This is a transcript of my mail conversation with Rupesh
>>>>>>>>
Hi Rupesh,
This is an awesome collection of info and links on stretching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching
Brad Appleton's comprehensive "Stretching FAQ"
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stretching/SM00043/RETURNTOOBJID=DA0576C0-D1A7-4CEC-89966330AC25C727&RETURNTOLINK=1&slide=5
I've read the FAQ before, but the secret lies in patiently applying the principles.
"There's a difference between Knowing the Path and Walking the Path"
bye,
Gullu
>>>>>
Hi Rupesh,
Best of Luck on the Belt-Test in TKD!!
Its quite good to hear that you're doing Yoga stretching....
Its more a type of static stretching compared to the more activated stretching used in the martial arts. I like to think of asanas as:
"Hold the position which you want to be comfortable in"
ie kind of like setting jelly in a bowl. Hold it there long enough and you get the shape.
Of course our body is not jelly (the bones are too hard, but the joints are not).
But over time the ligaments do behave somewhat like that.
If you're interested look up "Mandukasana". Its the same way a frog sits, stretches out the hip joint while actually give full range of motion in rotating the hips. I found that slowly stretching some parts helps to reduce the strain. I followed the following sequence to improve my stretching :
1) Vajrasana (toes pointing back)
Effects - improved the upper hip and inner hip joint. Allowed me to sit on the floor in between the two legs.
2) Supta Vajrasana
Effects - improved the back and upper hip joint.
3) BhooNamana VajrasanaMethod - Do the Vajrasana toes pointing back, bend at the waist and try to lay the chest flat on the thighs. Keep arms at the side or behind the back.
Effects- totally freed up the back and top of the hip joint.
4) BhooNamana Padmasana
Method - Do padmasana, bend forward with your hands joined and pointed forward, and slowly lower your head until it touches by sheer force of gravity and relaxing of muscles and slow stretching of ligaments.
Effects - totally frees up the inner thighs (like butterfly exercise) and the lower back.
5) Vakra-Vajrasana (toes pointing at right angles to legs) (soles of feet pointing backward)
- improved the inner knee joint extremely allowing the lower leg to move independantly of the thigh. Had to do Ardha form (alternating left and right legs) for quite some time before doing the full asana.
6) Ardha-Mandukasana (alternating left and right legs) same as above but knees kept as far apart on both sides as possible.
- improved rotation of thigh bone on the hip joint (now the inner thigh is able to touch the floor).
7) Mandukasana (just started doing the mandukasana directly just a few days back).
- improved the stretching at the pubic bone where the inner thighs join the center point!!
I can actually hear the click of the joint and feel the slide as the ball and socket joint in the hips and thigh bone, makes the inner thighs slide forward and touch the ground. I guess this will be less noticable as time goes on and smoothness increases in the joint rotation.
I got this by trial and error. Many times I attempted these asanas all at once and tried too hard to get the stretch. The result was pain in the joints and giving up new asanas esp. for months on end. Finally I found out what works and what doesn't and how much is good enough.
An aside on Breath control: I found that doing the asana and observing/counting the breath helped me to settle into the asana like jelly. I gave up thinking about the stretching so much and just enjoyed the feeling of relaxing all my muscles. So much so that the first thing I do after coming from work is to do the asana. This gets the stiffness of sitting in a chair for 8-10 hrs and driving 1 hr. out of my body. Watching the breath become lighter and slower and the heart-beats following suit is so good its like taking a gentle sunbath!! :D
If you think about it, jelly IS made from gelatin. The stuff that you get by boiling the collagen in the ligaments joining the bone joints. As John Little says strength comes from the joints and I guess so does flexibility. Searched for the exact medical terms on wikipedia and came up with this:
>>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligament (wikipedia)
In its most common use, a ligament is a short band of tough fibrous connective tissue composed mainly of long, stringy collagen fibres. Ligaments connect bones to other bones to form a joint. (They do not connect muscles to bones; that is the function of tendons.) Some ligaments limit the mobility of articulations, or prevent certain movements altogether.
Capsular ligaments are part of the articular capsule that surrounds synovial joints. They act as mechanical reinforcements. Extra-capsular ligaments join bones together and provide joint stability.
Ligaments are slightly elastic; when under tension, they gradually lengthen. This is one reason why dislocated joints must be set as quickly as possible: if the ligaments lengthen too much, then the joint will be weakened, becoming prone to future dislocations. Athletes, gymnasts, dancers, and martial artists perform stretching exercises to lengthen their ligaments, making their joints more supple. The term double-jointed refers to people who have more elastic ligaments, allowing their joints to stretch and contort further. The medical term for describing such double-jointed persons is hyperlaxity and double-jointed is a synonym of hyperlax.
>>>>>>>>
They were showing an episode on National Geographic about a few Shaolin monks who start a special training exercise which stretches their hip ligaments into hyperlaxity. They do this at a young age and the stretching they get is so much that not even Old Age can take the stretching away. They're able to turn their toes to an amazing 180 degrees.. I'm sure these guys could brush their teeth using only their toes for holding the toothbrush!! :D
Though we may not need such phenomenal stretching, the principles at work are the key to understanding and applying them. In practise we have limited time and effort to allocate but using these ideas can give great results over time. If we allocate 1 month for every year of our life, that comes to just under 2 years to get back the stretching we've lost. This is with least amount of pain, effort and time. 20 minutes of this static stretching will easily suffice.
Since we're still young it may not even take that much time. I've also found that each new stretching exercise makes the joints able to do movements in other exercises. Thus the rate at which results improve increases quite fast. At one point there'll be very little resistance to being comfortable in any asana.
In martial arts apart from the physical aspect is the punches and kicks, the more dynamic aspect. This of course is an area in which I've not Personally done That much. What I've known or done is from JKD. For a long time now I've not really done much in other areas and have chosen to concentrate only on stretching... I always feel that I can join the Dojo once I get the stretching. Strength and Stamina are not that much of a problem for me.
I've started a bit of weights, more reps and less weight. This is already making my arm joints much stronger. Total arms in around 20 minutes.
Recently started jogging. 30 minutes divided into walking, jogging and a small uphill sprint before cooling down with jogging and walking. Its quite exhilarating to feel the familiar rush of air in the lungs on a fresh morning and the quietness of the streets.
This conversation became quite good, I'm turning it into my next blog. :D This will be a good sequel to my earlier blog on Yoga: So that takes care of your question on new blogs. Many of my blogs are saved as drafts and don't see the light of day until I find time to polish and finish them to at least a rough blog before publishing. So you'll find that my site suddenly sees lots of new additions. You can keep the RSS feed for my blog, so whenever new additions come in you'll see it in your RSS reader. Try http://www.google.com/reader.
See my blog on "Blogging without Blocking".
bye for now,
Gullu.
On 9/27/06, Rupesh Reddy wrote:
So I read both of your blogs and I think they are cool,
Have you guys got bored or busy ,because I have not seen any recent ones,
anyways , my TKD is going well, as you guys know I have my yellow
belt test on Oct14th , I have to learn not master :) 9 kicks , 4 blocks ,
3 stances , punch and 2 different palm hill strikes , phew !!
The cool thing is most of the people in my class are either black belts or lower belts ,
So Our master pairs the lower belts with the black belts most the time in the class,
So every class start with some punches and blocks for 10 to 15 minutes for warm up, some people get there a little bit early and chat with others or stretch before the class begins anyways , after the warm up , lower belts pair up with the upper belt and practice different kicking techniques , we switch holding the 'Wat ever you call that punching thing which in a square shape ' back and fort the nest 45 minutes ,
after that we do some push ups and sit ups and after the class I hang around and do some yoga stretching stuff , but some of the other students free sparring for a while, off course wearing all the protective gear ,
Yesterday I practiced the punching and palm hill strike techniques , my main problem was that I was leaning forward and up right and punch was going more inside out like a boxing style punch , my master corrected me so my motion was more balanced and circular and straighter ,
I have also noticed that no matter what you do in TKD , a kick , block or a punch , everything ends with a snap , body usually moves in a circular motion , one example is a round House kick , were the energy is stored in your hips till end and then flows to the foot right before contact "BAMM" , satisfaction of delivering a perfect kick = unlimited ,
As we have learned from the JKD books , hips play an important role in most of the hand techniques , but TKD focuses more on kicks ,
So, Happy kicking and screaming till next time,
Rup
>>>>>>>>
Hi Rupesh,
This is an awesome collection of info and links on stretching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretching
Brad Appleton's comprehensive "Stretching FAQ"
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stretching/SM00043/RETURNTOOBJID=DA0576C0-D1A7-4CEC-89966330AC25C727&RETURNTOLINK=1&slide=5
I've read the FAQ before, but the secret lies in patiently applying the principles.
"There's a difference between Knowing the Path and Walking the Path"
bye,
Gullu
>>>>>
Hi Rupesh,
Best of Luck on the Belt-Test in TKD!!
Its quite good to hear that you're doing Yoga stretching....
Its more a type of static stretching compared to the more activated stretching used in the martial arts. I like to think of asanas as:
"Hold the position which you want to be comfortable in"
ie kind of like setting jelly in a bowl. Hold it there long enough and you get the shape.
Of course our body is not jelly (the bones are too hard, but the joints are not).
But over time the ligaments do behave somewhat like that.
If you're interested look up "Mandukasana". Its the same way a frog sits, stretches out the hip joint while actually give full range of motion in rotating the hips. I found that slowly stretching some parts helps to reduce the strain. I followed the following sequence to improve my stretching :
1) Vajrasana (toes pointing back)
Effects - improved the upper hip and inner hip joint. Allowed me to sit on the floor in between the two legs.
2) Supta Vajrasana
Effects - improved the back and upper hip joint.
3) BhooNamana VajrasanaMethod - Do the Vajrasana toes pointing back, bend at the waist and try to lay the chest flat on the thighs. Keep arms at the side or behind the back.
Effects- totally freed up the back and top of the hip joint.
4) BhooNamana Padmasana
Method - Do padmasana, bend forward with your hands joined and pointed forward, and slowly lower your head until it touches by sheer force of gravity and relaxing of muscles and slow stretching of ligaments.
Effects - totally frees up the inner thighs (like butterfly exercise) and the lower back.
5) Vakra-Vajrasana (toes pointing at right angles to legs) (soles of feet pointing backward)
- improved the inner knee joint extremely allowing the lower leg to move independantly of the thigh. Had to do Ardha form (alternating left and right legs) for quite some time before doing the full asana.
6) Ardha-Mandukasana (alternating left and right legs) same as above but knees kept as far apart on both sides as possible.
- improved rotation of thigh bone on the hip joint (now the inner thigh is able to touch the floor).
7) Mandukasana (just started doing the mandukasana directly just a few days back).
- improved the stretching at the pubic bone where the inner thighs join the center point!!
I can actually hear the click of the joint and feel the slide as the ball and socket joint in the hips and thigh bone, makes the inner thighs slide forward and touch the ground. I guess this will be less noticable as time goes on and smoothness increases in the joint rotation.
I got this by trial and error. Many times I attempted these asanas all at once and tried too hard to get the stretch. The result was pain in the joints and giving up new asanas esp. for months on end. Finally I found out what works and what doesn't and how much is good enough.
An aside on Breath control: I found that doing the asana and observing/counting the breath helped me to settle into the asana like jelly. I gave up thinking about the stretching so much and just enjoyed the feeling of relaxing all my muscles. So much so that the first thing I do after coming from work is to do the asana. This gets the stiffness of sitting in a chair for 8-10 hrs and driving 1 hr. out of my body. Watching the breath become lighter and slower and the heart-beats following suit is so good its like taking a gentle sunbath!! :D
If you think about it, jelly IS made from gelatin. The stuff that you get by boiling the collagen in the ligaments joining the bone joints. As John Little says strength comes from the joints and I guess so does flexibility. Searched for the exact medical terms on wikipedia and came up with this:
>>>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligament (wikipedia)
In its most common use, a ligament is a short band of tough fibrous connective tissue composed mainly of long, stringy collagen fibres. Ligaments connect bones to other bones to form a joint. (They do not connect muscles to bones; that is the function of tendons.) Some ligaments limit the mobility of articulations, or prevent certain movements altogether.
Capsular ligaments are part of the articular capsule that surrounds synovial joints. They act as mechanical reinforcements. Extra-capsular ligaments join bones together and provide joint stability.
Ligaments are slightly elastic; when under tension, they gradually lengthen. This is one reason why dislocated joints must be set as quickly as possible: if the ligaments lengthen too much, then the joint will be weakened, becoming prone to future dislocations. Athletes, gymnasts, dancers, and martial artists perform stretching exercises to lengthen their ligaments, making their joints more supple. The term double-jointed refers to people who have more elastic ligaments, allowing their joints to stretch and contort further. The medical term for describing such double-jointed persons is hyperlaxity and double-jointed is a synonym of hyperlax.
>>>>>>>>
They were showing an episode on National Geographic about a few Shaolin monks who start a special training exercise which stretches their hip ligaments into hyperlaxity. They do this at a young age and the stretching they get is so much that not even Old Age can take the stretching away. They're able to turn their toes to an amazing 180 degrees.. I'm sure these guys could brush their teeth using only their toes for holding the toothbrush!! :D
Though we may not need such phenomenal stretching, the principles at work are the key to understanding and applying them. In practise we have limited time and effort to allocate but using these ideas can give great results over time. If we allocate 1 month for every year of our life, that comes to just under 2 years to get back the stretching we've lost. This is with least amount of pain, effort and time. 20 minutes of this static stretching will easily suffice.
Since we're still young it may not even take that much time. I've also found that each new stretching exercise makes the joints able to do movements in other exercises. Thus the rate at which results improve increases quite fast. At one point there'll be very little resistance to being comfortable in any asana.
In martial arts apart from the physical aspect is the punches and kicks, the more dynamic aspect. This of course is an area in which I've not Personally done That much. What I've known or done is from JKD. For a long time now I've not really done much in other areas and have chosen to concentrate only on stretching... I always feel that I can join the Dojo once I get the stretching. Strength and Stamina are not that much of a problem for me.
I've started a bit of weights, more reps and less weight. This is already making my arm joints much stronger. Total arms in around 20 minutes.
Recently started jogging. 30 minutes divided into walking, jogging and a small uphill sprint before cooling down with jogging and walking. Its quite exhilarating to feel the familiar rush of air in the lungs on a fresh morning and the quietness of the streets.
This conversation became quite good, I'm turning it into my next blog. :D This will be a good sequel to my earlier blog on Yoga: So that takes care of your question on new blogs. Many of my blogs are saved as drafts and don't see the light of day until I find time to polish and finish them to at least a rough blog before publishing. So you'll find that my site suddenly sees lots of new additions. You can keep the RSS feed for my blog, so whenever new additions come in you'll see it in your RSS reader. Try http://www.google.com/reader.
See my blog on "Blogging without Blocking".
bye for now,
Gullu.
On 9/27/06, Rupesh Reddy wrote:
So I read both of your blogs and I think they are cool,
Have you guys got bored or busy ,because I have not seen any recent ones,
anyways , my TKD is going well, as you guys know I have my yellow
belt test on Oct14th , I have to learn not master :) 9 kicks , 4 blocks ,
3 stances , punch and 2 different palm hill strikes , phew !!
The cool thing is most of the people in my class are either black belts or lower belts ,
So Our master pairs the lower belts with the black belts most the time in the class,
So every class start with some punches and blocks for 10 to 15 minutes for warm up, some people get there a little bit early and chat with others or stretch before the class begins anyways , after the warm up , lower belts pair up with the upper belt and practice different kicking techniques , we switch holding the 'Wat ever you call that punching thing which in a square shape ' back and fort the nest 45 minutes ,
after that we do some push ups and sit ups and after the class I hang around and do some yoga stretching stuff , but some of the other students free sparring for a while, off course wearing all the protective gear ,
Yesterday I practiced the punching and palm hill strike techniques , my main problem was that I was leaning forward and up right and punch was going more inside out like a boxing style punch , my master corrected me so my motion was more balanced and circular and straighter ,
I have also noticed that no matter what you do in TKD , a kick , block or a punch , everything ends with a snap , body usually moves in a circular motion , one example is a round House kick , were the energy is stored in your hips till end and then flows to the foot right before contact "BAMM" , satisfaction of delivering a perfect kick = unlimited ,
As we have learned from the JKD books , hips play an important role in most of the hand techniques , but TKD focuses more on kicks ,
So, Happy kicking and screaming till next time,
Rup
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