room or on a dusty road out in the boonies.
I consider these experiences, which went from 1965 to 1970, to be my formative years in the martial arts. They were to instill in me the value of training alone, something that has remained throughout the decades of my learning and teaching the martial arts. I’m convinced that 1/4 of the skill I’ve developed over the years, and 3/4 of the knowledge I have learned about myself, are a result of my spending time alone with my fighting art.
Although, I’ve always stressed training alone to my students, I’m not so naive to think that they all take my advice, though it’s always obvious to me who does. For example, sometimes I’ll suggest to a student that he work by himself on a special problem he is having or on something that he wants to improve, and within just two weeks, I can see whether he followed my advice. I especially delight in those times when I notice that a student’s basic techniques, sparring, jujitsu, or arnis suddenly looks dramatically better than it did three weeks prior. “What have you been doing?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
The student usually blushes happily, and says, “You always say for us to train by ourselves, so I’ve been training a couple of extra days at home. I think it’s really helped.”
“Well, I know it has,” I say. “Already there is a definite improvement.”
Just as I have always encouraged my students to train alone, I want to encourage you to do the same. Those few minutes, just once or twice a week, that you devote to your fighting art outside of your normal class training, will give you returns on your effort many times over. Training alone will increase your knowledge of your fighting art’s concepts, principles and techniques, and greatly increase your awareness of your inner strengths and weaknesses and physical strengths and weaknesses.
My purpose in writing Solo Training was not to replace your regular class instruction, but rather give you a valuable training concept that complements what your teacher is giving you. My intention was to not only cram the book with lots of training ideas that you can do by yourself when you can’t make it to class, or when you want to train extra on material specific to your needs, but also to introduce you to some things that might be new to you.
There is nothing engraved in stone here, so feel free to modify the material as you see fit. If you cannot do something because of a physical limitation, teach it to someone else who might benefit. If you find something here that does not appeal to you, at least give it a try before you discard it. You just might be surprised and discover that it’s the one thing that you have been looking for. Analyze the material to see how you can apply it to your particular fighting system, whether it’s karate, kung fu, taekwondo, or whatever. If there is a technique or exercise that contradicts the way your style does it, but you find that you like the way it works, use it. Hey, I won’t tell anyone in your school if you don’t.
In closing this Introduction, let me encourage you to be creative in your training and to always question what you hear and read. I made the mistake in my early years of accepting blindly everything I was taught. That cost me a lot of time in my training.
A WORD ON THE WRITING
I use the word “karate” in the book as a generic way to refer to all the kick/punch arts: karate, taekwondo, kung fu and so on. I use “he” instead of the awkward he/she. I hope no one is offended by these writing techniques.
I know a champion fighter whose idea of warming up prior to a hard sparring session is to shake his legs a little and shrug his shoulders a couple times, if he does anything at all. Most of the time he just jumps right into the fray as soon as he ties on his belt. Does this mean that it’s okay not to warm up? It definitely does not. My friend has just been lucky so far. One of these days, a cold muscle is going to go “Twang!” sending him to the sidelines for several months.
Keep in mind that your body may not be telling your brain the truth. Your legs, back and shoulders may feel loose and ready, especially on warm summer days, but it’s still vitally important that you thoroughly warm up before you begin stressing your muscles, tendons and joints with kicks, punches and leaps. That readiness you feel as you change out of your street clothes into your training gear is a mix of enthusiasm and adrenaline. Don’t let that fool you into believing that your body is ready. It isn’t.
A proper warm up extends your endurance, prevents injuries and helps you achieve your training objective.
BUILD YOUR ENDURANCE
If you have ever warmed up by simply shaking your legs and shrugging your shoulders a couple of times, and then jumped right into a wild sparring session, you probably found yourself gasping for wind a few minutes later. The reason? You didn’t properly prepare your heart, that all-important muscle that pumps oxygenated blood to all your moving parts. When your heart is included in your warm up, you are better prepared for the aerobic stress of sparring or vigorous kata.
WARD OFF INJURIES
When all your body parts are well lubricated and moving smoothly from your warm up, you dramatically reduce the chance of injury. Think of your cold muscles, tendons and ligaments as being fragile as glass, and when you put excessive strain on them, they are at risk of breaking.
Your warm up needs to elevate your internal temperature a few degrees, elevate your pulse and respiration rate and get all your moving parts well lubricated. Even when you have reached this state, you should still hold off for a few minutes from doing those super-low stances and throwing kicks and punches that require hard snapping. Don’t think of this as babying yourself or as not being macho. Think of it as training smart. There is no such thing as a Joints and Tendons are Us store where you can get replacements.
That rip you feel in your hamstring muscle is nature’s way of saying that you should have warmed up more before throwing high kicks.
ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS
When your body is properly warmed and lubricated in preparation for your training, your techniques will flow more smoothly and be faster and stronger. The better you move, the more you improve. But when your muscles are cold, you move stiffly and awkwardly and improvement slows or doesn’t occur at all.
THE MEDITATION WARM UP
I’m a firm believer in meditation, but I don’t like doing it in the traditional seiza posture, that position where you kneel onto your knees and sit back on your heels. I’ve been in some schools where it’s done after the warm-up and prior to the drills. The instructor tells the students to assume the sitting posture, close their eyes and have a moment of silence to prepare their brains for the learning that is to follow. This is all good and fine until the students have to get to their feet and begin a hard kicking drill. Their legs are stiff, maybe asleep and the kicks hurt for a few reps. Even the strict traditionalists know that this is risky to legs. Aikido teacher, Gakku Homma, says in his book Aikido for Life, “If you sit in seiza for a long time, your feet will go to sleep, so you cannot get up and move around easily for a while.”
Don’t use seiza as part of your warm up, because you are not warming anything at
