Black
Belt EssayBlack
Belt EssayRichard Lavin
II Dan
“…the student must begin to develop his body and toughen its
attacking and
blocking tools so he is able to deliver maximum damage in combat.”
Dallyon is the preparation of the body to be used in self-defence, physically training it to perform during the martial artist’s ultimate test. As the quote says it is the conditioning the bodies attacking and blocking tools, as well as increasing the amount of power and speed it can generate and doing this throughout the duration of the attack.
In the Taekwon-do composition Dallyon lies between sparring and self-defence,
it is the link between learning how to defend yourself and being able to do
it to your full potential.
Through this essay I will show you how to prepare your body ready to deliver
maximum damage during a real self defence situation.
Power = Force x Speed
This is the equation as it applies to most sporting situations. Power is the
context of Taekwon-do is being able to throw a technique with a lot of force
on it very high speed. So, there are two ways to increase the power of your
techniques, you need to be able to generate more force when you execute it
or you need to execute it faster.
When learning the theory of power each of the 6 parts relate back to either
being able to help you increase the speed of your techniques or to increase
the force that you can place behind them. Every person can only generate a
certain amount of power; the theory of power is about maximising it and being
able to execute every bit of that potential in your techniques.
Concentration, breath control, mass, equilibrium and reaction force are designed
to maximise the force you can generate while speed obviously has its own place
in the relation to power. By using the points laid out in this theory you can
maximise your power and with training you can increase the potential power
that you can use. This essay is not about the theory of power as this would
just be repeating something that is already written but here is a few ways
to increase your potential power.
Increasing the potential force that you can generate is best done by increasing your strength. Exercise such as squats, tricep dips and press ups and a lot of other exercises we perform at training are just forms of weight training so can all be used to increase your strength. However they do not work for all the techniques we use in Taekwon-do, but luckily there are some less common exercises that are useful.
Squats, commonly performed at Taekwon-do clubs, are excellent exercises that
can be used to increase the power of kicks where the leg straightens to the
point of contact as the muscles that you are using are the same. For example
front snap kicks, turning kick, side kicks and back kicks power will increase
from using squats as exercises. However they will have little effect on the
kicks where the leg is already straight or is bending when it makes contact
with the target. For example a reverse turning kick or reverse hooking kick.
To help these kicks hamstring extensions are extremely helpful. To perform
this exercise kneel on the floor with your feet straight behind you, have your
upper legs in a straight line with your body, you will need to pin you’re
your feet so get a partner to hold them or place them under a heavy object.
Try to lower yourself forward, keeping your body and thighs in a straight line,
as far as you can possibly go. Then try to return your upper body to the starting
position. With practice you will be able to lower yourself lower and lower
as your hamstrings strengthen, until your body almost touches the floor.
While an exercise such as press ups can be used to increase the power of punches
and to some extent will help with knife-hand and reverse knife-hand strikes.
How ever they will have no effect on attacks that are executed backwards and
when the arm is bending throughout the movement for example a back elbow. Examples
of an exercise that you can use for this are upside down press-ups, for this
exercise you will need a bar, rope or ledge that you can grab hold of, lie
underneath this and get in the same position as if you are performing a press
up then pull you body up towards your hands, then lower back towards the ground
allowing your arms to straighten.
To make these exercises harder to do you can try using a partner to increase
the weight you are lifting. For example you could squat with them on your back
or you could press-up with them pushing downwards on your shoulders to increase
the resistance. Or you could perform the exercises but only using one arm or
one leg to help increase your strength. As this type of training is the same
as weight training you could also get a program from a gym to increase your
strength.
Another method to improve your strength is to perform the actual techniques
with a partner slowing your movement so that you are executing the technique
with as much force as you possibly can but because of the resistance you are
performing it slowly.
With something simple like a straight punch you can get your partner to hold
your hand from the hip and slow down your movement while you are executing
the technique. Overall it should take you about 3 seconds to perform the technique
but you should be executing the technique as powerfully as possible to gain
the best benefits.
The next way to increase your power is through increasing your speed. And
the best way to increase it is by practising the technique as fast as you possibly
can. Simple drills for improving speed involve using a partner.
An example is to have a partner standing in front of you with a pad. At any
time they hold up the pad at the requested height and you then perform the
technique as quickly as you can. The more you focus on moving the technique
faster the more your speed will increase as it is being worked at optimal speed
all the time.
Remember to increase your speed, you need to do all the techniques as quickly
as possible when performing the movement, therefore you should always focus
on moving as fast as you can
All the techniques in this essay that can be used to prepare the body rely on frequent practice and allowing the body to recover from an exertion only fractionally harder than it is used to and allowing it to recover from this stress. It is more beneficial to practice these techniques often and not for shorter periods rather than performing these once every now and again and really trying to hammer your body.
The next thing is to prepare the attacking and blocking tools so that during
self-defence they will not break or be damaged when delivering maximum power.
The problem with many of these tools is that they are very bony so are prone
to breaking when a large amount of force is generated across them. So they
must be prepared so that the force and impact that they can withstand is greater.
The body does this in two ways to try to protect itself from damage.
Firstly the bones increase their mass so that there density is greater meaning
they will be able to absorb a larger force on impact. The second way leads
to the greatest increase. Your bones learn to absorb more force by being better
able to direct the force it experiences towards its strongest points, therefore
decreasing the likelihood of injury. It does this not by changing shape but
by remodelling its internal structure so that it gets an increased ability
to absorbing the force from the direction that it is being trained in.
This can easily be done by lightly picking out the desired blocking or attacking
tools and gently tapping them, in a motion similar to the technique you will
use, against a solid object such as a concrete pillar or wooden post. This
gentle force generated along them will temporarily put a force along the bones
and muscles involved. The body then reacts to make this force less likely to
do damage. With practice this force that you can withstand can increase meaning
you can hit things harder and harder without damaging the tools you are making
contact with. This process however takes a long time to build up so patience
is required. It is also important you do not over do it as this will lead to
injury, meaning that any benefits you have made will be lost while waiting
for the injury to heal.
Before you start it is important that this is not done with children. The stress placed on the bones mean that softer, growing bones can be damaged and deformed.
Examples of the attacking tools that need conditioning are the fore fist,
back fist, knife hand, reverse knife-hand, elbow, ball of the foot, back heel
and foot sword. Remember that some of these are also used for blocking. Meaning
that these do not have to get prepared again when it comes to the blocking
tools.
Conditioning these attacking tools is easier to do alone. This can be easily
done be just by repeatedly knocking a solid object. For example to best condition
a fore fist or knife hand it is best to repeatedly punch or knife hand a solid
object. Things such as heavy punching bags or even phone books are particularly
good for this; in fact they have another advantage. Hand techniques such as
a punch place a lot of strain on the wrist if the wrist is not perfectly straight,
everyone would have done it, punched a pad as hard as you can and felt the
hand bend forward when you make impact. Conditioning can improve your technique
helping keep the limbs in better alignment
For the feet it is easy to condition tools such as the ball of the foot and
the foot sword when you are standing on a solid floor, just by standing and
using the tools you are trying to condition to kick the floor will be effective.
However for the back heel you will either need to sit down or strike it against
a wall to condition it.
Examples of useful blocking tools you can condition are the inner forearm
and outer forearm. The best way to do this is to use a partner and both condition
at the same time.
Firstly stand facing your partner both in sitting stance, both perform a forearm
low block with your right hand, your outer forearm should make contact with
your partner, then perform an outer forearm middle side block, again the outer
forearm should contact the partners. You then go on to repeat this process
on the left side. Start off lightly and do not continue for too long. Again
this takes a while to build up but again with practice you will be able to
increase the level of force that your blocking tools can withstand. To change
this to conditioning the inner forearm you line up your partner in the same
way then swing you arm across your body from the outside to the centre of your
body in a low position and make contact with your partner, follow this up with
an inner forearm middle side block then go on to repeat this on the opposite
side.
This type of conditioning can be done for whatever tool you choose, the principle is always the same, and anyone can come up with a number of different techniques to condition your body.
Conditioning your body takes a long time to be completely prepared to be able
to use it in a self-defence situation. But with frequent training you can increase
your chances of escaping with minimal amounts of injuries if ever you are placed
in that circumstance. There is also a large chance of injury when performing
this type of training but remember like any type of training you must be patient.
Do not try to push yourself through to much pain stop when you feel mild discomfort
and eventually your body will adapt to meet the strain placed on it and you
will be better prepared to defend yourself should the situation ever arise.