Doing What Comes Naturally
by Sensei Richard Howell
I have practiced Jujitsu for a long time and I have also attended
classes and seminars out of the house in Tai Chi, Yiquan,
Systema, Aikijitsu and related “soft” arts. In jujitsu and all of
these other classes I have been instructed, constantly, to move
“naturally,” to relax and to use no additional effort or allow
no unnecessary tension. So it is reasonable to ask what does
“naturally” really mean and how does it apply to our training?
Natural is something everyone thinks that they know when they
see it. But what are they seeing? We need to look at the elements
of natural movement and to see how moving naturally leads to
better martial arts.
So what is natural? It is a very overused word these days and
it can mean a lot of things. There is a
natural way of using energy, a natural
way of moving and positioning your
body and a natural way of thinking. A
primary quality of any natural action
is to use as little energy as possible for
the task. All natural phenomena follow
that rule. With inanimate objects it is a
law of physics. Using minimum effort
also applies to most living things. It
is instinctive to do so. Lions on the
savanna do not work out. They lie
around and do the easiest trick they can
do to catch the antelope. Antelope do
not work out and spend extra energy
either. They saunter along eating grass.
They run but only when they think a
lion is coming. As a rule, energy is
precious, getting energy is difficult,
and nothing uses it unnecessarily, except for us. We human
beings have a thinking mind and that mind generates ideas and
concepts that can easily lead us away from natural physical
actions.
Physically, our body’s natural state is primarily determined
by the alignment of our skeleton. We are all built on a skeletal
frame, consisting of bones attached by ligaments in a particular,
human configuration. This means that movement in our joints
is enabled and also limited by our ligaments. Each joint has a
determined direction of easy motion and a particular position
where the ligaments are equally stretched when there is no
outside force to move them. This position is often in the center
of the range of motion. The muscles are then attached to the
bones in such a way that movement through the direction
of motion of the joint is possible. But it is only when the
muscles are at their most relaxed that natural alignment of the
bones occurs. This is also when the muscles are at their best
mechanical advantage to flex or extend the joints. Think of a
curl when weight lifting. You are strongest when the arm is near
its relaxed, neutral position and the curl gets more difficult as
the arm bends. Efficiency is lost as you move away from the
natural, relaxed position.
We could see what natural alignment would look like for our
whole body by removing gravity and allowing the body to adjust
to no muscular effort. There is a way to do this. We have all
seen images of scuba divers as they float along in the water. As
they float the divers arms are by their sides, their hands are near
their waist, their spines are straighter and their legs are extended
but the knees are not locked. Divers do not have to work to be
in that position, it comes without effort. The diver’s buoyancy
in the water counteracts gravity and the diver’s relaxed position
is natural. Now we can imagine our
best natural physical nature when we
add the stress of gravity. But it is not as
easy to achieve due to the force on the
large number of joints that are involved
with even simple actions like standing
still.
A complete description of natural must
also include our minds. We naturally
feel a wide range of emotions,
thoughts, and ideas. Our emotions
and reactions are natural responses
to the world around us but they often
do not support acting in our best
natural physical state. All emotions
have physiological effects and strong
emotions such as surprise, joy and
especially desire and fear can lead to
both muscular tension and mental distraction. None of these
conditions are helpful in achieving your best movement or
making your wisest decision today. It may have been highly
effective for our early ancestors to behave like this but it is
not always the best response to modern life. In martial arts
training this means that you must develop skills to control
primary and very natural emotions such as fear in order to
have the ability to relax and fully express your natural physical
strength and coordination. So it seems we have to discover
winners and losers in natural behavior and train to strengthen
the desirable ones. Before these emotions and thoughts there
is a mind that is quiet and serene, an original mind. This calm
may be the state of mind that is our most natural and desirable.
Many people practice meditation and similar activities to find
a path to intentionally enter that calm state of mind. Meditative
techniques are routinely recommended in martial arts training.
Only with the mind and body integrated and relaxed can a
naturally powerful physical motion be attempted.
So natural has many aspects with relaxation of body and mind
as one common denominator. Is it what we normally do? Not
usually. It is not unusual for someone to
normally move in a way that is based on
their habit, but contrary to their best natural
motion at the time and even farther from their
ultimate potential state. We all have seen
people with poor posture or with an unusual
walking style. They may have done it that
way their whole life but it is not their best
natural motion. It does not completely use the
power found in the best natural alignment of
their frame. Changing our normal motion to
something closer to our best natural motion
is the goal of much of martial arts training.
As an adult we rely on training drills, kata
exercises and examples to bridge the gap.
A full exploration of this is worthy of a
lifetime of study and there is a compelling
reason to take on the task. Classic techniques
in jujitsu and the other martial arts are
designed to exploit the best natural body
positions and motion. We look for relaxation
in ourselves and opportunities given by
tension in our opponent. The arts would
not have become classic if they required
extraordinary effort and energy on the part
of the performer or if they attacked along
directions that allowed easy counter motion
on the part of the receiver. As a physical battle
continues the combatants become physically
tired and finally even exhausted. Only the
techniques that exploit our best natural
efficiency would have repeatedly stood that
test at the end of the day. Those were the
techniques that came home and were taught to
the next generation.
A second, even more powerful motivation to
fully understand your natural self springs from
the extraordinary power and efficiency that
comes from being at the peak of your natural
strength and the effectiveness of attacking
someone at their natural, weak openings.
In jujitsu, yawara , nage and other familiar
techniques exploit weak directions in our
opponents body while preserving the power
of our own position. Moving along the correct
line in a relaxed manner is how we perform
our techniques with minimum effort and
maximum efficiency. If you have been lucky,
you have received a technique performed by
someone with that exceptional skill so that it
seemed effortless on their part. You had a first
hand opportunity to experience a higher level
of jujitsu.
If you actually had the technique done to
you, you were lucky. But if during your
training you were taught some simple
exercise and you, even once, even accidently,
had the physical experience of doing an
effortless technique yourself then you won
the lottery. It was one of those “I don’t
feel like I did anything. Did you just go?”
moments. The appreciation of how delicate
an action is required to be fully efficient can
only be understood by having that physical
experience. Once you have done it you know
that it can be done. Wouldn’t it be great to do
things like that all of the time?
Every proven master has a personal, unique
story but they also have similarities. They
are able to produce remarkable output for
minimal effort. In other words they perform
techniques that we may also perform but they
do them with nearly perfect efficiency. We
have all seen individuals who have refined
their skills to levels very close to peak
power. Top Olympic athletes win or loose
by 1/100th’s of a second and particularly
skilled martial arts masters can do seemingly
magical things. When someone has reached
that personal level they seem almost super
human. There is a feeling of “how do they
do that? I don’t get it. I could never do that.”
This feeling is wrong. Within the limitations
of your body’s size and other personal
characteristics you can do those things too,
but you need to learn how to operate at your
best personal level.
Why do you need to work at such a highly
refined level and what are the mechanics?
One way to understand what is happening
is to consider simpler systems like a bicycle
or car. Bikes and cars have simple actions,
the wheels just go round and round. Even so
every engine design has a power curve. For
instance, high powered racing car engines
and powerful diesel truck engines have a very
narrow range of rotations where they deliver
high power and only one perfect speed of
rotation where all of the power is achieved.
That is why racing cars and big trucks have so
many gears. By changing the gears, the driver
keeps the engine in that best part of the power
curve. The wheels go faster or slower but with
the full power of the engine transmitted to
them. A rider on a multispeed bicycle does the
same thing. There is one combination of pedal
speed and gear settings that gets you up the
hill the fastest and lets you continue go uphill
for longer times without a rest. Try riding
your bike up a hill using several different
gears and you will quickly understand that
you have a power curve too.
Human bodies can do much more complicated
actions. After all for a car or a bike, the power
just spins a wheel. In our ordinary life we
walk and run and jump and do gymnastics and
lots of very complicated stuff. We have a lot of moving parts
and because of our very complex motions the power curve for
the human body can be very narrow. For a complex action like
a push or a strike it is not even a curve really - it is a spike and
has an extremely sharp peak. To be even near the peak you need
to keep every joint and muscle in your body in its best natural
alignment while performing a motion. This is lot you need to get
really right and it requires development of sensitivity to internal
sensations to recognize what it feels like when you are close.
What makes it more difficult is that in the beginning some of
these physical skills and internal feelings may be under your
radar. Until you look you may not even be aware that they can
exist.
Most of us spend our whole lifetime learning to get on our
curve at all. We nurture our own skills well enough that we can
live, go to work, have some fun and get on with our life. Think
of how we as children learned to walk and run. We spend the
first twelve years getting to the point where we could walk and
run somewhat like an adult and more years training to be even a
mediocre track runner. Most of us do not get near the true peak
except by accident or through very dedicated training.
So how do we get from OK to our peak level? A driver in a
racing car has instruments to tell him when the engine is at
maximum power and an assortment of gears to deliver that
power to the road. All we have is our minds interpreting the
feelings and sensations from our bodies. These feelings are
often masked and confused by our emotions and preconceptions.
We human beings have too many moving parts to have a simple
mechanical understanding of our maximum efficiency. We
must develop our personal instruments by learning to recognize
the integrated, internal sensations that announce that we are
approaching a higher performance state. And then we learn to
allow our bodies to move to that feeling. So we need to develop
the skills internally, on our own, by training our minds to listen
to our bodies and recognize the moments when the power from
being more natural is present.
Well great, if it is so well hidden how do we get into that state
so we can recognize it, feel it and make it internal? One strategy
is to just poke around and hope for some luck. That seems
to be too common an approach and it is not too successful.
If it worked better everyone would be like the exceptional
few and I would not be writing this. There is another strategy
with demonstrated success for those who follow it. It is a
slow and long process but one that reliably moves you in the
right direction. Simply it is this. You perform some exercise
or technique that lets your body tell you how to get better.
This is an important role of the single person kata in many
martial styles. Over time, as you respond to your own body’s
instruction, you improve. As you improve, your body upgrades
the instructions and sometimes introduces new subjects for your
attention. Such attentive practice is called “mindful” and the
process is the cycle of internal development.
There is a wide range of training choices. One way is to
repetitively perform a very simple task that you can do alone,
without a partner. Before you start you may not have been
paying much attention to how you feel when doing the task.
Appropriate tasks are easy enough that you can feel when you
are doing them well or when you are doing them badly. Start
practicing at your present best, as slowly as possible and with
many repetitions. Listen to your feelings and let your body’s
response guide your practice and modify how you perform the
task. Everyone is lazy and your body does not want to work
hard. So to avoid getting tired it will guide you to perform more
efficient actions. Thoughtful analysis and external directions
from coaches may help you in the beginning but they will only
get you in the general ballpark. At some point your own feelings
must be your coach. No one can do this for you. You must do it
for yourself.
In martial arts and many other sports being at your peak is
associated with being in your best balance and keeping the
frame of your skeleton in its best alignment. So for jujitsu,
tasks that involve balance and simple movements would be
particularly useful. To illustrate the process I will discuss a
practice I have done for some time. It is a very simple exercise.
You stand in one spot in a relaxed manner, hands at your side,
feet evenly apart in your best posture. Breath slowly and evenly.
Stand for as long as you have time and keep doing it for weeks
and months and at every opportunity. You can get external
instruction in this practice from some DZR instructors and
many Tai Chi instructors. They may also show you other hand
positions, breathing patterns or other simple movements like
walking with the same relaxed balance.
I will only discuss stationary standing for now but the same
comments apply to the movement exercises. While standing,
pay attention to what you feel. Sometimes your body will
shift into a new, better posture with no instructions from your
thinking mind. Let it happen. Stationary standing is called being
in stillness. Be still and let your body tell you how you should
be. The more you practice the more sensitive you will become
to the condition of your body and how it is interacting with
the world. Is it windy? Is the ground hard or soft, sloping or
level? These and many other things will start to be part of your
body’s position and your thinking awareness. As you develop,
your awareness will continue to grow, your calm mind will be
enhanced and you will open to an even deeper sensitivity. All
these things bring you closer to your peak.
When you begin your practice, you will be at your personal
best for that moment. Then, as training continues, your internal
understanding of what is best will evolve. At the same time
your body will evolve as well. You will develop strength in
areas that you may not have even realized were weak. You will
develop an extended range of motion in tight joints, and you
will be confortable in positions that would have been stressful
before you began training. Every person has a unique body size,
strength, and range of motion. We will not look exactly alike
when we are at our personal best. Also our personal best during
our training will evolve into a state closer to our best possible
state for our frame. Today my posture and practice is much
different from when I began. It has become more like the natural
posture we described earlier. But I never tried to change. I just
changed. Remember a coach externally directing you to an exact
posture is helpful but cannot beat your body telling you what
feels the strongest. Your body knows you best.
That both mind and body develop together was brought home to
me by an injury. I recently broke my foot and had a long period
of recovery wearing a cast. Once the cast was off, simple actions
that that I had been doing well such as walking slowly still
worked great for my good foot. My recovering foot was another
matter. It was difficult to find the balance my mind knew should
be there. From my training I knew what balance I needed but
the strength in my foot and ankle was too weak to hold me
in place. After returning to practice, eventually my two sides
f inally became equal again. It is the same when you’re starting
to practice. In the beginning full core strength is lacking. So
physical strength is then developed over time as your awareness
leads you to require it. Your body trains your mind and your
mind trains your body.
Once you start to get it, once you begin to understand the feeling
of high efficiency for some simple motion, then the difficult
process of bringing that feeling into all of your other activities
begins. Most of us stand around a lot and we can stand in our
best posture as well as any other. You can make practice into
habit and isolated habits into general ones. If you have figured
out how to stand with very good balance why stand any other
way? If you can walk slowly with very good balance why walk
any other way?
Only when you can do those things well by yourself is it time to
put them into action with another person. This usually presents
new challenges. You have spent serious effort to achieve some
level of integration of your mind and your body. As soon as
another individual enters the situation your mind is caught by
that change. Your mind has abandoned integration with your
body and you may not even have the sensitivity to notice. So
you become mentally excited and drift away from your natural
calm mind and loose your natural body position. Any distraction
will have this effect. Try standing or walking on an elevated
curb and if you are surprised to find your balance challenged
you will see what I mean. It is even more difficult to keep in
your best state when you are in contact with another person.
When you are able to notice that you are affected, bring yourself
back to your simpler practice. Keep returning to your internal
peak.
The transition to performing natural, efficient actions without
thought as your normal habit does not happen quickly. It
requires a constant mindful awareness of actions that you may
already feel that you do with some significant level of skill. As
you train and live constantly ask the question “Do I feel close
to my best, my peak, at this instant? Am I really on balance
and tension free? OK what about now, …. and now?” When
the answer is, “far from my peak here,” then see if you can fix
it. The more often you try the more often you will succeed and
the more aware you will become. Good habits are trainable
and they are a distinguishing characteristic of the exceptional
practitioner. These exceptional individuals always attempt to
be at their present personal best while constantly striving to be
better tomorrow. The sooner you start the better you will be. I
am working on it too.
This article was published in the Spring 2014 issue of the Kiai Echo.
The Kiai Echo
The Kiai Echo is the newsletter of the American Judo and Jujitsu Federation (AJJF), a non-profit educational organization that promotes Danzan Ryu Jujitsu, a classical Japanese martial art. Selected articles have been reproduced on this web site. The Kiai Echo Editor will post contest results and Black Belt promotions immediately as they are received. These will be published online and promoted via social media (Facebook and Twitter). They will not be password protected, but will be immediately publicly available. By the time this material is submitted to the Kiai Echo, it has already been approved by the appropriate BOP members, and thus requires no further approval process. Traditional articles, as well as anything that is not native to print (i.e. podcasts, video, 3D animations, etc.), will go through an approval process.
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