training for balance, anyone?

so my injuries are usually because of my leaning on several tried and true ways to hit...meaning that i train to really fire off my fav's and as a result my body/back/etc...gets overly stressed in certain areas. i've had to be a real alchemist about keeping my body balanced. i found situps redistributed the tension that was otherwise solely on my lowerback--i'm way fond of training jab/cross and hooks until they come out like bat. the sit-ups saved the ongoing strain that would be responsible for that lovely slipped disc feeling that came with my overtraining, etc...

jogging backwards balances my leg from forward drive training. chin-ups to counter all the punching. backfisty type hammer fists, balance the muscles in my shoulder. in the end i'm doing twice as much to guard the small arsenol that is my staple--all inside stuff [above mentioned stuff; headbutts; elbows; knees; low rounds]. because of the force i want to launch in with, i have to constantly thinking of balancing the tension on my body.

anybody think like this, OCD-me, or is it just my problem?

i've found the power just kind of develops on it's own, but all the other training is to avoid injuries. it sort of came to me meditating on the tao--as corny as that sounds. and i sighed and thought, oh no... more to add to my workout. but it's been good to me--or at least my build. 5'8" 195 lbs. fast twitch muscle fibers on overload--so that mess-ups spell injury. why i've stayed open palm, etc... i'm usually working at twice the energy level--like a fooked up sports car with a drunken angry bastard behind the wheel

anyway, many errors later. my training evolved into this

I had similar thoughts recently mate, how do you balance the combative stuff... coz if all your doing is combatives your surely building a body that is hunched over- the intense explosive strikin puts lots of pressure on back and triceps, so yeah I think similar but added a bit: balance with chins, bicep curls, lateral raise, mil press and push ups, lots and lots of push ups- even though the movements are kind of pushing movements Ive never had sore chest the next day so I throw pushups in

and maybe some conscious posture self training? I find lots of combative type training leaves me tending to walk/ move/ stand with my head dipped, chin lower, lookin at world through brows (not a friendly stance) spine curved and torso covered/closed- sometimes just have to tell myself to chin up, head back deep breaths, look at the sky... get out of the postural/psychological defensive combative quagmire and look at the pretty birdies.

Its a psychocybernetic loop, where the mind goes the body follows, where the body goes the mind must follow

Richie said///
I find lots of combative type training leaves me tending to walk/ move/ stand with my head dipped, chin lower, lookin at world through brows (not a friendly stance) spine curved and torso covered/closed-

crikie, have you seen lee morrison's posture--good work ethic, nice rbsd drills, but he stands like a gorilla like some really nasty letter "C" with feet you never want to mess with

i'll edit this and add a clip so you can see. your routine looks great--if you do start to get troubles with
the small of your back, watch out with those push-ups mate. when i was young i never used a weight belt and lived for the push movements. i [not joking] was able to hit 500 in one set of push-ups then, later it evolved into 5 sets of a hundred on each arm on my knuckles. OCD me. i never had an impressive bench press, i could only get 315 at my best--when all the planets were aligned. and did alot of seated miliatary and incline dumbell bench--which i was good at. long story shortened only slightly, the sports doctor i went to gave me the 'never weight lift again speech'. something about the small of my back and how it made the flexibility in my leg not get the higher [but never too high] kicks anymore. well, of course, i would rather die than completely pack it in, so i found that certain excercises--when overtrained, made things go wrong quickly--like push-ups, that i naturally want to start overdoing when i get back into them. i kept the combatives and lost the push-ups in the end. so far, the balanced training has been supporting me--but i can't do my type of jab/cross pads 6 days in a row. but i can do them 3 times a week.

and i can't wait to get some new crash test dummies for forward drive when the school year starts--about once or twice a week is plenty for those. the sit-ups really help add the pressure from the other direction. i had a back pull in the mountains, and one morning after meditating i just ran through 300 situps and felt better for about an hour--over time getting fully better. i do this one set of 300 now 3 times a week. at the end of the day, i only do what i have to--lazy bastard that i am...minimalist sod who wants to be able to defeat all the demons in the universe with my bloodied hands

nice to hear you speak of this to. this is where i say, "great minds..." or at least 'birds of a feather'


edited///
here's the clip of lee morrison [a.k.a. the missing link for posture--check about three and half minutes into the clip, all that's missing is a banana ]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfyL0b-vOd4&feature=related

This is great question.
I've been working on this for a while now, but more in terms of undoing the daily wear and tear from my job. Thank god I don't sit in front of a computer all day - that would drive me stark raving mad, but house painting and construction contain a bunch of tasks that over time cause misalignment problems and postural weirdnesses.
Add to that the striking arts, and you got a one way street to a knotted up hunchback with tendonitis
Luckily Bagua has some very open posture walking exercises and stretches that I do to mitigate my work day as well as a great tendon stretching set. Even the Eskrima I do has a mad warm up set that stretches the obliques and legs really well. Also playing with single handed but long weapons opens up the front of the body if you are paying attention to evading, and expressing you strikes.
All of this stuff seems to help me balance the more closed up postures that come from striking.
I used to have money to get body work - usually acupuncture and zen body therapy (akin to rolfing) - to get out those knots I could not budge, but lately that has fallen by the wayside so I've had to take extra care at work to use both hands equally, move correctly and create new ways of doing tasks.
At first I was irritated that I had to find new ways to do things and could not keep doing them as I had done before. Then I realized I had been getting away with bad alignment, imbalance and over training, and that all I had to do was find the right way to do things that were sustainable.
You think things have changed now that you are over 30 ...wait till you are over 40!!! It's all true - the warranty does run out, but only if you don't pay attention. If you use your body correctly, and I think this idea of balance is key to this, it can last until you finally keel over for good.

As far as the psychological affect of posture, there some interesting stuff out there on that. Can't find references now, but I think there's a guy called Hanna who looks at 'green light postures' - open arced postures, and red light postures' - closed curled up postures or something like that, and links these ideas to openness and happiness vs depression and anger etc.

interestin, Ive noticed in myself that the crunched up combative posture creates a habit of shorter shallower breaths associated with anxiety and depression, arching your back and stretching your chest out makes you breath more deeply

Russ I looked at that video of Lee and another popped up in the related vids on utube that I enjoyed... nothin to do with what we're talkin about just good combative fodder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVdQuvZdyyM

I think I read something once abot keeping POWs kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs. Apart from being physically restrictive, it also has an effect mentally because of the posture closing down the chest.
I don't have a reference for this unfortunately, but it seems to make sense.

Richie,
nice clip...that's exactly the form of my 'hammer-fist' [the angle from which i use it] as i've opted
to not bung my fingers up if i haven't judged distance and target correctly. i enjoyed that--tah. i use that particular strike as my warm up to striking the pads as it's the least likely i'll use and so i rely on it to get me going...then j-slaps...then jab/crosses...headbutts, etc...

the posture psychology thingy really makes sense. whilst on the ashram, this one swami was always looking kindly on this one bloke with perfect posture and flexibility. i always remember it because it puzzled me. i felt it didn't convey effort to have natural gifts, but then the monk who was keenly aware of the affect 'assana' like postures has on the individual saw more in him than i did. i only saw a flexible lad with poise. in short, these things affect others as well. when i want to be left alone in the street, i subconsciously and consciously allow my posture to assume more of a lee-morroson-eque posture, arms hanging apish, slower gate. it affects people, oddly.

the student i trained, then dropped because she wasn't taking her training seriously, one day had
started rocking and eventually went into the fetal position--when an angry man came into the school i work at. the hunched rocking, the fetal extreme version of complete submissiveness...makes me wonder about alpha postures and such, and postures/assanas that affect one to evoke different states of being...even as needed for certain malodies, etc...

my head tilts when i'm gettting revved. my mouth is shut. my arms are heavy. i feel like it's a launch pad shapeshifted into a body. and my head gets the most 'fast-twitch muscle fibrous like feelings. like i want to 'nutt' someone or bloody bite them. i even use my voice like a bark--embarassing as it is to admit

i'm interested in studies about this [POW] sort of thing--Maija, if you ever post them, or simply paraphrase them. i believe [another subject i know] there's something to the whole face-shape japanese thing too. too many people i've known have been similarly disposed as they corresponded to facial landscape. odd but noticable to me very cool. makes me thing of bodies as energy systems. a while back my wife and i went to an ayurvedic doctor. he looked at my wife's posture and described her temperament EXACTLY. i had to stay quiet and see how she was taking it in. he talked about certain deep shoulder, etc...massages that will bring about balancing affects to her physiology. hard to ignore as he didn't know us at all and nailed everything. including my sports background. he was also a sports doctor [western] who [previously mentioned] advised me about my previous weightlifting and martial arts self abuse to my frame. he was the one who thought i could handle keeping the fighting but not the weights, hmmm...he was dead right. my injuries usually related to denial and re-attempts to claim my past glories in the strength training arenas.

mmm body as energy system and yoga themes popping up synchronistcaly for me a lot at the moment- over the weekend someone pointed out to me that Ive developed a habit of doing this mudra with my hands a lot http://healing.about.com/od/east/ig/Mudra-Gallery/Prithivi.htm and that I tap and massage points around my elbow crease when I talk- these things arent deliberate- I had to look up the mudra, still dont know what shiatsu points I seem to unconsciously need stimulating around my upper forearm

"The Prithivi mudra recharges the root chakra aligning it with earth energies"

I AM fooken knackerd at the moment so mayeb there is something in it

There's a really interesting book called "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell - subtitle "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"
There's a whole bunch of interesting stuff in there, but pertinent to this thread there was a study done by a couple of guys related to facial expression. They cataloged all the facial muscles and all the different ways of using them and the myriad of facial expressions they make. They even practiced making each of the expressions themselves.
Apparently your facial expression IS your emotional state ... not something that follows after. These guys got so good at watching even fleeting expressions pass over peoples' faces that they could tell what people were really thinking, not just what they were pretending. They also used slow motion video to watch people react to questions and found that it is extremely hard to hide your true feelings.
So it makes sense that you can change your mood by making yourself smile for instance (and changing your posture), so by changing the physical, you can influence the emotional ....
It was a fascinating chapter in an interesting book. Well recommended.

Richie,
i hope this is correctly listed
http://books.google.com/books?id=Fo7jPAslVZQC&pg=PA161&lpg=PA161&dq=elbow+crease+shaitsu+points&source=bl&ots=dpnQqZx43w&sig=G1UOBQ24JosDPCZOQflcyKFqxTc&hl=en&ei=fiWKSqiUM4HUMqXfybsP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

i couln't copy paste it, but it concerns 12 meridian points at the elbow for shiatsu and the points they have correlations with. the screen was in some weird mode that appeared static so this couldn't be copied.

i've been thinking about inward emotional balance lately. i can still go from zero to 60 in a moment for my temper, but for most of the time i've benefitted from one 'cupa' in the morning--no more for the rest of the day. and meditating lately more. i just had a weird experience in an alley. one mugger asked me how i was doing, and i dryly answered. a victim who had just been mugged asked for my cell--which i hadn't been carrying for late night walks. i was weirdly unfazed by any of it. the 2nd guy was bleeding from his face. anyway, i sort of felt--also, there was more to this...like two junkies that know each other from the same crack house, or a dealer that just beat out what he was owed. i obviously can't predict things like that but i tend to stick with my gut in the middle of the night. all that to say that whilst my actions were predictably me, my inside wasn't the caffeined up nutjob i usually am. i liked feeling less edgy. edgy gets old after a while living inside of this state.

Maija,
i've heard stuff about facial muscles before. i wonder what dead pan facials do for the inward calm?


nonsequator///
my mother in law informed me there was a cute fuzzy animal that my pit bull had cornered in the backyard. it was larger than a mouse--she said, but it wasn't a rat. it was fluffy, kind of cute and large.
my mind told me my mother in law was having a daft moment where she wasn't admitting to herself that what she was seeing was in fact an ugly as shite possum. this turned out to be the case. i came out with my machetti, then didn't have the heart to kill it because it was frightened and smaller than i would have imagined an adult to be. so now she has a possum living on her house . it's still uglier than
a camel's hairy arse though. i reckon my dog, who isn't trying to reach nirvana, may just have other plans

Ah, freaky woo-woo shit.

Undoubdtedly there is staggering amounts of bullshit in it, and in the case of meridians and chi there are no anatomical structures corresponding to any of it or anything. But I stumbled upon this book when searching for interesting psychological books. (project bluebird for MK ULTRA stuff without the usual religious conspiracy hysteria and Psuedoscience in biological psychiatry for his take on that. Very interesting books.)

http://www.amazon.com/Human-Energy-Fields-Science-Medicine/dp/0982185103/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250599887&sr=1-7

Quote :

Human Energy Fields: A New Science and Medicine (Paperback)
by Colin A. Ross (Author

Product Description
In Human Energy Fields, Dr. Ross describes a hard science and medicine with applications, testable hypotheses, and instrumentation. The core proposition of the science is: the human energy field, called chi, the human aura, the life force, or the human spirit in different philosophical systems, and the electromagnetic field of the body are the same thing. Dr. Ross outlines practical applications of the science in many different fields including anthropology, medicine, agriculture, weapons development, security systems, physiology, and psychotherapy. He describes three specific devices that can be used in the study of human energy fields, and proves scientifically that, in one specific instance, western science is wrong about what is scientific and what is paranormal (contrary to western science, the human eyebeam is real).

He also did some well thought out comments on all this quantum physics mysticism that has become so popular as of late in the end of the book. Basically he says all the apparent mystery in that stuff is due to people mixing mathematical models and reality when trying to explain the experiments, thus ending up with nonsense.

cool stuff, needs digestion

RichB,
not so dissimilar to the stuff the swami's were talking about when i was in their collective company. sort of science and
religion need to merge--and it's only stuff we're not clear on now...not magic or whatever. eye beams and all.
the argument was that they're so in touch with themselves, they've discovered some things and put their own terminology
to it but it is none other than science. it has to be, sort of the thing. they often talked about the north and south pole of the
individual. the magetic field of a person. they even sort of equate reading minds to being sensitive to energy wave lengths
etc...and speak of affects like cetrifugal and centripetal regarding matters of spirituality and the energy of the universe.

i really got the feeling that the mythical stuff was for mass consumption--and the text beneath was quite a bit more pallatible

low almost lung like positions helps build up muscles in your legs you'll need. also practise putting your kicks into combos. it helped me loads.

Has any of you guys looked at Scott Sonnon's stuff? His "Warrior Wellness" stuff and "Bodyflow" system might be usefule to you. As I get older (41 now) and things have stopped working quite as well as they used to, I find that Sonnon's "Warrior Wellness" workout keep all my joints form stiffening up. Also, from what I can see from his bodyflow series (i haven't done it, just seen it done and read the book) I really gets you in tune with your body and being able to make it move how you want it too.

Anyway, just a thought.

I have a few friends that practice Sonnon's stuff which looks great from what I've seen. I have not personally tried it more than just playing along with my friends.

a very good move i do daily is breath in with you arms stretching out on the side of your body, you have to see every movement of your arms, togetcher with the breathing, breath out, push the hands down and lift one foot up, end the move and do it other way around.

this increase your sight, your together movement in balance to catch his kick, and step on his knee, i have a lot of this kind of movements i train from a pencak guru aka my dad when i was kicked out the house when i was young.

traditional movements but surprisely effective sometimes