High Risk Kicks

In Isshinryu karate, the kata (form) Wansu features a pair of blade kicks delivered to the low section. A blade kick is a side kick with the foot turned inwards to strike with the edge. In Wansu this kick is performed left and right as kata techniques (waza) tend to work both sides. The above image depicts how this would crystalize in actual combat, in this case by targeting the hamstring. It's important to strike with the edge of the outer foot closer to the heel; making contact closer to the little toe could torque the foot, setting you up for torn ligaments. This happened to me when I was twenty, and I had my foot and part of my leg in a cast for about six weeks.

Mid-section kicks are generally effective and practical. Low kicks (or any strikes below the waist) are prohibited in most styles of sportive karate and tae kwon do. The problem with high kicks is that they can be countered relatively easier than lower kicks. Still, high section kicks have their place for the athletically inclined, and they have even found their way in MMA matches. Crescent kicks (see above) was something I used in dojo matches that I could score with, in principle, by clearing the head of my opponent. A variant of the crescent kick, the axe kick, requires extreme flexibility (kicking leg extends straight up, then whips straight down, leg remaining straight) but overshooting your heel or foot can impinge the Achilles tendon. Speaking from experience, tendons and ligaments take a long time to heal, as connective tissues involving bone and muscle have limited reserves of blood flow.   

 

When I attended a judo workshop years ago the instructor would say "make your opponent a one-legged fighter"; this is the concept of kuzushi (unbalance). Raising your leg high to launch a kick compromises equilibrium, but also leaves one vulnerable to an awful counter targeting a precious commodity. Before he became a full-contact karate fighter, Bill 'Superfoot' Wallace lost one of his testicles in a point match. I have no idea if it was a counter to one of his warp speed forward-leg kicks or something else. At a tournament I witnessed a guy from my school break his opponents plastic groin protector with a spinning back kick, the strongest kick in martial arts. Thai steel cups might be a good investment for those who are wary. Some lessons shouldn't have to be learned the hard way.

The Harder They Fall

We used to do push-ups on our knuckles in karate class, a practice of which I do not have fond memories of. It didn't matter where I trained, the knuckle push-up was a time-honored staple. I think from a physiological perspective aligning one's wrist vertically (as opposed to hands flat on the floor) is better for the sake of the wrist joint. I've done my fair share of push-ups, I've had no aversion to hard training in the past, but pressing knuckles into a hardwood floor can be trying. The idea is that it conditions the fist for sparring, but I'm skeptical. Routines that include focus mitts and the heavy bag are more practical and sensible. 

 

A traditional karate dojo has a hardwood floor. Isshinryu's founder, Shimabuku, had an outdoor training area that was surrounded by a brick wall that supposedly had shards of glass glued to the tops to dissuade the local Okinawan youth from climbing atop to peer in. Photos from that time reveal what looks like a concrete floor. Years later, Angi Uezu built a dojo with a concrete slab that had springs underneath, presumably to absorb shocks from jumping and landing. Great for the spine, I guess. Not so much if you land on your head.

In combat sports such as karate, tae kwon do and amateur boxing (some organizations), head gear is mandatory. The head gear is primarily designed to protect the user, not from getting hit in the face, but from falling. I've seen boxing matches where professionals (who don't wear head gear) get knocked out on their feet, then fare worse from landing  on their heads. I cracked a wisdom tooth at a tournament years ago when I was dropped with a side kick onto the hard gym floor of a local high school. This despite wearing head gear and a mouth piece, the latter of which is designed to keep the jaw from breaking, while no consideration is shown for the dentition.

There is a circuit of underground fight clubs such as King Of The Streets where combatants fight on a hard surface, no-holds-barred. Illegal and absolutely insane. Street fights can turn fatal when someone falls and hits their head on the pavement. 

 

Head trauma from years of boxing, kickboxing, MMA, and other sports have shown that dementia, Parkinson's Disease, and other neurological disorders associated with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) can manifest themselves, typically long after retirement.  

Whatever style you practice, do it on mats if you can. When sparring, move your head and protect yourself at all times. Loving your art shouldn't mean you have to pay for it later.

Pay Attention

In what has become a recurring theme in my life as of late, my health has been compromised with a shoulder injury. I will need rotator cuff surgery to repair the damage that I incurred at my job this past October and I've been home since. Last year I had a full shoulder replacement on my left side; this time it's my right shoulder.  I'm still waiting for the so-called "Golden Years" to kick in. I really thought my golden time was in the bag; after all, I've taken care of myself my entire adult life, and I assumed my eventual physical decline would be a protracted soft landing. A recent blog post from a karate practitioner, however, puts it succintly:

The decline is not slow and incremental.

Recent research seems to suggest that it’s not a slow ticking clock that causes physical decline but actually, across the sexes there are two significant spikes in dramatic decline. One occurs in the mid 40’s; scientists knew this but initially thought that statistics were skewed by the menopause in woman in that age group—but no… men have identical declines.

The other spike is in the early 60’s. A Japanese Wado teacher warned me of this, “You wait till you hit the 60’s barrier” he cheerfully told me.

So that’s the bad news, but it’s better to be warned ahead of time than to live in ignorance and then be blindsided by it.

I was telling a co-worker that the good news for me is that I'm running out of things to break on my body. I'm starting to acquire the same number of artificial repairs and prosthetic joints as RoboCop, the cyborg law enforcer from the 80s movie of the same name. In a couple of years I plan to retire. Hopefully I can manage to work the remaining time without crippling myself every six months.
 

For now there's not much I can do. Two of my current pastimes are reading and meditating, the latter being long associated with the martial arts. Meditation is a practice that is simple yet deceptively difficult. The idea of sitting absolutely still while quieting the mind is antithetical in our culture. The goal is the elimation of thoughts by simply paying attention to them. Through this act of mindfulness, the cessation of mind-chatter becomes attainable. That's it. In cultivating this practice one can achieve a number of psychological and physical benefits that are so well documented I won't delve into it here.

 

Shoshin Nagamine, the famous founder of Matsubayahshi-ryu karate, became deeply drawn to Zen and meditation in his senior years. As a result, he achieved Satori (enlightenment) at the age of 62 and lived for another twenty-eight years, time that was well spent in his administration of karate on Okinawa and the rest of the world.

I'm not up to taking on the world, I just want to make it to my retirement in one piece. My wife has been telling me to "be more careful" when I'm working. Yes, we all need to be attentive in our daily lives, especially at the job. Pay attention! In my defense, sometimes certain events at work are unavoidable. 

 

Somewhere I read one pithy definition of meditation that stuck with me: "Paying attention to paying attention." This reminds me of a Zen parable:

The day before going off to war,  a soldier sought the counsel of the Zen master Ikkyu. "Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom? I need some insight that will guide me and allow me to prevail on the battlefield."

Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word: "Attention."

"Is that all?" asked the soldier. "Will you not add something more ?"

Ikkyu then wrote twice: "Attention. Attention."

"Well," remarked the soldier rather irritably, "I really don't see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written."

Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times: "Attention. Attention. Attention."

Half-angered, the soldier demanded, "What does that word 'attention' mean anyway?"

Ikkyu answered gently, "Attention means attention."

Never Quit

I have a confession to make. I've been out of work for seven months (courtesy of some health issues I've previously discussed, but I go back at the end of September), and I'm not happy with the way I look. This morning on a doctor's scale I weighed a whopping 205 lbs., way up from my sparring heyday of 178. (I used to be 5 ft 10; I'm currently 5 ft 9. I have a medium frame.) A lot of this is just due to my inactivity, but also, to my defense, it's age related. I turn 63 in October, and my body just doesn't do what it used to do. Not just willful physical activity, whether it's performing job duties or exercising in my basement gym/dojo, but also trying to keep my weight down, recover from minor injuries, and incentive to do otherwise menial tasks. I find myself actually having to push myself to go on my daily one-mile walk. My strength and stamina in the gym over the years has diminished significantly, and when I confided this to a friend, he replied, "why bother pumping iron if you just keep getting weaker?"

"Alright," I replied. "What do you suppose would happen if I just completely stopped working out?"

Stopping my workouts is not an option for me. Perish the thought! But naturally I have to modify a routine to accommodate my pre-existing injuries. And as of late I need serious motivation—fortunately fate came to the rescue. The other day a co-worker texted me a bodybuilding routine Bruce Lee created in 1965, before he became a star cinematically (although by this time Lee was an in-demand martial arts instructor). This flow chart, I'm assuming, is a catalog of exercises to be performed in a single session. It's a list of mostly upper body/arm exercises, but I really like how the first item is squats. Never skip leg day. I'm glad Lee knew his priorities.

As Lee's status as a star rose he continued his self created bodybuilding routine that emphasized both strength and muscular endurance. At  5 ft 7 1⁄2 and 140 lbs, Lee was not not an overtly formidable presence. But his devotion to fitness paid off. Chuck Norris once said that Lee was, pound for pound, the strongest human being he has ever trained with.

While Lee was making gains in the gym, he began to adjust his diet and cardio exercises that accelerated his body's ability to burn fat. In the 1965 photo above, I would guess his body fat percentage to be about 12. The pic below taken from Enter The Dragon (1973) depicts a much leaner version of Lee, evident with a marked increase in muscular definition and striations. I'd put his body fat here at about 7 percent. Understand that this level of body fat is quite low, even for an athlete, and is very difficult to achieve without resorting to sports enhancing drugs. (There is no respectable evidence that Lee used steroids or the like to achieve his physique. I'm also fairly confident this photo has not been enhanced.)

In the 1960s, bodybuilding routines were considered taboo for some sports, especially boxing. There are traditional exercises in karate that emphasize grip strength and isometric tension, but little else that bear any semblance to a modern muscle building regimen. 

As a martial artist Lee was ahead of his time in a few ways (e.g., he loathed the concept of styles as he saw them as inherently dogmatic), and embraced modernity, innovation, and common sense. However, several years later, Lee was training with weights and endured a serious back injury that incapacitated him for some time. (A detailed account of this can be found in this article.) Lee was about 30 when this happened, and somehow plowed through this and continued with his movie career until his untimely death from an allergic reaction to a pain killer (for a headache) just a few years later. I sustained a similar, albeit less severe injury to my back performing barbell squats when I was 36. At the time, I was working for the same company I'm at now, didn't see a doctor, and didn't miss a single day of work. I was lucky, the problem eventually resolved itself. Youth has its advantages. An injury like that now would likely put me out on permanent disability. 

These days I still train when I'm up to it, but I don't do barbell squats or heavy lifting anymore. And definitely no sparring with someone I don't know. With age comes wisdom.

We Can Rebuild Him

Father Time has once again taken its toll on my body. I'm annoyed, to put it mildly, that a lifetime of clean living, diet, and fitness has resulted in a now-beaten up body. Over the past three years I've incurred numerous episodes of arthritis that has resulted in herniated discs, knee and elbow pain, and as of late, a full-shoulder replacement surgery that has kept me out of work since roughly the beginning of the year. (See above—yes, that is my new left shoulder!) 

It's been suggested that my years of sparring and performing endless drills of kihon (karate basics) may have led to this, but I don't think so. My chiropractor friend says I should be able to punch through cement blocks now with my bionic implant. Yeah, sure.

While I was awaiting my procedure it was revealed during a pre-op test that I had atrial fibrillation (a-fib), and a later discovery of right-handed weakness and atrophy, the latter diagnosed by a pinched nerve in my cervical spine. I'm currently wearing a Holter monitor to address the a-fib. As funny as this may sound, I'm in otherwise good shape.

Though I haven't been working for several months, my union is still paying my medical insurance. I'm very grateful my other health issues came to light now so I can address everything during my leave of absence.

Sometimes good news is disguised as bad news, but you never really know. There may be a cosmic lesson hidden in this so-called misfortune of mine, but who knows? As the Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want...you just might find you get what you need."

For clarification, a Zen story:

 

There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

Spinal Health, Meditation, and Aging Gracefully

Recently an attorney admonished a high profile political figure for not having the "courage and spine" to commit to what could be construed as a treasonous act. This is relevant, as being upright is considered moralistic, a hallmark of martial arts philosophy. Notwithstanding the clever use of metaphors, having a strong spine is essential for overall physical health. I found this out at my job about two months ago when I attempted to lift a modestly heavy container onto a hand truck causing excruciating pain in my back. An MRI has revealed two herniated discs causing nerve impingements that make work (for now) impossible. In the meantime, a pair of steroid epidurals has eased some of my pain, hopefully with lasting results.

In a previous post I've talked about my earlier diagnosis with scoliosis (spine curvature) in a positive way; how the spinal rotation in my back may have actually aided my efforts to perform spin-kicks. When I tell other practitioners this, I'm usually met with incredulity. They think I'm nuts. I'm just trying to look on the bright side. It's a coping mechanism. But as I enter my 62nd year on this realm, making lemonade out of lemons is becoming trickier. I have scoliosis, herniated discs, and an arthritic spine, something I don't relish as I approach my retirement years. Forrest Morgan, author of Living the Martial Way, divulged in an interview that degenerative arthritis is the reason for his cessation in martial arts training, though he still enjoys low-impact cardio and weight training for fitness. I'm currently doing neither.

When I told a fellow karate-ka about my blown out discs, he said to me, in all sincerity, it likely occurred because when I meditate I may be concentrating too hard on my hara. The hara (or dantian), considered the seat of power (ki) in Japanese martial arts and the site of the third chakra in Indian mysticism, roughly corresponds to the physical location of the lumbar spine injury that is wreaking havoc on my ability to go to work or basically do anything else.

Who knows, maybe I am meditating the wrong way. Is that even possible? When Western medicine first encountered meditation in the early twentieth century it was posited that seizures, psychosis, and even death could occur to the overly eager neophyte navel-gazer. I have no plans to give up my regimen of meditation, however, my future is uncertain. One euphemism for karate is "self-defense"; I need to take care of myself. We all do. I have bills to pay, but I need to tend to my health, and I find myself at a crossroads. I'm not even sure what that means for me. Time will tell. I'll have to pick some destination, no matter how uncertain it may be right now. As Yogi Berra once offered, "When you get to the fork in the road, take it."

A Study In Real Violence

Human Violence By Category is a website that covers every imaginable scenario dealing with physical aggression and assault. The subtext "Violence categorised by type, technique, tactic, weapon and profession" pretty much sums up what this blog is about. Each category comes replete with a series of short-clip videos, all of which are accompanied by written explanations and commentary. Everything from road rage scenes, police and military interventions, bouncers doing their thing, and mentally ill assailants are given due consideration.

DISCLAIMER: Some of the video clips featured on this site are not appropriate for everyone. Please view with discretion and an open mind.

Rousey vs. Holm: My Two Cents

This post begins with an admission: I am, at best, a casual fan of mixed martial arts. By now, any real MMA fan has heard that Ronda Rousey, the UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, was defeated last night (Sat., Nov. 14, 2015) by a relative unknown — Holly Holm. So the following is my naïve understanding of a sport that I really don't follow closely, and it is with this neophytic perspective (along with my actual knowledge of karate, among other things) that I'll weigh in.

Nobody gave Holm a chance. She was regarded as mere cannon fodder for the indestructible machine that the undefeated Rousey has been portrayed as, and justifiably so. Her last three bouts have lasted an average of 22 seconds each! An adept striker, Rousey's real forte is judo, as she earned a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics.

Witness the second and final round of the match. Rousey is forced out of her comfort zone of close quarter grappling by Holm's strategy of maintaining a healthy distance. Holm, a southpaw and a former professional boxer and kickboxer, repeatedly lands crushing left crosses against Rousey's unprotected face. Note the sweet slip Holm gives Rousey at 4:28. The coup de grâce was a brutal round kick to the neck by Holm.

Holm's transition from boxing to MMA may be wiser than she realizes. MMA has been shown to be less injurious than boxing.

Some thoughts I've held for a while, but culminated with this match:

• Many fights don't end up as a ground-and-pound wrestling match.
• MMA is not merely sportive head bashing, but a highly technical art that deserves respect.
• Women in MMA can be as popular as their male counterparts.
• The idea that competitive fighters of any stripe are heartless thugs that lack empathy is largely a myth.

The golden age of women's MMA has begun. Indeed, MMA in general is here to stay. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly mistaken.

Risky Business

How you train is how it happens. That's an old martial arts maxim. You want to train as realistically as possible. But this is fraught with problems. Your dojo is not a back alley and uke (your training partner/attacker) is not on a wanted poster (hopefully). In other words when you're paired up with somebody, be mindful of how you handle yourself. This goes for sparring, self-defense drills, or 2-person exercises such as kotekitai (forearm conditioning).

Some techniques are inherently difficult to control, even among experts. High-target chamberless kicks such as crescent and axe kicks are nearly impossible to pull. Crescent kicks are okay if you can clear your opponents head, showing that you could have made contact. Not so with the gravity-charged axe kick, which implicitly targets the face or collarbone. Bear in mind that it only takes roughly 12 lbs. of pressure to break the clavicle. Also, overreaching with the axe kick means you'll end up striking with your Achilles tendon, not the sole or heel of the foot.

Set-up for Axe Kick

Anything that involves a full-body rotation to launch your move, such as a spinning backfist or any variant of a spin-around kick are specifically designed to increase power via centrifugal force. Think of a shot-putter torquing his body before he explodes that 16 lb. steel ball off his shoulder. If you see someone KO'd at a tournament it is quite often from a spin-around back kick, the most powerful kick in karate. And those things tend to come in hard, fast and wild, capable of breaking ribs, teeth, or anything that gets in its way. A few years back two BBs were sparring at our school and one of them got nailed south of the border with a spin-around back kick. Because this genius left his groin protector home that day he was rewarded with a trip to the hospital and emergency surgery. Some lessons are learned the hard way. Protective gear has its place, but too much of a good thing can be a problem.

When you're working self-defense with a partner remember that you're employing time-honored methods such as joint-locks and pressure-point applications designed to impart extreme pain. Play nice. And this goes both ways. If you're a student looking to one-up a senior or instructor you may be in for a really bad time.

The Shin as a Weapon

Yesterday I received an email from a reader regarding my last post on the perils of hand conditioning. Here's part of it:

Been training in ----- for about a year. In my school we don't punch anything hard but my sensei has us round kick the heavy bag with our shins. Man that s#!t hurts! He [the instructor] says the thai boxers have shins like steel, this is the way to do it. What do you think? My legs are all lumped up now I'm thinking of quitting.

Among other things I advised him to let his shins heal before he resumes training. Like makiwara training for punches, shin-striking hard or semi-hard objects are not my forte. I've never really been schooled in this method, but I'm guessing that the shinbone (tibia) should not take the full brunt of impact, but when performing the roundhouse kick the toes should be angled down a bit so that the muscular part of the shin (tibialis anterior) makes predominate contact.

In Muay Thai shin-strikes are a signature move. There's a lot of controversy and misunderstanding about shin-striking delivered as a roundhouse kick. Traditionally, Muay Thai fighters would kick banana trees till they keel over. Banana trees, unlike most North American variety, are relatively soft and flexible. Still, being able to fell one is a formidable task. It's not hard to fathom how novices would end up crippling themselves after hearing about these feats.

It's debatable as to the effectiveness of shin conditioning in the martial arts. Some use a rolling pin device for the shins to deaden the nerves, thereby raising the pain threshold. There is also a psychological component involved concerning pain tolerance. According to Wolff's Law, bones that are subject to incremental overload will respond by becoming stronger and denser. Evidence suggests that activities such as weightlifting and jumping support this thesis. Other research has revealed that microcrack damage actually decreases bone brittleness, making the bone less susceptible to further fracturing.

A low-section roundhouse shin-strike to the opponent's outside thigh can be highly effective in a match, but it can come at a cost. In a UFC title match held in 2013 between Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman, the former attempted a low-target shin-strike that was leg-checked by the latter with catastrophic results. Silva had orthopedic surgery to repair his broken tibia with an intramedullary metal rod infused in the bone cavity. He is scheduled to resume fighting in 2015.

I hate to say it, but every fighter Silva is matched with from here on out is going to target that left leg. He may also be gun-shy with kicking (or even checking kicks) with that leg, another impediment. I really think Silva should call it a day, unlike my reader with bruised shins who probably just needs a break (no pun) if he intends to stick it out in a school that he otherwise likes. Hopefully this young man won't continue getting hurt and is getting qualified coaching.

Iron Fist Training

Let me state that this is not a tutorial on how to develop manos de piedra - "hands of stone" - which is the famous moniker of prizefighter Roberto Duran. My use of a provocative title may be misleading. For the record I don't subscribe to the idea that hands can be conditioned into something akin to an anvil . Hands did not evolve to break open body parts and certain traditional training methods to toughen them can wreak havoc. Actually, this post was inspired by an impromptu sparring session I had this past weekend (my first in quite a while) that resulted in the first two knuckles on my left hand to swell to frightening proportions. I wore cotton hand-guards that leave the fingers exposed, and while my striking force was left in reserve for the most part, apparently, that wasn't good enough. This is really the result of chronic damage from years of sparring. (Note to readers: When you feel pain from an activity, stopping said activity is advised.) A colleague told me I should perform pushups on my knuckles to avert future injury. Another suggested training on a more time-honored method: The makiwara. I don't think so to either one.

A grandmaster of Matsubayashi-ryu once told me that any respectable dojo should have a makiwara on the premises. A makiwara is a wooden striking post designed to develop punching prowess and accuracy, not to put callouses on knuckles. Karateka that have knuckles that look like they're jacked on steriods may look impressive and could be held as a perverse badge of honor. Ego trips like this can go either way as one Okinawan karate historian tells:

Arakaki's father often warned him about making large black callouses on his knuckles. One reason was that, as his father was a merchant, customers would, on seeing the swollen and deformed hands, be easily frightened away. Another reason was that local ruffians would often try to pick fights on the pseudo-karate-ka who flouted such grotesque trophies. 'After practice on the makiwara,' Arakaki told me, 'it is a good idea to wash one's hands in salt water (or urine) and then alcohol; if the skin is cut, always carefully sterilise the affected area.'¹

There's a market that offers a wide range of liniments with names like "Iron Hit Wine" and "Tiger Balm" that, while pricey at roughly $20 for a 2 oz. dose, provides a more sanitary method of treatment than urine. Once during an Isshinryu karate demonstration held for US marines on Okinawa, Tatsuo Shimabuku cut his hand while driving a spike through a slab of wood. There was no liniment or any first-aid handy, so in a pinch he applied some dirt to the wound to stop the bleeding.

I've never trained on a makiwara, which is supposedly of Chinese origin, not Okinawan as many believe.² Indeed, the Chinese method of "Iron Bone Hand" training, developed as a method for maiming and killing, appears in Article 20 of the Bubishi stating:

The Iron Bone Hand technique can only be developed through relentless training. After thrusting the bare hand into a container filled with hot sand on a daily basis for many weeks, the fingers gradually become conditioned enough to initiate the secondary stage of training. After thrusting the bare hand into a container filled with gravel on a daily basis for many weeks, the fingers will become even more conditioned so that the final stage of conditioning can be initiated. The final stage of conditioning requires one to thrust the bare hand into a container of even larger stones. This special kind of conditioning will lead to hand deformity and the loss of one's fingernails. Alternative training methods often include thrusting the bare hand into bundles of wrapped bamboo in an effort to condition the fingers for lethal stabbing and poking.³

There's a tenet of unknown origin that advises to "attack soft tissue with a hard-surface hand-strike, and a hard area with a soft-surface hand-strike." Hammerfist, shuto (blade-hand), and palm-heel use the fleshier part of the hand that tend to be less injurious than a closed-fist if your target area is someone's head. In boxing, heavy hitters occasionally break their hands delivering the KO punch, this in spite of wrapping their hands in plenty of gauze and donning 10 or 12 oz. gloves. You'll also never see a boxer hit any kind of a bag without gloves. And some karate men, such as Isshinryu's Angi Uezu, have been known to doggedly hit that makiwara bare-handed. Somebody's wrong here.



1. Mark Bishop 1999. Okinawan Karate: Teachers, styles and secret techniques. Tuttle Publishing.
2. Ibid.
3. Patrick McCarthy 1995. The Bible of Karate: Bubishi. Tuttle Publishing.

Lower Back Issues

A typical karate class commences with jumbi undo (warm up exercises) to prevent injuries sustained during heavy sparring, drills or other complex movements. Still, being able to crank out a hundred knuckle pushups or run around the deck for ten laps may seem tedious if not downright unnecessary. A warm up routine is designed to prevent injuries, not to gauge stamina or waste class time.

Karateka are used to performing dozens of crunches, leg-outs and leg raises at the beginning of class. There's a good reason for this as having a strong abdominal wall is a prerequisite for core strength and stability. The antagonistic muscle region to the abdomen is the lower back. And a fairly common injury that visits martial-art practitioners - really, just about everybody at some time - seems to be lower back pain.

Weak back muscles will lead to injury, but even the exercises that promote this area can be problematic, especially when care isn't taken. Years ago while performing heavy barbell squats I felt excruciating pain in my lower back that resulted in sciatica. I was able to go to work, but for several weeks I had mild paralysis in my left glute, hamstring and calf. In 1970 Bruce Lee famously blew out his back performing 'good-mornings' -- a lower back exercise that involves holding a barbell on the shoulders behind the neck and lowering the torso parallel to the floor. Lee was reportedly using 125 lbs. for his good-morning routine -- 90 percent of his bodyweight! He was bedridden for six months, took time off to write, but eventually rehabilitated himself and resumed his training and movie career.

I've never even attempted good-mornings. Back in the day I'd perform heavy deadlifts, but after my squatting episode I became leery of hurting myself again. So for the past several years I've been using a hyperextension apparatus for my lower back. What I use is very similar to the one in the image below.

Some pointers:

1. Lie face down on a hyperextension bench, tucking your ankles securely under the footpads.
2. Adjust the upper pad if possible so your upper thighs lie flat across the wide pad, leaving enough room for you to bend at the waist without any restriction.
3. With your body straight, cross your arms in front of you (my preference) or behind your head. This will be your starting position. Tip: You can also hold a weight plate for extra resistance in front of you under your crossed arms.
4. Start bending forward slowly at the waist as far as you can while keeping your back flat. Inhale as you perform this movement. Keep moving forward until you feel a nice stretch on the hamstrings and you can no longer keep going without a rounding of the back. Tip: Never round the back as you perform this exercise. Also, some people can go farther than others. The key thing is that you go as far as your body allows you to without rounding the back.
5. Slowly raise your torso back to the initial position as you inhale. Tip: Avoid the temptation to arch your back past a straight line. Also, do not swing the torso at any time in order to protect the back from injury.
6. Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.

I do hyperextensions with some added resistance. I'll hold a weight plate to my chest with my arms crossed. I'll do thirty reps, place the weight down, clasp my hands behind my head and immediately pump out twenty more reps. And that's it. That's my lower back routine. Hyperextensions primarily work the quadratus lumborum muscles in the lower back and the spinal erector muscles that extend the length of the vertebral column. To a lesser extent the trapezius muscles that extend from the base of the neck to the upper back are activated and also the hamstrings. (Hamstrings in particular need to be stretched out after this routine as they will be very tight.) I perform this routine in conjunction with abs; sometimes before ab exercises, sometimes after. My rep range is high to promote endurance, modest strength and plenty of blood flow to an area of the body that is more bone, cartilage and sacral nerves than muscle.

For lower back exercise some martial-art routines employ use of the 'butterfly' or 'superman' where you lie on your stomach then lift your head and limbs a few inches off the mat. They're challenging but they're static. For this reason I prefer and recommend the full-range hyperextension for lower back. In my opinion they're safe and very effective. Core stability that includes developing a strong lower back is imperative to performing any physical activity, whether you play golf, work for a living, or practice martial arts.

Reality Check For The Streetfighter

Somebody sent me this amusing but rather sensible list of 6 Painful Things Nobody Tells You About Fighting that's worth checking out (two pages).

Topics include the perils of punching to the head, high kicking, dealing with drunkenness (yours and the other guy's), and the personality traits of the select few who live to instigate violent altercations and their consequences.

MMA: Sport or Spectacle?

A co-worker asked me recently if I thought mixed martial arts was a "sport." Sport as a word has a wide range. Badminton is a sport. So are billiards. I think what my friend was getting at, like many people, is twofold. First, it's the idea that MMA contests are seemingly devoid of any rules. Secondly, rules notwithstanding, anything that involves gore and violence of this kind shouldn't even be granted viewership, let alone be classified as sport. MMA is still banned in my home state of New York, much to the delight, I'm sure, of promoters in neighboring New Jersey where it is sanctioned and regulated.

Getting MMA on legally equal footing with boxing, kickboxing, etc., has been no easy task for its proponents, thanks to propaganda and bad press. Politicians such as John McCain railed against MMA in the 90s. Still, in spite of what appears to be gratuitous violence, MMA is no more dangerous to its competitors than other contact sports. A John Hopkins University School of Medicine study from 2006 verifies that...

Mixed Martial Arts competitions have changed dramatically since the first Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993. The overall injury rate in MMA competitions is now similar to other combat sports, including boxing. Knockout rates are lower in MMA competitions than in boxing. This suggests a reduced risk of TBI [traumatic brain injury] in MMA competitions when compared to other events involving striking.

Years later, McCain did recant somewhat on his earlier position by stating, "They have cleaned up the sport to the point, at least in my view, where it is not human cockfighting any more. I think they've made significant progress. They haven't made me a fan, but they have made progress."

Granted, I'm not a fan of MMA, either. At this point, "mixed martial arts" strikes me as a misnomer. If I was born a generation later my take on it would be different, I'm sure.

I don't think MMA should be banned, though. What do you think?

Fighting Gear

My earliest sparring sessions in karate were without the mandatory protective gear you see today. The only requirement was the groin protector; a mouthpiece was optional. By the 80s, foam head gear and hand guards had become compulsory for most schools per insurance purposes.

Probably the biggest argument against the use of protective gear is that it conditions the student to a kind of safety net that isn't always available. And yet despite this added precaution, the potential to get seriously hurt during a match still exists. In truth, the protective gear users may be instilled with a false sense of security and in turn feel that they have carte blanche to commit mayhem on one another. One article refers to this as risk compensation, which basically means we adjust our danger levels in accordance to so-called security measures.

The issue of protective fighting gear presents an interesting dichotomy. On one hand we have the time-honored body hardening techniques that are purported to forge our bodies into steel. I have my doubts, but you'd be hard pressed to find a Thai boxer who's heard of shin guards. Traditional karateka pound the makiwara (striking post) bare knuckled, yet Western boxers wrap their hands with gauze before lacing up a pair of 12 oz. gloves.

On Okinawa, karate fighters occassionally wear bogu, which is the protective armor used in kendo (sword-art). Bogu includes a chest protector and a full-face shield. Again, the idea is that players can go full tilt in matches without killing one another, try as they may.

Obviously, padded protection is an absolute must for children involved in any sportive striking-style martial art. Dojo Rat just wrote a piece on a Missouri school that teaches MMA to kids as young as six. Hopefully, safety will be stressed when showing these little tykes submission moves.

The next time you train, try sparring without your fighting gear. It will feel strange and uncomfortable, and you'll probably feel reticent about loading up on shots. At the very least, it'll provide you with an interesting reality check.

Martial Rx

Injuries are part of the martial journey. Does your instructor know what to do when someone gets hurt or knocked out in your school? Most dojo that I've been in didn't even have a first aid kit handy.

At one time martial arts training was taught in conjunction with various versions of osteopathy and holistic medicine. Most of the traditional healing skills were given short shrift when the martial arts made their transition from East to West. That may be too bad, especially in light of the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical monstrosity known as the American drug industry. Where else can you find TV commercials imploring the public to "ask your doctor about such-and-such a pill"? It seems the healthcare bureaucrats want everybody to be on something.

Acupuncture, herbal remedies, bone setting (sekkotsu) and resuscitation skills (kappo) were areas of knowledge held by the old-time masters of combat. Through the investigation of physiology, martial artists not only had a better understanding of healing, but also how to disrupt certain areas through atemi (vital strikes). But skeptics question the authenticity of Eastern holistic ways, in particular Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Indeed, the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) claims that of the 46 medical journals published by the Chinese Medical Association, not one is devoted to acupuncture or other TCM practices.

Still, while hurting people is relatively easy, it's healing that requires perhaps a higher calling, whether its through conventional medicine, alternative methods, or a combined approach as proposed by Andrew Weil who has authored several books on his "integrative medicine" theories. But it was Ben Franklin who probably had the best advice of all: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Are You Tough Enough?

If you're involved in any kind of free-style fighting or grappling at your school, eventually you're going to get hit, kicked, thrown or choked out. It's all part of the game, and players need to experience this incrementally over a period of time to desensitize themselves to the physical and psychological discomfort of getting busted up. While general exercise gets us in shape to sustain battle, traditional exercises were created to condition the body to take a certain amount of abuse without incurring any serious or permanent damage. Before I delve any further into this, it should be noted that some of these body-hardening techniques are somewhat controversial and have the potential to do far more harm than good. Women may have difficulty accepting these routines and they're not recommended for kids. You've been warned.

The ancient karate form sanchin is a kind of moving isometric muscle builder that emphasizes deep breathing with a sharp hiss. Performing sanchin is akin to moving an imaginary heavy weight. When being tested for this kata the student is expected to withstand sound kicks and punches delivered to the legs and torso. In demonstrations, the expert sanchin performer endures objects being broken over his body with no apparent ill effects. Some practitioners really go overboard and actually end up with high blood pressure and related problems from the forced breathing aspect of this form.

Kotekitai is a forearm muscle conditioner done with a partner. Students pair up and alternate striking the inside and outside of each others forearms similar to a blocking drill. This is an importatnt routine for Isshinryu karateka, where blocking is always done with the muscular side of the forearm. In many styles, the mechanics of the block exposes the bony ridge of the forearm (ulna), which can cause it to break upon impact, especially from a kick.

A makiwara is a striking post, usually padded with straw, rubber or carpet to cushion the impact of the strike. Fist, elbow and shuto (blade-hand) strikes are practiced. Old time practitioners used to develop large calluses on their knuckles from years of training on these devices. In actuality, the object is to develop strength and precision in all areas of striking that can't be duplicated in sparring or forms practice.

In certain Chinese martial arts, qigong (chi gung) is emphasized. This esoteric practice of manipulating one's chi or ki energy is reputed to have the capacity to reinforce areas of the body against blows. These methods are referred to as iron shirt techniques, and date back centuries. The existence of ki/chi remains questionable as modern science has not investigated this area enough to prove anything conclusive.

While I believe that the student has to get a feel for what a real fight is like through sparring and occasionally taking some hard shots, I'm not totally convinced that it's possible to strengthen parts of the body through repeated blows. I do believe there is an emotional component connected to the "shock" of getting hit that needs to be overcome. Is it really possible to turn one's body into protective armor? If you're willing to find out, proceed with caution.

Sparring Injuries

Most people join a martial arts club to either avoid or dish out some serious punishment. In kumite (sparring) the idea is to apply what you've supposedly learned combined with the spontaneity one could expect during an actual street fight. In the dojo, sparring partners are expected to work with one another; it is not about annihilating the other guy, even if your sensei tells you to turn up the heat. Still, accidents do happen. A nice woman and mother of four (all of whom trained at our school) snapped her pencil-thin forearm one night when she attempted to down-block a front kick. Not one to be easily discouraged, she showed up the following week for class with her arm in a cast. On another occasion a pair of black belts were mixing it up when one of them dropped to the mat. Apparently, a rather low spin-around-back kick was able to exploit the fact that someone wasn't wearing their groin protector. Ambulance trips to the hospital aren't much fun for young karate enthusiasts. He needed emergency surgery, and it was about a month before he was able to resume training. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

Sparring gear such as hand-guards are implemented to protect the user, not necessarily with the opponent's safety in mind. Most head-gear manufacturers include a label that reads For Light or No-Contact Sparring Only. That probably does about as much good as the warnings listed on cigarette cartons. The mouth-piece is designed to keep your jaw from breaking, but may not keep your teeth intact as I found out years ago at a tournament. I fear my dentist more than any opponent I've had to face.

Starting in April 2007, the World Martial Art Games Committee (WMAGC) is going to revise its rule book to exclude words like "fight" and "fighter" to counteract what it sees as aggressive and violent tendencies in the martial arts. In its statement the WMAGC claims that by omitting words and references associated with fighting and replacing them with mitigated terms (e.g. sparring contest, match, etc.) will lead to less injuries related to sportive martial arts. What all this implies is that "fighting words" send a negative subliminal message to the mind of the combatant (another dirty word?) causing her/him to become overzealous during a match. Of course reducing a karate contest to a glorified game of tag does it no justice either. There needs to be balance. I'm all for promoting the martial arts in a positive way, but perhaps this form of political correctness has gone too far.