There's a list of Dynamo- recommended reading from the past month - enjoy!
Roadwork 2.0: The Comeback-In recent years long, slow endurance training (mostly roadwork) is being often attacked as a training method inferior to high-intensity interval training, as far as combat athletes are concerned. In this most interesting article, strength and conditioning coach Joel Jamieson argues that roadwork is anything but dead.
7 Things I learned in 2011- The gems of knowledge offered by Eric Cressey, my favorite strength and conditioning coach, at the end of 2011, were recently re-published in the T-Nation website - some fantastic insight in there!
“DYNAMO KETTLEBELLS CONCEPTS”? WHAT’S THAT? It is a form of specialized strength training that you can use to make your martial arts/combat sports-specific movements more powerful.
HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM ‘CONVENTIONAL’ KETTLEBELLS TRAINING? The most popular forms of kettlebells training out there offer what is known as General Physical Preparation (GPP), i.e. they increase the body’s capacity for work (especially strength endurance) regardless of the specific activity one wants to become better at. Other methods of training for GPP are running, rope skipping, weight-lifting, calisthenics, etc.
If you think of your body as a car, GPP methods mostly increase the horsepower of the engine and the size of your tank. On the other side, specialized strength training methods, such as the Dynamo Kettlebells Concepts, improve the way your car can apply the power on the road – we could say that they improve the grip of the tires, handling and cornering, the mechanics of the car, but also the skills of the driver!
In a few words: GPP improves your strength, your power and your endurance, but can also address possible muscular imbalances in your body (lack of mobility, stability, etc). The Dynamo Kettlebells Concepts use those improved motor abilities and apply them in specific key-movements of martial arts and combat sports, so that you can become better at them.
CAN THE DYNAMO KETTLEBELLS CONCEPTS REPLACE GENERAL PHYSICAL PREPARATION?
No, they can NOT. The Dynamo exercises and drills should be used in combination with other training methods of physical preparation in the context of a periodized program. In order to put the Dynamo Kettlebells Concepts to good use, you need to have worked on your GPP before.
If you already have a conditioning coach who is helping you with GPP, that is great - the Dynamo Kettlebells Concepts will be an excellent addition to your training. If you don't have one, and you wish to improve your GPP, the Dynamo Strength and Conditioning Concepts will bring you where you need to be physically.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PRACTICING/TRAINING AT THE DYNAMO KETTLEBELLS CONCEPTS?
A dramatic increase in punching power is the most obvious benefit, but also your footwork, evasion and head movement, rhythm, timing, flow and efficiency of movement (more work done with less effort) will be significantly improved.
For more information on the Dynamo Kettlebells Concepts, contactinfo@dynamoclub.se.
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'.
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
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.
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.
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. Miliaresisstarted 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.
Strange creatures, those humans – it’s not only efficiency they’re after, it’s oversimplification too. Let me give you a training related example: people are not just content with getting the best possible results with the least possible effort (which makes sense, if you ask me), they also want to practice as few things as possible! The dominant mentality could be described as such: “Can you find me one single exercise that builds muscle and strength, burns fat and gives me the heart of a Marathon runner?” This is what people want and the almighty market rushes to provide it with every possible opportunity. Thus, every now and then, we end up not just with the 'perfect training program' but also with exercises being attributed with miraculous properties. The kettlebell swing has been named ‘a fountain of youth’, for example, while the Turkish Get-up is supposedly all you need in order to build stability, mobility AND strength around the pelvic and shoulder girdles. And then, there’s the slow push-up, the slow flat-foot squat and the slow sit-up, which according to a specific brand or Russian Martial Art activity, are the only resistance exercises one needs to practice in order to build the attributes needed for combat training.
It is my belief that physical preparation training is not prescribing and performing a (long or short) series of exercises, but the fine-tuning of a series of parameters through various training protocols, in order to perform the specific movements of a particular activity, more effectively and efficiently. In this sense, there are no good exercises or bad exercises and there are definitely no perfect exercises or ‘all-you-need exercises’. Exercises and training protocols can only be consistent or non-consistent with your training goals, depending upon the results they produce. So as to give you an example, let’s put the slow push-up under the microscope.
WHAT ARE SLOW PUSH-UPS GOOD FOR?
Any type of push-up can build local muscular endurance of the arm extensors and chest muscles. Push-ups can also promote stability at the hips, the torso and the shoulder girdle – as long as they’re performed with proper form. If your belly is sagging or your butt is sticking up, if your shoulder blades are popping away from your ribcage (winging), if your head is dangling towards the floor, then your form is not proper, and you might be doing more harm than good, both to your posture and your joints, so keep those points in mind (and no, bad form does not ‘promote relaxation’). But what are the benefits of performing push-ups slowly? Well, performing one repetition of an exercise that lasts one minute is a rather uncommon training protocol that I have never come upon during my years of training or in any of my training books (and I have quite a few). With the amount of unconventional (bordering on exotic) resistance training methods explored by the Soviets during the 70’s and 80’s, if there was remarkable value in this one, we would definitely know a lot more about how it works, but it is not so. What we can do then, is make a few educated guesses based on similarities with other training methods whose effects we know more about. So, let’s give it a try:
According to Verkhoshansky, “long application of isometric exercises leads to significant expansion of the connective tissue” [1]. ‘Isometric’ is a contraction of the muscles that is not accompanied by changes in muscle length – when you push against an immovable object, a wall for example, your muscles are contracting isometrically. Connective tissue in our case is tendons and ligaments, most probably tendons only, since normal everyday activity (without training) appears to be sufficient to maintain 80–90% of ligaments’ mechanical potential [2]. Remember here that tendons connect muscles to bones, while ligaments connect bones to bones (in joints). Research also indicates that long duration (more than 20 sec) isometric exercises lead to decrease of the elasticity of tendons, i.e. tendon stiffness [3]. One more thing we often find in strength training literature is that moderate repetition sets (8-12) are optimal for building connective tissue strength – in case you haven’t had the chance to use a timer while training, it is interesting to know here that 8-12 repetitions of an exercise performed in moderate pace last somewhere between 30 and 35 seconds. What is most likely then is that the accumulated time under tension rather than the way of performing muscle contraction (statically or with movement) is responsible for the increased strength and stiffness of the connective tissues: whether you’re moving or not, if you maintain constant tension for 20-30 seconds in a group of muscles, your tendons become stiffer. It would make sense then to assume that a push-up performed slowly will make the tendons of the muscles around the shoulder and elbow joints stiffer, i.e. harder to elongate.
(SOME) SLOW PUSH-UPS INCREASE LOCAL MUSCULAR ENDURANCE A variation of the slow push-up often proposed by RMA instructors involves repetitions performed slowly in a limited range of motion, mostly around what is known as the ‘sticking point’ of the exercise, where the effort becomes increased to the mechanical disadvantage of that particular position. This partial reps protocol has been used extensively by the bodybuilding community and is supposed to facilitate hypertrophy of the slow-twitch muscle fibers, by impairing the blood circulation to the slow fibers through the constant tension [4]. Increasing the size of your slow twitch muscle fibers can also translate to better oxygen utilization by them, thus improved local muscular endurance.
SLOW PUSH-UPS CAN FUNCTION AS A MENTAL TOUGHNESS EXERCISE Constant muscular tension is associated with a feeling of discomfort, so performing resistance exercises slowly can be used as a means of desensitizing one to the feeling of fatigue – a meditation on pain, if you like. Various methods of removing the focus from the feeling of discomfort can be used, the most common being that of focusing on the breath and regulating it.
WHAT ARE SLOW PUSH-UPS NOT GOOD FOR? In a few words, slow push-ups will not improve your maximum strength, i.e. the ability of your nervous system to recruit a lot of muscle fibers at the same time, in order to produce more force. They will also not improve your power, which is the ability of your muscles to produce work (movement) in a short amount of time. They will not improve your skill either, since push-ups are a rather simple movement pattern. One more useful note here is that like any other training method, slow push-ups are subject to the law of diminishing returns: the longer you perform them over time, the less the effect becomes, since your organism becomes desensitized to them and does not adapt any further. Finally keep in mind that if you only perform horizontal pushing movements (such as the push-up), without any horizontal pulling exercises, you might end up with muscular imbalances in your shoulders and subsequent chronic injuries.
At the beginning seconds of this nideo, Mikhail Grudev of the IZVOR system is practicing strikes on the heavy bag. His explosive movements, performed in increased ranges of motionwould be better served by compliant rather than stiff tendons. Training in slow push-ups for extended periods of time is not helpful for this type of movement.
WHY USE SLOW PUSH-UPS, THEN? Use them by all means at the beginning stages of your training, especially if you do not have much strength training experience – connective tissue strength is most necessary in athletic activities, such as martial arts training. You could also use slow push-ups as part of your ‘anatomical adaptation’ training periods each year, before you start using training protocols for strength and power. Regarding tendon stiffness: first and foremost, do not confuse it with joint stiffness, i.e. the inability of a joint to move through its full range of motion. Tendon stiffness, leads to an increased stiffness of the muscle-tendon complex, which basically means that your muscles become like hard rubber bands: they stretch little and they spring back fast. This is useful if your set of skills requires you to generate power in short ranges of motion. On the other side, increased tendon stiffness is NOT desirable if you need to generate a lot of power in increased ranges of motion: a tennis serve, for example does not benefit from increased tendon stiffness. One last thing on this matter, which is a bit complex: you can do with very little stiffness training altogether, if you replace the tendon stiffness with some voluntary muscular contraction that pre-stretches your tendons, thus making them momentarily stiffer (this is known as ‘active stiffness’). To understand this better, try skipping rope with your ankles in dorsiflexion (the opposite movement of pointing your toes, that is) and your calves isometrically contracted. You will see that you will be bouncing effortlessly, because your Achilles tendon will be acting as a spring, pre-stretched, thus momentarily stiffer, not structurally harder! Of course, this ‘situational tendon stiffness’ is a skill, not an attribute, so you need to practice it – it’s your choice, do what you deem appropriate. Regarding local muscular endurance: I would rather use other training methods that have the ‘stamp of approval’ of sports science, and have been used extensively by athletes over the years. Regarding mental toughness: yes, a one minute repetition of a push-up is very tough, but so is a ten-minute set of kettlebell snatches, or stationary cycling for five minutes with the resistance set to maximum. Mixing your methods might lead to better results.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE During the years I was practicing a specific brand of Russian Martial Art activity (Systema-RMA), I practiced slow bodyweight resistance exercises (push-ups, sit-ups, flat-foot squats) almost exclusively for a prolonged period of time (about two years). During that period I developed chronic pain in my right shoulder that was later diagnosed as supraspinatus tendinosis. The pain gradually subsided as I added pulling exercises to my training program, pull-ups, chin-ups and horizontal rows. I personally did not see any significant increase of my punching power or punching skill (as is often promised by Systema-RMA instructors), as would be expected, since slow push-ups are neither a power nor a skill exercise. On the contrary, I experienced a dramatic increase in my punching power when I started practicing ballistic movements with kettlebells.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this blog post was not to use fancy terms such as ‘isometric contraction’ or ‘tendon stiffness’, but rather to point out that there are no exercises that can ‘cover all your needs’, with miraculous properties, that can function as magic pills. Before you incorporate any exercise in your training, you need to know as much as possible about its benefits and drawbacks (the adaptations it brings about on your body) and how these can help you reach to your specified performance goals. This way you will train, rather than just ‘work out’.
References
[1] Verkhoshansky Y., Special Strength Training Manual for Coaches. Verkhoshansky SSTM, 2011. p. 83 [2] Zernicke R. F. & Loitz-Ramage B., Exercise-Related Adaptations in Connective Tissue, from Komi P. V., Strength And Power In Sport. Blackwell Science, 2003. p.107 [3] Kubo K., Kanehisa H., Fukunaga T., Effects of different duration isometric contractions on tendon elasticity in human quadriceps muscles. The Journal of Physiology (http://jp.physoc.org/content/536/2/649.full), retrieved January 2012 [4] Seluyanov V.N., Erkomayshvili I.V., Adaptation of skeletal muscles and the Theory of Physical Preparation, from Verkhoshansky Y., Special Strength Training Manual for Coaches. Verkhoshansky SSTM, 2011. p. 85
