conditioning

[Dana Sheets]

How much of class time should be devoted to iron body conditioning?
Or - how much time each day should a student spend developing their conditioning?

Note: this is about pounding - not sit-ups or push-ups.

It is my personal belief that you need at least 20 minutes of daily pounding to build the body. For young male students (under 25) that number can go as high as 60.

What say you?

[AAAhmed46]

I have to disagree.

Id say, atleast once a week depending on how hard you hit each other.

So i guess it's hard to tell what the minimum and maximum would be.

[Dana Sheets]

It is my understanding that body conditioning should be regular, not so heavy as to cause damage, and for a longer period of time.

So 20 minutes of moderate pounding everyday is much better than 5 minutes of banging away to the point that you're so sore you can't do it again for 2-3 days.

The human body adapts to daily stress. Distance runners run every day, dancers have told me they must stretch every day, etc.

All the classical texts I've read suggest and describe regimens for daily training. And my own personal experience is that I never would have survived in Uechi dojo had I not spent a solid year of daily conditioning.

[f.Channell]

Hi Dana,

Distance runners don't run everyday, common training schedules have them taking at least one day off to rest per week, and only one long distance run per week, the others are shorter distances. But running is quite different from arm and leg conditioning.

My experience with Maemiya Sensei was that he conditioned constantly with a stick, I've also heard the same of Yonamine Sensei who I believe Rabesa Sensei describes in his book as driving a cab and conditioning with a stick at the frequent stop lights and signs. but you've probably experienced the same.

I would say 5 minutes or so for the regular student, more for those seeking to equal the masters.

F.

[Dana Sheets]

Yah-you're right on the running thing. I forget the difference between the folks that run 20-25 miles a week and those that run 50+. I know many folks around here who run 1/2 marathons that run every day. But the day off is common and sometimes two for people trying to train up quickly.

[mhosea]

Is this about optimums or minimums? The way it was worded sounded a bit all-or-nothing, as in needs to be done this much or don't bother. After a year of Uechi, my conditioning is coming along, but it isn't where I want it to be yet. My forearms aren't even back to where they were when I was doing Matsubayashi Ryu, especially the sharp edge of the ulna, but then again, Matsubayashi is positively "Uechi" about forearms.

Anyway, rather than have structured time set aside every day, I rather like the Yonamine-in-the-car approach (an anecdote I also remember from one of Art Rabesa's books), as I idly beat on my arms and legs for a minute or two at at time while my mind is working on other things.

We more or less do the standard partner drills in class, with occasional variations. I actually don't know how long this takes, although Fedele emphasizes the importance of conditioning. From crossing arms with him, I'd say whatever he does is working.

[AAAhmed46]

Gotta be careful when conditioning with a stick though, if your kicking it that is.

[f.Channell]

When I say they train with a stick it's lightly for hours on end.

Not a couple of hard whacks and on to something else.

You can see and feel the end result when you see it first hand.

F.

[f.Channell]

I was just reading over Sensei Rabesa's book.

Yonamine Sensei was driving him around in his car. He wasn't a cab driver.

He also wrote if everyone was as conditioned as Sensei Yonamine, safety equipment would be obsolete.

F.

[Dana Sheets]

This is about the level of conditioning one needs to regularly train Uechi with power and contact. Your body won't let you hit with a weapon it doesn't believe in and your body will flinch away from something it thinks will damage it. So conditioning changes both the body and the mind.

Carlos Cariza once posted about the difference between amateur and professional martial artists. He wasn't talking about money. He was talking about the difference between people that train on a daily basis, throughout the day, and people who train for 1.5-2 hours once or twice a week.

Mr. Nakahodo would ball up the pages of newspaper with his fingertips everyday, one by one after he read them.
Mr. Tomoyose would tap the tatami mats with his fingers, "absent-mindedly" during discussions after workouts
Mr. Yonamine tapped his toes and shins during his commutes
Training is held at many Okinawan dojo every night.

Conditioning is definitely one of those endeavors where you get back what you put into it. And the body can respond so quickly. Remember - as a kid - what it was like in the spring when you first went barefoot? How tender-footed you were and the smalled stone in the grass would make you limp? Remember how by the end of the summer you could run on gravel? Three months of playing outside barefoot everyday was all it took.

Most students will make significant progress if they condition daily for three months. That will get them to the first plateau. Six months later they hit the next. At the one year mark a remarkable change has taken place. Tempered over time.

So when I say daily practice - I mean it. There might be two or three days a week when you really go at it with more enthusiasm, but to condition and maintain conditioning is a daily discipline. That probably sounds a little severe - but my understanding of Uechi training is that it is not an easy path, that there are no short-cuts, and the returns are simply a necessary step to be able to delve more deeply into the training.

[Chris McKaskell]

Yes, I agree. Especially where students have sedentary jobs (sadly, we can't all be professional martial artists). I worked as a carpenter for several years and found the daily practice of slinging lumber and hammering was suffient for toughening the body and limbs when done in conjuction with a handfull of classes each week.

These days I work more in the office and find I need to do a little bit of light self conditiong everyday and one or two intense sessions each week with a partner - I'm no master, but it seems to work. Likewise, if I slack I feel it during the next sparring session!

[Mills75]

I love conditioning Dana and it's one of my favorite things to do truly. I like all the traditional elements of Uechi conditioning. The rubbing and pounding and Kotekitae and all of it. I love to do the jars and the chiishi and so many other things to go along with that.

I personally love kettlebell training at the dojo. You can do so much and get your entire body working with the kettlebells I feel. Bodyweight excercises like pull ups and pushups on fingertips are great. Hindu squats and things like that.

Raising the leg into the crane while pressing kettlebells for example to not only work the shoulders but also work the stabilizing muscles in the legs for balance while gripping the floor with the toes and making them stronger at the same time.

The explosive movements of kettlebell snatches and squats and swings and all the other wonderful things you can do with kettlebells.

With the weighted excercises I like to change things up every so often so I don't plateau and stay at the same place in training.

I like to do circuit training for different areas of the body combining three or four excercises non stop with little or no rest time in between sets with either the kettlebells or traditional weights.

I consider all of this type of thing conditioning and even outside the dojo when doing yard work or any kind of work I consider it karate training.

So it's karate man in and out of the dojo 24 hours a day. If it's laboring in the dojo it's for the purpose of karate and if it's laboring outside the dojo the purpose remains karate.

So many wonderful ways to condition and these are just a handful of some that I really enjoy and do regularly.

I know you said this was just about iron body above but I feel these things are just as important to supplement and add into the traditional methods. I feel they should go hand in hand and not be seperated.

Afterall if you don't have the lungs and the endurance the things above provide then having the hardest limbs on the planet are of little value lol.

So in short in my view it's Iron body plus resistance training that really rounds out conditioning.

One final note: I guess you can tell by now how highly I think of kettlebell training and all the things you can do with them. Since being introduced to them a few years back by my sensei I fell in love with them and if I could use only one training device it would be the kettlebells. I simply love them and always want to get to them as soon as I can cause nothing beats them in my humble view.



Jeff

[Dana Sheets]

I found these to be an interesting passage from Mr. Bethony's website:

Shushiwa, described as an intelligent and dedicated student, became proficient in several forms of Chinese boxing, particularly Tiger Fist, one of the Five Fists of Fujian...<snip>...Legends attribute Shushiwa with great strength. He reportedly could hold the weight of two people hanging from the fingertips of his outstretched arms. He also became an accomplished painter and calligrapher...

Kanbun told Kanei that mastery of Sanchin took at least 10 years, but after 3 years, his teacher taught him Seisan kata. During that time Kanbun became very strong and fast, almost all his time was being spent in study. This was in due in part to the rigorous old-style Chinese training methods for strengthening and conditioning, which used sand, gravel, buckets of rice, gripping weights and holding/lifting with the fingers, and chores that encourage the development of the body. Kanbun worked at farming on the temple grounds, pulling up daikon radish roots. Another chore he performed was the cleaning and husking of beans. The beans were placed in a large stone bowl and struck repeatedly with the fingertips until the husks could be blown away. With this type of work the fingertips were being trained for martial arts. But throughout all the training, emphasis was placed on total mastery of Sanchin.

[hoshin]

Danna ,
i think your question would be more of a medical question then personal preferance. i would compare body conditioning like body building( wieght lifting) the body needs to rest to rebulid. most pro athletes would recomend resting every other day. it also has to do with intensity. one of my students loved to condition his shins. he used a wood mallet and said at first he went easy and had no gain then he really started to hit solid and he found a big differance. but then you would need the rest to rebuild.

steve

[Joseph G Bellone]

Dana,

Old style conditioning methods described above are very different from "pounding."

"Pounding" can be beneficial in developing a certain mindset and physical capacity to endure discomfort - but it will NOT make you a better fighter. It's questionable on what attributes it does help in a martial environment. I also would question the common conception of it increasing tolerance to taking a shot in an altercation too. They are very different.

I don't mean to sound negative on pounding. I believe it has its place, however I believe sometimes folks lose sight of what they are trying to accomplish with this training and why it's of value.

Good training,
Joe

http://www.thestudywithin.com