Doing Softwork only

[Shane]

Can doing Softwork alone maintain skills? I ask this because after a life
time of combat sports ( overdoing hardwork) I have to many injuries
to risk going to intense in my training. My focus now is purely for
recreation and self defense.

Thanks, Shane

[rolandbeauregard]

As a Martial Artists with over 30 years experience and my share of injuries, I think the soft work model is the one to follow. I had one teacher who believed that doing it slow and right was far better then doing it fast and wrong. I have found in my own pratice that by praticing slow, when thing got faster my techniques were more effective. I have not yet seen Coach Sonnon's Softwork DVD, but I am eager to see it when it is released.

[Scott Sonnon]

Even the progenitor of the "Art of Peace" Morihei Ueshiba was a scrapper who fought 'hard' in his younger years. Softwork and Hardwork are balanced over a lifetime, not a week or year.

[Dan Chomycia]

I couldn't agree more. I try to use them to balance life since my work sometimes involves a little Hardwork, and then will be dormant in activity for awhile. Understanding when you need either is directly inline with how your body feels at the moment.

[Jrichardson]

Softwork and Hardwork are balanced over a lifetime, not a week or year.

Right on! I was thinking the same thing.

When you've done enough hardwork, softwork seems so magical that it can easily become "the true path." But it's the whole path that got you where you are.

[Shane]

Coach Sonnon wrote:
Softwork and Hardwork are balanced over a lifetime, not a week or year.

NICE :D ! I have never thought about it like that.

[eleazar7]

Coach, you got it right.

How many people that started the "soft" internal styles of martial arts began as accomplished fighters in the "hard" styles? I think that is the rule, not the exception. Great insight! I also believe the founder of "Yang style Tai Chi" was an accomplished fighter in "hard" styles before working with the soft internal style (if I remember my reading correctly, it has been a few years).

Shane, I think you will be fine with that.

[Glenn Sunshine]

You hit it on the head: although it is possible to become an efficient and effective fighter purely through internal styles, many of the internal fighters had a solid background in harder styles before taking up the internal styles as "postgraduate work." This is true in tai chi chuan, it is true of the various lines of bagua, it is true of aikido, etc. At the highest levels, kung fu and tai chi become the same thing--indicating the balance of hardwork and softwork that can and should be achieved if you are to become efficiently (and effortlessly) effective.

Yours,
Glenn

[Benjiefari]

I am think aloud but it seems to me that Softwork is much more than " soft an slow " . Its protocol Covers the complete Range of possible Speeds an it Loading is dependant on the Shock Absp. Capabilities of the Players .
I only began to see it in its fullness during the Softwork Seminar .