Relax... Flow... and Be Quick
By Terry Heronime
I am a young gup still, and have barely begun to understand the martial arts, but, one thing I do understand is the necessity of relaxing. I myself deal with being in high school, trying to balance all Advanced Placement courses, Marching and Concert Band, National Honor Society community hours, outside reading projects, working out, martial arts, and trying to maintain a social life as well, and in truth, it not only wracks on ones patience, but their faith in a better tomorrow as well. But the key to dealing with tough spots is to relax. Relaxation helps not only with dealing with our lives, but it helps us become better martial artist as well.I'd like to outline some key aspects for myself when it comes to "taking it easy." The first concept is benefits. The second concept is understanding and practice. And the third concept is application.
Benefits
Relaxation is often seen as that moment in which you think to yourself, "Be like Fonzie. What's Fonzie like? Fonzie's cool. Be cool." But it is so much more. We often find ourselves angry at something. Perhaps it's that jerk standing in front of you, or the local punks that keep you up at night, or your boss who's given you too much work, or your own family that can't give you enough peace to write about relaxing. Or maybe it's just that you feel angry. But the benefits of relaxing go beyond simple situations and can allow you to flow through life instead of being tossed around by it.
Relaxation not only helps us deal with other people by moving our situations to a different position, but it helps with the movement of our thoughts as well. In Tae-Kwon-Do, for example, we'll see a fellow student struggling, and he seems to only want to criticize himself, so we'll try to tell him to relax. Or we'll constantly remind people to relax their shoulders, or the everyday commands of relax after ready position. These little expressions of "take it easy" are to aid people in not becoming overwhelmed with martial arts just as some of us are overwhelmed in every day life. We wish for people to learn without finding themselves confused with twenty different steps within thirty minutes. We try and teach people to relax so that their muscles and minds can process the movements of a kata and remember them for practicing at home. A relaxed mind can process commands better than a mind that's cluttered with random thoughts of anxiety, like you forgot to turn off your headlights in the parking lot, or the person next to you is going faster, or your belt is loose, or your teacher is watching too intently. These things simply get in the way, and make it harder to learn, and in turn, make it harder to become better.
Along with this, relaxing the body allows not only for faster movement, but greater flexibility as well. When we relax our bodies, we find that we move quicker. That's why we emphasize relaxing the shoulders, so that our blocks and punches move quickly and fluidly, instead of like a broken down roller coaster, with constant jerks and turns that only hurt you in the end. It helps so much with speed, because once again, your mind is clear from distractions (in the ideal relaxed state) and you can find not only your targets, but also your timing whilst in a fight. But relaxation also aids in flexibility. More often then not, I'll receive comments on throwing "high kicks." This isn't achieved by simply laying around and hoping that through the years my legs will one day reach over my head. No, I became limber by relaxing tense muscles before and after working out by stretching.
Understanding and Practice
Now, knowing the benefits of relaxing is easy enough. You'll think to yourself, "Well, I knew that I can handle tough situations or that by relaxing I can get faster." But the thing that I most often hear as a response to when I say, "The secret is to relax," is something along the lines of, "That's hard for me." And honestly, it's extremely hard for myself. Relaxing isn't as easy as many people make it out to be. We'll often be told to relax in stressed situation, only to find ourselves more agitated with the idea that someone is trying to tell us to relax. It's a strange concept to grasp, and for some, it takes more time and patience, the very thing we lack, to understand it. Patience is a key ingredient to relaxing. It's easy enough to relax one's shoulders or to relax for maybe a few seconds, but staying relaxed for extended periods of time, especially during one-steps or free sparring, it seems nearly impossible. I mean, the thought of someone punching you as fast as they can, let alone a real situation is daunting. But the practice of relaxing both the mind and the body can help you so much.
Now, relaxing the mind requires an extra amount of patience, but once in the groove of it, it becomes a simple process. One of the biggest keys to relaxing the mind is breathing. As we're constantly taught to breathe throughout our attacks and blocks, breaths should be taken even when you have reached a relaxed state. I learned a trick outside of martial arts for breathing, and that was learning how to shoot a rifle. When firing a weapon, it's essential to be relaxed, because you're carrying around a lethal weapon, and if you're freaking out with your finger on the trigger, you're more likely to do more harm to yourself than to anyone else. So, when we're learning how to turn our own bodies into lethal weapons, why should we be any other way? The main trick I learned was counting breaths. What I mean is that you inhale for four counts, hold for four counts, exhale for four, and hold for four, and then inhale for four, and continually repeat the pattern of inhaling, hold, exhaling, hold, inhaling, hold, and so on. It's best to do this when you can feel your heart beating faster than normal. Eventually, after keeping up this pace, you're heart rate will slow down to normal because you're controlling the intake of oxygen and thus, the flow of blood. Now, don't expect instant results from counting breaths; it takes a while for your heart to slow down.
The other technique I learned for relaxing the mind again requires breathing, but this time, a bit more focus. Now, if you've seen the movie Matrix, you'll remember that line, "Clear your mind," and in my opinion, it's not some cheesy thing to say to boost ratings. No, it's a technique all on its own. As I stated earlier in Benefits, a clear mind processes information easier, and reacts faster. But how do you honestly go about clearing your mind? For me, this is the hardest thing to do, especially when it comes to clearing my mind when I'm surrounded by actual things to do, like a surround sound stereo, or near a TV that's already loaded with my favorite movie. This technique works great, for all situations, whether you're simply at home sitting down, or when you find yourself stressed out. The way I've always done this is simply by closing my eyes, and focusing on one, peaceful and simple object, like an apple or a glass of water. And once again, I simply breathe in and out, constantly focusing on the breath, and the apple. When my mind goes elsewhere, like the need to listen to some song by Simon and Garfunkle, I simply snap my fingers, and focus back on the apple and breathing. Eventually, with enough practice of "meditation" you can simply breathe in and out without the apple or water, and simply focus on emptiness. That's what clearing your mind is, obstructing distractions that we constantly feel hold our attention. It's not so much reaching an enlightened state or anything like that, but simply using all your focus and attention, which was scattered, and focusing it on a single thing.
Now, relaxing your body, like anything, requires patience and work. It takes work to stretch out parts of your body that you're not used to stretching, and it takes patience to finally become limber. Now, while breathing can help relax the body, stretching can do the most good. The reason I am limber is because I stretch frequently, and I've even been made in fun of for stretching a lot. But to me, it's what helps me become a greater martial artist outside of direct teaching. Being limber allows you to move more quickly as well as more freely. Think about sandpaper. You try rolling a marble across sandpaper, and the marble will bounce off or slow down, or stop midway. But if you remove the sandpaper and put grease on a surface and roll a marble down that... well, you get the point. But as Mister Yates will constantly tell us, stretch at home while your watching TV. But it doesn't have to be only TV. You can stretch your legs while reading a book, you can stretch your ankles while sitting down, you can stretch your wrist in between bites while your eating, and you can stretch your neck and shoulders while your walking. It doesn't always have to be swinging your leg up as high as you can, it can simply be moving your joints around because they don't get enough attention in your daily life. Through repetition and knowing what needs stretching, you can relax your entire body within a few moments.
Application
As was stated above, you can relax your body in nearly any location; you just need to think what's truly available. You can learn to relax your mind when you're driving through rush hour by counting breaths, and you can learn to relax your mind while you're working out. You can learn to relax to the point where people comment on your fluidity and constant cheeriness, but what we're rarely prepared for is a real situation. I know Mr. Yates emphasizes the fact that we shouldn't start sparring in a real situation, but honestly what are you supposed to do? It's the hardest thing to relax when things out of control and someone is truly trying to punch you in the face. Hopefully, with enough training, it becomes reflex; you're mind sets in and you move off line, drop your weight, block, and follow up with the appropriate attack.
But it's so much easier said than done. I myself have only been in one fight, and while I thought I had a nice amount of training (at orange belt), I was not prepared for the shock of being in an actual confrontation. I got punched in the eye and fell down by the way, in case anyone's curious as to how it turned out. But for me, the key is to relax, even when you find yourself in those situations.
The better you become at relaxing, the more prepared you'll be for a confrontation. We teach you what you need to know to defend yourself, from knives to wrist grabs. We teach it in multiple ways, and multiple situations. But, it's nearly impossible to remember all the proper things to do if your mind is blocked by the thought of actually being in a fight. You won't be able to help but be shocked in your first fight. And I sincerely hope you never have a first fight, and if you have, I hope you never have to repeat the experience.
In Conclusion
I remember an old saying Bruce Lee once said: "Be like water, my friend." And for the longest time I wondered what that meant. And before that he explains being like water as in water can crash and it can flow. It can fit into a bottle or a teacup; it becomes what it's around. And when I finally figured out that Bruce Lee was talking of relaxing, I had the saying twisted by someone else, who said, "Be like water, Think like fire." And once again, this took many weeks of contemplation. And finally it hit me. You shouldn't just relax and wait for things to float by. Relaxing helps you flow with things around you, but you can become too relaxed, and be taken away by the current. That's why you must "Think like fire." Keep you're mind alert and focused, not scattered to the four winds and changing as quickly as Texas weather.
Learn to relax, and if you already can, than learn to focus, and if you're a triple threat, meaning you can relax, focus, and react instantly, then kudos to you, for you have achieved that which I strive for.
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About the Author
Terry Heronime is a Brown Belt in Nam Seo Kwan American Tae Kwon Do. He trains at the Richardson, TX YMCA under Grandmaster Keith D. Yates and Master Caroline Goodspeed.
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