Shizentai and Hidden Dangers

As my body gets older and the effects of bad movement, sports martial arts, wild "stunts", and injuries begin to really show, I am finding incredible value in how natural Soke's movement is.  Instead of learning another waza, I prefer to spend my training time focusing on how to make what I know that much more efficient and natural.  In a nutshell, I am focused on the ergonomics of how I move and finding that small adjustments make big differences.  Often, these little anti-ergo habits go unnoticed, especially when youth and health can compensate or hide the negative effects.  But, time will eventually win, as repeated stress on joints and connective tissues begin to wear away natural structure and movement.  Recovery becomes more difficult and takes longer to complete, so the wear and tear compounds into each training session, each bad movement, until eventually something blows out or injury happens from a seemingly minor action.

There are many ergo-mistakes I see in how people move, in class and on video.  I'm no expert, I don't have a doctorate in these things, but I have enough direct experience in how NOT to move and what effects it has on the body to know what I mean.  It doesn't take a university course to learn these things.  Our own bodies speak to us constantly, if we listen closely.  I am finding that I can 'hear' my body telling me when something isn't natural or ergonomic.

The same is also true for my own internal health, what I eat, how I control my emotions and thoughts, etc.  But, that's for another time to discuss.  I want to focus on physical movement, or what we know as taijutsu.

Since the base of our taijutsu exists in our legs and how we move using them, I will write about one particular area that many in the West are commonly prone to injure - the knees.  More specifically, the inside and outside ligaments of the knee (commonly known as ACL & PCL).  I'm sure either you or someone you know has injuries related to one or both of these ligaments.  In addition, there are injuries that involve the cap itself not seating correctly when the knee is flexed, the crunching sound from knee deterioration and calcium buildup, and other nasty ailments that strip a person from enjoying natural, balanced and free movement.

There are lots of things that we can look at here, but I'm going to present something most Bujinkan budoka should be familiar with.  From our very first class, we are introduced to posture such as Ichimonji no Kamae or Seigan no Kamae.  More specifically, the 90 degree "L" shape of the feet (and the opening angles that extend farther).  We are taught the importance of keeping the knees aligned over the toes and the hips and shoulder aligned over that.  Most practice this as a static 'pose' to work on alignment and flexibility, which is good.  It is when we move that problems begin.

Here's a typical example:  The student steps back into the classic "L" shaped kamae (let's say Ichimonji no Kamae).  Then, they shift their weight forward to launch that rear handed strike (like Ichimonji no Kata or Sui no Kamae).  Where ergo/natural movement breaks down is in the transfer of position from back to front, the middle moment when the body turns to face front.  If you watch closely, often you'll see a collapse of the rear knee inward, the rear foot moving either little to none, then the step forward.  For that brief moment, instead of the rear knee joint holding weight evenly between both inside and outside points of the joint, there's a shift of pressure to the inside joint, causing stress against the ligaments and structure.  It's at that moment that wear and tear happens and the joint is vulnerable.  If the ground changes, something or someone strikes that point, or the joint itself is already stressed to the point of blowing out, then things can go real bad.  Couple that with the fact that what will happen next in the movement sequence is a lift of weight off the leg, a planting of the foot to the front, then sudden weight reapplied as the rear foot now becomes the front foot and the strike delivered to the target.  At that moment, any weakened tissues in that joint are now required to load body weight and momentum.  Often, this is where the person also will stop their motion, as they complete the strike/technique.  This involves increased stress as the 'brakes' are put on to stop the momentum.  The muscles around the knee flex to absorb the weight and motion, while pushing back into the body to counter the inertia.  If the knee is not aligned properly, that is further stress against a knee joint that already has been stressed when the movement first started.

You see the compounding problem here, and it all starts with how you start moving.

There are many ways to reduce the stress to your knees in how you would move from back to front.  This is, in my opinion, what kuden (oral teaching) is for.  Some things you just can't explain in a text book.  It has to be felt, seen, and explained person to person.  There are so many variables to this that no one way is sufficient to be a fix-all to every person.  But, there are a few things you can do now to help reduce these dangers and add more natural, ergo-friendly movement to your taijutsu:

• Pay attention to your knees!  You can feel the pull or stress on your joints if you slow down enough.  Example:  Stand in Ichimonji no Kamae with the "L" shape foot pattern.  Take your lead arm (should be extended out front) and, using your body, turn your body to the inside and outside as if you are painting a horizontal line with your lead hand.  As you do this, pay attention to the inside and outside of your knees.  Do you feel pressure building and releasing on the inside, outside, or both sides of your knees?  That's a warning.
• Try keeping your knees over your toes and using the flexibility of your hips, where the thigh connects to the hip, to open up to allow for the turn.  You may feel your rear glute (butt cheek muscle) flex as you do so, but that's ok for now.  See if you can point your belly button forward without causing stress to the inside of your rear knee.
• If you are going to do the step back and step forward action really quickly, don't turn out your rear foot so much.  This is controversial to purists, but it is a way to keep your rear knee pointing halfway forward already so that you can spring forward into your strike without having to stress the inside of the knee in the sudden transfer.  What is interesting is that one of the senior Japanese teachers I trained with while in Japan taught a version of Jumonji no Kamae that uses this kind of half-step/half-turn positioning of the rear food (as opposed to the "L" shape).  I have taught Jumonji no Kamae what way ever since, as a halfway point to Ichimonji no Kamae, with the option to spring forward (or any angle, actually).  Again, some may not agree or do it this way, so it's up to you to experiment and find what feels more natural to you and allows you to move efficiently.

There are other examples and solutions, but I am not one to teach via the internet.  What is important is that you are aware of the little warnings your body tells you and to adapt accordingly.  We are all built differently and each of us has our own limits, whether developmental or caused by injury.  Real shizentai or 'natural body' is when you embrace those limits and either evolve through them (limited by skill development) or evolve around them (limited by injury or handicap).  True budo is about survival, to 'keep going' (gambatte) and the root of it all is how we adapt to find the most efficient method to achieve not just peace in our environment and our lives, but peace in our own body.  Train slowly and with mindfulness to what 'conflicts' we are having in our own bodies and find how little adjustments can prevent, reduce and even eliminate these stressors that only cause long term injury and steal the natural, ergonomic body movement we seek.

Train hard - train smart - live well.

Darren