Muscling It

Kin'nikushitsu [筋肉質]  Sore [それ] (筋肉質それ)

We, or would it be better if I stated “I”, tend to give a huge belief effort on our muscles, muscling it if you will, as the chief answer to dealing with the more competitive side of human physicality - especially in the self defense and combative aspects. So much so there is an entire effort and industry to building muscle mass along with strength. I spent a ton of time, effort, sweat equity and a bit of pain and blood to build my muscles that took me far beyond what nature intended since she provided me with a specific body type (read this). 

Often, this pension toward muscling it often leaves us dependent on it to “get-r-done” rather than using our creativity and cleverness, on the side lines. Ever hear the ancients in the dojo say how they have to learn to be sneaky 😈 to keep up with the young pups? There are so many clever and sneaky ways to go beyond just strength to be successful in say, “defending self and others!” 

Like leverage, like gravity and like emotional maturity., and many other concepts and methods.

Yes, there are many martial disciplines available that focus on just these kind of things like knowing that the body has ball and joints, pivot points, and so on that can be manipulated in such a way, just to take bigger stronger antagonist and put them on the ground, hard!

It is such a shame, personally, I didn’t come to this conclusion, in my very early years of Marshall training.

As with mini in my age bracket that light didn’t come on until the last decade or so, i.e., entering into those winter years of life and Marshall, practice of the age 60 and older.

Here is an example, both my wife and I are in our 70s, and our new house requires quite a bit of labor and I can’t tell you how many times I’ll see my wife struggling so I go over ask her if she’d like a little recommendation, and if she says yes I tell her how to use her body efficiently, so the smaller muscles and the less strength that she has, compared to me, allows her to move, lift, and handle much heavier workload than the way she was doing on her own. It was like a light going off in her head saying, wow, very cool.

In my own case, I have felt lucky over the years that many things seem insurmountable physically by being a tiny, bit clever and using a little bit of creativity, I was able to do things like, move an entire floor of furniture From one side of a building to another by myself with only a handcart I’m talking well over 1000 ft.² of furniture to include desks, chairs, safes, and other things. Often to the amazement of the employees coming back to work after a weekend finding that the movementof their office stuff was done so fast and by one person.

I remember several instances while stationed in the Marines on the island of Okinawa, handling three or more people in violent situations because I was able to be creative efficient and effective and applying certain methods and methodologies.

I remember one instance when I was taking a squad of marines Out to a training area when one of them had apparently got an agreement the other six or seven to do something involving me, a corporal. As we dismounted from the vehicle, suddenly I was surrounded by several and because of my training, and that cleverness and efficient use of my body. I was able to start throwing one to three and four guys around Blocking other guys from getting to me until finally they just gave up ending the incident.

Yes, I was strong and muscular and I knew how to muscle things, but apparently nature gave me this insight that allowed me to adjust to such things, so I wouldn’t get my head, caved in, thrown out of second-story window by a group of Marines, or bludgeons to death with a 2 x 4 on my head, along with setting my bunk on fire.

Upon reflection, I think the reason I was able to be clever, creative efficient and effective in the use of my body, as well as my mind in my spirit, is because growing up as a youth, I tended to go around with people who were kind of mean and violent, rough and tumble , so hanging around with those guys and being subjected to certain things that happened gave me that experience that I gave little thought to the allowing me to be less muscular or muscle it so I could carry that over my martial art practices.

Developing the body is a good thing and doing so within the parameters set by nature, such as within one’s body type, along with both mind and spirit maximizes one’s true abilities and to limit exceeding those parameters will prevent inadvertently creating limitations such as being, “muscle bound” due to overextending body types, etc.

To be well-rounded, to be balanced, or to achieve perfect balance of yin-yang ☯️ will achieve great things for any individual who takes up the sword ⚔️!