“SKILL”
技
The keys are “TANDEN (丹田) breath” and “Visualisation”
Martial Arts techniques and moves should be all natural to our body.
Minimise impact to our body, but maximise power from understanding the body mechanics and using momentum, leverage, and your opponent’s strength, your weight, and so on.
That’s all same with striking techniques, and grappling.
Those techniques and moves are very simple but very deep and sophisticated, therefore we need to have a lot of repetitions to master them.
One of the keys to getting those kind of techniques is controlling the breath and being able to connect with “TANDEN” (丹田) when you apply any techniques.
If you can control your breath, you can control your own mind and body better.
“TANDEN” is the lower part of the stomach which is supposed to be the centre of our body,
Just focusing on this “TANDEN” makes our body balanced, solid, and strong, and when we apply any techniques, we slightly exhale breath and activate TANDEN and connect the core with all other parts of our body without tensing our muscles too much.
Since ancient Samurai time, all the Martial Arts moves and techniques are used and focused on around this “TANDEN” area.
Another key is “Visualisation”,
We use many different visualisations when we train in Martial Arts, but I will explain more about “Visualisations for Martial Arts” at a different time, otherwise this blog will be too long.
You need to learn from a good instructor who can teach those techniques properly, and when you practice them, you always have to focus on applying them properly. Otherwise Martial Arts training becomes just physical exercise like running or weight training which is relying on only your physical part.
We can practice and attain “TANDEN Breath” and “Visualisation” through Martial Arts meditation.
So, if you keep learning from a good instructor, and practicing good techniques for a long time over and over, you will keep improving all through your life. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you will always get better.
Once you attain these kind of techniques, they should be effortless when you apply them, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need physical strength.
If you add physical strength into those techniques, they will be even more powerful but effortless, and improve as you get older.
I will explain more about the physical strength for Martial Arts in the next blog.
