End of summer training.....

We’re getting towards the end of summer training now – just one more week to go…

Summer training was a concept my instructor introduced to our club a few years ago to help deal with the drop in student numbers over the summer holiday period.  Basically, the junior and senior classes are merged into one all summer. For the senior students this means starting classes an hour earlier than usual and for junior students its means they get 1.5 hour classes instead of just 1 hour.

There are obviously pros and cons to merging the classes this way. Sensei has to design lessons that suit the entire spectrum of students from white to black belts and from 6 year olds to middle-aged people. This is almost an impossible task and there are generally winners and losers. The main winners are probably the mid-graders, particularly the older children and adults as the classes are pitched much more to their level. The main losers are probably those at the extremes of the class – the youngest lower grades and the older senior grades.

It has been a challenge for sensei to get the right balance for these classes to ensure everyone gets something out of them. In previous years (in my opinion) the balance has been too much in favour of the children with lots of drills, sparring and games to keep the kids interested. However, this year sensei managed to pick a formula that has worked better for adults too.

We have spent the entire summer focussing on basic kihon and its relationship to the pinan katas, including bunkai. All of us benefit from really drilling the kihon and I mean really drilling the kihon – until you’re dripping with sweat and your legs feel like lead! Our younger or more junior members are particularly benefiting from this as there is plenty of scope for improvement in their basics but we  more senior students are also getting some insights into how to improve our body alignment and correct some simple mistakes or bad habits in our execution of kihon.  I particularly appreciate the opportunity to do this as I was pulled up on some fundamental errors in my basic kihon at my pre-dan course a couple of months ago. I’ve particularly been working on my spinal alignment and hip positioning over the summer and it’s all starting to feel much more natural now to tuck my pelvis under more during stance transitions.

We have also spent every lesson going through all the pinan kata in detail to improve both our performance of the kata but also the understanding of the applications of the kata in the form of ‘pinan drills’. This has been particularly suitable for the more senior students who value the opportunity to work on applications and benefit the most from doing so.

The classes have been very physically demanding all summer.  The warm-ups have been more like demanding work-outs and some of us oldies could have done with a warm-up before the warm-up! We have then gone straight into a demanding kihon session for about 20 minutes before being allowed a drink – and it’s been unusually hot weather here for a change. Then we’ve done all the kata several times each which, as you know, can be a workout in itself. This high-paced, physically demanding karate has suited the teenagers and older children best, though having said that the only students who have had to sit down because they felt ill have been teenage boys. We oldies stoically endure the discomfort so as not to be upstaged by some young pretenders (but we’ve been quietly feeling like death inside).

As Abraham Lincoln said: “You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”  This has been true of these summer classes. On a personal level I am fairly easy to please most of the time so although these summer classes have been a bit of a beasting, on the whole I have enjoyed them and have got a lot out of them. Other students have found them less enjoyable and some students have avoided them altogether. I have missed not being able to work on the stuff that is more relevant to my forthcoming dan grading so I have had to work on that on my own at home but the classes are not all about me and I know that I will be getting plenty of attention as the grading draws closer.

We have one more week of the summer classes and then we will be back to our usual schedule and hopefully back to more application based karate and less fitness based karate.  The kids and junior grades will have gained a lot from working with the seniors and will have gleamed some insight into what to expect as they move up the ranks but will ultimately be better off returning to their normal classes where the pace is a little easier for little ones. Likewise the seniors should all be a lot fitter and sharper with their basics and understanding of the pinan katas but will be grateful to return to their usual training patterns.  

Does the style of your training change over the summer months? What do you think about it?

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What exactly should a warm-up be?

The warm up is such a fundamental part of exercising that I think it is easy to overlook the exact purpose of doing it or what exercises constitute the best warm up activity. I even have my doubts as to whether a warm up is really necessary.

Last week we started the class with breakfalls. No warm-up. I was dubious about the wisdom of this at first, thinking that we might get some injuries but I actually enjoyed breakfalling from cold – it warmed me up much more quickly than a usual warm-up and I felt ready for action all session. No one suffered any injuries or pulls. So did the breakfalling constitute the warm-up?

Last night I arrived late for class and the other students had already done their warm-up. I arrived just as the class was about to start a round of breakfalls, so I just did them – from cold again. They went well and I felt fine – I felt warmed up and ready for action. So does this mean that breakfalling was my warm up again?

Usually our warm-up consists of either running around the hall for a couple of minutes or jogging on the spot, star jumps, press-ups, burpees, sit-ups and straight leg raises followed by a few dynamic stretches. This lasts between 5-10 minutes. Occasionally we warm-up with some fast kihon moves or sparring moves followed by stretching. When I used to do my kobudo classes the warm-up was similar.

When my husband used to belong to a jujitsu club the warm-up lasted for 45 minutes and consisted of many static stretches as well as a cardio-vascular warm-up.

Whichever way I have been asked to warm up I have not suffered any injuries as a result of not warming up sufficiently. However, I usually feel more ready for action if I have ‘warmed-up’ doing the activity I am participating in (i.e. karate moves/breakfalling) than if I have warmed up doing ‘warm-up exercises’ (i.e. running, star-jumps, press-ups, stretching etc). This begs the question – what’s the purpose of the warm-up?

My understanding of this question is that the warm-up is designed to prepare the body for action by increasing the heart rate and warming up the muscles. Well, I don’t need special exercises to increase my heart rate – just doing karate does that. Also, my muscles are at a constant 37 degrees centigrade whether I’m exercising or not – it’s called body temperature. So perhaps I’m trying to increase blood flow to the muscles rather than increase their temperature…

Doesn’t it make more sense to increase the blood flow to the muscles you’re actually going to use rather than a random selection of them? I mean, if I’m going to punch and kick doesn’t it make sense to warm up my punching and kicking muscles? I don’t need to isolate them out with special exercises I just need to start punching and kicking – but more slowly and carefully until the blood flow has increased. If the session is going to be mainly a throwing one will breakfalls warm me up better than jogging and press-ups? If I’m doing a kata based session then wouldn’t doing some kata warm me up best?

Runners run best when they warm up by jogging a couple of rounds of the track. It has been advocated that weight trainers warm up by lifting the empty bar or going through the range of weight exercises they propose to do but without the weights first to warm up the correct muscles. They should then add half the weight they want to lift and repeat the range of movements before finally getting onto the full weight they intend to work with.

In other words, you warm-up best by getting on with the activity you intend to be doing but at a slower and gentler pace until your heart rate has increased and the blood flow to the correct muscles has increased.

This makes more sense to me. I don’t feel I get any real benefit from jumping and jogging around doing ‘warm-up’ exercises, despite what conventional wisdom tells me.  I’m all for starting my karate sessions with a round of breakfalling, kihon, kata or kumite – starting at a steady pace and increasing the intensity as I warm-up.

What about you? Do you swear by your warm-up routine or does it just get in the way of doing your main activity?

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Gashaku 2012 - a fantastic weekend

One of our training sessions at Walesby Forest.

Last weekend I attended my first gashaku (training camp). This was held in Walesby Forest Outdoor Activity Centre in Nottinghamshire. About 70 people from our karate organisation descended on Walesby on Friday evening to settle into their accommodation and have their first meal together. 

Paul, stirring things up!

Some of us stayed in the lodges so that we could sleep in proper beds – I need a soft mattress under me after several hours of training! Other more hardy folk (or foolhardy depending on your point of view) chose to camp. Well, they called it camping; it seemed more like ‘Glamping’ to me with their luxury tents and camping beds -not at all what I remember camping to be like when I was younger!

Me and Sensei (trust me to blink at the wrong time!)

Hazel (my instructor’s partner) may not be a karate-ka herself but she definitely has a black belt in organisation, culinary skills and generally making all things happen at the right time and in the right place… and always with a smile and never getting flustered.  She was definitely the lynch pin that helped to hold the whole weekend together and make it such a success.

Gathering at the Robin Hood statue for first training session.

We were blessed with amazing weather – one of the few really nice weekends all summer. This allowed us to train outside on the grass rather than in the marquee. Training began on Saturday morning with a run. A run! I never go running so that came as a bit of a shock. We had to do two laps of a gravel circuit – uphill going out and downhill coming back. The total distance was probably about a mile, so not too far but in a gi and hot sunshine……

Sensei Cool!

Anyway, I was determined that I would complete the run without stopping so as unaccustomed I am to public running I set off at a steady pace, kept my arms relaxed and close to my body and just kept going. It became clear to me after the first lap that running is as much a mental process as a physical one; you just have to tell yourself to keep going. So I was pretty pleased to complete the run – not with the front runners admittedly, but not with the stragglers either.

Sensei demonstrating a 'body hardening' kick to the thigh!
(That's my son he's kicking...grrr!)

After a quick water break we were then straight into our karate session. We divided into 2 groups – over 16s and under 16s. Our group worked on some application drills, breaking them down to work on the details. We practised some soft blocking techniques and worked on some locks. As the grass was quite dry and soft most of us kicked off our trainers to train bare foot. It was great to feel the ground under your feet in this way. Half way through the 2 hour session we had another water break and then switched instructors. We went through a few basics to warm up again and then carried on with some application stuff.

We were pretty hungry after that and Hazel had lunch all ready for us in one of the lodges. After lunch it was time to enjoy one of the afternoon activities that had been arranged by the activity centre itself. So people divided up to either go rafting on the lake (after making their own rafts first!), body boarding which seemed to consist of throwing yourself downhill on a sheet of wet, muddy plastic on a piece of polystyrene into a mucky lake; archery (which looked quite civilised in comparison) or doing an assault course.  My sons both opted for the rafting and my husband did archery.

What, we have to build it first?

Finally on the water. Should that barrel be attached?

Body boarding (I kept calling this water boarding by mistake!)

Apparently the lake was very cold (and mucky).

Archery - Definitely more civilised

The rather tame assault course!

I had booked onto another activity, water zorb balling or is it water ball zorbing? Anyway those giant plastic balls that you get inside and walk over the water in but unfortunately the activity was withdrawn because the balls had holes in or something! So instead, I became the official photographer and walked around to each activity to take photos of everyone else having fun.

There wasn’t a lot of time (about an hour and a half) before the next karate session was due so just time for a cup of tea, a snack and a lie down! I admit it – I had a half hour kip before putting my gi back on…

Fighting like men!

My son beating up children!

Miss Determined face - isn't she great?

The second training session was all about sparring. It was just an hour this time but pretty full on. We spent most of the session free sparring with a variety of different partners. We were mixing with people from different clubs and it was interesting to see the slightly different styles and attitudes to sparring.  We also did a drill where we had to pull a tag out of your partner’s belt before they pulled the one from yours – this was designed to speed up your reactions to get in and out quickly whilst blocking your partners attempts to do the same to you.  The only problem with sparring bare foot on the grass was that you also had to dodge the stones and hedgehog droppings!

Did I mention we had some fun as well?

Looks like they were winning...

We finished about 5.30pm and had a couple of hours before the barbeque commenced - time to shower, change and feel human again. This was also the time you realised how much things hurt and how many new bruises you had acquired!

The barbeque was a very chilled out occasion – why is it that men always take charge of the cooking when it’s a barbeque? We had four giant BBQ’s going to feed the 73 people that were there, so quite a major undertaking. It cooled down a lot as the sun went down so we gathered around 2 large campfires to keep warm (no we didn’t sing camp songs, we’re not boy scouts!) Actually we just talked and socialised, getting to know each other better. And the wine flowed and the beer flowed. What, drinking at a karate camp you say? Don’t worry it was medicinal – we were in pain!

Getting warm around the fire

Drinking our 'medicine'

Look mine's in a cup, not a bottle - I'm so much more civilised don't you think?

Sunday morning required a fairly early start (for a Sunday that is). Training was at 9.00am so we had to be up and breakfasted before then. We were all pretty sore and stiff by now so were hoping we wouldn’t start with another run – a nice gentle stretching session seemed more appealing somehow. Anyway, we set off on the run again - why are karate instructors so sadistic?

I set off on my run with my thighs still aching from the previous day. It was definitely more of a mental challenge this time. In fact I had decided that I might only do the one lap. However, I was following one of our red belt ladies who’s a year older than me and I asked her if she was going to do both laps. She said she was and I suddenly felt ashamed that I was planning to take it easy so I continued to follow her and did the second lap.  I’m so glad I did – I had a much greater sense of achievement for having done so.

The final karate session was a two hour lesson on kata. We were divided into two groups again – black and brown belts in one and everyone else in the other. Our group was taught a completely new kata (new to us that is): Chatan yara kushanku. This kata is actually on our 4^th dan syllabus but it is an important competition kata so those in our organisation that are in the kata squad (not me!) learn it at earlier grades just for performance purposes. At 4^th dan all bunkai are also required. Anyway, back to the gashaku… This kata is very long so we got about half way through learning the basic pattern. There are several familiar segments in it which we know from the pinan katas and kosokun shiho so this made learning it a little easier but on the whole it is a complicated kata to remember.

Our early attempts at Chatanyara no kushanku

Tyler already knows it - shows doesn't it?

We finished at 11am and had about an hour to change, pack, help clean the lodges and marquee and generally make it look like we’d never been there! We then gathered outside for some final announcements, a few prizes were given out and thank yous said. Hazel had produced a final packed lunch for us before we left which was very appreciated… then it was just farewells with hugs and kisses all round, until next time….

Everyone who went agreed that it was a fantastic weekend …..Roll on gashaku 2013!

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Training with injuries....

Do you train when you are injured? Should you train when you are injured? Of course it depends to some extent on the nature of the injury and whether surgery or other medical intervention is required to correct it.

I had an e-mail from someone who had fairly recently taken up martial arts but had sustained a shoulder injury requiring surgery and her doctor had advised her to stop doing martial arts. She was asking me what I thought about this advice and whether I had sustained injuries doing martial arts.

Well, who hasn’t sustained some kind of injury doing martial arts? Anything from bumps, bruises, sprains or pulls to ACL tears, rotator cuff injuries, fractured ribs or noses – you name it, it will have happened to someone.  It is almost inconceivable that you will never sustain some kind of injury when you train in martial arts – it’s an occupational hazard!

Surely if we gave up a physical activity every time we were injured we would soon become a world of couch potatoes. Being prepared to risk physical injury and endure the pain of it whilst training on is part of the mental and spiritual development that martial arts are known for.

I had a chronic ‘quad’ injury last year when preparing for my black belt training. I could barely lift my knee up let alone kick with that leg. It didn’t occur to me to stop training until it healed! However I was highly motivated to speed up the healing process (6 weeks from grading) and eventually got relief from a deep tissue massage. Now I have a chronic shoulder injury. I have had a course of physiotherapy which has brought about some minor improvement and I’m planning to try another deep tissue massage to my shoulder, neck and back. However, I have continued to train throughout, putting up with the discomfort and pain afterwards.

My husband continues to train with a chronic hip problem – he literally hobbles home sometimes. My husband is a doctor; if he were his own patient he would probably advise himself to stop doing martial arts. However, this advice would only help his hip (or maybe not – it might get worse with no exercise!) but it wouldn’t help him – he is a whole person, not just a hip. He would be miserable if he couldn’t carry on with training – he’d rather put up with the pain!

How far should we be prepared to go training with a chronic injury? I am always impressed with the courage and fortitude of people who fight back to fitness after a serious injury so they can continue enjoying the activity they love. Michele fought back from her ACL tear a few years ago and has now just been awarded her 6^th dan. Likewise, Middle-AgedMartial Artist tore his ACL during his black belt test but fought back to re-take the test a couple of years later. Tiger Lady is fighting back following a brain injury caused by boxing. I’m sure you can all name someone who didn’t give up their martial art because of an injury and fought back to fitness, probably in spite of their doctor’s advice.

Of course there are things we can do to minimise our chance of injury. Injuries often happen because muscles are not strong enough to stabilise joints, or our posture is bad or our technique is incorrect. Keeping our bodies in tip-top condition is a necessary part of martial arts training. Good posture, muscle tone, flexibility, general body movement, as well as good technique – particularly for throwing where you need to bear the full weight of your partner- will help to reduce the chances of injury and help to speed up recovery if it happens.

In my opinion (and I’m not a doctor) unless it is actually fractured, dislocated, sprained to the point you can’t weight bear, bleeding heavily, just been operated on or has rendered you unconscious there is no need to stop training. Grin and bear the discomfort and train on. If it’s bad enough to put you out of action for a while then phase your return as you build up your fitness again – but don’t give up all together.

Remember!  You are more than the sum of your parts. You are certainly more than your injury so don’t be defined by it. What’s best advice for your injury isn’t necessarily best advice for your whole person – you just have to be more sensible about the way you train in future. There are people out there training from wheelchairs, now that’s to be admired!

If you are determined to succeed you will find a way …

Happy training!

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor so don't take this post as advice on whether you can train with your injury. It's your injury so it's your call....

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My Martial Art Aims for 2012...a progress report

At the beginning of the year I wrote a post outlining my Martial Arts aims for 2012. Just to show that I’m not ‘all mouth and no trousers’, as they say, and to keep me focused on achieving these aims, I thought I’d write you a progress report….

We are now a quarter of the way through 2012 so hopefully I have made some progress with my aims. Here’s a recap on what I wanted to achieve and how it’s going so far….

1.       To improve personal fitness and overcome a repetitive shoulder injury:

I had planned to produce a personal fitness programme to work on at home because this worked quite well for me when I was training for my black belt grading. However, despite buying a couple of kickboxing workout DVDs (which I thought would be a fun way of working out) I haven’t really got very far with this. I could make 101 excuses why I haven’t got a fitness programme worked out but that’s all they’ll be – excuses. Anyway, my job finishes next week and I’m going to have a lot more time on my hands so I will definitely get to grips with this aim for the next quarter of the year!

Just because I haven’t got my act together at home doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on my fitness. Oh no! Sensei seems to be on a mission to get us all fitter so we have been doing a lot of fitness drills and exercises during classes. We have a regular fitness binge at the beginning of class with push ups, sit ups, burpees, straight leg raises, squats, lunges, planks etc. So all is not lost with my personal fitness aim…..

Talking about doing push ups, they are a real problem for me at the moment because of this dratted shoulder injury. I have been receiving physiotherapy for several weeks now and things are improving, slowly but surely. Apparently, due to the initial injury (probably rotational cuff injury) I have been allowing my shoulder to roll forward to compensate and reduce the pain. This has resulted in the muscles in my shoulder blades not working properly and my right shoulder blade is misaligned and weak. I have been working on some exercises to correct this and things have improved. However, after a heavy punching or throwing session my shoulder is throbbing and the muscles leading up to my neck and down the right side of my spine are knotted and tender. Definitely a work in progress this one…

2.       To continue to develop and improve martial arts skills:

I think I have only missed one karate class and a couple of kobudo classes this year, so not a bad record. We have also had a couple of ‘higher grade’ classes for black and brown belts. About 8 – 10 of us have attended these and we have covered some pressure point techniques and some wave form striking techniques. Having covered them in some detail during these classes we are now looking at how they can be applied in bunkai. I wasn’t too keen on wave form striking the first time I met it, read this post, but now I am much more amenable to its merits and how it fits into the bigger picture.

I graded successfully last week in kobudo with the nunchuku, so now I will be back training with the bo for a few months and probably the bokken as well (I love the bokken!)

I have also attended a regional kobudo course. This was very interesting, not to mention painful! We learnt some nasty wrist and ankle throws using a sai, ouch! Did some bo fighting, great fun, and learned a battlefield signalling kata with a tessan (fan). I loved learning that kata and what all the signals meant – I’d definitely like to take up the tessen as one of my weapons.

My karate instructor also put on a kobudo seminar recently.  He went out to Okinawa last summer to train in kobudo with Hokama Sensei and is now teaching us some Okinawan bo and nuchuku kata. This was an interesting experience because the Okinawan way of teaching kobudo is very different to the Japanese way, particularly when taught in a jujitsu club – see my recent post: What exactly is kobudo?

For later in the year our club is planning its first gashaku (training camp) which should be fun. As well as karate training we will be free to take part in other pursuits available at the camp site such as archery, swimming, climbing etc. There will also be lots of socialising and BBQs so let’s hope the British weather doesn’t let us down!

3.       To improve teaching and leadership skills…

This is probably the aim that I have made most progress on so far. The sports leadership award course that I wanted to do hasn’t happened yet because there aren’t enough people in my area wanting to do it so the organisers have told me to enquire again later in the year.

However, I have done a lot of teaching – independently. I ran a 6 week after school karate class for 4-7 year olds at a local primary school which seemed to go okay. Most of the kids were great and made good progress in the time they had. One or two expressed an interest in carrying on with it so hopefully we will see them at the club. Discipline issues remained a problem with a couple of the boys and I tried various tactics to sort them out. I really need to reflect on these classes so that I can improve them for the next time we run such a course, which hopefully will be after Easter.

In fact my sensei and I went into a local primary school last Wednesday to do a karate demonstration and talk to enthuse the kids. We just need to wait and see how many are interested in coming along to an after school club now.

I also went along to my first Instructors training course in January. That was interesting experience training with all the senior instructors from our organisation – I definitely felt like the new girl! However it was a chance to learn firsthand all the changes that are happening to our syllabus which are quite exciting.

Looking back, it feels that I am fairly on track with achieving my martial arts aims for 2012. Of course there is no real endpoint to achieving these aims but I find that writing things down really helps me to stay focused and on track.

My latest venture is setting up a martial arts library for the kids in our club but more on that later…..

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Muscle Memory - it's all in the mind!

Muscle memory is a common phrase associated with the martial arts as well as in other sports, playing a musical instrument, riding a bike or in the acquisition of any other psycho-motor skill for that matter. It is a useful way of trying to understand what is going on: through repetition of a set of muscular actions, that muscle (or group of muscles) will eventually react to a stimulus in a predictable and reliable way. It is as if those muscles have ‘remembered’ what to do and the movements become automatic without the need for conscious control.

Unfortunately the phrase ‘muscle memory’ grates on me a little! It may feel as if your muscles just know what to do all by themselves and you aren’t consciously sending them messages to contract or relax at a given moment but your unconscious brain is working very hard to tell your muscles what to do in any given situation. Clearly memory resides in the brain not the muscles. In my opinion a more accurate phrase to describe what is happening is motor memory.

We control all muscular movements in our bodies through the motor system which basically consists of the brain, neurons (and their synapses) and the somatic muscles. If you want to move a part of your body, your brain sends the signal down the appropriate neurons to the appropriate muscle(s) and the muscle contracts to move the required limb. Repetitive patterns of movement, such as walking or cycling, eventually become unconscious actions, though they are still being continuously controlled by the brain.

When we are learning a new skill, say for instance a new kata or a new type of kick, your movements may be clumsy and jerky – not at all like your instructors movements. This is because your brain has not yet laid down a memory pattern for this movement. It hasn’t recruited the appropriate motor units in the muscle and developed new neuronal and synaptic connections that enhance communication between the muscle and the brain.

With repetitive training of the required skill, the necessary motor units in the muscles are recruited, neurons and synapses are created to control these motor units and a ‘memory map’ becomes laid down in the brain which enables the required movement to be evoked quickly and accurately when a stimulus is received. For example, you see a punch coming towards your head (stimulus) and before you know it you have evaded and blocked it. You didn’t think about it, it just seemed to happen automatically! Well it probably did happen automatically because it’s a technique you’ve practiced over and over again, your brain just executed the move below your conscious control – but rest assured it was still your brain controlling it.

As a new ‘memory map’ is developed in the brain your execution of a particular technique, let’s say that new kata or kick, becomes more fluid and natural, more precise and predictable. This is because your brain has better, more precise control of the necessary muscles needed to carry out that movement.

So, how do we create these ‘memory maps’ in our brains (motor memory)?
There are three phases to motor learning, i.e. learning a new skill.

Cognitive phase: learning a skill for the first time requires a great deal of thinking. You have to be consciously aware of every single movement you have to perform. Think how mentally taxing learning a new kata is. Not only do you have to learn and remember the sequence of steps, you have to think about coordinating hand and foot positions, which way to look, which leg to place your weight on, which direction to turn…. there’s just so much to think about. During this phase you go through a process of trial and error to determine which strategies help make the movement work better. Initial progress can be quite quick.

Associative phase: You’ve worked out the best way to do the actions, so during this phase you fine tune adjustments to make the performance better. Improvements are more gradual and this phase may take a long time, still requiring a lot of conscious effort. We often perceive this as a long plateau phase in our training.

Autonomous phase: This the phase where the ‘memory map’ is complete and the actions become automatic and unconscious. It can take months or years of training to achieve this. This is why martial arts take such a long time to get good at.

During the first two phases a process of memory encoding is taking place. New neurons are being created and motor units in the muscles recruited. These new neurons are fragile and susceptible to damage. This is why we tend to keep forgetting steps and movements we are learning and need reminding a lot when we first start. Several areas of the brain are active during this phase. During the final phase the process of memory consolidation occurs. This is much more stable and less likely to degrade. Long term structural modifications are made to the motor map which prevents degradation. This is why once we have learned a skill well we tend not to forget it even if we don’t practice it for years, for example, riding a bike.

How can we enhance motor learning and motor memory?

Feedback: there are two types of feedback occurring during learning:

• Inherent feedback: you constantly give yourself positive and negative feedback about your performance and make corrections. For example, you notice that you lean forward to hit the pad so you correct this by stepping forward a little. You learn to correct a wobble when you turn by placing your feet further apart. We can enhance our use of inherent feedback by having a clear picture of what we are aiming for so that we can compare our performance to an ideal one. Inherent feedback is a very active process – you have to think critically about what you are doing. Videotaping can be a good way of helping us to improve our inherent feedback.

• Augmented feedback: this is when someone else gives you feedback about your performance. Our instructors regularly critique and correct our performance. This is good – it speeds up our learning, listen!

Endurance and Strength training: Endurance training helps to protect the newly forming neurons that make up the developing memory map in the brain by up-regulating the production of neurotropic factors which prevent the degradation of the delicate new cells. The effects of strength training are seen in the development of new neurons in the spinal cord well before there are any noticeable changes in the muscles being exercised. This suggests that endurance, strength and skills training are synergistic; enhancing the rate of motor memory encoding and consolidation.

Visualisation: just visualising yourself doing the techniques you are learning has been shown to help induce new neuronal activity that enhances your real performance of the skill. Day dreaming isn’t a waste of time if it is focussed on learning those skills you want to perfect!

However you like to think about it, muscle memory or motor memory, it’s all in the brain! If you think about skills learning as something that is happening in your brain rather than your muscles then you can focus on things that enhance the process such as visualisation and inherent feedback. Of course though, your skill level is going to be limited if your muscles aren’t in good condition so some endurance and strength training are also important, particularly as they have a synergistic effect on producing those all important motor memory maps in your brain!

Happy training.

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Some martial arts reading......

The most popular post I have published on the SSK blog (by far) is one I wrote a few months ago where I provided a reading list of martial arts books (Do you read about martial arts?). Since the SSK students seemed to have an appetite for reading I have just posted a new list of books for them that I have found good reading material. I thought you might like to see it too!

The title of each book links directly to Amazon (UK) in case you want to purchase it or find out more about it. (I do not receive commission for any books sold via this post).

Getting fit for martial arts.

My new year’s resolution was to get fitter and more flexible to enhance my ability to do karate. My ultimate goal was to get fit enough to endure my shodan grading in the summer (assuming I’m invited to grade). I’m no real expert on fitness training so I have looked to a few books for help. Here are the ones I’m finding useful:

Ultimate Flexibility – a complete guide to stretching for Martial Arts, by Sang H. Kim

This very comprehensive book covers all aspects of stretching from the basic physiology and science behind stretching to easy to follow exercises for all areas of the body. It has chapters on body mechanics, the effects of aging on flexibility, muscle recovery and developing the right mindset for stretching. It then takes you through how to plan your own stretching program. The exercises themselves are ordered into areas of the body such as legs, back, hips, arms etc. There is then a series of suggested workouts depending on what you are trying to achieve e.g. a light contact workout, kicking workout, boxing workout, grappling workout etc. I am finding this book invaluable so I’m sure you will too.

Fighter’s Fact book: Over 400 concepts, principles and drills to make you a better fighter! By Loren W. Christensen.

If you want to improve your endurance, speed, reaction times and power then this is the book for you. It is packed full of training ideas and drills that you can work on at home alone or with a partner. It also looks at ways of improving punching, kicking and sparring techniques and provides tips of how to pass a black belt test. Part two focuses on mental training – alleviating stress, mental imagery, coping with pain and conquering fear.

Solo training: the martial artist’s guide to training alone, by Loren W. Christensen

Don’t have a training partner at home? Then you need this book! Again, this is a collection of drills, techniques and exercises specifically tailored to the needs of a martial artist. This book is designed to add a bit of spice and variety into solo training routines so that you don’t get bored. It aims to help you get the maximum results from the shortest training session, so if you don’t have a lot of time to train at home this book could become your best friend!

Martial Arts After 40, by Sang H. Kim Ph.D

If, like me, you are now on the wrong side of 40 then it may be worth getting this book. It outlines the changes your body undergoes as you get older and how this affects your training. It is also full of common sense tips and exercises than enable you to continue to train safely and effectively as you age and how to prevent injury. The book is very positive and motivating and will help the older practitioner get the best out of their training.

Martial Arts Instruction books

Fancy yourself as a future instructor? Helping out as an Assistant instructor? Or, maybe you just want to feel more confident about teaching when sensei asks you to show a junior grade how to do something or explain something to them. I bought the following books when I started helping my instructor in the junior class. I have found them very helpful:

Martial Arts Instruction – applying educational theory and communication techniques in the dojo, by Lawerence A. Kane.

This book deals with understanding different learning styles and assessing your student’s learning style preference. In fact it is quite useful just for helping you understand your own learning style and preferences even if you are not interested in teaching. It then looks at different methods of teaching, fostering a positive learning environment, lesson planning and class management. The book is very practical and readable and doesn’t get too dogged down in educational theory, despite the title. Worth a read if you are interested in teaching.

Martial Arts Instructor’s Desk Reference – a complete guide to martial arts administration, by Sang H. Kim, Ph.D.

This book has something for every budding instructor from assistant or new club instructors to experienced instructors looking for new ideas to liven up or refresh their teaching methods. There is a lot of information and ideas about teaching children, including children with disabilities or behavioural problems. There are lots of suggestions as to how to deal with the unruly or non compliant child and how to keep all students motivated and enthusiastic. If you are serious about starting a club then there is information on how to go about it including how to promote and market a martial arts club. This is a book that can be dipped into when you need some teaching inspiration!

101 games and drill for Martial Arts, by David and Elizabeth Lee.

If you are looking for some fun ways to spice up a class then this book is full of games and drills. Using stick type drawings it guides you through each game or drill, outlining its purpose and what level of student it is suitable for. There are games and drills to improve balance, reaction times, speed, kicks, punching, sparring, pad work and more. There are team games, solo drills and partner drills. Many are suitable for warm ups, warm downs, end of class games or as serious training drills. A great book to dip into for ideas!

Martial Arts and general life:


For many people martial arts are not just about fitness and fighting but are about self-improvement and a guide as to how to live a better life. If you are into the Way of martial arts then this next session may interest you:

Living the Martial Way – a manual for the way a modern warrior should think, by Forrest E. Morgan, Maj USAF

This book is fast becoming a modern classic. It is a comprehensive guide on how to integrate the lessons learned in the dojo into everyday life. The book is designed to be a systematic, step-by-step approach to applying the warrior mind-set to martial arts training and daily life. It is divided into three sections: The Way of training – how to approach training and how to gain the most from it, The Way of honour – an approach to ethics and how to develop a powerful sense of character and will, and finally, The Way of living – a guide to a ‘warrior’ lifestyle; living a healthy life with dignity and wisdom. The book aims to provide you with a road map for determining your own martial destiny.

The Essence of Budo – a practitioners’ guide to understanding the Japanese Martial Ways, by Dave Lowry

No martial arts book list is complete without a David Lowry book! This is his latest book, following a familiar formula for which his books are well known and loved. This time in his explanations of what it means to live the martial Way, he focuses on issues that a martial arts student should consider as their training develops. He looks at fitness and gives some practical advice on improving posture and movement. He questions what students and teachers should expect from each other, the meaning of rank, how to train with less experienced students, the importance of dojo etiquette, teaching children and much more. It is all written in Lowry’s easy going, plain speaking style. A good read as usual.

What are your favourite martial arts books?

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Self defence training - are you scared enough?

Do you ever think of why you are doing karate? I expect that between us we have a variety of reasons – general fitness, sociability, sport and competition or maybe we like the aesthetics of martial arts. Some of us may have slightly loftier aims of mental and spiritual development. However, all these goals can be achieved through other types of activity such as aerobics, gymnastics, dance, team sports, yoga or meditational practices. Therefore, there must be another aim that binds us all together – a desire to learn self-defence.

For some of us learning effective self-defence will be the main, overriding aim of training in karate and for others it will be a secondary consideration. How important the self-defence element is to you, may depend on your perception of your risk of being attacked and needing to use it. This will be related to your upbringing, past experiences, job and probably your gender.

If you were brought up in the rough end of town, witnessed or were involved in several street fights and/or work as a bouncer , or, as a woman, you’ve been the victim/witness of domestic violence, then learning karate may be all about self-defence and not much else. However, if you are a middle class housewife who’s never even seen a fight or ever felt threatened by violence in any way, or, a mild mannered man who knows how to stay away from trouble, then your motivation to really learn self-defence may be much lower.

Whatever your circumstances, learning self-defence must be in the back of your mind somewhere because you are reading this blog and you’ve joined a karate club; in which case, you will probably agree that there is no point in approaching the self-defence elements of karate in a half-hearted fashion. Yet many of us do!

However remote the possibility that we may get attacked, if it happens, it may be a life or death situation. You will either get attacked or you won’t – it’s all or nothing. So is there any point in only half-heartedly preparing for such an eventuality, however remote the possibility seems?

There is a Japanese phrase – Ichi-go, ichi-e, which means, “one encounter, one chance”. This is what it will be like if it ever happens to you – you will get only one chance to defend yourself, so you have to make your training count. Do you train as if you are preparing yourself for a real encounter? Are you scared? If you train half-heartedly then you are clearly not scared enough.

So, what is a real fight like? Obviously your attacker won’t hold out their arm or leg six inches from your body whilst you think about what to do with it. Neither will they casually hold onto your lapels and wait patiently for you to respond whilst having a nice chat about something. They won’t let go as soon as you attempt to put a lock on or fall over as soon as you start to push or pull them.

In reality, an attack is fast, furious and unrelenting – at least a man on man or woman on woman attack will most likely be like that. The attack generally consists of repetitive punching and kicking. There will no ‘thinking’ time, no time to use complicated techniques, no time at all. The person who seizes control first will be the winner. You will only seize control if you have trained to do so and practiced to the point where you need ‘no time’ to think.

A man on woman attack is a slightly different scenario. According to crime statistics, the most common ways in which a woman is attacked by a man is by being grabbed. The five most common ways of attack are by variations on the wrist grab or arm and wrist grab. This is followed by bear hugs and strangles. A man rarely starts the ‘fight’ by striking the woman, though striking may come later if the woman needs to be subdued.

So, how will you react if you are attacked? Well, according to the experts in self-defence training, “you will fight as you train”. They also say that, “You won’t rise to the level of your expectations but instead you will fall to the level of your training”. Depending on your attitude to training this will either sound encouraging or alternatively, make you very scared!

Perhaps this is a good time to examine you own attitude and motivation to your training. Take kata for instance. It is said that when a lay person watches a kata performance they should recognise that they are watching a ‘fight’ in progress. Not only that, they should realise that you are winning! Do you perform your kata to win the fight?

Then there’s kihon (basics). Do you ever get bored standing in rows drilling basic punches, kicks and blocks? Maybe you think that you’ve been doing this so long now you can do those kihon combinations with your eyes shut. Good! That means you’re reaching a state of ‘no mind’ (mushin). Remember, you’ll have no time to think in a real fight, a state of mushin is what is required – so keep drilling!

And what about kumite? We do light contact point kumite; it’s not fighting as such, it’s sport. So does it have any value in self-defence training? It depends how you look at it but I think it has a lot of value. It teaches you to deal with confrontation, control your fear, speed up your reaction times, deal with unpredictability and ultimately achieve a state of mushin. The best ‘fighters’ just spar and don’t think but you have to train extensively to reach this mental state.

These three cornerstones of karate: kata, kihon and kumite, all feed into the ultimate aim of self-defence training. So if you are giving your all to these elements of training then it makes sense to give your all to the self-defence element of training too. Remember itchi-go, itchi-e – one encounter, one chance…..make sure you will win.

 

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