How Martial Arts Improved My Tennis Game

This is not some miracle story about how I was able to miraculously pick up the sport of tennis in an impossibly short amount of time. But my background in the martial arts did help me out on the court.

Up till this morning, I hadn't swung a tennis racket since just over a year ago when I first started learning the game. So this morning I went to play with my parents while on a family visit in Ontario. I remembered the last time I had played, having just received instruction from a tennis pro who had helped me get a real feel for what it was like to hit the ball properly. My game had improved massively. But this morning, as I took my first swings since last year, it felt like I was swinging a log at a basketball.

But even though I had lost all my skill from the previous year, I still remembered how my body felt when I did hit the ball properly. For every ball I hit badly, I was able to correct my shift my body position a little closer to the one I associated with that feeling. After a hour of practicing just hitting the ball with my father, I could feel my old technique starting to come back. Not that I was ready for Wimbeldon or anything, but there was definitely some progress.

Martial arts training made me better at learning new skills by teaching me body awareness, an understanding of the learning process, and the patience to keep me from swearing and throwing my racket across the court over every missed ball.

Miyamoto Musashi, a famous Japanese swordsman and author of The Book of the Book of Five Rings, said that by studying one thing in depth, you can understand ten thousand things. While I'm no martial arts master, I definitely find that my training has afforded me a personal perspective that allows me to be flexible enough to take on many of life's challenges, tennis strokes included.

Knife Defense for Dummies

While this Jim Carrey skit is a hilarious exaggeration, there are many martial arts schools that attempt to teach "realistic" knife defense. They teach specific maneuvres against very choreographed attacks, which bear little resemblance to what happens in a real situation.

If a dojo is going to teach knife defense, they first thing they should teach is the level of respect that should be attributed to knives. They are extremely dangerous. Many cops state they would rather face an assailant with a gun than one with a knife at close range. Against a knife, you're pretty much guaranteed that you'll get cut. This is because the nature of a knife attack is more fluid and changeable and therefore less easy to predict. This makes knives harder to take control of compared to guns at close range.

Because of the fluidity of the knife attack, instructors should never teach entirely choreographed techniques as their primary knife defense. Here are a few things that viable knife defense instruction should comprise of:

1) Blocking. Should be based around a type of block that is so simple it can be done under extreme stress. The block should also keep arteries protected.
2) Controlling. A method of controlling a knife so you can immobilize your attacker with strikes to vulnerable areas.
3) Barriers. How to put barriers between you and the knife (i.e. using personal items like a bag or jacket or environmental barriers like cars, park benches, etc.)
4) First aid. How to treat cut wounds to prevent loss of blood long enough to get help.
5) Explanation of Risk. Explanation and re-explanation of how dangerous knives are and to avoid altercations involving them at all costs.

I understand the desire to teach more complicated maneuvres as they help students develop their overall martial art skills and awareness. I simply believe that knive defense is NOT the correct forum for this kind of development. It can give students false expectations about what a real knife attack entails leading to a dangerous lack of respect for the threat they pose. Just ask Jim. ;)

Friends That Fray Together Stay Together

I recently held a launch party for my book, Weapons of Opportunity, in Ottawa to which I invited a number of old training buddies and students, as well as my instructor, Ed Hiscoe Shihan. The majority of these people I hadn't seen since I left for Japan to teach English and train in the martial arts. Most of them are characters in my book too, including John Nash (known as "Josh" in my book) who wrote a comment about it on his blog.

I was amazed to discover that even though we didn't all email each other regularly while I was away, somehow the bonds that were forged on the mat were just as strong as the day I left. Through years of repeated strikes to pressure points and slams from being thrown to the mat, we have created an affinity for one another that is different from any other kind of friendship.

When you train in the martial arts and commit to it in the long term, you get a lot more out of it than physical fitness, self-confidence, and the ability to defend yourself, you also get close friendships unlike any other kind you make in day-to-day life. When you can hug someone or shake their hand after they have kicked you in the groin, knocked you out, given you a black eye, or twisted your joints in ways they're not meant to twist, you've got the base for a friendship that can last a lifetime.

Enter the McDojo: The Problem with Commercialized Martial Art Schools

Commercialized martial arts schools (or “McDojos” as I call them), like the piss-take version shown here in this clip from the movie Napoleon Dynamite, exist in most major cities. They often have great facilities, convenient schedules and flashy demos that entice many people to sign up without looking around for alternatives.

I generally advise people against joining McDojos for a variety of reasons. First of all, they are usually run as a business first and foremost and secondly as a martial arts school. Unfortunately, when a school is run for profit the students’ technical development tends to suffer. The reason why is that most students want to feel as though they are progressing quickly. And if they don’t go for the belt tests fast enough for their liking, students tend to quit.

To combat this, McDojos often promote students to their next belt levels, regardless of their level of skill in the required curriculum. By the time these kind of students get to black belt, they have a myriad of bad habits and lack true skill.

Other McDojos will create more level divisions, either more belts or “stripe” tests between belts. The school will then require the students to pay for these extra tests, an often costly addition to their regular tuition.

Ultimately, if profit is the main goal for a martial arts school, it shapes the way the school is run, often to the detriment of the art. At a school with which profit is not the main goal, if a student doesn’t have the required patience to develop towards true mastery he or she just drops out and nobody minds. That’s because the school simply wants to develop the good quality students who strive to achieve technical excellence and embody the true spirit of their art.

For more information about choosing a martial arts school, check out this article I wrote for my Jiu-jitsu website: http://www.westcoastjj.com/articles/article/2625523/36687.htm.

Lessons from Yoda and Morpheus: Zen Contradictions and the Martial Arts

This blog post has been moved to our new address: http://pacificwavejiujitsu.com/blog/lessons-from-yoda-and-morpheus-zen-contradictions-and-the-martial-arts

Kicking Like a Girl

After the blog post in which I discussed the value of kicks and the commitment required to become proficient at them, I decided to dedicate an entire class to training kicks. In our style of Jiu-jitsu, we don’t practice any fancy kicks, just practical ones. The ones we covered during that class included: front kick (to the groin or solar plexus), side kick, roundhouse kick, and lateral femoral kick (to the outside of the thigh).

For our warm-up we also did dynamic tension exercises using kicking positions. This involves holding the leg up in the cocked position of a kick, whichever kick you like. Then you slowly extend the leg out into the kicking position then back to the cocked position. We did this ten times slowly then ten times fast. We did these exercises for the front, side and roundhouse kicks. Inevitably, my students had sore butts after doing these exercises. In addition to the strength training one gets from doing these exercises, students get to practice emphasizing proper leg position while kicking.

For the rest of class, we trained our kicks in a variety of ways. The side kick, for example, we first trained from a horse stance to emphasize proper technique. We then trained it from a sparring stance (like the one used in boxing) snapping the kick out quickly using the front leg. I’ve used this type of side kick many a time during sparring sessions. When someone attacks me with their fists, the often open up with their ribs. They usually underestimate how close I can be and still kick with my front leg effectively, allowing me to snap my side kick out quickly under their punch, hitting home in the ribs (usually resulting in a bit of a grunt). We also trained the jumping side kick into the body shields. This allows you to cover a great distance and get more power, but has very little practical value. Unless the attacker is half unconscious, it’s not that likely that this kick will land since you can see it coming a mile away. Lastly, we trained the side kick from the boxing stance using the rear leg. This has practical value because it allows you to step into the kick. Plus, it is good for training balance.

During the class, I couldn’t help but notice that the women in my class showed considerably more natural ability with their kicks than the guys, even the ones that were learning these kicks for the first time. For some reason, they are generally more flexible and coordinated in the legs. I don’t like to make generalizations for the most part because it can cause you to see what you expect to see rather than what is actually there. But there is some truth to certain generalizations.

One exception to the rule was my student Dave. He has always been very nimble with his legs despite the fact that he is 240 lbs and top heavy to book. As I watched him kicking, I felt compelled to complement him.

“Dave, that is awesome. You kick like a girl!” I said, in an admittedly cheeky fashion.

“Hey! Them’s fightin’ words!” he immediately retorted.

I was making a point, however. “Why? Girls are generally better at kicking than guys.”

Dave opened his mouth, then closed it again. I couldn’t help but be amused by the look on his face that clearly indicated a struggle between enjoying the complement and being compared to a girl.

I made the remark in fun, obviously playing on the classic insult, “You punch like a girl!”. I’ve never been a fan of this comment. I’ve even heard male instructors try to light a fire under the asses of their female students by yelling this at them. The natural reply is a legitimate rebuttal. “But I am a girl!” Even though the instructors who say this are just trying to push their students, it can be frustrating to some women who don’t see the intent behind the remark, causing them to feel like they will never be able to punch properly because being a girl is the definition for punch badly.

I am by no means a femi-nazi, but I do believe in giving everyone, whether they are a man or a woman, every opportunity to be the best they can be.

Martial Arts Training with an Injury

Oftentimes when a martial arts student gets an injury, whether it’s as a result of training or from some other activity, they stop training entirely while they recover. When one of my Jiu-jitsu students has an injury, I encourage them to come to class anyway. I mark their injury off with a red ‘X’ on their body using electrical tape, to make sure other students remember to be careful performing techniques that could affect the injury. There are a number of benefits to doing this.

Sure, a student might want take a day or two off right at the onset of recovery in order to allow inflammation to reduce and pain to subside to a manageable level, depending on the injury. But beyond that, it’s good to come to class and do only what you’re capable of, going extremely easy. Why? Some people are inclined to become depressed or disconnected while recovering from an injury. It’s a good idea to try and stay as active as you’re able to keep up your spirits, and so you don’t lose your training momentum entirely.

Training with an injury can also teach you things about your techniques you would never have realized while training in perfect health. For example, right now one of my students has a minor shoulder injury. A stout-hearted student, he came to class the very next day after having aggravated his injury, not wanting to miss out on class. He was working on a wrist takedown with which he usually has a tendency to overuse strength to make it work. As I watched him move through the technique during class, I was stunned when he did it with almost perfect hip motion and footwork.

“Glenn, that was great!” I commented. “Where did that come from?”

He looked at me with a quizzical expression, not even realizing how big a difference there was in the execution of his technique. “I don’t know. I was just being careful not to hurt my shoulder, so I was using less strength.”

I slapped him on the back, pleased with his progress. “You should injure yourself more often!”

Another added benefit to training with an injury is how it develops your versatility in defending yourself. In a real self-defense situation, you won’t likely be able to ask an aggressor not to attack you right now because you have an injury. You have to be able to improvise and use your body and any other tools you have at your disposal to fend off the attack, handicap or no handicap.

While there are many benefits to training with an injury, students should still exercise due caution though to make sure they don’t make the injury worse. I’ve seen a number of very optimistic students over-extend themselves during their recovery period, causing re-injury of their wound. I, myself, have made this mistake before. We all want to get back to training at full capacity as soon as possible after an injury, but in the meantime, we should practice another very important aspect of martial arts development: patience.