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Old 11-28-2006, 02:26 PM   #51
billybob
 
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Don Magee said
Quote:
That sounds dangerous from a groin perspective. I've had enough accidents with my legs crossing over each other.
Thanks Don. Oddly, I forgot why we were trained not to cross our legs. I agree with other posters that we should try to learn soft and internal ukemi. However, falling from a very well done shoulder throw, where nage puts you high enough to grip your arm like a sword, and guides you with speed and force to the floor - the traditional break fall is the safest answer.

dave
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Old 11-28-2006, 02:36 PM   #52
Cady Goldfield
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
Oh I dunno. Maybe physics works differently where you are, Cady, but if you'll do a simple calculation of the Impulse forces and what happens when you factor in a slap, I think you'll find it's no big mystery. But whatever. You do it your way.

Regards,

Mike Sigman
Mike, on the planet where Newtonian physics and organic body dynamics do not exist ...

Breakfalls have come in handy when being hurled from horseback, and I can tell you that the more relaxed you are, and the less you add to the impact, the easier the landing is on your body. It's no accident that drunks and toddlers who fall from a window are probably less likely to be hurt than a sober person or an aikidoka who tenses his arms and hard-slaps the ground.

But this is just an academic discussion for me when it comes to martial arts. We don't train to fall "down." On the planet where I come from, when training with a partner, we're focusing on countering throws, and even when falling, using the on-the-way-down gravity as part of the tool kit. And, in fact, our bodies are never just bags of rags (like the above-mentioned drunk). We are averse to letting our hands and arm muscles tighten up as though for a slap. The last thing we want is for any kind of energy to be bleeding out of hands or feet. Instead, we keep a "relaxed tension" (actually not an oxymoron) over the entire body.

That allows us to always be "on" and able to direct our body's motion and energy at all times, so that even upon impact with the ground we are already on the way back up and "into" the opponent with an attack. There is never any intent to "be down" -- it's all about pro-actively focusing our energies on rising up.

If you always think about going down as "falling down," you will never develop the proper intent in combat, which is to use every moment to relentlessly attack the opponent. The mindset is crucial. To my observations over decades, the aikido mindset is to fall. Down.

By the way, the "stomp" that Ushiro advocates is not, as you may believe, to absorb impact from the breakfall, but as an attack on your opponent. He is providing a means by which to condition one's mindset to think "attack." It is typical that without explanation, any movement is subject to misinterpretation, as it has been here.

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 11-28-2006 at 02:41 PM.
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Old 11-28-2006, 02:50 PM   #53
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Cady Goldfield:
Quote:
who tenses his arms and hard-slaps the ground
I admire how you steadfastly hold to your opinion. GRRRR!

hahahaha

OK - the arm is not tense during the slap. Another poster mentioned transmitting energy From the falling body To the ground. Can you see that it is:
1. valid from physical standpoint
2. valid from physiological standpoint
3. possibly ki training?

or just a joke my teacher was playing on me?

dave
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Old 11-28-2006, 03:17 PM   #54
Cady Goldfield
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Hey, David, the older we get, the more set we become in our ways. Unless, of course, the Big Bird of Truth comes along and craps on your head! That happened to me, and I'm still wiping it out of my eyes and ears.

I came up slapping the mats like everyone else in aikido. Then, one day, I fell on ice and hard-slapped the ground like I always had done on the mats. The stinging in my arms kinda took my mind off the rest of the fall, so maybe that distraction is an actual benefit of slapping. Some months later, I was thrown off my horse when a shotgun went off, and while my head-tuck kept me from getting my brains bashed out on the boulders, my arms were badly bruised from hard slapping the ground. Thereafter, in class and in the "real world," I stopped slapping, and found that the relaxed extension of my arms spread out the impact of the fall over a greater surface area, with absolutely no harm or pain to my arms.

Years later, in discussing it with jujutsuka and judo guys, they recounted to me their instructors' exhortations to use the hard slap as, simply, an exercise to instill in them the habit of extending out their arms in a breakfall. In other words, the slap was intended to be "training wheels," not the actual real-life application of the breakfall technique. With time, they were to stop doing the slap and to remember to just open and extend the arms.

Just as extending your arms in the water increases the surface area of your body on the water, making you more bouyant, doing so when falling on the ground spreads and diffuses your body weight and the force of falling, over a larger area so no one part of your body takes the full brunt of the impact.

Remember those old saws that if you keep making a face, it will freeze that way? Or if you go swimming right after eating, you'll have cramps? Actively hard-slapping the ground to breakfall falls into that category of beliefs that are hard to let go of.
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Old 11-28-2006, 03:22 PM   #55
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote:
By the way, the "stomp" that Ushiro advocates is not, as you may believe, to absorb impact from the breakfall, but as an attack on your opponent. He is providing a means by which to condition one's mindset to think "attack." It is typical that without explanation, any movement is subject to misinterpretation, as it has been here.
I must have misunderstood Jun's post then...I read it as describing the "stomp" as a means of using a tougher part of the body to absorb impact than the hand.
On a side note, I remember experimenting with more foot-oriented break-falls and for me it was more easy to find my foot and ankle in pain, though I think it has much to do with the fact that I'm about as flat-footed as a duck. Too much foot and not enough other surface areas, and I start limping and injuring my already destoyed ankles quite quickly, so I find it best to think of my whole body upon impact, and that includes some degree of hand-to-ground "slapping"...unless my hands are in "ju" form like jujinage.
I dig what you're saying about not smacking the mat with extra force. We certainly don't want to have our hands taking the brunt of the force...all those little bones just don't like it, but just as surely as strikes have proven themselves to be quite reliable, so too have "slaps." I think it's just a matter of knowing the proper mechanics. Perhaps many people become too accustomed to that wonderfull "SMACK" that comes from a nice firm smack to the mat, it has certainly taken me a process of trial and error on the mat to figure out that harder doesn't equal better...still I disagree that "never" equals better too, and I do believe that's what you've asserted in previous posts.
Anyhow, there's my wooden nickle for ya!
Take care,
Matt

Last edited by mathewjgano : 11-28-2006 at 03:29 PM.

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Old 11-28-2006, 03:28 PM   #56
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote:
Years later, in discussing it with jujutsuka and judo guys, they recounted to me their instructors' exhortations to use the hard slap as, simply, an exercise to instill in them the habit of extending out their arms in a breakfall.
Ok now I gotcha! This is my understanding as well, though I wouldn't say eventually I'll never "slap" again. Sorry I misunderstood your meaning.
Take care,
Matt

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Old 11-28-2006, 03:35 PM   #57
Cady Goldfield
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Matt,
Thanks for the comments. Whatever Ushiro's intent, the heel "stomp" is one of those actions that gets misinterpreted. It is part of an older system of combat that precedes aikido, and therein lies the problem: the loss of meaning as an action is transmitted from one "generation" to the next.

It reminds me of the old story of the housewife who always cut the ends off a roast before putting it in the roasting pan. It looked kind of funny, a roast sitting in a big pan with its ends lying separately on either side. When her daughter asks her why she did that, the housewife answers that it's because that's what her own mother always did. So the girl asks her grandmother about the "tradition" and the grandmother replies that her old roasting pan was too small, so she had to cut the ends off to make the roast fit!

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 11-28-2006 at 03:38 PM.
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Old 11-28-2006, 07:07 PM   #58
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

I know better than to continue to add to this stalemate but I just can't resist!

And now I'm going to make you work for it!


Cady Goldfield recently said…


[spoiler]
Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote:
...Years later, in discussing it with jujutsuka and judo guys, they recounted to me their instructors' exhortations to use the hard slap as, simply, an exercise to instill in them the habit of extending out their arms in a breakfall. In other words, the slap was intended to be "training wheels," not the actual real-life application of the breakfall technique. With time, they were to stop doing the slap and to remember to just open and extend the arms...post #54
[/spoiler]


One person's immediate response way back in the beginning off this thread was...


[spoiler]
Quote:
Charles Burmeister wrote:
…Falling and slapping is a beginner's stage of understanding and execution. Ukemi is like any other part of a martial art…it is adaptive. If you think that there is just a singular response to a given situation is just incomplete...post #12
[/spoiler]


I find your continues assertion that you know better than the rest because you used to practice stupid [your words] and now you know better because of your advancement in age to be a rather shallow attempt at a defense. Don't get me wrong…the value of "been there -- done that" usually is found to be quite the paramount. However, it is not always the definitive.

After all, you say that you know better than I because you are older and have "been there". Well, in all honesty, why should I even entertain what you think when my sensei is for sure older than you and "has already been there before us both! Hell, his instructor is still alive [whom I've also studied with]. Why should I listen to either one of you? Ah…I understand…because you said so. Gotcha.

Everyone's experience is different making the adage, "Your mileage may vary" so apropos.

Anyway, I find the 2nd half of your defense to be equally incomplete as the 1st half. You are the one that is suggesting that generations of practice are in fact wrong. You are the one that finds certain esoteric methods of practice to be complete hog wash and that you have western science findings to back these claims up. The burden of proof is on you. Where can I find these studies and findings so that I may make an informed decision about my own practice as well?

Actually, never mind…it seems pretty obvious to me that the correct method of break falling in the manner that you state and the manner that others have stated [that includes slapping] is exactly the same if done correctly.

If you feel that there is no added benefit to slapping than fine. No worries mate. Have it your way. After all it is your practice to do with as you wish.

I just hope the crux of your future arguments ends up being more than just, "because I said so"….

uh oh…I gotta go….the streetlights are on and my sensei is calling me….

Charlie

Last edited by Charlie : 11-28-2006 at 07:21 PM.

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Old 11-28-2006, 07:21 PM   #59
Cady Goldfield
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Sorry if I messed with your religion, Charlie.
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Old 11-28-2006, 07:24 PM   #60
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Slapping the ground is a bit unecessary.
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Old 11-29-2006, 05:49 AM   #61
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Whenever I slap the mat (usually very hard as I am almost 100 kilos) my master looks at me and grinds his teeth. Yes, I can roll and fall very silently if required but slapping around comes more natural although my palms hurt a lot afterwards. Yes, I know it is supposed to be done silently and calmly but I am just a big guy that needs to land after a short trip in the air (the silliest excuse ever)
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Old 11-29-2006, 06:55 AM   #62
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

It seems that only science will settle this - so, we need to get a sample, do some testing, run a chi square analysis and get some real science!

Sure. If I was a casual reader of the web I would follow the advice of Hooker Sensei, and Ushiro Sensei and not slap. I would however listen to the 'nutball ex judoka' and keep his words in the back of my mind. I disagree with Sensei Hooker, but I respectfully stated why. That makes me a student - of martial arts, and life.

I'm fond of saying "Any break fall you can walk away from, is a good break fall."

dave
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Old 11-29-2006, 07:26 AM   #63
Dennis Hooker
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

What so many people fail to remember (or never knew or don't believe) is that ukme in Aikido is defensive technique and not just an attempt to impact the ground with as little damage as possible. When we start to apply parameters from outer arts to Aikido we get apples and oranges. This can not be helped if the poser of the question does not know the difference between the two. I will qualify this by saying in the Aikido "I" know and have been taught is that uke is generally given a change to escape when all hope of attack is lost. They can take an awkward and sometimes dangerous path to the ground or they can apply a technique called ukme to escape, hopefully unharmed. That is the difference. Nage generally cares about the outcome with uke whereas in some arts uke is left to his/her own devices and never given a change to reconcile the encounter. In Aikido much of the time it is Uke that resolves the conflict by opting out of the attack when balance is lost or they are clearly venerable to a devastating reprisal. The Aikido comes into play when Nage allows them to reconcile the conflict without damage. This way both Uke and Nage can apply technique 100 percent without holding back. Real training can be safe. I know people involved in arts that are "combative" or deal in irreconcilable sceneries will have a hard time with this concept. Apples and Oranges.

Dennis Hooker: (DVD) Zanshin and Ma-ai in Aikido
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Old 11-29-2006, 07:35 AM   #64
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Re-reading some of the posts, I'm not totally clear, but I get the impression that some people are including the forward-rolling breakfall in their discussion, while others are only thinking about a side or back fall as incorporating an arm/hand slap. I can't see any reason to slap on a roll (heck I usually can't see any need for arms at anytime in most rolls), but depending on the grip Nage has on you, an arm slap can serve to subtract from the fall to a mat on a vertical fall. But maybe it would help if this point were clarified.

M
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Old 11-29-2006, 07:56 AM   #65
Dennis Hooker
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

I believe you are right Mike. Could someone please clarify what we are talking about. I'm old and Easley confused.

Let me also say that it has been many many years since my Judo (yudo) days but the throws I was taught were more in line with loading my partner up and throwing. In Aikido a hip throw requires that uke be falling and I place my hip as a stumbling block he/she has to fall over. I also allow uke to take a grip on my gi to lesson the impact but the impact with the mat does not seem to be as hard as it was in judo. I also never land on my partner (oh the broken ribs I painfully remember).

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Old 11-29-2006, 07:57 AM   #66
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Sensei Hooker said
Quote:
This way both Uke and Nage can apply technique 100 percent without holding back. Real training can be safe. I know people involved in arts that are "combative" or deal in irreconcilable sceneries will have a hard time with this concept. Apples and Oranges.
Thank you Sensei.

I posted in another thread that one of Messores Sensei's excellent students whom I call Sensei exhorted me to 'stay connected to nage' - to keep pushing all the way through my attack as uke. This is new to me, as 'bail and run' are what I thought was correct. This new training has caused tremendous pain - and healing for me, as I let ki move through some serious old injuries.

Judo saved my life as an adolescent, aikido is saving my health as a middle aged man. I am indebted to the founders and practitioners of both arts, and especially to my Senseis who love me, even if they express this love with hard words, their fists, and seeming disapproval.

david
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Old 11-30-2006, 02:42 AM   #67
Amanda
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

We don't study breakfalls at my level in aikido, we just roll out. Think the higher grades get them though.

Anyway before I started Aikido I practised Judo. We were taught to let our arms slap naturally from a side or back breakfall. The instructor also said that part of the reason for this was to give you something to do with your arms to overcome the instinct to reach back to try to stop the fall and so end up with a broken wrist.

Just my £0.02
Amanda
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Old 11-30-2006, 07:02 AM   #68
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

To clarify what I'm speaking about:

I learned judo from a teacher who did not care for 1/8 and 1/4 point judo. She liked strong, graceful movement, not in-fighting. We drilled doing knee bends with a partner loaded on our backs. Ideally, when we threw we would load with knees bent and throw partner upward to get maximum height. (I realize this affords time for a savvy uke to do other things). We finished throws standing feet flat, backs straight and uke's arm was gripped like a sword - power transmitted from our centers through uke to maximize the force of their impact. A smart uke would relax, extend to their full length, and let the impact flow out the bottoms of their feet. (ki?)

At other times we threw more quickly, but always with the best form, power and speed we could manage.

david

Last edited by billybob : 11-30-2006 at 07:05 AM.
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Old 12-07-2006, 04:50 PM   #69
Slawen Rako
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Re: Aikido: The learning of natural movement

Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote:
This is a basic example of a lack of understanding about what is going on in the body during training. Contrary to what so many martial arts students believe, there is no such thing as "conditioning and strengthening" the body through thrusting fists into pots of sand, punching boards, or falling and slapping the ground.

It is what we call, in Yiddish, a bubbe meise (old grandmother's tale).

Slapping the ground does...nothing -- except to burst blood vessels and bruise bone. The long-term outcome of that "conditioning" is, at best, to deaden and kill nerves so you no longer feel pain when doing damage to your arms.

Same for punching makiwara (which, by the way, I did for 20 years when I was making an extensive and intensive study of punching and striking). Striking a hard surface does nothing for the hands, but it does do damage TO the hands, by rupturing the tissue around the knuckles and causing painful swelling that in later years can exacerbate arthritis. Punching into pots of sand does that too. Sand punching can callous and thicken the skin, but callous plays little or no role in protecting hands during punches and strikes. Except, maybe, to keep the sand you're punching from scratching the tender skin under the callous.

I am sorry, but I disagree strongly. Doing such exercises e.g. regular hitting exercises on forearms, is known to stimulate the periosteum, that's the skin around the bone. Irritating is the more correct expresion probably as the periosteum is made to believe that the bone is broken which results in the production of bone replacement substance, which is significantly harder than the bone itself (a bone never breaks twice in exactly the same spot): With time and proper execution of such techniques the bone (and joints, as this can be done with joints as well, in most cases the wrist or the fist) will grow significantly. Such training will create layer after layer of bone replacement substance coating around the exposed spots leading to e.g. forearms 50% thicker than before (we are talking about years of course)

I would dare to say that almost every kung fu school has these exercises in its regular curriculum, both northern and southern styles, although the northern styles put more emphasis on it. So far every kung fu student knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it and had one ore more variations to show me. For me this is a fact as it is for thousands and thousands of martial artists throughout China and Southeast Asia for hundreds of years now.

It is a little bit uncomfortable for me as a new user to aikiweb to question your striking experience mentioned before. Are you sure you did everything right? Did you have proper instructions how to perform these exercises? Especially the advanced ones involve quite a proficiency in Chi Gong (=the art of Ki). These exercises are not only to harden the hands, arms and feet but also, especially the advanced ones, a very powerful Chi Gong exercise itself.
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Old 12-08-2006, 01:41 PM   #70
JAMJTX
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

In general practice, I don't think it's dangerous at all. It does seem to help ease the fall some.

One danger does come when uke reaches for the mat and lands hand/wrist first.

As for in a self defense situtaion, then yes, it can cause you a problem. If you are going down, you need to be using hands to continue to defend yourself. For an example, even though it's not a "self defense situation" watch high level Judo competition. What happened to all the mat slapping they learned in the dojo? It gets thrown away when they are focused on winning. They are using thier hands to try to regain control over thier opponent.

In a Judo competition, slapping will cost you the match. In the street, slapping out can get you killed.

Jim Mc Coy
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Old 12-09-2006, 02:14 PM   #71
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Slawen has a point, Cady has a point.
Time to split the thread ... again?

I for one am anxious to learn if years of punching makiwara really does toughen the fist including the bones, cos it sure looks like it does.
Or are the large callouses merely hiding normal or damaged bones?
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Old 12-09-2006, 02:49 PM   #72
Cady Goldfield
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Michael, it's the latter -- callouses hiding damaged bones and joints. Callouses are nothing but layers of dead skin. Calcareous deposits on the bones caused by constant impact (bone spurs) likewise are not shock absorbers, but irritants against which tissue rubs and is harmed. do not protect the hands from impact. Such force goes right through those layers of dead skin and right into the joints. I did a lot of informal study into this when I had to take physiology during one of my grad school stints (biology/primate evolutionary ecology). It gave me access to some fine resources, since I was at that fine, hoary institution in Cambridge, Mass.

I believe that people confuse the process of bone-density-building through slow, long-term weight-bearing exercize, with the damaging process of percussive impact "exercize." The two are very different, and only the first is productive.

Likewise, slapping the ground hard with the forearms and palms is counter to nature's "intent" for the human body. If you see it as a benefit that you're damaging surface blood vessels, bruising muscles and killing nerves, okay, but the body of such an organism as a human is not meant to take that kind of constant abuse. One pays for it later in life.

Since most people do the damage when they are in their 20s and have better recuperative powers, they may think that the practice is harmless and in fact is useful. When they turn 45 or 50 they may wonder why they are riddled with arthritis, bursitis and other woes, but write it off to "old age."

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 12-09-2006 at 02:53 PM.
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Old 12-09-2006, 03:21 PM   #73
Slawen Rako
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Hmm, I cannot say anything about the makiwara as I do not have experience with it. In fact, I just learned about it here and had to look it up and now I understand why Cady is right and my experiences are rigtht as well.

As far as I have understood it, the makiwara is more or less a board on a pole where the board is covered with straw and rope. More hmmmm here

IMHO this leads to exactly what Cady is saying. A lot of thick, hard, and very much dead skin on your fists. This has nothing to do with the bone and joint thickening exercises in Kung Fu. (Karatekas might object my opinion)

In Shaolin Kung Fu (SKF) advanced hardening exercises go like this:
You choose the object you are going to hit. This can be wood, brick or iron. Then you have to decide if you want to hit with the backside of your hand (while clenched to a fist), with the flat palm, with the fist, with a single spot on your outside wrist or with the wrist just beneath your palm.

Flat palm and fist are advanced techniques and are not for "beginners" (talking about Shodan level here).

The exercise goes like this: Your must hit the object every for a thousand times (both left and right) for a hundred days, every single day. You miss one day, the count resets. This exercise is actually more a Chi Gong exercise and one of the hardest mental exercises I have ever experienced than a hardening exercise. Lets leave this aspect for a seperate discussion should anyone be interested.

Why the decision wood, stone, metal? Well, if you choose a block of iron it hurts like hell from day one and the bone and joint is starting to get hard from the outside to the inside. If you choose the softer wood, it is the other way round. The senior students advised me not to do it because it hurts even more and they did not know anyone who made it through the hundred days with the wooden block. The brick is a compromise, still hell on earth in regards of pain, but at least somehow bearable.

The physical effect is awesome. The spots on your hand/wrist become bigger (permanently. I am not talking about the swell :-D) and harder. Other students took this exercise as their specialization and started excessively hitting with their fists afterwards and the result was that their fists are now a solid area when clenched, without any spaces (moulds?) between fingers or knuckles. Hard to explain, I hope you get the point.

Now, I would strongly advise not to try this without proper guidance and Chi Gong (or Ki) training beforehand as this exercise is more of an energy exercise than a hardening one. To me it was explained that after some years of Chi/Ki training this exercise lets all the Chi/Ki escape through the spot which is hit permanently, and with it also all the poison/garbage/bad stuff in you. I was terribly tired all the time, completely without energy, not to mention the demons I faced in me which I thought I had successfully buried I mean you really start to ask yourself very soon why the heck you are doing this at all and what's the sense of it all. It's like some kind of spiritual development in ultra fast forward. Many dropped out during these hundred days never to return to the dojo
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Old 12-09-2006, 07:32 PM   #74
Kevin Wilbanks
Location: Seattle/Southern Wisconsin
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

As Cady mentioned, research has shown that progressive weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones and joints far more than percussive, shock-type stress. For instance, squats increase the density and strength of the leg bones far more than running, even though the force absorbed by the bones upon landing impact in running is much higher than in performing squats. Chances are that any kind of striking exercise done without using padding and/or targets that yield to the force applied isn't doing anything beneficial for your hands in any sense except desensitizing them to pain... if you call that a benefit.

What I don't understand is why most people would even want to toughen up the bones in their hands, in this day and age, even if these pratices do work. The orginal purpose must have been to make the hands able to withstand the abuse of frequent fighting. Some have suggested that it enabled fighters to deliver damaging blows through armor or damage boney parts of the body normally too hard to punch.

These days, who goes around kicking people's ass frequently enough to need tough knuckles? Most martial artists probably never get into a self-defense situation where they need to protect themselves with super hard punches. For those who do, it will probably be so infrequent that they would be better off risking the bone fractures in these instances than beating the crap out of their own hands on the off chance it might happen. Also, if you really get in fights that often, wouldn't it make more sense to carry a small bludgeoning weapon or brass knuckles and let the tool take the punishment? Or learn a different fighting philosophy that uses the more sensible approach of hitting soft targets with the fists and hard ones with open hands, elbows, shoes, or the ground?

Meanwhile, we are talking about your HANDS here - the most delicate, versatile, and intricately put-together part of your body, when it comes to physically interacting with the world. Your hands are precious in that you depend upon them to eat, type, drive, create art, make love, earn your living... their subtle functions are vital to almost everything you do. Why would you want to treat them like ten dollar sledge hammers?

Last edited by Kevin Wilbanks : 12-09-2006 at 07:34 PM.
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Old 12-09-2006, 09:02 PM   #75
Cady Goldfield
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Re: To Slap the Ground or Not

Well said, Kevin.
When I got a detached retina eight years ago, one of my former TKD dojangmates (I was training in jujutsu then, and no longer in TKD), an opthalmic surgeon, saved my eye. Thereafter, the head of the TKD dojang (a Korean) would not let him spar or do bagwork or anything with his hands, unless he was wearing 24oz. gloves. The reason: "You are a surgeon. You save people's eyes with your hands. Therefore, you should not turn your delicate instruments of healing into...crippled sledgehammers."
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