"Relax, you’re very stiff…"

[yli]

Long story short, one of my instructors said that I was very stiff in my techniques and needed to relax. How do I do that, especially if I’m exhausted from all the stress techniques that I keep getting blasted with?

I’m going to work on my conditioning in the next two months leading up to my L1 belt test so that I won’t be under so much physiological stress from being forced to do burpees right in the middle of pad drills, allowing me the chance to be a bit more conscious about my technique and letting me breathe a bit easier.

Anyone got any other tips for relaxation in general?

[tacticaltimmy]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

I’m not a Krav instructor, but it sounds like you’re contracting a ton of muscles around your body and keeping them that way for long periods of time, which slows and stiffens your technique. Shadow box a little bit or hit a bag and while doing so, concentrate on keeping everything you’re not using to perform a technique relaxed. As an example, we’ll use a rear leg knee strike from the clinch. You only need to keep your arms a little tight to maintain the clinch, mostly the forearms; you’ll need your hip flexors and abs to pull your knee up and your hamstrings a little bit to keep your foot back. Your calf shouldn’t be at maximum contraction or it will inhibit movement and speed.

[coda-vex]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

You may also want to work on your mobility. Kelly Starett of Crossfit Sanfrancisco has a daily stretch/exercise that has helped a lot of athletes.

http://www.mobilitywod.com/

[unstpabl1]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

I just posted something that may be of help to you in the Failed P1 Thread

When you tell someone to Relax it actually has the opposite effect in most cases. a very bright actor/director/teacher named Michael Chekhov understood this psychological truth and gave the actor an Image or a FOCUS, which was move with a feeling of Ease. I sometimes use Lightness and Ease

So WTF does this have to do with you:wav:

If you look at great fighters you’ll notice that their techs FLOW out of them. All great actors?athletes make the HARD look EASY

In most cases beginners look stiff/rigid/uncordinated because they think fighting is about stregth/speed/power/pure aggression but never about flow or ease> So they FOCUS on Power and speed from day one and pay lip service to proper form. They hide the flaws with speed. and they simply TRY too hard

The USMC has a saying Fast Is Slow. Smooth is fast! So you can see the importance in a life or death situation they place on Smoothness or MOVING WITH A FEELING OF EASE.

So how do you develope that? By learning or relearning all your techniques with mindfulness. Or better still using the Image of moving with a feeling of ease or flowing thru water or smooth is fast. most people have the mental image of pounding through cement and they move like that;):

Try it use the image or turn it into a mantra and watch how everything improves.

The whole Tao is based on the concept of effortless effort. There is even the Law of Diminishing returns which states the harder you try to do something the harder it becomes. In the end we can’t out perform our mental images so we might as well reprogram those that serve us:woohoo:

[tacticaltimmy]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

quote unstpabl1:

The USMC has a saying Fast Is Slow. Smooth is fast! So you can see the importance in a life or death situation they place on Smoothness or MOVING WITH A FEELING OF EASE.

Correction:
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” I can agree on being smooth and flowing. +10 on the mobility wod page, it came in very handy for eliminating some pain I’ve been having on my shins and calves during and after running that a warmup and static stretching alone weren’t helping.

[unstpabl1]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

quote TacticalTimmy:

Correction:
“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” I can agree on being smooth and flowing. +10 on the mobility wod page, it came in very handy for eliminating some pain I’ve been having on my shins and calves during and after running that a warmup and static stretching alone weren’t helping.

Yeah I kinda thought that statement wasn’t right. Kept it because the Smoothness was what I was relating to The FEELING OF EASE concept.Thank you for the correct quote

[don]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

I think there’s an erectile dysfunction/Viagra/relationship joke in here somewhere… 😉

[unstpabl1]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

quote Don:

I think there’s an erectile dysfunction/Viagra/relationship joke in here somewhere… 😉

thumbsup Or one of those new his/hers KY commercials

[dkatman]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

Fantasic post Mike!

Yli, I remember hearing that…mores, my shoulders looked too tense. I could only respond that the other guy was trying to hit me…it was a very tense situation. 🙂

They were pointing out to me that I was expending too much energy while just standing there.

I wonder if you might benefit from slow motion drilling. I work with a particular partner who is fantastic. He will often talk about flowing like water. He is smooth. He will focus on the fluidity of the movement and talk about how it will still come out under stress.

I have found that instructors can sometimes confuse us as we are starting out with the statement to “be explosive”. I was quite certain that my fast, erratic motions were very explosive. If you have an agreement with your partner that you want to cut down to half speed, you may benefit. Forget about explosive. Just go through the proper motions as you want them to flow from you. After some repetition, trying increasing the speed.

Good Luck,

Dave

[unstpabl1]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

quote DKatman:

Fantasic post Mike!

Yli, I remember hearing that…mores, my shoulders looked too tense. I could only respond that the other guy was trying to hit me…it was a very tense situation. 🙂

They were pointing out to me that I was expending too much energy while just standing there.

I wonder if you might benefit from slow motion drilling. I work with a particular partner who is fantastic. He will often talk about flowing like water. He is smooth. He will focus on the fluidity of the movement and talk about how it will still come out under stress.

I have found that instructors can sometimes confuse us as we are starting out with the statement to “be explosive”. I was quite certain that my fast, erratic motions were very explosive. If you have an agreement with your partner that you want to cut down to half speed, you may benefit. Forget about explosive. Just go through the proper motions as you want them to flow from you. After some repetition, trying increasing the speed.

Good Luck,

Dave

i workout with a guy in my gym who taught standup back east and did a few amatuer mma. He training a friend and trying to expand that. I train with him because he’s good and I watched him bring this kid up from total crap to holding his own in 2 months

We do a lot of slow work…slow sparring and exchange combo work for lack of a better term. We square up and 1 guy throws whatrver combos he likes then the other does. I’ve learned more from this guy in a month than the whole 6 months prior because you learn how to apply it.

Speed kills good tech when learning anything

[spike182]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

Coda Vex – thanks for the link to mobilitywod.com. Awesome techniques for eliminating the pain I always have in my shoulders from bad techniques when I lift.

[coda-vex]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

quote Spike182:

Coda Vex – thanks for the link to mobilitywod.com. Awesome techniques for eliminating the pain I always have in my shoulders from bad techniques when I lift.

Awesome bro. Glad it’s working out for you.

[janboss]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

We really need to relax guys in our day to day activities in our life and we know that our body needs it.

[yli]

Re: "Relax, you’re very stiff…"

I’ve figured out a way to relax a bit.

Dance.

I danced in high school. No reason I can’t dance at the gym.

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