As a karate practitioner for some time now, I have often struggled to relax, when you do your techniques you are too tense.

The maxim of all actions should be to naturally relax without tensing the body. The echoes of those basic commands can be heard in the karate dojo around the earth. In fact, it has since our empty-handed art was first conceived. So why does it seem so new to many students practicing today?

Let me briefly explain, martial arts have long used this relaxed way of moving, but over the years and the development of modern sports karate techniques, the need to develop muscular strength became more and more popular since that people wanted to improve their body strength quickly.

So naturally, changes were inevitable in the way people trained. However, while he gets stronger and builds muscle, which is not a bad thing in itself, it does leave open a possible participant injury. The back, lower extremities and joints are the most prone to injury.

Unfortunately, weight training can force your body to tense up, especially if you’re trying to lift a very heavy weight. Too much tension in the body can be detrimental to your overall health and therefore counterproductive when it comes to your karate training.

As one of the principles of martial arts and karate in particular is to develop and maintain a healthy body until old age in order to continue training and have a long life. However, you will notice that learning to use your body in a more natural and relaxed way during training suddenly becomes more difficult. If as a supplementary exercise to your karate you have been training with weights, which by definition requires you to tense up while trying to lift weights using the weight and the bar.

You see, too much stress on your body can cause injury while you train. However, having said that, there is no reason why modern training methods for strengthening the body and karate cannot work together.

It’s true, tight muscles don’t come from weight training per se, and I realize that may contradict what I’ve said before, but the important point here is that using your body incorrectly during training can cause injury. Therefore, learning correct training methods combined with an understanding of how your body works is most important.

It seems that when a student from the east or west tries to do karate techniques, he gets so excited that he forgets to relax his muscles while performing the movement. You see, the problem is that if you try to attempt a technique while your body is tense, you will pay the price in the speed with which you do that same technique. In short, what I mean by this is that if you try to get power all the time, your muscles will be tight all the time, you need to learn to relax your muscles and use your natural energy to get more power into your technique.

You will also find that you cannot gain speed in your technique due to this excess tension on your body. More importantly, a lack of speed could mean the difference between a win or a loss, whether in competition or on the street where, by the way, you won’t get a second chance.

To do a good karate you have to try to use the soft and the hard ones correctly, always trying to avoid hasty techniques and tense muscles. Take a look at how many senior karate masters do their kata and other techniques and see how relaxed they are while performing them. Why do you think the old time karate masters or other martial arts masters don’t seem to have big bulging muscles but lean lean muscles and not have a big body at all? That’s what this article is about, so I hope the answer speaks for itself.

Anyway, coming back to the topic at hand, it is important to understand karate in order to develop the correct technique, kime, timing combined with the proper and natural use of your body. I’m afraid there are no shortcuts to learning any of this, just practice, practice, practice. All of the above, as well as, strength comes from lots and lots of good hard training. In most cases, especially when it comes to women, they don’t need weight training to be strong enough to stand up to men during training. As a woman, if you train for a healthy body and enjoy karate, then that’s all that matters.

All students should try to remember that one of your main goals in karate and one of the reasons you started training in the first place is simply to maintain enthusiasm in your chosen art so that you can train for a long, long time. weather. and maybe even end up teaching and passing on the learned knowledge to other beginners in the future, just like your instructor did.

Just keep in mind that to get good at it you will need to practice every day to help keep your joints relaxed and your body flexible, relax and try not to tense your body too much if you can, breathe just below your navel, the center. of your body not of the chest.

Relaxing the muscles and learning to use natural energy along with correct breathing is very important and one of the fundamental principles when it comes to karate training. Learning to do this will improve both your daily life and your karate training, because without breathing there is no life. Do you see my point?

One last passing thought, Karate is an art and should be practiced as such. If you study the vital points and train regularly with your body weapons you will have effective karate, self-confidence and strength. You don’t have to try to be all muscle power. Enough talk.

Stay safe,

Buzz Champion.