The Benefits of a Good Warmup
SBN Ramón Navarro
After so many years of training in the martial arts, I realized that warm-ups are healthier if you start from the top down. That is, starting with the neck and going down until you are sitting doing the seated stretches. Martial arts depending on where they are from have a custom depending on the place. For example, the Japanese arts, after warming up, make hands or blocks and then blows to then do kicks. Korean styles after warm-up we do kicks then blocks and punches. That is traditional and the truth is that there is no way to prove what I say is good. Only by doing it this way that I suggest and in two weeks you will find out if it is working for you or not. When finished, a cool down should be done. Usually these exercises are done by stretching, so you get to the point of the exercise and stay there giving it about 10 times and think that this will make you more flexible but this does not work for everyone. What causes is that when the body is warmed up it can for example kick higher but this is not flexibility. When you do your exercises and in the position in which you stretch
the least, you should do it two times a maximum of four times, it is only necessary that you end up stretching instead of looking for flexibility. Speaking about the more times you stretch in the class is not enough, although it is enough to do it every day even if they are not coming every day to the Academy, Dojo or Dojang well gym. By custom in many schools is to do sit-ups and push-ups in the warm-up session. The sit-ups calm the body of energy and that is it cools the body so these should be done in the cool-down at the end of the class. The pushups warm the body so these should not be done at the end of the class or training is they call it practice. Let's remember that the martial arts is more than a sport, it is for life and you do not have to rush or allow yourself to feel bad if things do not seem to go well for you and this happens because it is a development that is it takes time, effort and work with goals plus most importantly don't give up. What about the forms, Kata or Hyung like Tul or PoomSae (PumSe) are the activities that will allow you to
master them then you are prepared to pass the exam and then this belt that represents the range in which you find yourself is in stages or colored ribbons and when go to the levels that are called Dan or Black Belt, most martial arts have up to the 10th Dan. The normal thing is that there should only be a single 10th Dan no more since that person if he has not inventor of a new art should not have that degree. It does not matter if he is the one who runs an organization be it large or small but was not the inventor or creator. This that different entities or organizations exist are not of a single art and should not give ranks to people, students or instructors as to teachers who are not of the same art. Nor should there be that when you get to First Dan with two years of being in that rank you can be a candidate to go to the 2nd Dan and three years here to go to the 3rd Dan or more ranks with those non-logical times. Also today students or parents are the ones who want to ask to be tested so because they ask for it. The truth should be when the instructor or teacher decides. This about the
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