get tight, get loose

a painful day at the dojang. but a useful one above and beyond the usual. one of the black belt instructors gave me the tip to loosen up. you’ve got good power and speed, he said, but you are very tight in the upper body. you’ll use up a lot of energy, and it will slow you down. loosen up.

and i suddenly remembered that this was something i had been told by my sabum in new york. something i had on my current to-do list. clearly it is still very much with me. i really don’t intend to do it, but it’s absolutely true. i tried relaxing consciously after that and the same cat commented on noticing, so i knew it was possible to do it.

but after class the thought was really working on me. not in a way where i was mad at myself or anything, because that’s what training is about. loosening up where are too tight, tightening up where you are too loose, and so on. it’s a process and journey that won’t happen in a day or right away. so i do have patience overall.

but it got to me in a way where i was baffled on how to improve it. pretty much anything you can perform in taekwondo that you feel could be improved on, there is a clear idea on how to do so. exercises you can practice, movements you can repeat and repeat as many times as you want. but when i was peeling off my sweaty dobok and trying to catch my breath at the end of it all, i had to ask myself how do you train to loosen up? because clearly it is something i will have to focus on and won’t improve all by itself. and again, it interferes. and further, i need to conserve all the energy i can. not only is it smart in terms of sparring or self-defense to not be leaking energy or wasting it, but given my current project of conditioning my lungs better, i surely can’t afford to be throwing away energy.

i planned on staying after class and practicing in the dojang a little, but my chest was howling with pain at the end of class and i just wanted to get out in the wind and out of my dobok. i changed, got on my bike and rode in the sun to my apartment. for the second time (and both since i began training again) i made it up the hill without resting. but that might be due to the new bike. maybe. either way, any improvement on my lung performance makes me happy.

i got home, showered. put my dobok into the big steel bowl i use to wash it after each class, and soaked it in cold water. combed back my hair and slowly picked up some things that were laying around. enjoyed the feeling of my clean body, just worked out. my lungs weren’t hurting anymore.

i remembered back to class. i snapped into a right leg back fighting stance as if i were there again. and i felt it. when i put my guard hand up and my fist out, i tend to tighten my entire torso. shoulders to abs. damn. kidding? slow me down? it is like being rusted. i can tell my body is using strength as a way to provide power for a punch as well as a block or that guard…but i realize i am sending it to the wrong places as a habit. i am sending it in a general sense to my entire upper body. but it should rest in my hands if tension needs to exist. bruce lee hands, i thought, letting all the tautness drain out of my frame, to focus only in my forearms-to-fists. turning my arms into spears, but letting them float from the shoulder. fists as tight little nuclear nuggets awaiting a launch.

there it is. got it.

again, just to feel the contrast, i switch into my bad habit: tighten up my upper body. it’s a dense musculature i have. when i tighten it up, the whole thing gets very solid. not the goal! very hard and slow to move out of that position. to move across it with a leg, to change positions, to be fluid.

why am i doing that? i ask myself. i don’t know. the important part is that it’s a bad habit left over. or just a general tensing up. attaching the idea of tension to strength. must separate that in my mind. must learn to hold body loosely, though upright. will initiate seed of self-check. throughout day. check over and over. what parts of me are tight, unnecessarily? loosen them. check again. practice snapping into stance but staying loose up top. i seem to stay loose in the feet, bounce, move, sway. now i have to make that sensation spread to the rest of my body.

so there are two current challenges for me to work on. good!