Listening to the feet

In the last post I discussed the wide range of motion possible at the foot/ankle comlex of humans. This is derived from the mobility achieved from the 28 bones, comprising 25 joints, contained within this essential yet underused boday part.

That last asertion might sound a bit daft but it’s not made without foundation. Of course, we use our feet everyday, even the laziest of us has to walk about a bit, thereby rendering feet essential but are feet underused?

Maybe not underused in terms of getting about but definitely in terms of optimising the full potential of the foot/ankle structures. That IS confusing, I’ll elaborate.

After many years of karate training I underused my feet as the training tends to ignore the concept of ‘rooting’ in anything more than a perfunctuary manner. Not universally true but genarally so. By the time a karateka is curious about the softer side of things he/she can have some difficulty in learning to ’access’ their feet. Particularly if the curiosity leads to the interal arts the terminology can be confusing let alone the concept itself.

I first came across this side of things on a small sanchin session with Mike Clarke in Southampton. One thing he demonstrated then taught us was how to  drop our weight using the structure of sanchin stance. This leaves you very solid in your stance. Involving what I call ‘fat, flat feet’ this sinking of the wieght increases the surface area of the foot in contat with the ground and so improves stability.

Trouble is solidity without mobility is errr, limited! It was a long time before I was able to manage both. The process of managing both invovles ‘listening’ as the Chinese arts call it, or, and a little more up my street, becoming tuned to the kinaesthetics of the foot. This means you need to become consciusly aware of whats happening in the foot as you move. Not consciously interferring with whats going on, but just observing.

I used to travel to courses in Kent which covered this sort of thing. On the way back I’d need to go through London and the Tube was a good place to ‘listen’. Bounding up steps to ground level or riding out the bumps between stations was great practice.

Steve Morris mentions walking as a great way to get a grip on the kinaesthetics of the feet, and other joints for that matter. It’s a very useful method for discovering various movements possible at the foot and ankle and how these effect the efficiency of walking. How changing foot position alters how you push off from the floor and at what angle. How you use the foot to stop or adjust to avoid an unseen obstacle. All this and more helps you to be aware of  and then attempt to optimise whats happening. It’s a very useful process.

human gait cycle

Quite recently, Steve Morris showed us the importance of the roll across the joints at the ball of the foot and the importance of that in normal gait. It was striking that none of us were using this natural part of the gait cycle to its optimum. This will be elaborated on in the next post……

Kinaesthesis and Proprioception 3 – how to use the feeling

Once you begin to become aware of what’s happening in your body as you perform striking and moving actions as you learn or develop new skills the manner in which you attend to the learning process alters. I think of it as observing and making adjustments rather than thinking too much about the actions themselves. This is a subtle difference but a very important one, as Bruce Lee intimated, don’t think about the movement, feel it.

Elsewhere, I have mentioned the Superfrau punch, and provided a non-perfect clip. This came about by accident, but it has been a happy accident. It’s a method of snapping back at the hip, which snaps the body forward and by so doing adds significant power to a technique. When we discovered it I was able to pick up the movement pretty quickly, probably because it’s similar to other movements we do, such as the Superman punch, but also because I was able to feel it.

Next, I was immediately able to adapt or add the snapping Superfrau movement to established skills, so it can be used to drive jabs, crosses, hooks, elbow strikes etc. Since then we have used it to add power to pretty much any movement delivered from in close. It’s actually not that surprising and it probably isn’t new at all, after all it’s likely to be some form of Fa Jin anyway. Whether it is new or not is irrelevant the versatility of the Superfrau is the important bit, and this has been possible because of our developed kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception. I don’t think that we have an exceptionally developed body awareness either, we just use what we have developed practically.

Fighting in the clinch

This evening we were doing some clinch work, looking at either making space to fire in knee strikes or to fire them in without making space, via Superfrau delivery, for instance. One of the students started using the Superfrau to add power to a shoulder shrug to open up the partner for strikes, this works well.

I mentioned in the first of the trilogy that heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception skills when joined to your opponent allows you to become sensitive to their movements and thereby presenting an opportunity to exploit the inevitable gaps. Again Bruce is correct, you have to feel the opportunity to use it, if you think it or watch it, it’s gone before you can use it!

Push hands etc can develop this sensitivity but it’s important to then develop these skills by using them in freer drills, otherwise you cannot be sure they will transfer to a live situation, developed sensitivity has to be applied. For example, during clinch work it is possible to feel when someone is creating the space to deliver a knee strike, if you push them at this point they cannot make the attack and depending on your push success you are set up to throw a flurry of punches*. While this could be trained for, I only discovered this through rough clinch work at Primal, it was another happy accident. By developing kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception I believe there will be many more happy accidents.

*On similar lines, the competition fighting scenes in Enter the Dragon begin with the opponent’s arms touching. This, known as listening arm, is so they can feel their opponent’s preparatory movements and act on them.

Kinaesthesis and Proprioception 2 – developing the feeling

Edit

blindfold sticky hands

Don’t think feeeeeeeeeel – Bruce Lee

This has always been one of my favourite MA quotes. Most people seem to over-think during motor skill acquisition, often getting so wrapped up in the detail that they block their progression. From personal experience, in addition to what I have read and know from others, developing keen body awareness, or heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception, new motor skills can be more readily absorbed. Furthermore existing skills can be developed, but how should we go about developing this awareness. In the last post I mentioned how push hands develops sensitivity, but here I want to discuss other methods of developing kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception that may help when learning motor skills.

A lot of time in karate and other Martial Arts is devoted to learning forms with emphasis often directed toward attaining perfect performance. Despite this aim, kata practice does not necessarily afford an ideal environment for developing kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception, if too much time is spent thinking rather than feeling. For instance, on her blog Karatebarbie describes how kata performance is often little more than a race to the end! This clearly is not an environment facilitating the development of kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception, and ironically it also fails in achieving correct form. She goes on to describe

“what kata was really meant to be about.  My own kata was stiff and upright, a series of disparate movements, whilst hers seemed to rise and sink and flow.  Each move showed the principle she was trying to achieve and you could actually visualise what she was doing to repel the attacks of her far larger opponent.”

Now, if you are going to spend such a long time perfecting kata surely it has to be better to perfect the underlying principles contained within, and express these rather than concentrating on the form per se. The trouble is a kata performance demonstrating loading, posting and explosive movement, for example,  may very well do so at the expense of the stylised perfection. However, surely this trade off is more desirable than identikit pretty performance across a dojo population? Put another way, if a kata is teaching us something important, and if not why bother with it at all, then surely it is essential for this to be apparent in the kata performance even though the performance would be unique to an individual and perhaps a little untidy.

In addition, through practicing these principles as part of the kata performance they are being demonstrated and reinforced, forcing one to focus on reliably producing the movements and feeling them as the techniques are performed. So rather than superficially focussing on the detail of the action (i.e. hand/foot position), by focussing on the body actions required to drive the technique ones attention is naturally drawn deeper thereby allowing an awareness of how the body works. Personally, I really began to develop kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception in this way through practising sanchin kata.

I initially came across Sanchin performance, different to the huffing and puffing version I was used to, through some of the instructors from the United Goju Forum, either at one of the Seminars or elsewhere. Steve Rowe of Shikon helped me improve kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception through sanchin performance, combined with other methods. By working at being aware of how my body felt while rooted in sanchin stance and then when pulsing from the foot I was able to use this kata to develop this awareness. Further Steve encouraged the training of these concepts in everyday life. So, on the tube station stairways, during my journey home, I’d practise the pulsing as I bounced up the steps or being rooted on the tube trains or on the bus as the vehicle rocked about. Combining these methods helped immensely.

In a response to a letter, Steve Morris goes into great detail on how to develop kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception through walking. He relates it to how he used to train horses; it’s a long piece but well worth the read. He describes, in detail a relatively easy method of developing full body awareness, although it does take time. Even by just exploring how the actions of the foot affect movement it is possible to begin to get a better understanding and awareness of movement. The beauty of this approach is that you can practise it everyday. This of course can then be developed and fed back into your kata performance, if you so desire.

Ultimately, all of this needs to be used in drills relavent to the desired outcome, if that is kata performance, you probably won’t win any medals. If it’s for the production of power you will get results as you develop the ability to feel or sense the power or potential power as you move. This can then transfer to skills useable in a fight, given correct training.

Kinaesthesis and Proprioception 1 – describing the feeling

proprioceptors

The present and two related posts are an expansion on one from last week. This post will briefly explain why kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception is important, but first a definition of these two key processes involved with human movement. The perception derived from various sensors (receptors) within the body allows

1. Proprioception – an awareness of the position, location and orientation and movement of the body and its parts.

1. Kinaesthesis – an awareness of the muscular movements of the limbs and body.

Largely unconscious kinaesthetic and proprioceptive awareness allows us to manage everyday tasks comfortably, without which we would be unable to control our movements. This awareness is at least partly responsible for enabling a driver to search for something on the passenger seat while still attending to the road, a magician can manipulate playing cards during a trick without looking at them, a person is able to adjust the level of force applied when lifting an object which is lighter (or heavier) than anticipated, or a fan can wriggle his way through a busy crowd to get to the front at a gig. Obviously, if this persecption needed to be consciously controlled there’d be little conscious capacity available for making any manner of important decisions. For instance when cooking dinner, we’d be too busy controlling the movements in the kitchen to be able to follow the recipe.

In a lot of Martial Arts there are training methodologies devoted to developing heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception. Variously known as push hands, sticky hands, knocking hands, kakie etc. the aim of these activities is to develop sensitivity to another person’s movement, which can then be exploited. Heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception of oneself when joined to an opponent allows us to sense the others movements. Clearly this sensitivity can be very useful in a clinch or when grappling, whereas a developed sense of kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception when not joined to another person can assist us when learning new skills or developing established ones.

Sean on Gisoku Budo managed to develop his walking ability through karate training. As an above knee amputee, to be able to manage many of the complicated kicking actions, for example, Sean has had to develop greater balance in his fake leg. In another post Sean says that continual minute adjustment in the striving for perfect form was a key ingredient in this process. By concentrating on minor adjustments Sean has achieved a heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception enabling karate participation and learning in addition to improved walking.

Some people are kinaesthetic learners (are you Sean?), they favour learning by doing and so may already possess heightened kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception. Nevertheless, those that favour different learning styles could benefit from developing their kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception, as could natural kinaesthetic learners by developing their ability further. Potentially, Martial Arts training could facilitate this process, as it has done in Sean’s case, but the question is, whether this is a natural outcome of the training, or does the training have to be directed specifically to enable kinaesthetic and proprioceptive perception development? Then when developed how useful is this heightened sense in terms of the fight?

(In)complete Control 2 – Kinaesthetics

Despite my dislike for training to emphasise control and form there may be benefits derived from this type of training. Sean over on Gisoku Budo blog has been able to use the ‘Form Police’ approach to his advantage, in more ways than simply achieving good form and controlled technique. Sean’s blog records “training experiences and thoughts on martial arts from the perspective of an above-knee amputee”. Sean has a very inspiring post entitled Learning to walk again through karate and after reading the ‘Form Police’ post on here Sean responded.

jumping round kick

jumping spin kick

It’s great that Sean has got so much from

“Standing in funny stances with plenty of minute correction is …. (important)…. to understanding the inherent functions of my body, especially with regards to my physical disability”

Put simply, emphasis on form in karate has benefited him immensely. By becoming aware of how his body is working (improving his kinaesthetic sense) he has been able to participate and succeed in karate and improve his general lifestyle. This is a wonderful outcome and his dedication is an example to all and gives credence to the insistence of emphasis on form.

I do wonder, however, whether the other students in his club have been so successful in understanding their inherent body functions as a result of minute corrections. Sean having to overcome the “free-swinging hinge in the middle of (his prosthesis)” to attain sufficient balance to kick from his artificial leg would surely enforce a high degree of kinaesthetic awareness to be successful. This confound the assumption that minute correction itself was responisbile for heightened boady awareness. Even if we accept that the insistance on correct form and minute correction leads to an advanced body awareness or kinaesthetic sense, which is hugely useful in martial arts training, the question is whether or not this emphasis on form provides the optimal method of attaining this?

Kata is an expression of perfect form in karate, or at least it’s an attempt. Kata performance, of course, varies in it’s execution, although there is generally a striving for it to be performed ‘just so’. The kata arena is a good example of when ‘minute correction’ in karate is rife. I can watch a lot of kata on you tube or in dojo’s, but I don’t often see very much in the way of heightened kinaesthetic sense. Quite the opposite, usually there’s very little evident, and as such the performance is rather ‘empty’. So while kata training provides plenty of emphasis on form perhaps it is not the optimal method of attaining body awareness,  it all depends on how the kata is trained I guess. When emphasising form and control throughout technique execution during kata or elasewhere, there is not necessarily any body awareness training going on. However, if the emphasis switches to focusing on feeling how we move to perform these techniques there may well be kinaesthetic training occurring.

Some people are biased to learning through body awareness, this is natural to them, others may acquire this awareness by concentrating on form and control when learning to punch, kick or whatever. If the goal involves  in transferring significant force into a target concentrating on form/control does not achieve this in an optimal manner. It’s all very well being aware of whats happening kinaesthetically, but if whats happening is of little value there’s little point in attending to it.

The question is how transferable is any body awareness knowledge gleaned from training emphasising form/control to self-protection training? But thats another post…..