Stupid Shit

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Over the years I have been exposed to, witnessed and even performed some pretty stupid shit in karate/martial arts. Today, at age 60+, I have considered all sorts of things in karate and martial disciplines done in the past that has taught me that karate-ka/martial artists do some pretty stupid shit. Why do we humans do stupid shit. 

In this article I look at the act of sensei stepping/jumping on the stomachs of students doing floor exercises like sit-ups or leg lifts. Here follows some of the reasons given for this type of training.

• The only purpose I can think of would be to inspire you to strengthen your abdominal muscles …
• The only thing I could think of was that it will condition the body, because I have seen other martial arts (primarily on tv) where they would hit people hard in order to make sure their body is used to getting hit.
• i have been put though hard body training. which is what the old school masters used to help train the body to get used to getting hit and take pain. the main reason for this is that its theres an good chance that you well get hit. hard body well help you turn your pain into power.
• I suspect that yr instructor was stepping on yr diaphragm rather than yr abdomen. The diaphragm is a very thick, strong band of muscle that runs the entire transverse section of yr trunk. 
• the instructor is possibly using it as an endurance technique, basically just seeing how much the boys could handle. 
• the reason he stepped on us, just to show off the fact that he doesn't play around.

In the end, there isn’t any reason why one should or would allow another person to deliberately put their entire weight on their midsection, it just serves no purpose I can determine. 

As an inspirational tool to strengthen your stomach, well, not so much. As a program that requires strength, stamina, endurance, ability both mental and physical and a need to experience getting hit, etc., this does not add to that requirement nor does it benefit you when you encounter a hit or kick to the stomach. In this, sanchin works better to prep you and your body. I also advocate that to utilize your body and its natural armor you need to focus on moving and deflecting. To have the ability to have a hit or kick or standing of heavy weight on the stomach does not prep you for the fight. 

It does not train you to use sanchin dynamic tension and movement and deflection when encountering the chaos adrenal stress-conditions of fighting or defense in the fly and while moving, being moved, and along with things like surprise, etc. 

As to body conditioning the exercises you do along with dynamic tensioning and hands-on drills the stress your body and mind in a variety of ways with a variety of methodologies tends to train and stress your body to handle all kinds of variations that require strong muscles, tendons and other things that protect against grave harm, etc. 

Hard body training tends to focus on the bodies natural armor and that includes a focus on areas of the body that  are meant to be protection against violent actions be it hits, kicks or a car accident. The actual methods and targets best suited to end a physical attack or confrontation are not exactly the kind of areas on the body you want to expose to such training methods. 

Take the karate knuckles, when in the heat of an attack the chances that the adrenal stress-conditioned effects felt in the body to allow you to hit with the precisions, remember precision is one of the degraded abilities suffered in adrenal chemical dumps, necessary for effectiveness in ending an attack are rare even with experienced professionals. 

As to the diaphragm vs. stomach that is more of a misdirection of rhetoric to take the mind away from the original question toward benefits of such training methods. It is not about training in a manner that allows preparations and forewarning of the actions but rather about the body surviving surprised blitz like attacks that disrupt, unbalance and create havoc in the mind, i.e., causing a freeze and an OODA OD loop, etc.

Endurance techniques are great to train and build the body for strength, stamina and health, etc., but their true nature is to provide the body and mind enough so the energy of the attacked lasts long enough to remove themselves from the situation often in a manner of minutes. I have personally witnessed some who in training are far superior to others but in the clinch when a real attack happens they are exhausted and depleted of energy, power and force in a manner of minutes at most allowing a smarter attacker to be successful. In a nutshell, such attackers know way ahead of time that the attacked is going down and they are assured of success before the first blow is delivered. 

There is no reason that I can find anywhere as to the need for or benefit of stepping on the stomach. Now, as to jumping on the stomach, are you serious? Are you stupid to allow someone to do that? 

There is a lot more stupid shit out there than this simplistic example and when I come across more I will write an opinion piece on it here.

p.s. if you want to condition your abdominals for being hit there is only one way I would advocate, i.e., while doing leg lifts use your losely clenched fist to tap-tap-tap the stomach during the exercise. You feel the hit on the skin, you allow the muscle to flex a bit through the vibrations from the light hitting and you learn to use the dynamic tension of the exercise to prep you for when you do sanchin, i.e., tense the muscles, etc.

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“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)