How to Improve Your Body Awareness - - Chief Instructor's Blog December 2024

 

Very acute body awareness will help you immensely in your martial arts training.  An instructor can tell you that you are out of physical alignment or not performing the motion correctly, but if you cannot feel the difference, it will take much longer to master the techniques.

Body awareness is your ability to “feel and know” the movement, action, and location of where your limbs are in space without using sensory organs (i.e., sight, sound, touch). 

Examples of body awareness includes knowing if your feet are parallel in horse stance without looking at your feet, feeling the difference between a swing kick and a piston action from kick, and feeling a locked leg versus unlocked in turnaway kick.

So, how can you improve your body awareness? 

1. Understand the why behind the movement.  Especially if you are an experiential learner, examining and understanding the why behind the movement and the muscles that are required can help you improve your body awareness.

2. Ensure you understand verbal cues.  Especially if you are an audible learner, if you do not understand the verbal cues, ask questions (in or after class depending on what is more appropriate), or take time after class to do research.

3. Visualize performing the techniques correctly.  Going through the movements and walking through visually all the details to perform techniques properly can improve body awareness.

4. Use mirrors.  Especially if you are a visual learner, use the mirrors to see what instructors are seeing.

5. Practice slowly and mindfully.  When you go slowly and with focused attention on the minute details and how it feels when performed correctly, it will improve your body awareness. 

6. Scan your body as you go through techniques to improve that connection between the mind and the physical body.

• If a complete scan of your body is too much at first, break it up so you just focus on one item at a time.  For example, when going through low block in attack stance, maybe you just scan your body to ensure a locked leg at first.  Then focus on your ”prep” being at the center of your sternum and then focus on your fist stopping above the knee.

7. Practice balance.  When practicing balance, such as standing on one leg, in order to stay upright you will need to fine tune your alignment and learn to adjust your body.  This sensory feedback can improve body awareness.

8. Use resistance bands. The use of resistance bands can provide physical feedback if in alignment or not and allows you to feel the difference.  When you physically feel when a technique is performed correctly, then you will improve your body awareness.

9. Strike hard targets (e.g., bags, shields, etc.).  Similar to the resistance bands, striking hard targets can provide instant feedback if not in alignment or performing techniques properly.

Improving your body awareness will not only help you improve your techniques, self-defense, sparring, etc. but can also prevent injuries.  Even if you think you have very good body awareness, I encourage you to include some or all of the above in your training to continually refine your body awareness.

 

Regards,

Kelly

 

"You may train for a long time, but if you merely move your hands and feet and jump up and down like a puppet, learning karate is not very different from learning a dance. You will never have reached the heart of the matter; you will have failed to grasp the quintessence of karate-do." ~  Gichin Funakoshi (1868-1957), founder of Shotokan Karate

 

References:

1.      https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/proprioception, retrieved 11/29/2024

2.      https://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/systems/nervous-system/proprioception.htm, retrieved 11/29/2024

3.      https://www.empoweryourwellness.online/improve-your-body-awareness-for-injury-prevention/, retrieved 11/29/2024