Relax, dammit!

I like to compare karate and taiko a lot, because those are my two chosen disciplines. There are enough differences and similarities between the two to do a blog on nothing but! Still, after nearly 17 years of taiko and about 10 years of karate, there's one HUGE similarity, one that ties into every technique, every strike, every movement.

Relaxation!

More specifically, I mean tension and release, when to generate which, and how to do it without thinking. If you can do that, whether you're hitting someone or something, you've done an amazing feat. There are a lot of things that are directly affected by being/not being relaxed:

• tempo
• muscle stress
  
• flexibility
  
• fluidity
• control
  
• strength
• endurance
• need I go on?

Ultimately, we're trying to generate power of some sort, but holding tension in the wrong place and/or for too long limits that power. Try some of these on for size (don't hurt yourself!):

1. Play a song/do a drill/do a form while over-tensing your lower body only (hips to feet). Then repeat without the tension.
   
2. As above, but over-tense up your neck and shoulders only.
3. As above, but over-tense up your arms and hands only.
4. As above, but over-tense up everything!

Didn't it feel good on the second time through, when you didn't have that excess tension? Most people won't play with THAT much tension, but the idea is to recognize where you hold yours and how it feels when you do. Another thing you'll realize - and this is important - is that when you tensed one area of your body, everything else was affected. You hold tension in your shoulders? Your striking is affected. You hold tension in your wrists? Your mobility is affected.

Beginners in karate tend to punch with tension from the beginning, hold tension through the execution, hold it during the impact, and hold it after the punch has ended. Beginning taiko players tend to lift their arm up with tension, bring it down with tension, hit with tension, and maintain tension after the strike. This is both extremely inefficient and "dulls" the technique. You can't get a good sound or a good hit this way!

I think people use too much tension because they want to control everything as much as possible. That's not just a beginner's mistake, however. "Control" through excess tension is like writing "better" by pushing a pencil into the paper harder. By understanding your body, you'll know where things want to go without needing to correct every single impulse. Note the following two examples and realize that once initiated, the motion is automatic.

Think of a leather whip. It's supple and only dangerous at the tip. As it uncoils, there's little tension, but the kinetic energy generated by the wielder races down the length until the end flicks out with all that stored energy. What if we added excess tension to the whip? What if it was stiff, tight leather rather than loose? It would take a LOT more strength to generate a good snap at the end, and nearly impossible to match what a loose whip could do.

Think of a baseball pitcher, winding up, twisting at the hip, uncoiling the shoulder, elbow, then wrist, until the ball is nearly forced from the hand because of all that generated energy. What if we added excess tension to the pitch? The ball wouldn't have the same speed or force as the muscles worked against each other, not able to reach their maximum potential.

How do you avoid all that tension? Again, I turn to the tension drills - it's easy to feel exaggerated tension and how to drop it, right? It's deceptively easy to fix, for the most part. Breathe! Big, deep breaths of air will energize the body when you're feeling tense, and what's even more important is that it makes you aware of tension. If you're not aware of it, you can't get rid of it, period. I often tell people in workshops to "breathe!" because I can see the tension like a symptom.

Finally, we've identified that excess tension is bad, ok. So when is it good? Well, back to the whip - at the moment of POW (scientific term), that's when you need tension. Whether you're hitting taiko with the bachi or hitting a person with a jab, that split-second of tightening the muscles solidifies the limb to take the impact optimally and adds even more *oomph* (that's a scientific term, too). Without that tightening on impact, the bachi won't stay nestled in your grip or your hand will crumple hitting a target.

Master your tension so that it doesn't master you.