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Internal Training Exercises

Here are some of the basic internal training methods I have developed and been working on. I am not so good at them yet but they may be useful for some of you out there looking for internal training

The devil is in the detail with all these of course and over the coming months i will take each of these 5 exercises and put a detailed description of what they are and how they should be trained online.

1. Body cross
2. Body row
3. Pushing mud
4. Slapping water
5. Horizontal coil

Slow training for increased awareness

Awareness is one of the key points of IMA training, be that situational awareness, awareness of our body state or awareness of the moment in combative encounter. How can we really train to enhance our awareness in a free fighting / sparring setting?

Here is an interesting idea for increasing combative competency  through increased awareness.

Higher Speed >lower awareness of force and lines

Lower Speed < higher awareness of force and lines.

This principle of slowing the real fight down to increase our awareness of the nuances’ of the movement encounter may seem somewhat strange to some of the MMA or Sport fighting guys out there but lets examine what slowing the encounter down during training helps us with.

1. Increased ability of the mind to calculate angular change and movement
2.  More opportunity to become ‘in tune’ with the attacker
3.  Longer opportunity to pattern the attacker or break/change rythms.
4.  Awareness of the moment becomes more prolonged

The overriding difficulty with slow mo training is our ability to control ourselves. It is very easy to get excited and change speed. When you see a gap you shoot a fist through it 4 times as fast as the partner was moving!

It is ok, even good, to be quicker than your partner but you will never be 4 or 5 times as quick at real speeds so we need to keep our excitement in check.

Training at slow speeds should be a mutual ‘game’ of stratergy and awareness of the moment. If we work slowly with this idea of ‘play’ then the problem of ‘winning’ can disappear.

Try some slow sparring and see how you get on, after 20 – 30 minutes speed up to full speed and see whats changed. Your overall awareness and movement skill should have increased dramatically.

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.

Utilizing the Spine

The ability to manipulate the spine as a way of developing power, enhancing health and increasing mobility is a point central to many martial arts. We can even say that without spine mobility the effect of striking, throwing and movement will be greatly diminished.

Whether it is Brazillian JuJutsu or TaijiQuan the ability to manipulate and move the back effectively is one of the things that separates the excellent masters from the rest. However training methods specifically designed to work on the back and spine can sometimes be somewhat lacking in many arts.

Here are a few training ideas that you can try to help increase overall back and spine mobility.

Rolling.

If you follow my blog it is no secret that I rate floor rolling to be a superb overall health and development exercise. However there are specific benefits to this work that directly relate to spine health and mobility.

1)    Rolling for massage.

When rolling on the floor in specific ways you actually massage the muscles around the back and spine, dissipating tension and smoothing out any points of stiffness or sticking. After a very short period you can feel the benefits of this work.

2)    Rolling for mobility

Also when rolling around on the floor your are extending and opening the spine in multiple directions. This means that the connective points of the spine are becoming more and more relaxed but increasing in load capabilities. Gravity is the big friend here and working slowly will increase the effectiveness or this work greatly.

Rolling is a great way to start any work with the spine or back. Once you have warmed up the back and spine through rolling it will be much easier to find points of tension or sticking when working on the next exercises.

Axis twisting

Here we consider the spine a central axis of the body with two ‘sticks’ coming out of it forming a line through the shoulder joints and through the hip sockets. Imagine  the points that these two sticks cross the central line.

1)    Stand arms outstretched and feet shoulder with apart.

2)    Fixing the pelvis and lower stick in place, Turn the upper stick so that it is at right angles to the lower stick when looked at from above.

3)    Once you have twisted into this position, mentally relax any tension created by leading it out of the body through breath.

4)    Come back to the start point and repeat on the other side.

This exercise has several benefits.

- It increases the ‘wrapping’ of the body around a central axis

- It stretches the side lines of the body

- It helps you to recognise the central point and where the shoulder hip alignment it

- It develops twist force

Spine Wave.

This is a little trickier to achieve at first. The aim here is to initially create a big wave up the spine from the point of the coxyx to the base of the neck. As the practice progresses we make this wave smaller and smaller until it is very short in nature. This is where a vibration or short emission of force from the spine become possible.

First exercise, wave and return.

1)    stand feet shoulder width, feet centred on the ground,  hips relaxed, spine extended to the crown and body soft with the shoulders sunk.

2)    Starting at the very base of the spine, Roll each vertebrae forward and then let it naturally retreat. Like a wave rolling onto a beach.

a.     This should be a large movement without any forward action on the body

b.     Maintain the base and position of the pelvis

c.     Do not start the wave in the legs and involve the pelvis in the wave by moving it forward and back in space.

Second exercise, Wave and project

In this instance rather than letting the vertebrae of the spine retreat back naturally you hold them in place so the wave has a forward aspect and momentum

1)    let the body be lead forward from the point the wave breaks.

2)    Done not hold back or try to stop the forward power of the spine wave, but simply ride it and take a few steps.

Spine Hanging

This is a very good closing exercise to relax the spine and let any excess points of tension dissipate.

1)    Feet shoulder width apart, knees and hips soft

2)    Raise the palms out to the sides and up over the head, connecting at the back of the hands  and leading down the centre line of the body

3)    As the hands lead down you will feel a point where the body wants to bend, allow this top happen naturally making sure that the head and neck are also being fully release

4)    Lead all the way down until the torso is hanging from the hips. As if you are being held up by someone at the point of the hips but the rest of you is fully relaxed.

5)    Make the head a weight pulling downward with gravity opening each vertebrae as you hang there.

6)    Hold as long as is comfortable making sure that you breath naturally and are mentally relaxing the back with every out breath.

7)    Very slowly, one vertebrae at a time, stack them on top of each other starting at the base of the spine. The head should be the last thing to come up.

I hope these exercises are useful for you in your daily lives and your martial arts. I will post a video in this Blog post very soon to help with these exercises. 

Happy training.

Ginastica Natural - Movements

Lovely display of movement strength, flexibility and floor fluidity from  Brazilian JuJutsu expert Fabio Gurgel



anyone working on the Ukemi things i have posted should get some good inspiration for new movement patterns from this work.