Science, speed and spirals...

FWIW. Just found this article was on-line.

http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/run-faster-1

No, I'm not posting it WRT running. There are a ton of threads running in this article that should be familiar to those working on understanding internal stuff. It ain't just muscles...

Just food for thought. Enjoy.

Dang.... can't find the other very good article in their fitness section I had printed out.... it was titled Understanding Your Muscles and talked about fascia....now cannot locate it on the site to post a link.

Janet, yeah, I remember that article. It had a way of doing pushups that I was shown years ago.

If you can find the magazine itself, the article I linked to above also has a sidebar with 7 different exercises you can do with a heavy rope, pole or ball.

Oh, and again, Men's Health, March 2011 Edition,. page 112. Exercises sidebar is on pages 118-119

Janet Rosen wrote: Dang.... can't find the other very good article in their fitness section I had printed out.... it was titled Understanding Your Muscles and talked about fascia....now cannot locate it on the site to post a link.

This one?
http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/un...-your-muscles#

I think I saved the link when you mentioned it on Facebook.

Katherine

Yeah, that's the other one I was thinking of.

Katherine Derbyshire wrote: This one? http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/un...-your-muscles#

YAY! Yes... I missed the terminal "#" so it came up as a 404. Thanks.

I predict that once this stuff makes it into mainstream athletics that all of the 'secrets' will pretty much fade away.

You will have a greater number of people producing verifiable results and all of the debate regarding "how to do it" and "where it came from" will become inconsequential.

The hidden internal skills of western boxing?

This was a good article. I found the following passages interesting.

They have roots in the sports science world as well: Biomechanics research suggests that athleticism is a function of passive muscle activation—an energy-harnessing, springlike stiffness in your muscles that occurs before you strike a ball, an object, or the ground—in addition to brute muscular force.

"When we let go of the branch, we freed our hands to manipulate our environment, and it was object manipulations that educated our bodies, and it was hunting and tools that passed our genes forward. We are the most effective large predator on the planet, all because of our tools."

Michael Varin wrote: The hidden internal skills of western boxing?

I was watching the beginning of the video and thinking, "Hmm, something seems just a teency bit off... But he's so damned explosive and well muscularly developed that he can compensate for it... But what exactly?"

Then, skip to 3:22 in the video, and watch his hip. His hip swings through before his arm. So you then have to ask yourself, could this monster have actually been quite a bit more powerful with some more coaching on biomechanics? The answer is yes! Harder to see earlier in the vid, but in slow-mo, it's right there for all to see - he's driving force into his hip and not his arm.

What this thread will do:

1) Will help motivate those who're pursuing these 'hidden skills' to experiment in other fields like military training or modern athletics, to maximize efficiency.

2) Will help motivate those who are not pursuing these skills in a specialized manner to say "durrrrrrrr, see I told you in it's boxing and in durrrr modern athletics "

The sad part is that 2) will not realize that the article repeatedly states that there is a small minority of people working on these skills, and it is not a widespread phenomenon as they believe it is.

Lorel Latorilla wrote: What this thread will do: 1) Will help motivate those who're pursuing these 'hidden skills' to experiment in other fields like military training or modern athletics, to maximize efficiency. 2) Will help motivate those who are not pursuing these skills in a specialized manner to say "durrrrrrrr, see I told you in it's boxing and in durrrr modern athletics " The sad part is that 2) will not realize that the article repeatedly states that there is a small minority of people working on these skills, and it is not a widespread phenomenon as they believe it is.

Or rather than making assertions, you could, ya know, help deconstruct the other assertion that it is already in boxing and point out other flaws in Tyson's striking, which there are potentially others, that would alert us to exactly why these assertions are to be discounted, rather than just taking your word for it.

Lee Salzman wrote: Or rather than making assertions, you could, ya know, help deconstruct the other assertion that it is already in boxing and point out other flaws in Tyson's striking, which there are potentially others, that would alert us to exactly why these assertions are to be discounted, rather than just taking your word for it.

Sorry but I don't need to convince anyone. I'm a small guy, and I want to learn how to fight, and learn how to carry load and run efficiently as the military demands it. I'm barely scratching the surface of this knowledge, how on earth will I know if Mike Tyson uses 'internal mechanics'? (besides him talking about his particular training regime of course). Give me 10 years and maybe I can start talking about this stuff.

The article does not even talk about 'internals' as we talk about it here, it only touches on a mechanic that Tyson Gay uses to improve his running. Even so, the article states that not all runners are using this mechanic. A small minority of them are.

I'm not making 'grand assertions' here. I don't claim to have knowledge. The one making the grand assertions is the one saying that it is in boxing, that is in MMA etc. The burden of proof is on them. If that is the case, can someone tell me how Mike Tyson or a top boxer is using 'spiralling', 'getting under a person' for unbalancing, opening and closing of the body, etc.?

Lorel Latorilla wrote: Sorry but I don't need to convince anyone. I'm a small guy, and I want to learn how to fight, and learn how to carry load and run efficiently as the military demands it. I'm barely scratching the surface of this knowledge, how on earth will I know if Mike Tyson uses 'internal mechanics'? (besides him talking about his particular training regime of course). Give me 10 years and maybe I can start talking about this stuff. The article does not even talk about 'internals' as we talk about it here, it only touches on a mechanic that Tyson Gay uses to improve his running. Even so, the article states that not all runners are using this mechanic. A small minority of them are. I'm not making 'grand assertions' here. I don't claim to have knowledge. The one making the grand assertions is the one saying that it is in boxing, that is in MMA etc. The burden of proof is on them. If that is the case, can someone tell me how Mike Tyson or a top boxer is using 'spiralling', 'getting under a person' for unbalancing, opening and closing of the body, etc.?

Look at it this way, if we operate under this idea that it will be 10 years yet till we can understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, how will we spot flaws in ourselves and gradually correct them to make ourselves move better? It is an opportunity for us to practice a skill that will help improve our own training - learning to spot the mistakes.

Likewise for Mike Tyson: look at the spot in the video I pointed out - around 3:22 when he does the strike in slow-mo. Now, if he is bleeding all his force out his hip, and dragging his entire upper body and arm along behind it, what does it matter if he is spiraling or getting under or opening and closing? If he was driving more longitudally through his torso and arm, then he could start worrying about those concepts, but as is, he is actually throwing himself backward and sideways at the point of impact, no?

Guys, my only reason for posting it was to say that others are looking at some of these large scale internal connections as being relevant to performance of certain things. It points to the observation that our biomechanics may in fact be more complex than we assume.

Lee Salzman wrote: Look at it this way, if we operate under this idea that it will be 10 years yet till we can understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, how will we spot flaws in ourselves and gradually correct them to make ourselves move better? It is an opportunity for us to practice a skill that will help improve our own training - learning to spot the mistakes. Likewise for Mike Tyson: look at the spot in the video I pointed out - around 3:22 when he does the strike in slow-mo. Now, if he is bleeding all his force out his hip, and dragging his entire upper body and arm along behind it, what does it matter if he is spiraling or getting under or opening and closing? If he was driving more longitudally through his torso and arm, then he could start worrying about those concepts, but as is, he is actually throwing himself backward and sideways at the point of impact, no?

1) I'm busy enough meeting people, talking to people, etc. correcting my 'skills'. Judging whether Mike Tyson has it or not on an internet forum with people who potentially don't have exposure to these skills can result in possible miscommunication of terms. If there is no baseline, foundational understanding from both parties, how can we have a conversation? How will the conversation help the person who is not exposed to those skills? how will it help the person who is exposed to these skills?

2) "If we operate under this idea that it will be 10 years yet till we can understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, how will we spot flaws in ourselves and gradually correct them to make ourselves move better" You're suggesting here that if I don't have a deep understanding of movement and can point out potential flaws in movement NOW, or SOON, then I should not be able to point out flaws in myself fairly quickly. The fact of the matter is, I don't have a deep understanding of this stuff. I'm still a beginner. Secondly, I don't need to understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, I have coaches to do that. We're talking physical movement and skill, not philosophy and language games. If I want to correct myself, I go to a coach to be corrected. That's the ideal for me. If I can't have that, then I go to the coach and ask him for some advice through words. Will I go to Aikiweb to improve myself? Sorry, but nope.

3)" Now, if he is bleeding all his force out his hip, and dragging his entire upper body and arm along behind it"--Case in point, I have no clue what you are talking about here. Bleeding all his force out of his hip? How do you do that? What's dragging his upper body and arm? His hip? how does the hip 'drag' the upper body and arm 'behind' it when the hip is moving forward?

"If he was driving more longitudally through his torso and arm, then he could start worrying about those concepts, but as is, he is actually throwing himself backward and sideways at the point of impact, "

Why should he start worrying about those concepts? What is it about driving vertically from torso to arm that makes it a 'base' for other skills like 'getting under' and 'spiralling'?

Lorel Latorilla wrote: 1) I'm busy enough meeting people, talking to people, etc. correcting my 'skills'. Judging whether Mike Tyson has it or not on an internet forum with people who potentially don't have exposure to these skills can result in possible miscommunication of terms. If there is no baseline, foundational understanding from both parties, how can we have a conversation? How will the conversation help the person who is not exposed to those skills? how will it help the person who is exposed to these skills? 2) "If we operate under this idea that it will be 10 years yet till we can understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, how will we spot flaws in ourselves and gradually correct them to make ourselves move better" You're suggesting here that if I don't have a deep understanding of movement and can point out potential flaws in movement NOW, or SOON, then I should not be able to point out flaws in myself fairly quickly. The fact of the matter is, I don't have a deep understanding of this stuff. I'm still a beginner. Secondly, I don't need to understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, I have coaches to do that. We're talking physical movement and skill, not philosophy and language games. If I want to correct myself, I go to a coach to be corrected. That's the ideal for me. If I can't have that, then I go to the coach and ask him for some advice through words. Will I go to Aikiweb to improve myself? Sorry, but nope. 3)" Now, if he is bleeding all his force out his hip, and dragging his entire upper body and arm along behind it"--Case in point, I have no clue what you are talking about here. Bleeding all his force out of his hip? How do you do that? What's dragging his upper body and arm? His hip? how does the hip 'drag' the upper body and arm 'behind' it when the hip is moving forward? "If he was driving more longitudally through his torso and arm, then he could start worrying about those concepts, but as is, he is actually throwing himself backward and sideways at the point of impact, " Why should he start worrying about those concepts? What is it about driving vertically from torso to arm that makes it a 'base' for other skills like 'getting under' and 'spiralling'?

BTW, this is not to suggest that you're not exposed to these skills or whatever, I just listed above why I don't get into conversation. If you are exposed to these skills, you can freely PM me Lee. We can talk about dynamics of the punch there if you like.

Lorel Latorilla wrote: 1) I'm busy enough meeting people, talking to people, etc. correcting my 'skills'. Judging whether Mike Tyson has it or not on an internet forum with people who potentially don't have exposure to these skills can result in possible miscommunication of terms. If there is no baseline, foundational understanding from both parties, how can we have a conversation? How will the conversation help the person who is not exposed to those skills? how will it help the person who is exposed to these skills?

Someone held up Mike Tyson as an example of exceptional mechanics. Now, it seemed like this was a premise with solid evidence to discount based on pointing out one aspect of his performance that was visible externally that led to a disconnect in his movement which you can actually see.

2) "If we operate under this idea that it will be 10 years yet till we can understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, how will we spot flaws in ourselves and gradually correct them to make ourselves move better" You're suggesting here that if I don't have a deep understanding of movement and can point out potential flaws in movement NOW, or SOON, then I should not be able to point out flaws in myself fairly quickly. The fact of the matter is, I don't have a deep understanding of this stuff. I'm still a beginner. Secondly, I don't need to understand how to move enough to describe potential flaws in movement, I have coaches to do that. We're talking physical movement and skill, not philosophy and language games. If I want to correct myself, I go to a coach to be corrected. That's the ideal for me. If I can't have that, then I go to the coach and ask him for some advice through words. Will I go to Aikiweb to improve myself? Sorry, but nope.

You don't need to develop the ability now or soon, but when do you develop it? It needs to begin somewhere right if it will be present eventually? We can't always be dependent on our coaches to solve all our training problems, and even then, they can only put us in the right context to make discoveries about our own training and how our own bodies knit together. But the hard work of figuring out how we connect is totally up to us, because only we can feel our bodies from the inside. Our teachers can only affect us through our senses. They are not inside our brains.

3)" Now, if he is bleeding all his force out his hip, and dragging his entire upper body and arm along behind it"--Case in point, I have no clue what you are talking about here. Bleeding all his force out of his hip? How do you do that? What's dragging his upper body and arm? His hip? how does the hip 'drag' the upper body and arm 'behind' it when the hip is moving forward?

Pretend his torso was actually a little teency ball sitting atop his leg. If he was actually moving his torso with the drive from the ground, through his leg, all his drive would be actually affecting that mass in some uniform manner. But his torso is actually an extended thing, and he is only actually pushing on it from one end such that he is exerting a rotational torque on it from the bottom end, actually sending the top end of the torso backward, rather than forward, where he was in fact trying to make it go. So his drive for his strike is coming from pulling with his torso muscles, crunching his abs, arching his back, to drag his punching arm into his sparring partner. His hip has frozen in place and he is not getting effective drive out of his leg a bit before the strike has actually landed. If he could actually get that drive going through the hip (rather than pushing across the line of the hip like he his) up through the torso in coordination with the massive strength of his torso muscles at the time of impact, the drive would be increased.

"If he was driving more longitudally through his torso and arm, then he could start worrying about those concepts, but as is, he is actually throwing himself backward and sideways at the point of impact, " Why should he start worrying about those concepts? What is it about driving vertically from torso to arm that makes it a 'base' for other skills like 'getting under' and 'spiralling'?

What I am proposing here is understanding the basic connectedness of the body and just getting a solid connection driving into the ground, and vice versa the ground driving into you to help power you, seems like a prerequisite to the utility of those concepts. Does getting under help if you yourself collapse underneath the strain of the connection? Does spiraling help if the underlying pathways can still be easily distorted and broken by your own conscious effort to move?

Lee, good points.

I'll reply to you tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Gotta get rest. Food poisoning sucks.

Lee Salzman wrote: Someone held up Mike Tyson as an example of exceptional mechanics. Now, it seemed like this was a premise with solid evidence to discount based on pointing out one aspect of his performance that was visible externally that led to a disconnect in his movement which you can actually see.

I think this is a really interesting point on a lot of levels.

I met a fella who sparred with Tyson a few times when he was in training many years ago. He said even his light punches felt like being hit by a brick. With the entire brick house attached to it. The guy was astoundingly powerful. And fast given how powerful he was.

I see the disconnect you're talking about. But I have on thing I'm wondering about WRT to what I wrote above: Just how hard does he have to hit you? We could sit back and say "oh, he could have hit even harder" but to what end? Big picture time. He did enough brain damage to enough people in the ring. And when those body shots are cracking ribs and sending shock waves through your body, your hands drop a bit, you reflexes slow just a bit and that other fist comes in and hits you squarely in the jaw. How many guys did Tyson drop like a sack of rocks?

We tend to focus on certain things to the exclusion of all others. Sure, maybe we can speculate that he could have hit even harder, but I never heard anyone who ever faced him seriously say Tyson was a soft puncher. The guy was a monster in the ring (on many levels).

To go back to the linked article, I could work for the next 3 years mastering the arm spiraling thingie. I ain't gonna be running anywhere near as fast as Bolt. The dude is built to run. I'm not. All the IS and fancy things in the world ain't gonna bridge that gap.

But sure, I'll take whatever advantage I can get. And I keep working on this stuff each and every day. But I think there is the larger context of the entire art and the world we face. I want to get as good as I can and that means getting good at a lot of stuff *including* but *not limited to* IS.

Good post, Keith.

Thanks for the perspective.

Lorel Latorilla wrote: 1) Will help motivate those who're pursuing these 'hidden skills' to experiment in other fields like military training or modern athletics, to maximize efficiency. 2) Will help motivate those who are not pursuing these skills in a specialized manner to say "durrrrrrrr, see I told you in it's boxing and in durrrr modern athletics " The sad part is that 2) will not realize that the article repeatedly states that there is a small minority of people working on these skills, and it is not a widespread phenomenon as they believe it is.

Lorel Latorilla wrote: The article … only touches on a mechanic that Tyson Gay uses to improve his running. Even so, the article states that not all runners are using this mechanic. A small minority of them are.

Lorel Latorilla wrote: can someone tell me how Mike Tyson or a top boxer is using 'spiralling'…?

Lee Salzman wrote: you could, ya know, help deconstruct the other assertion that it is already in boxing and point out other flaws in Tyson's striking, which there are potentially others, that would alert us to exactly why these assertions are to be discounted….

Lee Salzman wrote: Someone held up Mike Tyson as an example of exceptional mechanics.

Well, that took an interesting turn… I've said it before; we need to put more effort into our posts, and that includes thoroughly reading previous posts and any linked materials.

For those who struggle with reading comprehension and conceptual thinking, let me attempt to provide some clarity.

1. Nothing was asserted. In fact, one cannot make an assertion by asking a question. Check the punctuation on the link to the Mike Tyson video.

2. While Tyson's striking technique may be interesting to analyze, it had very little to do with the reason why I posted the video. I thought that anyone who read the article would have seen the relevance of the jump rope work to this discussion. Now, I could have used a video that only showed a boxer jumping rope, but the Tyson video was just more captivating.

I wanted to show his jump rope work, because that is directly related to the "Spiraling" article. David Weck's theory is that by using sticks, balls, and, primarily, ropes in spiral patterns we can tap our body's potential.

The article mentions ideas such as: unleashes a little understood benefit to controlling muscular tension in the fascia; help keep your body aligned with its gravitational center; increase the integrity of the shoulder gridle; help write new code in your motor memory; essential movement skills; learning to anchor your body; learn to maintain your gravitational center while moving loads with your shoulders, arms, and hands; movements inevitably promote efficiency.

The movement patterns are derived from jumping rope, which has long been a cornerstone of all great boxers' training. Hence the question: The hidden internal skills of western boxing?

Michael: Who knows? All I know is, boxers move well, and I know is doing boxing and 'internal strength' training and we talk about how there is a lot to be learned from movement in Western boxing. All I know is also that the skills that Akuzawa has (in Ark's case, getting under, power at close distances, unbalancing on contact whether striking, kicking, or grabbing, etc.), or Vlad has, is not SPECIFICALLY taught in Western boxing. For example, Vlad used to box (and also used to do karate), and you can tell that he is influenced by boxing a bit, but there are other guys in the gym that were boxers (one was even a long time student that tried for the Olympics) and they do not move like Vlad at all. Vlad had deeper more sophisticated body training that maybe those boxers did not engage in.

"You don't need to develop the ability now or soon, but when do you develop it? It needs to begin somewhere right if it will be present eventually? We can't always be dependent on our coaches to solve all our training problems, and even then, they can only put us in the right context to make discoveries about our own training and how our own bodies knit together. But the hard work of figuring out how we connect is totally up to us, because only we can feel our bodies from the inside. Our teachers can only affect us through our senses. They are not inside our brains.
"

It's a work in progress. I'm not saying we are spoiled by coaches, but the training is not solipsistic. It's easy to get into the 'greatness' of this knowledge and get stirred emotionally by it and start talking about it online, but I found that for myself personally, it's easy to write something that I experience in my body and then be fully convinced that my understanding is conclusive when it was wrong all the time. That's why I only share with close and trusted friends, people who will correct me but also not condemn me for it.

"Pretend his torso was actually a little teency ball sitting atop his leg. If he was actually moving his torso with the drive from the ground, through his leg, all his drive would be actually affecting that mass in some uniform manner. But his torso is actually an extended thing, and he is only actually pushing on it from one end such that he is exerting a rotational torque on it from the bottom end, actually sending the top end of the torso backward, rather than forward, where he was in fact trying to make it go. So his drive for his strike is coming from pulling with his torso muscles, crunching his abs, arching his back, to drag his punching arm into his sparring partner. His hip has frozen in place and he is not getting effective drive out of his leg a bit before the strike has actually landed. If he could actually get that drive going through the hip (rather than pushing across the line of the hip like he his) up through the torso in coordination with the massive strength of his torso muscles at the time of impact, the drive would be increased."

Ok I kinda see what you're saying now. I'm still figuring out the dynamics of punching through the spear. I don't know if you're doing the same thing, but I'm learning how to keep the weight underside while I'm moving vertically from leg, torso, to arm. If movement is initiated from the leg to the torso (which includes both the middle and the upper cross), there will be too much forward intent and will disrupt the balance that I want to be present in my strike. If your structure is connected, the punch will still be strong, but you'll still unbalance yourself through the strike. I don't know if you're doing the same thing but in a way, I'm driving into my rear leg first (in a relaxed way), which will create a bounce longitudinally across the body. I'm trying to find a way to make it more efficient so I don't have problems of 'loading' onto my leg.

In a way I didn't want to talk about Mike because he was an incredibly efficient striker--and that's all because he build up the appropriate musculature to deliver explosiveness and power. But it won't work for me, because I'm too small, I don't have the same kind of bone structure that will give me the same musculature as Mike, and Mike would readily be handled and taken apart by a wrestler because of the points you addressed above.

"Does getting under help if you yourself collapse underneath the strain of the connection? Does spiraling help if the underlying pathways can still be easily distorted and broken by your own conscious effort to move?"

Good questions. Some of my friends who do this stuff are now saying that once you reach a certain level, the postural requirements for these skills are not as necessary. Of course, when you're a noob, these are necessary as they are training paradigms with which we can facilitate understanding of these skills. I interpret this as Ark referring to building the 'frame' that will prepare the "Bujutsu body" and allow us to "fix habits and imbalance in the body as well as realize body movement and intuition appropriate to Bujutsu". He then talks about throwing the 'frame' which probably means that the focus is not on the development of the frame but the skills that can be realized in the frame, upon which you can throw 'away' because the skills once ingrained makes frame somewhat unnecessary? Could be wrong.

"I don't know if you're doing the same thing but in a way, I'm driving into my rear leg first (in a relaxed way), which will create a bounce longitudinally across the body. I'm trying to find a way to make it more efficient so I don't have problems of 'loading' onto my leg."

There is a time delay from 'loading' onto the leg, but if you are myofascially connected, the bounce from leg to arm will be immediate. Or something along those lines.