Sunday, January 1, 2017

Alignment: Critical to Protecting the Muscular skeletal Body- - Chief Instructor's Blog January 2017


I have mentioned in a couple blogs the importance of alignment.  In October 2016 blog “Key To Practicing” I noted that alignment was one of the four keys to practicing.

In this blog, I will expand on the importance of alignment and how it is critical to minimizing impact to your body and/or unnecessary overuse of your muscles. 

Many martial arts can be harsh on your body.  The impact alone can cause damage and injury over time.  By practicing and constantly ensuring correct alignment while practicing martial arts, you will minimize impact and injury to your body. In addition, it actually takes more muscular effort to stay out of alignment instead of using the skeletal body in proper alignment to maintain the posture.  While I will not be going over every stance and every technique, I will include several examples to provide the rationale on the criticality of focusing on alignment in protecting your body.  Let’s start by looking at stances.

Stances

In stances, alignment ensures the skeletal system is in the best position to support the body.  In the correct alignment you are countering gravity, not putting too much pressure on your joints and ensuring not overusing tendons, ligaments, or muscles.  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

In horse stance the correct alignment is knees over the ankle, as much as possible, pointing straight ahead and hips and shoulders square with the back straight.  If your knees are too forward or pointed inward or outward, then you are putting pressure on the joint of your knees which over time causes damage. In addition, you are using quadriceps more out of alignment which can cause muscular strain over time.  If your back is not straight and over the hips, you are adding strain to your spine and lower back muscles that can lead to injury.

In formal cat stance, the correct alignment is hips and shoulders square, with back straight, front knee points in the forward direction with knee above ankle and knee bent approximately 45 degrees from horizontal, and stance locked into hip.  If you are not locked into your hip, you are putting the strain on knees, ankles, and quadriceps to counterbalance the gravity of being on one leg.  Over time, this constant strain can lead to ankle issues, knee issues, or strain on your quadriceps. 

Techniques

In throwing hundreds and thousands of techniques, every time you make impact and are not aligned you are adding force to your body that eventually can and probably will lead to an injury.  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

In throwing punches, the proper alignment at impact is wrists flat with first two knuckles pointed at target and punching arm remains slightly bent.  Even if it does not hurt the first two hundred times you throw a punch against a hard surface without your knuckles aligned, it could be the 201st that the resulting force through the hand will result in injury to your knuckles or your wrist. 

In throwing high block, the proper alignment at impact is blocking arm covers head, arm at approximately 45 degree angle from horizon, wrist flat and slightly in front of elbow, and slight body lean (straight line from heel of foot to fist).  If the blocking arm angle is too flat then the force of any overhead strike will not deflect some of the the force causing a bone injury or break.  If the wrist is not flat and the overhead strike hits the wrist, it will result in a wrist injury (bones and or tendons/ligaments).  If the body lean is not correct, the force from the overhead strike can cause damage to the lower back versus allowing the force to pass through the body to ground.

In throwing sidekicks, the proper alignment at impact is support foot rotates on ball of foot until heel points toward the target, hips rotated downward and foot contact will be on the outer edge; toes pointed downward toward floor.  If you do not rotate hips downward to your lock point, the resulting force going through your lower back will cause injury over time  (if you are unsure of your lock point, work with a certified instructor as soon as possible).  In addition if your foot position is not correct, you could injure your toes.  

I highly recommend all of you take time to practice, reinforce and ensure your alignment is correct by watching yourself in a mirror, reviewing a video of yourself, hitting bags (bags do not lie – if you are not aligned you will feel it where you should not), and/or asking a certified instructor to look at your alignment.  Over time this will improve the effectiveness of your techniques and reduce injuries.

 
Regards,
Kelly

"You can only fight the way you practice." ~ Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), legendary Japanese samurai and author of The Book of Five Rings