Howdy.
Ando here from SenseiAndo.com.
Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about alignment.
Specifically, how your body lines up behind your striking.
It's a fact that if your body is not lined up properly, and you hit something or someone,
you're just going to hurt yourself.
So, if you’re a karate guy, or a Tae Kwon Do, kung fu artist, and you're spending a
lot of your training time striking in the air, be careful with that.
There's a chance you may be just practicing bad habits.
You're only getting better at throwing bad punches.
And that's why, if you've seen my other videos, you know I'm a big fan of hitting bags, or
pads, or willing partners.
But what if you're not in the dojo?
What if you're not in the gym?
What if you're at a hotel, or just at home, or your crazy ex locked you in a closet?
Is there still a way that you can practice throwing stronger, harder punches?
Well, of course there is.
And I’m going to show you one of those ways right now.
If you’ve ever been part of a traditional karate class, I'm sure this has happened to
you.
You stick out your punch and the instructor comes by and then pushes on the front of your
fist to test your structure.
If there's a little bit of a bend in your wrist, then it's going to buckle all the way.
If your shoulder is not locked into your body, then your whole arm slides out of joint.
If your hips and your knees aren't lined up properly, then you get knocked off your stance.
Well, without an instructor around, the next best thing you can use to test your structure
is a wall.
Now, I’m not telling you to punch the wall, but I would like you to push on it.
Because, if you think about it, a punch is really not much different than a push.
The only difference is that you're shifting your weight faster and more explosively.
So, here's what I want you to do.
I want you to pick a punch.
I'm going to pick a straight right.
Put your knuckles on the wall and line up your body behind it as if this is going to
be the greatest knockout punch you've ever thrown.
Or maybe you're imagining you break 100 flaming boards.
I don't know.
Whatever makes you smile.
Anyway, once I get my knuckles on the wall, now I'm just going to lean into it a little
bit.
Now, the nice thing about the wall is it will not lie to you.
If there's a weak link in your body, you're going to feel it right away.
So, I'm going to go through my checklist anyway.
I start off with my wrist.
Make sure my wrist feels strong.
Make sure my elbow feels strong.
My shoulder.
Make sure my waist, my hips, my knees, my ankle.
Every part of your body should be driving forward into this wall and you should feel
stable and balanced.
Now, of course, on a flat wall, you're not limited to just practicing your straight punches,
you could also throw forward elbows, you could throw your uppercuts, heck, I even use my
head and push on the wall just to make sure, from hair to toe, I'm lined up.
Once you feel pretty confident and solid in your strikes that you've chosen, the next
step is to add a pulse to your pressure.
So, in other words, you may start off just giving one long, steady push to really pressure
test your structure.
Once I have that body feel, I'm going to start on and offing, if that's a word, I'm going
to start pulsing the pressure into the wall, so that I'm getting better at locking in my
body more quickly, because that's going to lead me to stepping away from the wall, so
that I don't need the wall, and just see if I can maintain that same feeling in my body.
The minute that you feel you don't have that connection, if you start shadow boxing or
you're doing your kata and you feel you've lost that connection, hop back over to the
wall, it only takes one or two, you'll feel it right away, then go off the wall.
Make sure it still feels the same.
By going back and forth, you'll be tuning up your body better than ever.
Even better, try to find yourself a pillar, or a post, maybe inside of a doorway, anything
that's going to give you a corner to play with, two surfaces.
That way, you're not just limited to shifting your weight to the wall, you can shift through
the wall.
This is going to open up a much fuller range of your power and you're going to start adding
circular techniques.
I can add my hook punches this way and cross the line.
I can add my body hooks.
I can add more circularity to my elbow strikes.
I can put in the big overhand right.
I highly recommend that you include every strike that you know into the wall drill.
That's because in martial arts, there’s nothing worse that a cocky air-puncher.
Once you've tested out all your techniques, now it's time to spar the wall.
Get your pulses ready and just throw, go through your list.
Go through your hooks, your straight punches, your hooks, the big overhand right, your elbows.
Just don’t expect to win.
Remember, the key here is not to slam this wall like it's a makiwara.
Don't think of this as conditioning your knuckles, think of it as conditioning your whole body.
Now, don’t get me wrong, big knuckles look really cool.
I don't have them, but they look cool.
But what doesn't look cool is throwing a real punch in a real fight, breaking your wrist
and falling down because your alignment is off.
So, do yourself a favor, make proper alignment your number one goal, and then you can add
as much speed and power on top of that as you want.
And that’s it.
My advice the next time you feel like your training has hit a wall... hit a wall.
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Until next time, punch hard and keep fighting for a happy life.