Impact Conditioning (maybe, don´t know what to call it)

[banana]

Hi there!

What do the persons in here that pratice martial arts think about that type of condition that has the objective of making your body more resilient to impact? What I mean by this is things like striking your own shin with your oposite leg ankle.

I was thinking about designing some kind of "program" in wich I would strike all the parts of my body (except for the neck and head), gently at first, then gradually increasing the force soo as to improve my fisical endurance against strikes. Also, I think something like that may make me less afraid to take hits during sparring sessions (I'm a Muay Thai noob and still have those kind of non controled fear based reactions during some spars, kind like erratic movements that ultimatly leave me at a disavantage. I guess I'm still afraid to get hurt althrought I know my training partners wont hurt me seriously, they are not stupid and we wear protection.)

I want to know what the wise tribe in here thinks about this ideia. Is it worth it? Maybe unnecessarily dangerous in some way? Am I going to be waisting my time and so should allow time (and pratice) make my body more apt to take strikes without breaking something (mostly my concentration)?

I really don't know if this is a stupid question, but I would really love to read some answers from other more experienced martial artists...

Thanks for reading, will be very thankfull for answers. Have a nice one!

[Paul K]

Coach Sonnon offered a multi part program called “Shock-Ability.” Not so much like Muay Thai force on force but the absorption and redirection of an opponents force. Overview:

“SHOCK-Ability™
Biomechanical Impact Training
Shock Absorption is primarily based upon Fear-Reactivity. Pre-competitive Anxiety is the LEADING cause of energy drain in sportsmen. And everyone knows that as bioenergetic levels diminish, performance declines rapidly. Managing anxiety through the ability to absorb blows is an incredible means of maintaining your energy level during your game, while your opponent's declines with every effort to impact you!
In Russia, the ROSS Training System was developed to address this issue for their special forces and Olympic trainers. SHOCK ABSORPTION provides the progressive developmental means to diminish and eventually eliminate fear-reactivity through specialized exercises researched by the ROSS Training System in Russia. Like I said, so many people have asked about this, and been so excited about this material that we decided this was the next volume to be released in the SHOCK-Ability™ Video Trilogy.
Volume 1: Shock Absorption™
Training drills and concepts to acclimatize to impact WITHOUT INJURY OR FEAR-REACTIVITY.
Volume 2: Shock Inoculation™
Training drills and concepts to efficiently neutralize incoming force effortlessly to capture his attack.
Volume 3: Shock Engineering™
Training drills and concepts that show the missing link between grappling and striking, how to use the entire body for a singular saturation of attack.”

[banana]

Thanks for the reply Paul. Unfortanly, acording to this thread:
http://www.rmaxinternational.com/for...-Ability/page2 coach Sonnon is no longer making Shock-Ability available to the public. Thanks anyway mate!

PS: I will still take a peek once in a whille on this thread to see if anyone has something to add. Have a nice day everyone, cheers!

[PigBush]

Hey banana

WARNING: Essay Style Post.

Was wondering how long have you been practicing MT? If your still within the first 6 months, then what you have described is perfectly natural. I don't think there is anyone that hasn't been through what your experiencing.

The fear will lessen over time as you naturally develop the mental coping menthods, but it really is something that eveolves with you and your practice over time. Having started at around 8 or 9, I can tell you that evolving to the point where I was less concerned about being hit took about 7-8 years (long time, but starting young, you don't really think about these things, more important things like trying out that flying kick you saw on Power Rangers a few days back and BEING the Red Ranger).

If you really are serious about developing your ability to withstand strikes (physically) there are a number of ways to go about it. REMEMBER: BE PROGRESSIVE, start withiin your tolerance and work up, part of this is being able to find YOUR tolerance, and being able to distinguish between if the pain is good (just painful) or bad (injury). In no real order:

-Like you said you can hit yourself. This is usually very different to being hit by someone else though.

-You could take an object and roll it along the area of choice, e.g. a rolling pin rolled along the shins. Along these same lines, something like myofascial rolling can also be done to help you to teach yourself how to mentally cope with the pain, as well as helping recover your body (though it won't feel like it at the time.

-Strength and Conditioning. I find that the physically stonger my muscles, the better I can withstand pain, partly out of toughness developed from doing the exercises, e.g. press-ups done on the knuckles. Where you condition your body like this though, remember, PROGRESSIVENESS (e.g. start on soft mat, then go harder, soft carpet, wood, hard wood, concrete - insert other surfaces as neccessary) and TECHNIQUE (big two knuckles in contact with the fllor, line up that wrist, if its wrong wrong, your teaching it to be wrong in actual practice).

-Pad work (wearing / holding pads). In this instance you usually want to be with a hard hitter, but someone with the control to vary the power of their strikes so that they don't injure you. You'll not only get the chance to observe the visual cues that indicate whats coming, but you'll learn how to move WITH strikes that land on you and how to absorb them in a safer environment.
Also a good chance to get that BREATHING TECHNIQUE down. As you are better able to absorb force from handheld pads you can begin to place them along the body, e.g. pad on the leg for leg kicks, to be able to really work with this. Eventually working up to the worn body pads as well. Beyond this, you can allow your partner to start hitting your as an exercise, light to hard. There is a technique to being hit and minimizing damage so make sure you know it well before moving on to being hit directly.

With regards to reducing your fear-reactivity, use visualisation (mental drills). Imagine sparring (even if you are rememberring a sparring session you had) and role play that. Try to recreate the situation as accuaretly as possbile, sights, sounds, feelings, timing - imagine it in real-time, sensations, and try to do it from a first person perspective, tather than visualizing it like its a film scene. Make sure to do this as fresh as possbile, so you don't develop movement patterns that are in-efficient as a result of practicing when tired.
This isn't about being Neo and going all Matrix on your opponent though, its about redeveloping your reactions, so if for example you cover up when hit, break the situation down:
-What hit you?
-What was your reaction? What happenend as a result of your reaction?
-Was you reaction a desirable (good) or un-desirable (bad) reaction?
-What is the reaction you would like in the situation?

Then, when role playing it you can plan two approoaches, how do I (1) avoid that situation entirely? (2) what do I do if / when it happens again (2)? We are creatures of habit, in martial art are we look to create good habits and destroy bad ones.

For the below example I will use a situation like covering up from getting hit with a jab.

(1) Remember the pad work, the visual cues you were looking for then are your friend now. S/He's gonna jab you, but you've noticed they step in a VERY particular way and raise their shoulder just before they jab. So, how you gonna avoid it, decide an action, e.g. slip and counter, step away, etc. then drill this REACTION to their ACTION.
Remember focus on the DETAILS, breathing, timing, technique. SLOW. Slow is fast, fast is smooth. Build up your speed over time. As you get familiar with the mental aspect, practice it physcially in the form of shadow boxing.

(2) In the case of getting hit, its the same principal. What do you wanna do, or can you do better? OK, you got caught, are your hands still up? Chin tucked? Did you tense and lock up or start moving? Still BREATHING? Still looking at the opponent - MAY hurt if you can see it coming, but you can prep for it, chances are its gonna hurt a WHOLE lot more if you don't know whats coming and where its heading, and you can't even try to react cos you don't know what your reacting to.
Knowing what you do, you can then decide what you would like to do. Remeber modify your reactions, if you fstep back when hit, practice your reactions when moving back. Wanna step out to the side, step out after you have taken you normal step back, which can really thro people off if they are chasing you down. Wanna kick, step back then kick. If your looking to exploit a weakness that comes up after they hit you, train that - they drop their guard after they hit you with that jab, and you decide you can counter with a cross,
practice that reactive step back so even in your retreat you end up in a position to hit them and switch the situation.
As with (1) though, start SLOW and build up your speed. From what I see, for many, its not traning fast and hard thats the problem, its being able to slow down, and remove the handbrake that then allows us to eventually go faster than we would be able to in the first place.


Hope the above isn't too much and that it helps.
PigBush

[banana]

hehehe, big reply for the win! Thanks a lot PigBush, that makes complete sense and is indeed very helpfull (I almost never TL;DR , I love reading, soo the more the merrier!). I'm really noobish, less than one month, soo my partners are yet somewhat mercyfull, but I really like the modality soo I get curious about getting better at it faster. I'm really thankfull for your reply.

I actually do SMR (self myofascial release) with a tennis ball, and it's one of those things that you never think about until someone talks about it, but yes, when I started implementing it I remember that it was very uncomfortable, but overtime a person learns to block that perceived "bad" sensation.

If you have the time and will, would you care to comment some more about the breathing technique to use when hit by a strike? Breath wise, my basic plan when getting hit is exhaling.

Also, you mention moving with the opponent strikes. Would be thankfull if you could comment some more on that if you want. I pretty much just try to block and not get hit but haven't really thought about it.

Hope I'm not asking too much from you, especially since you just gave me a lot of great info on your 1st reply. Thank you very much again, have a nice one!

PS: Lol, Red Ranger

[PigBush]

No problem.

Breathing. What you said dude, essentially just exhale through the mouth, inhale through the nose. When you do exhale though, its fast and powerful., like blowing out a candle. Try this, put your fingers against ur abs and exhale, if your doing it right you will feel all your abs tighten. This tension creates a sold platform for you to strike and absorb / withstand / redistribute force, it also means u won't have much air to get knocked out of u if ur opponent does hit you harder Timing is the key though, u want to exhale at the moment of impact, or as close to the impact as possible (never after tho).

In regards to moving with strikes, if your that green, chances are you'll be happy enough at this point if u blocked it This is the sort of thing which comes with more experience. As firstly it requires that you won't tense up / lock up into position and brace for a strike, which can still happen with more experience if your opponent manages to catch you by surprise.
All strikes will have an optimum point, where by if its too close or too far, its not gonna hit right or be as powerful as it could be. Doesn't mean it can't hurt though. However, IF its at the right distance...... With regards to force best example I can think of is this, imagine being hit by a front / teep kick into your stomach (in all cases assume the power in each kick is the same amount), 3 types of hit:
1 - Opponent throws the kick, and you move into it as it hits. Hard part of his body and a soft part of yours moving INTO each other. Higher amount of force, lots of pain for you.
2 - Opponent throws the kick, and your standing still when it hits. Not as much force as the above as only one object is moving. Can still hurt, not as much though.
3 - Opponent throws the kick, and your moving AWAY as it hits. Least amount of force on contact as the strike is losing power the further it travels past its optimum point of contact. Even less pain As a bonus, s/he may actually be off balance as a result of having to over-reach the strike due to it not hitting when they thought they should, which can give u a window of opportunity to counter as they recover.
Basically, you just move in the same direction as the strike in order to reduce the amount of impact and damage it causes. If the strike is moving left to right (from your perspective, not the opponents), you move left to right. Remember to keep that guard up though, that is your next line of defence if you misjudge your motion.

As a note, this is movement for when getting hit, NOT movement to avoid getting hit. Similar but different things.

Hope it helps
Pig

[banana]

Hi there! Yep, that makes absolute sense. Thanks a lot again for your big usefull replys PigBush. Have a nice one!