Budo Warrior

How many times in training have you been told “Don’t use your Arm/Shoulder, Just relax and move your hips!”.

I have been told this so many times over the years that I wanted to simply pummel the person telling me this! Well if it was so easy, then why could I not do it for so many years!

After a number of years, and finally getting into the study of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, I thought I was done with this nonsense.  Only to get in the guard and have my friend and instructor Rodolfo from Brazil tell me “Leavitt, eeet is eazy my friend, jest mooove your heeeeps like dis!”   “nao use your chest and arms!”

Okay, so what the heck is going on here and why is this so important, and why can’t I do it?

Well,  big part of the problem is that we honestly believe that if we can cognitively process and imagine anything, then we can do it.  Something as simple as moving our hips should not be that difficult to do, yet when we are doing martial arts and trying to do it in a very specific and isolated way, it becomes difficult!

What I found is that physically I simply had not developed myself in a way that allowed me to do this.  BJJ helped me develop rapidily in this area because of the very nature of the way you are forced to move on the ground.  I found that my aikido training, while not incorrect in principle, would take much longer, as we simply did not spend time doing the necessary things to develop the “core”.

While athletic conditioning and core strength building are a very key piece, there is much, much more to it than that.  In many respects I have had to spend alot of time re-wiring and reprogramming my body to move appropriately.

All to “Just move my hips!”

Aikido kata and waza have been a very important part of the base of this learning/re-wiring process.  Judo and BJJ have also helped me as I learn how to apply it in a non-compliant manner.

Lately though, there have been a couple of other things that have helped a great deal.

One, is studying the principles and methods of the Alexander Technique, that was introduced to me by a friend from the Netherlands when I was training in Germany last year.  

Another was reading a book by Josh Waitzkin, “The Art of Learning”

I will write more about these specifically later.  However what both these things taught me is that my methods and paradigms of thinking and processing information and translating it in to physical action was a little off base.

I look back now at “Just move your hips” and laugh a little.  I feel fortunate now that I feel like I have a greater understanding of the process i will take to learn to move correctly in a martial context, however, I still have a long way to go!