In Russian Martial Art Systema, there is a concept called 'Breaking the Body'. When we talk about breaking the body, we're not talking about destroying it, we're talking about creating a body capable of unrestricted movement. First, we learn to recognise our restrictions and then we move within them to expand our comfortable range of movements and activities.
Breaking the Body also calls for us to learn what movements the individual parts of the body are capable of and to explore them intuitively, with a sense of fun and with an emphasis on trying new things. We're not looking for perfection, just more freedom, functionality and integrity. In Russian Martial Art, we use this type of conditioning because it improves our performance, freedom and function without leading to being bulky or tense - we also use it for rehabilitating injuries (in conjunction with breathing and energetic principles) and for 'pre-habilitation' - avoiding injury in the first place.
For everybody else, this work does.....
Exactly the same thing
There's a fantastic system of intuitive practice, largely based on Russian-style conditioning, that Scott Sonnon has put together. It's called Intu-Flow, and I use the ideas and principles of Intu-Flow in conjunction with what I know of Russian conditioning every day - and I teach a lot of it to my patients as well. This begins as a joint-conditioning exercise, but you can play with adding load to the body to gain strength as well...
Basically, we're looking at breaking the body into component parts (joint by joint) and using a systematic sequence of movement principles to individuate and explore the movements of each body part. This means that when we go to work, or play, we can achieve our desired result with a minimum of effort, and with maximum awareness of how we're doing it.
It's the same thing with all the different parts of the body, and once you understand the principles, there's almost nothing to remember, except 'Work from the head to the toes, and from the middle out'.
Here I'll present some "Basic Basics" of Intu-Flow. I am a student, not a teacher, of this system, but I know what I have done for myself and how much I have made use of the small amount of Intu-Flow knowledge I have.
So - to the principles (My version - Sonnon has more).
- Breathe, Move and Relax
- Move only to the restriction of movement or stretch, not through it
- This is play, and should be fun
- Try to find every movement that the body is capable of, in every plane of movement
- Move every part of the body, joint by joint
- Three to five of each movement in each direction is all you need
- You can do this any time, but- morning is a great time to do it
- Use your intuition and apply common sense - don't hurt yourself
- Move the whole body, and do maybe a little more often on 'problem areas'
- As long as you're awake, any time is a good time to do some intu-flow
- If a movement is restricted, focus on its opposite movement as well
- As much as possible, try to move only the part that you're up to playing with
- Slow is fast - fast is slow. This is not a competition, and isn't meant to be done at speed
- Breathe, Move and Relax
Think about the planes and ranges of the body. Planes are what we're talking about when we say up or down, left or right or front and back. Take the transverse plane, for instance. This is the plane that cuts your head off, or cuts you in half at the navel. The coronal plane slices you in half from ear to ear, down the body separating belly from back, and the sagittal plane cuts you in half between your eyes... One arm, one leg - you get the idea...
These planes will become very familiar points of reference the more you play with the body's movements - they help to limit the motion of the body so you can explore the movements more deeply.
First step - Crosses
This is like the controls for old video games - we have forwards, backwards, left and right, and move between these in straight lines.. Think about those old Nintendo controllers with the cross...
Second step - Circles
Flow from front to left, to back, to right, to front again - and the reverse. Start with small, slow and comfortable circles and focus on smoothness, not the size of the circle. When a circle is reasonably convincing and easy, make bigger circles. I think is was Sega that had a rounded, 8-directional pad on their controllers, but I could be wrong.
Third step - Infinities or Figure 8s
This is more fun - what's a figure 8 but two small circles? Flow one small circle to the front, followed by one small circle to the back in the opposite direction... One to the left, and one to the right in the opposite direction.... For extra fun, front/back and left/right can flow together, giving you clover-leaf patterns. The last of the video game analogies - this is the joystick - it can move from anywhere, to anywhere on the same plane.
That's it - those three kinds of movements - Crosses, circles and infinities - are all the movements you need to start conditioning the body's joints, add integrity to the tendons and ligaments, and increase the functional range of motion of the entire body. When you play with these movements, you'll probably be surprised at how quickly you'll start to need to breathe a bit more, and how easily you'll start to sweat - this is because you're working against your own tension, and it often costs a little sweat to gain some freedom...
We also have the multi-planar movements like bending, twisting, pitching and rolling, but I think the first three kinds will have to do for now - go out and find the crosses, circles and infinities wherever you can in your body and in all the planes-
Start at the head and do a few forwards-back and left-right crosses, then some clockwise and anti-clockwise circles, and some infinities (tip: if you're standing in front of a mirror, you should be able to see both your ears in your reflection).
The chest is the same - hands on hips, move the chest forwards/back a few times (forwards is slightly upwards, back is slightly downwards - that's just the way it works, don't worry about it...) Left and right, same thing - try to get the chest to slide from side to side - you can stick your arms out the the sides and push left and right (it helps). Flow circles clockwise and anti-clockwise (hands on hips helps to separate the movement so it's just the chest) - and then infinities (remember to breathe... out through the mouth is fine, in through the nose...)
Hips - same or different?
You're right - the same. First, just the hips - forwards is the end of the "Amigo salute" - back is basically "Stick out your booty" - left and right kind of explain themselves... this is all keeping the body basically where it is.. the hips move under the torso.
Then circles, then infinities (this can be hugely fun - there are heaps of them to find if you're looking...)
Knees - stand on one leg - do the movements with the other one..
Bring the knee up to a comfortable height, hip height is more than enough.. Forwards and back are from the knee - slowly kick forwards, pull the foot back, repeat - left and right are a bit of knee and a bit of hip - let the lower leg hang and move it left and right (or inside/outside if that's easier to picture) - this is like playing hacky-sack or those ball skills drills from soccer) - if you can get the lower leg anywhere near parallel to the floor, you're doing amazingly well. Circles, infinities, you get the idea.. If you have two legs, do both of them...
Ankles - again, you're on one leg - forwards and back become point and pull on the toes (or plantar flexion/dorsiflexion and circles are drawn with the big toe on the wall in front of you. if you prefer), left and right become 'in' and 'out' (inversion/eversion) Infinities are a bit of a cheat with the ankle, but you may as well draw some of those as well...
Toes are tricky with shoes on and sometimes unpleasant without - but if you have a nice floor (or socks on), you can roll over the toes a few times, like drawing a circle with your ankle on its transverse plane. You're basically massaging the bottom, inside, top and then outside of your toes on the floor.. and then reversing to come the other way.
so - head to toe is done, now from the middle out..
I think that will have to be another post, for another day.
Let me know what you think - This stuff is hard to write down, easy to show...
Tim..
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