Sun Martial Arts Blog With Hosts: Master Tim Baker, Master Dave Pryga, and Mr. Matt Dowds
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Body Hardening
This should be a debutable topic. I did extensive body hardening while in the corps and saw benifits from it. One such benifit was being able to absorb impacts to more tender part of the body such as inside of the thigh and the leading edge of my forarms that is used for elbow strikes. My question is have you did any of this training thru out the years and if so are there any downside to this like arthritis? I would imaging knuckles and wrist would be subject to this, but what about soft tissue such as inside of legs?
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3 comments:
I'm familiar with hardening areas where you have bone directly under the skin, like first two knuckles, elbows, knees, shins, instep, etc. We do that by using striking targets in class. Nothing to radical. But I can't see any benefit to doing more than that. I used to have a striking post in my back yard, but I haven't used that in years.
I'm having a tough time imagining hardening your inner thigh. The femoral artery runs through there and I've always guessed bad things can happen if you take a direct shot there.(?)
FWIW, I was told early on by a lot of old timers to NOT do the "hardening" type exercises as they were generally destructive to your joints and would cause arthritis, etc in later years. (we'll soon see)
It is an interesting subject especially when you start factoring all the different linaments an "Jows" that you are supposed to use to aid that type of training.
We did soft tissue hardening when I was a fresh boot pfc and didnt ask questions or argue with the explaintion I was given. What we was told is that if you make contact with the interior part of the thigh closer to the knee that the nerves would become trained to take a blow that would cause a dead leg. Now Im sure that you wouldnt want to take a direct shot but redirected blows might not have an effect if they make contact. After about 3 weeks of dong this 3 times a week I noticed that the accidental shots you take to soft tissue when grapling didnt sting as bad and keep you focus on the attack instead of how bad that just hurt. But that could also have alot to do with the determination and competive spirit we developed.
It is all very interesting and I wish I had more knowledge on the subject of hardening. No doubt, I can take much more physical punishment now than when I began my training. I'm not sure how much of that would be body hardening as opposed to just getting used to it so the pain threshhold goes up some.
I realize that is more of a psychological change rather than an actual physical change.
I'm also not sure of the benefits of body hardening but I'm all for being enlightened.
Of course, we don't know how an attack will come but I would guess a knife in ribs or a 2 x 4 to the back of the head. I haven't figured how to harden those areas.
Don't misunderstand me, I practiced many, many hardening/toughening drills in my hey day (heck, I've punched more concrete from my wrench slipping by accident than most m.a.'s have done on purpose not to mention the countless times I've pounded my hand with a mis- aimed hammer)but I think they only served to puff me up (both literally and figuratively) and make me think I was something. Ahem...they also added to what I am today, for better or worse. I enjoyed doing them
Now, I do forms to improve the efficacy of my strikes, focusing on delivery, penetration, follow through and weight. I train with others to improve my targeting of primary soft targets and secondary soft and hard targets (including the femoral artery/nerve). That pretty much fulfills me and i don't have much need for anything else (training-wise).
Turning off the ramble now.
SUN!
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