Developing the Legs (Part 1)

One of the key methods in Martial arts training, especially when you read about the old masters, is the development of the legs through deep stance training and a lot of hard focused work!  Often you hear that an IMA master would have spent many years training an external style and mastering its basic foundation training before moving into IMAs. Much of that time would have been devoted to training the legs so that the tree has good roots.

Beyond Kicking there are plenty of good reasons to develop good leg skill. We need good legs to transmit and receive force from the earth,  we need them for good powerful and connected footwork, we need to them to lift and throw people ... the list is a long one!

But what attributes are we specifically trying to develop in our leg training, well here are a few of them:

- Freedom of movement and mobility in the joints,

- Strong lines of connection 

- Endurance

- Power

- Sensitivity.

How do we train the legs to achieve these things?

Here are some basic training exercises to help develop functional leg skill and bring out some of the above attributes.

SQUATS

Clearly the Squat is one of the most fundamental excersises no matter what the discipline. It is a great tool for developing leg strength and how to align the bones of the legs with your direction of force. However beyond the basic squat we have several other ways in which we can train this basic exercise.

- Speed variation

Try performing a squat with variation in speed. You may go down very slowly and then shoot back up, you may fall into the squat as if someone took away your support then stand very slowly. There are a lot of ways you can try this .. but here are a couple of specific drills which are both challenging and useful.

1. 30 breath squat

Perform 1 squat but take 15 breaths to sink and 15 breaths to rise. This should be a very smooth and slow motion with not jerks or pauses.

2. 5 as fast as you can then 1 slow

Perform 5 full squats as fast as you can remembering to breath, then perform 1 squat with 5 breaths down 5 up. 

3. Explosiveness

Using a jump squat drop down very slowly, as soon as you reach the bottom point explode up into a jump, when you land again, very slow drop.

- Height Variation and holds

One very useful way to mix up your squat training is to hold the position every so often at different heights during the squat. Try the exercises below:

1. Step and Squat height variations

Take a forward step and then make a full squat, another forward step 2/3 squat, anther ½ squat, another 1/3rd ... Then turn around and repeat backwards.

2. Hold variations.

No in a static position try to hold  the ½ squat position for 5 seconds as you go down into a full squat. Then the same when you come back up. You can hold for longer and longer or at different points in the squat range.

Integrate breath

Clearly we need to breath to live! But when we  train any sort of loading exercise it can be useful and increase your performance if you actively think about how your breathing as you move through the exercise. The squat is a very useful exercise to start this training on as it acts very much like a pump, changing the pleasures in the body as you move through the exercise. Try these ways to begin to integrate your breath and movement.

1. Breath Pump

As you squat breath out for the entirety of the movement, then as you stand breath in! Its fairly simple, but you should remember that the breath should go out for the WHOLE movement down and in for the WHOLE movement up. Focus deeply on this cycle and repeat very gently and slowly for 8 repetitions. 

2. Listening to the Natural Breath 

The natural breath is what your Body requires in terms of oxygen. This natural cycle is very smooth and precise when there are no mental/physical blockages making the breath become stuck. Try performing relatively slow squats and breathing in accordance with your bodies requirements. Here you are merely watching what your body does and not trying to enforce any set breathing pattern. 

Breath integration can be continued in all exercises but it is good to start out with something very simple like a squat.

HIP MOBILITY AND LEG CONTROL

One of the most important factors in training the legs is training their ability to move and change direction at will. There are some very simple exercises that help to build the mobility attribute.

1. Leg hanging & swinging

This method is used to help the hip joint soften up and move unimpeded in its joint.

- Stand on a step with on foot on the step the other off the edge, so the edge of the step should be on along the inside of the supporting foot leaving the other leg hanging.

- Ensure the pelvis is level and that you have something to hold onto for support.

- Gentely swing the leg back and forth, extremely softly. 

- Focus deeply on the hip and release any built up tension with each out breath.

- Repeat for an equal amount of time on each side.

2. Tag the Target

This exercise is suprising demanding to do well! It is a simple game of touching targets that you have laid out for yourself with your big toe.

- Pin small circles of paper to a wall (or use post-it notes) These should range from next to the floor to hip height . You can extend this to shoulder height when you get better.

- Stand close enough to the wall so that you can touch it with your big toe with a bent leg.

- Stand on one leg ensuring that the pelvis stays level. Touch the targets in a random order continuously without dropping the foot to the floor for 30 seconds.

- Change legs

Note: Make sure that you are not leaning the body or tilting the pelvis as you go through the exercise.

3. Kick Walks

This one can look a little funny but has great benefits to the mobility and movement involving the Psoas and adductor muscles.

- stand feet together body upright

- Without adjusting the body at all or moving the arms or pelvis raise the knee and kick out the front holding the leg in place. Knee should be bent and the feeling of lifting should be in the hip. 

- Holding the leg up allow the body to fall forward so that you end in a front lunge with the kicking leg supporting.

- The rear hip should be open and stretched

- Pulling up with the original kicking leg drag the rear leg up and then kick up forward. 

- Repeat the process

4. Leg rolling Adductor/Abductor

Very simple exercise this but it can cause some difficulty in the rest of the body.

- standing on one leg raise the knee out too the side as high as possible.

- swipe inwards with the leg until it is just past straight ahead .

-drop the knee back in line with the standing leg and then repeat.

Be sure to change direction as well to work the outside muscles.

One important point with this exercise is to not have any resulting movement visible in the rest of the body. Make the body tight and tied together so that the arms are not flapping around and your not leaning or wobbling around.

In part 2 i will aim to talk about Power, Sensitivity and Connection training methods related to developing the legs for Martial Arts. Try the exercises above for a month and let me know how you get on. I think you will find a good improvement in mobility and strength fairly quickly.

Fascia 'fuzz' release

This is an interesting video showing the Fascial 'fuzz' that builds in between the body sliding surfaces when we are at rest or when we are injured and movement is inhibited.

I think this very nicely highlights the usefulness of integrating bodywork and movement into your daily routine.

NOTE: this video does show cadaver portions.

The frame from the ground up. (part 1)

The initial ability to stand with a functional frame is an important first stage in IMA body methods.
I thought i would throw up a quick post on some of the points for setting up the body frame ready for standing or movement practice. There is much greater detail that can be discussed, especially in terms of how the anatomical lines spiral and link to each other. But to begin with lets talk about the basics.

1. Feet
The feet are your best receptor for recognising how your body weight is paced. Listen to what the feet tell you in terms of position of pressure. The foot provides and all round receptor to feel motion forward back and side to side. The primary contact points of the feet are generally the toes, metatarsal heads (ball of the foot),  Outer longitudinal Arch and the heal.
To help us recognise and find the central point in relation to the feet, rock back and forward, making the movement smaller and smaller until you arrive at the central point with the balance evenly distributed. Repeat this rocking side to side.

2. The Toes
The toes play a very important role in how the foot connects with the earth. They help to control balance and stability but also allow us to connect more securely with the ground itself. We should lightly grasp the earth as if the feet were plungers or suckers.  This has the effect of activating the ‘bubbling well’ point just back from the metatarsal heads in the centre of the foot, which increases the connection with the earth.

3. Knees
The knee alignment is of huge importance when working with static postures or slow movement training when load is constant. We need to make sure that the knees follow their correct path. The Knee is in essence a weigh transfer joint, allowing articulation in a very strict limited direction, when compared to the hip for example which is what I call a movement joint. If we try to make the knees go in directions outside of this plane they will suffer tissue damage.
To maintain the proper alignment we should make sure than the knee follows the line of the big toe. The knee should be softly bent and relaxed, not locked or overly flexed so that the thigh muscles are working a lot.

4. Pelvis and related level
The pelvis is the base of the body lines. It is a very important area to set up correctly when starting to work with internal body mechanics. We need to look at the tissues surrounding the pelvis as well as the connections too it and the position of the bones themselves in order to set the rest of the body us correctly.
a. Relax the Glutimus Maximus. Your buttocks should be soft and relaxed, this will have the effect of helping to drop the coccyx down levelling up the pelvis.
b. Relax and open the Inguinal Crease. Also known as the Kwa we need to relax this meeting point of the thigh with the hips and let this crease naturally open up. This will further let the pelvis sink and sit naturally.
c. Pull up through the inside line of the legs. This will have the effect of stabilizing and ‘setting up’ the lower frame like the arch of a bridge and will help to maintain exchange up through the Hui Yin (perineum) point.

5. lower back and lower abdominals.
To help the pelvis find the right position we need to release and control the postion and state of the lower trunk of the body. There are two major areas to focus on. The Thoracolumbar Fascia plays an important role in correctly relaxing the lower back. This may take some time to come under conscious control so that you can release the area and allow the pelvis to hand in the correct position.  Also relaxing the transverse abdominis will allow the pelvis to sit even further down in a pendulum style position from the spine.

6. Spine
The spine should be straightened smoothing out the lumbar curve somewhat. But this should not be an enforced process of reversing the curves. The method is to lengthen the spine from the crown of the head. As we have already relaxed the structures around the pelvis the lower back should be relatively flat anyway. So the focus should be on extending to the top of the head, eliminating the outward curve of the upper back and inward curve of the neck. The feeling of pulling the chin in helps to open up the neck somewhat.

7. Rib cage
we want to aim for balance in the setting up of the frame, therefor its important not to collapse the chest inwards or puff it out. But rather keep it naturally in the centre. The rib cage will sit naturally allowing the diaphragm to work well aand keeping preasure of f the lungs and heart. When done correctly the chest will seem to hollow ( not cave in but become hollow inside) and the internal body weight will sink to the lower abdomen.
The other important point here is that the upper back remains naturally centred as well. The back should not be curved out or flexed back.

8. Scapular
The connection through the top of the back between the sides of the body is an important area to ‘set up’ in this initial building of the frame. The scapular should sit flat to the back, sunk and in towards the spine without undue tension in the creation of the posture. This will have the effect of pulling the shoulders back slightly in their socket and allowing the chest to be natural.

9. Shoulders and Arms
The shoulders are important as they are the movement joint for the arms much like the role of the hips for the legs. The shoulders should be sat down in position with the Trapezius muscle very soft and open. The more the shoulders are pulled up by the traps the less connected to the body frame they will be.
The result of correctly seated shoulders is that the arms should have the sensation of ‘filling up’ . Here we need to release the elbow joint by softening as much as possible and letting gravity do its work. The same is true of the wrist and finger joints.

10. Neck, face and head
The head and especially the face is often full of unrecognised tension and emotional residual tensions. If we are going to work freely we need to begin to desolve these points of tension from the outset. Practice releasing the Neck, then the face, then the tissue over the skull with every out breath. As you relax more and more the entire frame should start to be felt as a single unit. Allowing you to begin whatever work your going to start.

As i say there is a lot more detail that we can go into .. in Part two we will talk about.
- Drawing up with the legs,
- Arms and legs like drills
- Winding around the body
- Ming Men and Taodao
- Breath integration
- Intent driven structure setting.

Happy training

Every day training

Training is a funny thing for some people, they go to the Dojo or training hall a couple of times a week, work hard for an hour or two on specific body skills then as soon as they get into the car or walk home they revert back to their way of moving before the session. One of the aims of training should be that it is a constant consideration, a process that happens from the moment you wake to the time you lay down to sleep (even some work can be done while you sleep .... but that's a bit ahead of me currently!)

I would like to give you some ideas on things you can do in your everyday life that will assist your IMA training so in no particular order!

-          Shoulder relaxation at your desk
One thing that we often see in desk jobs and office work is stresses in the upper back and shoulders. A very simple method you can use to work on relaxation of the shoulders and upper back is:

o   Sit with your Keyboard close to the edge of the desk so that your wrists rest on the desk but your elbows hang down.

o   Make sure you sit with a straight spine and your chest open.

o   Work on the elbows becoming heavy like weights relaxing and opening the shoulders.

-          Standing for any period of time (in a Queue etc)                             
Ok, your not going to stand in Santi in a Queue in public as it might attract some funny glances. However you can do some very good constructive work on the inside lines of the legs while standing in a natural position

o   Stand naturally but squat very slightly down

o   Have the feeling of pulling the feet together on the floor to engage the inside lines of the legs

-          Standing and sitting
Not an easy time to be thinking about training! However this simple practice can be performed from the moment you go to get up out of bed.

o   When sitting in a chair and going to stand have the feet shoulder width, pull on the inside of the legs and extend the spine

o   Follow this leading force to stand, with as little forward lean in the torso as you can manage

-          Washing your hands
to test your speed!

o   Try to shake all the water off your hands with a single motion, (a slap or flick)

-          Walking on busy streets
One for those living in busy cities. It is a very good way to recognise intent, develop smooth movement and all round awareness            

o   Begin to walk in your intended direction

o   Soften the breath and expand the peripheral vision

o   Soften the stride and legs

o   Increase your speed so that your walking at a greater than normal pace

o   Do not allow yourself to touch another person at all, leave and move very smoothly as you walk.

o   Try to avoid the ‘double take’ where you both avoid in the same direction by recognising their intent and movement direction as it happens.

-          Climbing stairs
A good workout for your stepping and leg power.

o   Climb with as smooth a motion as you can at a higher speed than you normally would

o   Avoid up and down jumping motions

o   Aim to glide up the stairs

o   Thighs should rub together with every step and you should be squatting slightly.

-          Walking under a door
This is a good way to develop a certain thing or build a certain strength

o   Select a door in your home (one that you use regularly)

o   Every time you walk under that door in any direction you perform the selected motion or exercise. It may be a pull up, it may be a Beng Quan.

         Opening a door
This is useful for kick training.

o   Whenever you walk through a door place your toes on the bottom of the door without a sound, open the door by the handle but actually push with your foot.

o   Close the door with you foot too.

o   NOTE ... this shouldn’t be kicking doors in!! It is controlling your power output with your legs and manipulating the hip to control and use the legs with precision.

There are many other basic things you can do throughout the day to continue your training but these are a few examples I use on a daily basis. Be creative and find that any action you make can be ‘Training’!