To me if life boils down to one thing its movement. To live is to keep moving: Jerry Seinfeld
Can you sit down on the floor in a controlled fashion and then get back up without using your hands, knees, or arms?
Last week I wrote about breathing as one of the four keys to being a good martial artist. Breathing powers your movement and once you can breathe deeply, fully and without tension you can start to move well.
Research reported in the European Journal of Preventative Cardiology showed that middle-aged and elderly people who could get down and up again without using hands, knees or arms had a much higher life span than those who could not.
The test is a good one and gives a good indication of several factors. Strength to body weight ratio, flexibility, balance, motor coordination and levels of tension and relaxation.
At the upcoming performance improvement seminar on November 16th Jamie and I will be giving you the tools to improve this and many other everyday movements with ease increasing your strength, flexibility, motor coordination and ability to relax tension in the body.
Moving is a skill. In 1952 the psychologist E.R Guthrie proposed the following definition of skill: To bring about some end result with:
- Minimum energy expenditure
- Maximum certainty of achievement
- Minimum movement time.
Optimum performance in any martial or movement art requires you to move in a way that is smooth, uses minimal effort and is natural, safe and efficient. These skills are also pretty handy in everyday life.
As a martial artist movement needs to have minimum energy expenditure because you don’t know how long you are going to have to continue fighting for or against how many people. Imagine fighting all day on a battlefield in armour with a heavy shield and longsword. I often wonder what manner of men they must have been. I now think that they had much more efficient ways of moving, borne out of necessity. No matter how strong you are, muscular work will give out quickly. We often think of them as brutes, but the best warriors movements had to be relaxed, smooth and efficient. Which leads into the next element:
Never confuse movement with action: Ernest Hemingway
In class we strip movement bare, down to its function. How little movement is required to complete the task. We are striving to simplify. Even in the simple action of getting down and back up again described above, most people will be doing a lot more movement than is necessary. This movement is activity rather than action and is a waste of energy. This is true in every movement that you make. How much more energy are you using in your everyday movements than you really need? Do you ever find yourself tired and depleted? Wouldn’t it be better to conserve your energy for when you need it the most?
As a martial artist once you can breathe and move in a coordinated fashion you are ready to start learning how this can help you to relax. Tension is like ice. When you ‘freeze’ under intense pressure it is like a body of still water that freezes over. Just as it is harder for ice to form on running water, breathing, followed by subtle movement will break up this tension. This is the key to being able to keep a clear head under pressure and to perform smooth relaxed movement…
Spaces are filling up for the performance improvement seminar, which will cover in-depth the topics of breathing, movement and relaxation for optimum performance in anything that you do. Click here to book now.
You must be logged in to post a comment.