View Single Post
Old 01-25-2013, 03:50 PM   #4
chillzATL
Location: ATL
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 847
United_States
Offline
Re: Int. Vs. Ext - resisting a push

Quote:
Chris Hein wrote: View Post
This is correct, but a little misleading. If someone is pushing on me, and I have good alignment, they will always wear out before I do. Often when I'm showing this, I will talk effortlessly with the class, explaining the alignments, and forget about the person pushing on me. I have had Uke's fall down because they over exerted themselves. Once good alignment is achieved you can take a huge amount of force for a VERY long time.

In this set up, you need enough muscle tension to align the body. Once good alignment is achieved not much more tension is added to the muscles, because there is a clear channel to the ground.

Basically it's a matter of levers. The smaller you can make your levers, in relation to their fulcrums the less muscular tension you need. If you make very good alignment the amount of tension needed, as the incoming force goes up, doesn't increase Significantly.
It's more than just good alignment. This example uses skeletal alignment because it's the easiest way to feel what we're talking about, but as mentioned elsewhere, alignment is not required. The point isn't simply replicating the trick over and over. The point is to feel that way all the time, still, in movement, from any direction or angle, so that the ground is always there. There is no localized muscle tension blocking the force passing through you to the ground cleanly.

Quote:
I start to see trouble when we say "relax the muscles". If we are talking about a relative relaxation, good athletics teach us the same thing. If we are talking about a total relaxation, what is holding the "frame" up?
I went on to expand on that beyond simply "relax the muscles". The way you separate it from the rest of the sentence changes the context where it does not need to be changed. What I added to it, IMO, fairly clearly separates it from normal athletics.

Quote:
What is being conditioned? Is it the muscles? If so, why/how? Is it the mind? If it's the mind, then what is the mind doing the work with?
In the beginning I think it's the muscles under the muscles, for lack of anything better. I can't say for sure though. There was a process of working that relaxed feeling in the various joints down through my body that took place, and "muscles" in those joints would get fatigued in the same way my quads would after working legs at the gym, but again, more in the joint. The mind plays a part, but in the basic example I gave, shouldn't really matter.

Quote:
This is basically how I would hold this position. It's also how I believe most athletes who practice sports involving this kind of resistance would do it.
Again, it's not about simply replicating one trick, which is what you make it out to be. I completely disagree with your assessment that most athletes are going to do this too. Go to the gym and grab a few people, put them in this position and simply say "resist my push" and see how many of them respond as I described. I'm willing to say that 100% of them will respond by physically flexing the muscles of their body, the ones people commonly train, to resist a push, 100%.

Quote:
One of the things I think most 'internal' proponents don't understand, is that modern athletics is using all of the same good body mechanics that 'internal' people are.
Do you honestly think that nobody who tries to discuss this stuff with you knows anything about athletics? Just you? That's really what this suggests.

Last edited by chillzATL : 01-25-2013 at 03:53 PM.
  Reply With Quote