"Just yesterday my students were moaning when I had them doing rolls and "knee walking" on the hardwood floor".
Bill, would you please edify me, from your experience with physiology, of any potential hazards to the knee area from this sort of exercise?
Talking to the head of Sports Medicine in Boston treatement for rehabilitation of injured ballet dancers indicates that this practice might pecipitate potentially irreversible damage, in some cases could be the prelude to the joys of knee replacement.
Thanks.
How good are YOUR ukemi skills?
Moderator: Available
Beautiful ukemi...
The aikido being demostrated is the yoshin style I believe. It resemble the early look, or pre war Aikido that was known to be quite brutal. It was called at that time Ueshiba ryu aikijujutsu then aikijutsu then I believe aikibudo. It has in the past few decades started to resemble the mainstream aikido(post war and religious more humane aikido), but its founder Gozo Shioda was highly respected by main line Daito ryu AIki Jujutsu, as well as most schools of Jujutsu. The ukemi adds to the look of the techniques. Making them look more effective than they may be.This clips does show how important ukemi is, and I applaud all karateka who take the challenge.
Happy falling and landing.
The aikido being demostrated is the yoshin style I believe. It resemble the early look, or pre war Aikido that was known to be quite brutal. It was called at that time Ueshiba ryu aikijujutsu then aikijutsu then I believe aikibudo. It has in the past few decades started to resemble the mainstream aikido(post war and religious more humane aikido), but its founder Gozo Shioda was highly respected by main line Daito ryu AIki Jujutsu, as well as most schools of Jujutsu. The ukemi adds to the look of the techniques. Making them look more effective than they may be.This clips does show how important ukemi is, and I applaud all karateka who take the challenge.
Happy falling and landing.
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jorvik
Yeah there is lots happening in aikido and has been for some time.........I think the style that I like the best now would be Iwama.which is an older version of aiki practised by Morihiro Saito.
It's worth mentioning that the aikido roll is not a forward roll as such, you go sideways over your shoulders, so you can do these when you are knee walking, as you go forward if you look to the side that your back knee is facing then you are in perfect position to roll, a forward roll is quite different
It's worth mentioning that the aikido roll is not a forward roll as such, you go sideways over your shoulders, so you can do these when you are knee walking, as you go forward if you look to the side that your back knee is facing then you are in perfect position to roll, a forward roll is quite different
Note:
Knee walking was only performed inside a place of importance ie. a palace, in front of the emperor, or high ranking officials. It was usallly performed on tatami. Most schools of jujutsu in Japan do not practice this art. The Daito ryu Aiki Jujutsu, being known as an inside the palace art, has an entire series of techniques performed from the seiza position. Aikido borrowed knee walking from Daito ryu. While in Tokyo I was able to Visit the hombu dojo of the Daito ryu. Knee walking is heavily practice there, and Katsuyuki Kondo, the Headmaster there, emphasized how important it is in Daito ryu and Aikido.
just my humble thoughts
On a personal level, the Jujutsu I perform does not practice this art. Although I do perform knee walking I do not teach it. In these modern times I would place more energy in the ukemi, and the transition from standing to grappling.
Knee walking was only performed inside a place of importance ie. a palace, in front of the emperor, or high ranking officials. It was usallly performed on tatami. Most schools of jujutsu in Japan do not practice this art. The Daito ryu Aiki Jujutsu, being known as an inside the palace art, has an entire series of techniques performed from the seiza position. Aikido borrowed knee walking from Daito ryu. While in Tokyo I was able to Visit the hombu dojo of the Daito ryu. Knee walking is heavily practice there, and Katsuyuki Kondo, the Headmaster there, emphasized how important it is in Daito ryu and Aikido.
just my humble thoughts
On a personal level, the Jujutsu I perform does not practice this art. Although I do perform knee walking I do not teach it. In these modern times I would place more energy in the ukemi, and the transition from standing to grappling.
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jorvik
I don't like knee walking myself, but I was taught that it was a way of improving technique because it isolates your movements. the guy on the vid moves very well on his knees, and i suppose at one time most folks in Japan would be kneeling in their own homes so I think then it would have had more value than today.
the problem i see in aikido is that it is such a nice art to watch, that folks get caught up in that and it becomes a performance art rather than a martial art
As I have often said I'd like to see it done against real punches and kicks not the ones that start about 20 feet away and with the fist on the hip
the problem i see in aikido is that it is such a nice art to watch, that folks get caught up in that and it becomes a performance art rather than a martial art
As I have often said I'd like to see it done against real punches and kicks not the ones that start about 20 feet away and with the fist on the hip
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Bill Glasheen
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I'd be happy to.Topos wrote:Bill wrote:
Just yesterday my students were moaning when I had them doing rolls and "knee walking" on the hardwood floor.
Bill, would you please edify me, from your experience with physiology, of any potential hazards to the knee area from this sort of exercise?
Talking to the head of Sports Medicine in Boston treatement for rehabilitation of injured ballet dancers indicates that this practice might pecipitate potentially irreversible damage, in some cases could be the prelude to the joys of knee replacement.
Thanks.
Let me start with a picture of a kid with Osgood-Schlatter disease. This is something I had as a 16-year-old. It's nothing more than "growing pains", where the bones grow faster than the soft tissue.
Do you see the bump on the lower part of the bend? This is where the patellar tendon is attached to tibial tubercle apophysis. Well a smaller "bump" area exists in a normal person.
"Knee walking" is basically a misnomer. What you're doing is walking on the side/tip of the tibia at around the point of the bump above. The knee is safely out of the way. You aren't even bearing weight on the knee like you do when you are standing. WHEN DONE CORRECTLY, there is no squatting or "duck walking" involved.
Why does it hurt the novice? Basically because the unconditioned top of the tibia has little tissue, and you are stimulating nerves underneath the thin layer of skin inbetween the floor and the bone-tendon attachment. The body very correctly tells you that you're doing something which - under these conditions - might cause damage.
But the body responds to stress - over time. Doing this once or twice a week will cause the body to respond the same way it does to your fingertips when you play guitar, to your feet when you walk barefoot, or the skin over the forearm bones when you do arm rubbing correctly. You'll develop new layers of skin over the pressure spots, and before long it will be no big deal.
The knees are safe IF YOU DO THE WALKING CORRECTLY.
Other than the "point" pain and "virgin" contact surfaces, the other issue is the crappy form you see with new students. Sanchin posture should be carried down from the seiza to the knee walk to the standing Sanchin dachi. It's all the exact same principles of posture and movement. As I show my students, you can even do an entire Sanchin kata on your knees, complete with turns. This - to me - is the most important benefit of doing the walking. You pull the principles out of the Sanchin box and show the students how to apply them in a way that maximizes their potential - no matter how the body is oriented. This then brings the value of broader understanding back to the Sanchin kata.
With that in mind...
I'm not far from Sal in my thinking here.Sal wrote:
While in Tokyo I was able to Visit the hombu dojo of the Daito ryu. Knee walking is heavily practice there, and Katsuyuki Kondo, the Headmaster there, emphasized how important it is in Daito ryu and Aikido.
just my humble thoughts
On a personal level, the Jujutsu I perform does not practice this art. Although I do perform knee walking I do not teach it. In these modern times I would place more energy in the ukemi, and the transition from standing to grappling.
My primary goal - as is Sal's - is to teach the student the transition between being completely on the ground and completely standing. Most untrained people have a most awkward way of getting up off the floor - something that can get them killed in a fight when a fraction of a second is a precious commodity. When you are surrounded and you hit the ground, you are in a pile of trouble and need to get the hell back up FAST.
Secondarily... As I often teach my son about chess, every single move in combat should be done with offense in mind. The expert swordsman can disembowel and decapitate inbetween seiza and standing. A modern martial artist and most certainly a soldier similarly should keep the fight going at all levels. Even the armed LEO should be quite comfortable and familiar with firing a sidearm from supine and knee positions. In my aikido classes - taught by a former green beret - we spent a fair amount of time fighting from seiza and knee positions. When you get good at it, you actually can consider this level as one of your potent weapons. Certainly when you take YOUR opponent to the ground, finishing them off may involve you doing the same for an instant. Doing the leg take-down in Sanseiryu kata can be done quite properly from this knee position. And the classic "shoot" involves comfort in this "knee" position. (I happen to see a shoot in Sanseiryu, by the way...
) I learned my shoot from Joe Pomfret. His ability to hit this contact surface with ease while taking someone down is a thing of beauty. With this in mind...
I try not to consider all this work as "punishment." My students may disagree but... I am not a sadist in class. Sure, I get a chuckle out of newbies in class. When number 1 son got mouthy with me about how stupid the karate was and how it wasn't going to help his wrestling, I broke out into the rolls and a touch of knee walking in class. Once he saw 52-year-old dad doing things in his sleep that made him struggle mightily, he shut up. Mission accomplished.
When I was at U.Va. and we had the $12,000 mat, I'd make the students "walk" one lap around the mats on their knees. This wasn't a marathon; it was an exercise. In the wooden-floored dojo, it's a bit more difficult and even funny if you're a sadist. I have them walk from one end of the dojo to the next, and that's it. And when they do it as a class, the peer pressure pretty much gets everyone at least trying. Before you know it, everyone's doing it - with a swagger. Mission accomplished.
On a final note... For those who want more than the surface conditioning work to get better at this, I highly recommend doing walking lunges with a barbell on the shoulders. Below you see this woman doing this exercise correctly. When bearing maximum weight, she does not let the knee get past the toes. You also want to reach out as far as possible with the walking front foot, and come short of letting the back knee touch on the interim "lunge." I then try to do the final part of the lunge one-legged.
The combination of balance (with the COG raised having the weight on shoulders) and strength attained by doing this exercise will work wonders for your knee-fighting posture. It'll also kick your butt - quite literally. Expect sore buns in the short run, and buns of steel in the long run.
Note the incredible posture above and {ahem} nice body.
- Bill
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fivedragons
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Bill Glasheen
- Posts: 17299
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- Location: Richmond, VA --- Louisville, KY
That's an exceptional ability. If the floor is spring-loaded, it may not be as impressive as it looks. But still... he's very good. Note how he's partially rotated before he contacts, totally avoiding any shoulder contact with the floor.
In my class, all I ask is that students do various rolls and falls on the wooden floor from a kneeling position. If they can do it from there, that's all the confidence they need.
One needs to be careful when working with a surface that has no give. Jerry Lewis is now living in chronic, severe pain because of his years of taking falls in his comedies. There was a point in his life where he was seconds away from committing suicide from the pain.
- Bill
In my class, all I ask is that students do various rolls and falls on the wooden floor from a kneeling position. If they can do it from there, that's all the confidence they need.
One needs to be careful when working with a surface that has no give. Jerry Lewis is now living in chronic, severe pain because of his years of taking falls in his comedies. There was a point in his life where he was seconds away from committing suicide from the pain.
- Bill
Knee Walking
Bill,
May I express my admirtion for your impressive, informative, and beautifully written exegisis on Knee walking. At my age I shall continue just to WALK KNEES around the hills here to keep in shape [GRIN].
From another thread
"However... I am now in the process of planning the format for my first martial arts book." whets my appetite for more of your writing.
Many thanks.
May I express my admirtion for your impressive, informative, and beautifully written exegisis on Knee walking. At my age I shall continue just to WALK KNEES around the hills here to keep in shape [GRIN].
From another thread
"However... I am now in the process of planning the format for my first martial arts book." whets my appetite for more of your writing.
Many thanks.
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benzocaine
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