Body conditioning when alone?

[AAAhmed46]

Never been sidelined by conditioning yet.

Moderation and use your head and you should always be fine.

Why? Banging your head against cement walls is good for you! Trust me rick, go home and try it
Ive done it lots of times! Touch my head, its bumpy.
No wonder i got ADHD

[AAAhmed46]

In all seriousness.....

HOw do some TKD guys break boards and ice with heads?

[Van Canna]

The conditioning game.

It is of course essential that we condition our bodies, and more important, so that we develop our natural weapons to impact on assaillants’ targets without crumbling. This I see as a real problem in many of us. And being able to take a decent ‘body shot’ is conducive to ‘engage’ mindset.

But as we do ‘body conditioning’ you do realize that we are missing many ‘body parts/areas’ that will be targeted in real fights and contact sparring like in the days of the sixties.

Something our fighting team of yore learned ‘painfully’ when we entered the violent matches of that era.

For example_ I had to deal with full contact spinning kicks/blows to the ‘abdomen’ [cannot be conditioned] _

Various _ Kicks/punches/chops _ to the ‘rib cage’ [cannot be conditioned] _ can be ‘protected’ to an extent by sanchin elbows but not entirely. Only the practitioners, who have not had that type of fighting experience, continue to believe otherwise.

We had one serious injury at the Boston dojo when someone caught a spin kick to the ribs_ breaking a rib and driving it into an organ. George recalls that one.

Had to deal with back fists_ straight or spinned_ to the face, along with punches/chops to face/neck _TKD style hook kicks/round kicks to face/back/kidney area.

Some people, who I have not seen on that ‘battlefield’, will argue that your wauke/blocks etc. is what will protect your face, ribs, other dangerous body sections.

Yes they will, but not always in the chaos of a fight, especially a street fight_ and especially one with multiple opponents/the norm today.

I mentioned that when in Italy, and showing our conditioning drills to other styles’ high Dan ranks_ they were impressed only up to a point. Essentially they were saying they’d be really ‘impressed’ if I could show them face/head/rib cage conditioning by taking hits there.

They would smile politely when I discussed the role of Uechi blocks to protect those areas.



We can take a good shot to the midsection and to the legs, and we feel we are prepared for a street fight.

Look again_ in a street fight there will be much ‘head hunting’ and due to the ‘dump’ shots to the body will not be felt to any great extent.

Head shots, if they connect, will spin your brain and knock you out.


The better prepared ones are like Tony_ who is now boxing in the ring.

[Uechi Dude]

I have been teaching kids for several years and I tell them do not hit yourself hard begin softly almost to the point of 0 impact....as time goes on you will naturally harden without tearing yourself up...Sensei Ken Nakamatsu says when you have sand in a glass jar...if you strike it hard it disrupts the sand and it lose's all control.....but if you tap the sides of the jar the sand will get harder and harder over time True words to practice by....just use your head..... if it really hurts..... (DONT DO IT).

[Van Canna]

Good post.

[Uechi Dude]

Why Thank you ............I like this forum nice to hang around see whats up .. What happened to Rick Wilsons Pg ? (sorry off topic).

[Kevin Guse]

Has anyone ever heard of rolling a 45lb standard weight training bar up and down your shins and forearms? My teacher's teacher from another style used to have them do this and there is a dojo here in town that still does. No doubt I think it creates hard conditioned weapons but how about long term damage.

[Uechi Dude]

When ever I think of permenant damage to my body...all I do is look at Seiko Toyama Shinyu Gushi Ken Nakamatsu Nakahodo GEM Frank Gorman Ken Washington etc etc and others that have been doing this a long time and a lot harder than we do today..There will be pain no matter what you do in life.... so does this mean train less or easier ? I dont think so I think it will undermine your purpose of really training *Iron Shirt* what next,? go more laxed on training and focus , then what , become nothing more than a Belt Factory ? I hope this doesnt happen to anyone. As stated before I am permenantly disabled Neck Back etc ... but I also know my body ..If you stop you may as well give up... your life is over as you know it . So why not train to the best of your ability? Make your body the strongest it can be ... regardless of the manner of your training. 1st rule of thumb start off very softly .... make it harder as you go .. in time you will develop a body of steel.(well at least hard rubber) I think one of the biggest problems today is our fast food mannerism...we want it here and we want it now. If it doesnt happen then we get disappointed. Nothing worth doing will come quickly I tell that to my class all the time (I hope they figure that out)

[-Metablade-]

quote="Van Canna"]The conditioning game.


For example_ I had to deal with full contact spinning kicks/blows to the ‘abdomen’ [cannot be conditioned] _

Various _ Kicks/punches/chops _ to the ‘rib cage’ [cannot be conditioned] _ can be ‘protected’ to an extent by sanchin elbows but not entirely. Only the practitioners, who have not had that type of fighting experience, continue to believe otherwise.

We had one serious injury at the Boston dojo when someone caught a spin kick to the ribs_ breaking a rib and driving it into an organ. George recalls that one.
.[/quote]

Meta: As usual, spot on about reality.

Two broken ribs, two fractured ankles, 8 cracked toes and one tenderized tummy later, I focus on conditioning the extremities only now.

[Kevin Guse]

[quote="Uechi Dude"] So why not train to the best of your ability? [quote]

I would definitely agree and I also really like the concept of starting soft and working your way up. We should not fall into the trap of the comfort zone and settle. But I do think that there is such a thing as train smarter while training harder. For example weight lifter A may lift heavy every time he/she hits the gym while lifter B fallows a routine of an extreme heavy day fallowed by a medium or light day. It has been my experience lifter B will achieve better faster results.

When looking at Uechi I am not questioning the training of the many great practitioners that have developed this great style. At the same time though we as the "next generation" what have you need to always be on the look out for ways to improve our training. I spoke with a professor of physiology at the University of Nebraska who also happens to be a very respected Shotokon practitioner. I asked him at one point about kotekitae. I won't get into all of the details but his thoughts were that one has to be careful not to damage the body(muscles, nerves, tendons, bone etc.) He felt the more extreme conditioning was more damaging to the feeling of the body as opposed to increasing hardness or strength. I'm not sure I would agree with his thoughts but it is something to consider. It is hard though to disagree with him because of his extensive knowledge. It would be fun to see him go rounds with Sensei Glasheen in the ring and on the forum over exercise phys.

[Bill MacDonald]

Do you think it is essential to do Sanchin with the jars (or other weighted objects) in order to develope the musculature to properly do the Sanchin kata?

Regards,

Bill

[Kevin Guse]

Bill,
Thanks for the interest in the body conditioning forum.

As far as the jars go I can only speculate for two reasons. One I have never used them only heard them discussed and two I am only 5 years into my Uechi training. I'm hoping GEM or some of the older, wiser and more talented in the Uechi community will jump in on this one.

I would like to speculate that the jars would not only help with muscular development of a persons core, forearms and back but might also aid is stance and posture development.

[Kevin Guse]

Bill,

I reposted your question about the training jars in a new thread titled "Okinawan jars" to hopefully spark some interest and help from others on this topic. Hope that is ok with you.

[Chris Hess]

Simply going barehanded/footed on your canvas heavy bag is one. Start easy but you can develop callouses on your fist etc. For grip, wrist strength, toughness and reflex training, try tossing different sized pipes and boards back and forth between partners or simply do it alone by tossing them up and catching them. Vary the throw angles and distances. Catch them with the forearms only to increase toughness of your arms for blocking and deflecting blows. Barehanded rope climbing & partner tug of war are great too. Regular training is the key. These will definetely "keep your tools sharp."

[Van Canna]

Yonamine sensei showed tossing a weighted barbell up and catching it on the forearms then rolling it up to the shoulders and down the arms again.