, especially, teach things. Some knowledge of body mechanics wouldn’t hurt either –I don’t have it but Spyros does and I’m sure he can discern the theory behind my empirical ramblings.

To understand the Ju no Kata, first of all we need to establish the framework: it is a kata, that is a set of stylized moves created to (a) put order in the chaos of things (the Japanese do that all the time; kata are present in all expressions of their culture), (b) teach the body, including the nervous system, the basic functions that the system (in this case, judo) considers essential. Even if we dismiss (a) as redundant since we are not Japanese, we have to seriously consider that (b) has indeed some merit; if it didn’t, Japan wouldn’t be able to continue producing Olympic medalists for almost half a century (last count: 65 in toto) under this training regimen.

Second of all, we need to understand what is considered “essential” in judo –yes, I know it sounds like tiptoeing between psychoanalysis and over-theorizing but this won’t take long. According to its creator, judo’s first and foremost quality, its cornerstone, so to speak, is flexibility (it’s even in the name: this is what “ju” or “柔” in “judo” means): flexibility of the mind (i.e. knowing when to use excessive force and when to yield, creating openings where there aren’t any) and flexibility of the body (i.e. being able to twist and contort your body parts so you can put them where they can exploit the openings and use the leverages and the timing needed to complete a technique).

Does the Ju no Kata teach the judo student this essence? If you ask me, definitely –and this is precisely the reason everything is done in slow motion: so that the student has enough time to put his body in exactly the perfect position for the perfect leveraging and for the perfect timing. By taking away speed and momentum (present in almost all other judo kata), Kano’s students were able to remove unwanted tensions in their body and focus on the precision of the technique with optimum biomechanics (also part of judo’s “manifesto”: seiryoku zenyou/精力善用or “maximum efficiency with minimum effort”).

I haven’t been taught the Ju no Kata –and the loss is all mine- so my first hand knowledge is limited. But there is one more thing that I remember from that day in the Kodokan: when the obachan finished their presentation and started teaching, most of the non-Japanese judoka had serious learning difficulties; apparently their bodies were too tense to adapt to doing things slowly and with precision. The worst part was that the middle-aged ladies (who, after the initial demonstration seemed to have cloned themselves and filled the whole mat) were going from one pair of participants to the other, playfully tossing them around while complaining about their poor backs.
Grigoris A. Miliaresis

Grigoris A. Miliaresis started training in the Japanese martial arts in 1986. He holds dan grades in judo, aikido and iaido and has also trained in Shotokan karate, kendo and modern naginata. Since 2007 he has been studying the classical naginata school Toda-ha Buko Ryu under licensed instructors Ellis Amdur (in Athens) and Kent Sorensen (in Tokyo). Besides training, he has written extensively about the martial arts in the Greek magazine “Monopati gia tis Polemikes Technes”, was managing editor to the Greek edition of “Journal of Asian Martial Arts”, has translated more than 25 books on the subject and runs a related blog (in Greek and, occasionally, in English - http://budobabble.blogspot.com/). He currently lives in Japan.

References 

 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju-no-kata#cite_note-1 (retrieved Jan 2012)