Last week Wifey and I popped up to Noosa to catch up with her family. Now, my father-in-law and Hamez (brother-in-law, look up some of the archives as I’ve dragged him along to karate in the past) are particularly keen fishermen, so in due course I went out with them in their boat to do some fishing. Not having fished since I was a wee tacker, this was all very new and interesting for me; granted I was a bit rubbish at it, but it was awesome fun.

Where I want to go with this, though, is how being on the water on a small boat works on your balance. Between the three of us sitting down, standing up, casting, drinking beer (well, my father-in-law and I, Hamez is still under 18 and was our driver since he now has his boat license) and motoring around the river, there are plenty of opportunities to fall over and mangle yourself (and I’m quite adept at both of these generally). I’m sure with two legs its tricky working out your balance, but I had a bit of trouble adjusting given the lack of a knee on my left leg What I eventually found out was that I had to adjust my whole method of standing or moving on the boat… it’s hard to describe, but the best way I could put is that you have to learn to be far more flexible with how you control your walking/standing motions to go with the flow of the boat and the water, rather than resisting the natural flow of movement with a sense of rigidity. Once I got this sorted, I found I was having a much easier time moving around the boat without stumbling so much. Sure, I was never game to stand on the bow, but I was reasonably confident standing in the recessed areas by the time we ended up leaving to come back home.

It actually reminded me of the montage scene in The Karate Kid (aka greatest movie of all time), where Daniel is standing on the bow of the boat practicing his forms. Except I didn’t do any karate, because I probably would have looked like a bit of a tosser with all the other fishermen around

You know what? I think this calls for a (widescreen) trailer to the original Karate Kid movie:

Awesome. Note the boat scene around 1:03. The only way that movie could have been better is if Chuck Norris was in it as a referee or something, like his awesome cameo in Dodgeball.

Anyway, the principle of this is the same for martial arts – be flexible, learn to move with your scenario and don’t oppose it with unnecessary, strict rigidity – as the mighty Bruce said, “be like water”. Even beyond the principle there’s the question of using the boat as a tool for teaching you to have good balance, which is an essential technique in any committed martial artist.

If nothing else, it’s definitely something to think about.

Bloginated Friday, 8th May 2009 / Movies, Prosthesis or amputee stuff
Tag-isms: Balance | Chuck Norris | prosthesis | The Karate Kid

Just a quick plug for this one – Chris has just sent out issue #14 of the SA Martial Arts Newsletter. For those who aren’t familiar with it, this is the spiel from the newsletter’s mission statement:

The SA Martial Arts Newsletter is a non-profit, non-political effort to promote friendship and fraternity in the Adelaide Martial Arts community. This newsletter aims to offer a free forum for local martial artists from any style or organisation.

If you’re interested in subscribing, give Chris an e-mail at samartialartsnewsletter@gmail.com. There’s also a Facebook page for the newsletter as well, which you can access from here.

Bloginated Friday, 8th May 2009 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: martial arts

I thought I was finished up, but I forgot to mention a cool little post from Patrick of Mokuren Dojo from a couple of weeks back. He’s compiled a listing of various posts from his blog discussing martial arts and people with disabilities or special needs. Apart from mentioning yours truly in there (thanks Patrick!), he has posts on martial artists in wheelchairs, with visual impairments and the elderly. Makes for very convenient reading! To get to the post directly, click here.

Bloginated Thursday, 7th May 2009 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: Blogs | Disabilities

I’m on a roll today

In catching up on things, I dropped by Jon’s excellent and had to fire across a trackback for his recent post on the importance of correct breathing. I remember when I first started training in karate a number of years ago that I always wondered why the higher grades sounded funny when doing a number of the techniques, particularly during kata. Over time, I learned of the importance of correct breathing in my training, though at first it was mainly to do with being able to keep up with the class without running out of breath during standing punch/block/kicking drills I found that if I alternated my breathing in/out with my techniques, I was able to make it further without running out of breath. In a way, it was kind of like when I used to train as a swimmer when I was a kid, particularly when doing freestyle – you alternated your breathing with your strokes for maximum efficiency and speed. Mind, I don’t think I would have ever used terms like “maximum efficiency” at the age of 9 or 10 when I used to do a lot of swimming, but the principle remains… though given I was probably just being pragmatic and vain, I worked out that I had a better chance of beating the other kids and was less likely to swallow a mouht full of chlorinated water if I regulated my breathing

Anywho, breathing continued to become an all-inclusive element of training as time has gone on – it is used to regulate the flow of your technique, increases the speed, efficiency and impact of all your movements, and is essential to learn when sparring in order to minimise the effects of getting winded by blows to the torso. The other week my breathing wasn’t flowing as well as it should be, and sensei commented that I should be focusing on regulating my breathing during my kata as I looked like I was about to explode

There are many things I’ve learned from my karate training with respect to the way my body works – it has taught me how to walk again, it has taught me the importance of core strength, I’ve been able to put my (very limited!) breakfall training into effect, and as noted above, the importance of breathing.

I think there’s probably more I can talk about with regards to breathing and how it is also beneficial to activities outside martial arts training, but I might leave that for a future post. In the interim, please check out Jon’s post on the topic (linked above), it’s an excellent summary on how you should be breathing during training or any type of exercise.

Bloginated Thursday, 7th May 2009 / Karate
Tag-isms: Breathing

I’ve finally started catching up on my blogs from the last couple of weeks, and I noticed on Jesse Crouch’s blog, The Martial Explorer, that he’s recently hit the 2-month mark for his blog. I’ve referenced Jesse’s blog a couple of times already – he provided the stimulus for the post I did on prosthesis technology, as well as offering some encouraging advice on achieving strength without necessarily increasing the bulk, which I blogged about here.

His site is currently in the links section locked into the right-hand side of my blog, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, please go and have a look – there’s plenty of content and is updated frequently. You can also click from the link I posted at the start of this blog if you can’t be bothered pressing the scroll button

Bloginated Thursday, 7th May 2009 / Blogs/websites
Tag-isms: Blogs | martial arts