Posture

Proper posture matters as in martial arts.  If you over commit to a punch and it throws your posture out of whack, a good partner will help you along your way to the ground by throwing you.  If you over commit to a submission a good partner will help you out by sweeping you out and taking the dominant position.

Today in class we started with the simple stuff – can we keep proper posture in stationary positions – stances.  After working with that and talking quite a bit about how a stable midline (thanks, CrossFit!) helps keep everything together, we moved on to the hard stuff – moving.

How do you keep good posture while striking?  We tackled this question by throwing elbow smashes and trying to move our bodies as one unified piece.  Starting from the ground, the foot pivots, the knee follows suit, the hip goes along for the ride, the torso whips and the arm stays in line with the rest of the chain.  If done right, no one piece moves ahead of the other – everything is connected – thus providing little opportunity for someone to throw us off balance.  It’s certainly not the only way to throw a strike, but it’s a great one to look at if you’re examining proper posture and connection within the body – which is what we were up to today.

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