TROUBLE SHOOTING IN MARTIAL ARTS

 

                                                     TROUBLE SHOOTING IN MARTIAL ARTS

      Hi Everyone, I am happy to communicate to you all after long time. Today I want to talk about Trouble shooting in Martial arts for  various Problems we face in martial arts or why we think or feel not satisfied from the benefits we get from Martial arts.

     Martial art is like our Mother, she cares each of her children with same love. But according to the children’s behaviors and attachment with the mother, children get more or less from her or it seems like.

     In my 26 yrs of Martial arts Experience as a Student and 15yrs of Experience as a Teacher each and every day I want to understand more about Martial arts, not just practicing it. I have seen many of my students enjoyed the benefits of martial arts and practicing it for more than 10yrs. And few Quit in the very beginning due to their own imagination about their own abilities or due to their parents over expectations when it comes to the kids.

When we ask a wise men, How to be successful in Love life, they always say don’t expect anything from other side but give yourself unconditionally. When we enroll in our Martial arts lessons or in any kind of Art lessons, first thing to do is to Love what we start to Learn. Then the art will already loves you and gives you everything it can. Without giving yourself if you expect from martial arts it won’t work.

     Here I want to Mention few Complaints from the Martial arts practitioners and their parents(for Kids students) and the Trouble shoot for those complaints.

1.         Stamina :   

     Very few face this feeling that they didn’t improve their stamina after years of training in martial arts.

Solution:   Consistency is the key for everything. Doing class for twice a week is never enough for not only martial arts for any Arts lessons. 

When I was a student I used to attend 9 sessions in a week including morning and evenings. And I also do lot of home work to improve my martial arts in every aspects. It is understandable that in this generation people are busy so they cannot give themselves just for martial arts. But they can really sacrifice their screen time, entertainments, unwanted talks and even reading books like frictions. I believe Nothing is important than our Health and fitness. We can put everything next to our Health & fitness.

Watching screens, playing games will reduce the stamina we gained from Martial arts or any other sports. Brain is the important part in our body to save whatever we gained through our training. Tiring our brain will definitely drain our stamina. Also it won’t take us anywhere better.

Solution is not just avoiding unwanted things from our life but increasing our training time with consistency.

2. Flexibility :    

    Flexibility is another issue many martial arts practitioners face. Flexibility differs from person to person according to the country they live, food they eat, also Hereditary, and how much they stretch their body every day. Not everyone need to do 180 split and should do some weird bending postures to become good in martial arts. But Flexibility is very important to keep our body speed even when we age and it reduces injuries in accidents and from fallings. So it is always good to keep stretching our body parts to live healthy and have good mobility for better life. Giving more importance to flexibility over the power workouts is what I recommend for my students. It doesn’t mean we should do less power training but more flexibility training.

3. Sparring:

    Sparring is the favorite part of most of us. Also very important in the self-defense aspect. As same as the flexibility, sparring skills also vary from person to person. But everyone can improve each and every day. To improve anything again we need the consistency. Sparring is also needs it. 

Doing sparring in every session or frequently may create some injuries which we always try to avoid. So it is always better to spar once a week or once in 2 weeks. Obviously if you are preparing for a tournament then you need to do sparring very often. Only through practice our sparring skills can be improved. We may lose our confidence when we try to compare our skill with other person. Healthy comparison to improve our self is to compare our today with our Yesterday. If you feel you are better than yesterday then you are improving. If you really defeat your opponent, then you should train more than your opponent.

Our experience is not Number of Years, but Number of Hours.

Seniority doesn’t mean you are in the dojo for many years. But the hours your trained and being an example to others in every aspects of MARTIAL ARTS.

4. Forms:  

Forms when I say this word to kids they start cry or become weak. Lol..

Doing forms is very important part in any traditional martial arts. It improves our Style (perfection) in stances, punches, kicks and each and every movements of martial arts. The strikes we use in a sparring or in real survival situation being practiced many times in the form of Forms (KATA). This improves our memory capacity, Balance, stability, mobility , stamina, etc.

If you feel your style in performing forms are not good enough. It means you didn’t practice them enough. It is very simple. Keep practicing. Practicing Forms are nothing but doing meditation.  Easy way of meditation is doing martial arts forms and fighting drills.

5. All over performance:    

     When it comes to all over performance, the result begins from the time we enter in to our Class. Important discipline in martial arts and in life, Punctuality. When we lose here, we are losing our rights to expect the result from every other thing.

     Next thing is Uniform. Wearing uniform has became a difficult thing for this generation people. If you see any martial art movies or in any traditional martial arts school, no one appear without uniform 🥋. It is not only a basic discipline but it works psychologically. Nothing has been created in martial arts is useless or unnecessary.  We have no rights to expect the result from anything when we don’t give our discipline in to it. No excuses when it comes to discipline. Because we get everything from it.

     Chit chatting is another thing we should avoid in the class. We should avoid any discussions unless it is related to martial arts or not very important for the particular session. (For kid’s class it is different story)

    One word we hate from our childhood is Homework. But without Homework we could have not finished our studies. Especially when it comes to any Art, Homework is as important as the Training Sessions. Learning and practicing is two different parts in doing an art. 

We only learn in the training sessions, practice will not happen in the training session. Even if you repeat something for 100 times in a training session, it is part of learning, not practicing.

 We should spend separate time to practice what we learnt in the training sessions. This will also speed up our learning and improvement.

   Hope you got some points and apply them to improve your Skills & Fitness from Martial arts training.

All the Best.

With Love

Guru Manikandan

Founder of FightBack Combat Academy

Founder of Yutha sasthiram martial arts

Parents Approach on Their Kid's Martial arts

 

Dear All,

     Hope you all doing Great. Sorry for Writing after long time.

Today i want to Talk about The Parents Approach on their Children Martial arts training. 

As a Teacher & as a Parent i am always love to train Kids because i know the true value of Martial arts that why i gave it to my Daughter even i didn't care about her Studies much as the whole world does. I cannot expect every parent of my students to think or do as i did, But i always want them to Monitor their kids progress in Martial arts and give the continuous support in their children's improvements in Martial arts. 

Before we discuss more we should go through some very important Benefits of Martial arts for Kids.

1. Health ( Improving Immunity)

2.Focus & Concentration

3.Discipline

4.Obedience 

5.Pain tolerance 

6.Creativity

7.Self Confidence

8.Will Power, etc

There are plenty of Benefits comes from Martial arts training. I am so happy to be a Martial art teacher to give this Amazing gift to people who are interested. And I respect all the parents who want their Children to Learn Martial arts.

After Years of Teaching Many Kids and Meeting their Parents i have come to see different kind of Approaches from the parents on their Children's training. in Few cases it went with no Positive result in their kid's Training. So i would like to share some of my experiences and observations from them to make some good changes in the future.

I have seen 3 types of Parents Approaches in their Children's Training

1. Over Expectation from their children

2. Involving in the Way of training by telling their kids they can do Whatever they can in the training, sometime don't even care How they progress in training

3. Frequently checking with instructor about their children's Performance, Encouraging the child to Improve, Happy About the Improvement of their Kid's Performance.

Third approach above is the Positive one so i Don't want to talk about much just want to Appreciate them.

The Second Approach is the One we need to Discuss about. Few Parents want their kids to Train Martial arts but with their Kid's Conditions. How will it work?. when the parents are agreeing their kid's Conditions to train Martial arts, the Teacher already becoming Dummy here. Kid's will never be ready to Obey the teacher. Once they enrolled in Martial art training parents has nothing to agree or say what or how much training they can do, How much they can rest and everything. As a Teacher & a Parent I well know how much a kid can do according to their potential. My job is to improve their physical and mental Capacity. When the parents giving their kids freedom to choose what to do in the martial arts class then there is no respect for the teacher and I cannot help to improve the kids performance in anyway. I can understand the parents they love their kids very much as every parent love their's. I can never say i hated my daughter any minute in my life but i left her fight in the Muaythai Ring where even the Death is possible. As a parent i know which is good for my child, As a Martial arts teacher I know which is good for all my Students. I will never let any of my Students (Kids) to get Hurt or giving them unwanted over loads of workouts to make them tired. I love every kid as i love mine. So i always request parents to Not Listen to their Children and support them by Involving in the training such as how much they should train or what they should train. Please leave their training Module up to the Teacher.

The First Approach which is Over Expectation

this is another big problem. When few kids are performing very well still their parents want their children to train well and complaining their performance. This will reduce their interest and performance of the kid in long Term. so I always want the parents to talk about their kid's performance directly to me not in front of their kids. 

Hope this Writing would be useful for the Development of the kid's Training.

Thanks & Regards

Guru Manikandan 

We are the Super humans we don't agree

 

    Oh what is he doing? is it even possible? We all ask this question when we see someone doing which we cannot even imagine to our personal ability. But Ability is same to every human being but the willingness to Improve our own ability needs more understanding about life and oneself. Our Body is not our life, but without our body we cannot experience our Life. so we should always give preference to our body in first place. Keeping it Healthy, Strong, Flexible is the first and important thing to do in our Life before our Education, Business and Family.. 

     We are not gonna talk about how Should we improve our Physical ability because everyone knows it that it comes by everyday practice. We are going to talk about why we are not even thinking about our body and physical ability. 

     We all amaze at others physical abilities, but not trying to see what we are really capable of. In the forest every cheetah can run in unbelievable speed, Every Eagle in the sky have same ability to hunt. Each Elephant in the jungle has the same capacity to lift weights, and every animal has its physical ability as same as their specific species. it is because of their routine life includes physical actions. There is no unwanted Drama in their Life. 

     Unfortunately we the Human have created so much Fake Arrangements in life to take care of,  but don't care about our Body & our Physical ability. We don't need to be shame for not speaking in different languages, Relationship goals, Financial Goals, Etc. But Physical ability to walk, run, move fast etc. of course Age will take back everything we train to do with our body which should happen above our 80s. 

     The specialty of our body is , it is not too late to start training it until you turn 50 if you not already ruined your health. but still the pain should not stop us from moving around effortlessly. when we reduce the body movements it gets rusted and movements become slow and one day it puts us in the bed with no movements to feel just pain until our last Breath.

     We should believe in our abilities, we don't need to drill our  Head but we should be able to walk , run Fast. Sit, Stand & Turn quick. We don't even care about our physical ability because in this current Human Era we don't care about survival by physical  combat with other human or Animals. We get food in our Doorsteps, Cloths in our doorsteps, whatever we need just touching the screen will make it reach us. But one day we may not even lift our fingers to touch the screen if we not care about our body. our Boon or Curse will be Given to our own self. Please Move a lot. 

    

Thanks 

Guru Manikandan

Founder of Yutha sasthiram Martial arts

Fight back Combat Academy

Spiritual Dimension of Yoga

 

Spiritual Dimension of Yoga 

Project report

By

 Manikandan Ragunathan

September 2020

 

 Spiritual Dimension of Yoga

 

 

1. Introduction 

2. Purpose of Life 

3. Secret of Life & Creation 

4. Enjoy the Freedom 

5. Slowly progress in the path of Enlightenment 

6. Reach the Blissfulness with the help of a Guru

 

 

1. Introduction

 

Spirituality is becoming a common word with people in current generation. But Most of them doesn’t know what it really means. Spirituality is not just Going to the temple, Singing Bajans and chanting mantras in the free time, and in the rest of the time living a Normal life with Greed, Jealous, Anger, Lust etc..

 

And also it is not just going behind the God and not taking care of our own life, not taking care of our Health and Being Selfishness and not thinking about other Humans and all other living Beings. Spirituality is Understanding ourselves as God and all other creations around us. Nothing has been created here just to live and die. Everything has a unique value and Eternal Energy.

How Yoga Helps to Travel the path of Spirituality?

The above question is totally wrong because Yoga doesn’t help us to travel in the path of Sprituality, Yoga itself is spirituality. And we will see more about this below.

 

2. Purpose of Life

 

Whatever happening in this universe has its own purpose. Glowing sun, Beautiful Moon, Vast Ocean, Non stop Tides in the Sea, Barking Dogs, Flying insects, everything has its purpose in this world.

What could be the purpose of Humans?

Schooling ? Marriage? Reproduction ? Job or Business? Buying House and Car? Nothing above these are the purpose of our Life.

These are the things we Just copied from someone who were not really known What is the purpose of life is. And We were been and being following someone and we are being passing on this wrong knowledge to our Children and society to just blindly follow us. We have no time to think about the purpose of life. But still we are being a part of this universe and the universe is need us to be the whole universe. The energy keeps us living is the energy keeping this universe to be the universe. Our purpose of life is just to know the truth why we are here and what are our capacities as a Eternal Energy. We are Deep inside the Drama we created with lots of fake commitments by unnecessary Gatherings from outside keeps us away from the truth about who we really are. Finding the truth and walking the path to finding the truth is called Spirituality. 

3. Secret of Life & Creation

 

3.1. Secret of Life and Secret of Creation is not Easy to find when we are fully tangled in the fake commitments which been blindly followed for Generations. We have to spend our whole life or take more Births to find out the secret of Life and creation. There is no much difference between life and creation. Whatever is outside of us is also there inside us. It is always better to look inward to find the truth than looking outward because outward is vast to compare to the self. Once we understand what is inside us and what are the process happening in our punca koshas, Than we will also understand what is happening outside of us. As mentioned above everything is common outside and inside of us. Punca koshas are an example.

Water, Air, Fire, Space and Earth. Without any one of these There is no human life as well as the universe. To go inward we have some practices to do which is called Yoga.

3.2. In yoga there are different options to travel the path of Spirituality. Like Jnana Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti yoga and karma yoga. In western countries Yoga is being just the physical exercise. Physical part of the yoga is very important which is called Raja yoga. But it is not just the physical part that can lead you to the spiritual life. We should do Astanga Yoga which has 8 different levels of Yoga. Which are

 

1. Yama

2. Niyama

3. Asana

4. Pranayama

5. Prithyahara

6. Dharana

7. Dhyana

8. Samadhi

 

We should reach all these 8 stages to reach the Final stage of Spirituality called Moksha.

3.3. Yama & Niyama are the two Stages to absorb and understand the

Process of happening in and outside of us. And the third stage Asana is the physical exercise part which includes the postures to realize the real capabilities of our Body level and increase it slowly. By doing the asanas it gives us more confidence in physical level which increases our will power, and then by doing pranayama it keeps our life energy in high level to make us do Meditation to increase the power of ones mind which gives us creative power and discrimination power.

Prithyahara is the process happen in our mind level after it gets ready to concentrate. Dharana is the level of concentration were several subjects with several thoughts floating in the mind being reduced to one subject with several thoughts and then  bring it to one subject with a single thought.

Then next stage is Dhyana.

Dhyana is de-focusing, it is effortless Dharana.

Then the last stage of Astanga yoga is Samadhi. Samadhi is Merger. There is no different subject and object in this level. Samadhi is super conscious state. To moving to this stage will all the process mentioned above is Sprituality. It cannot be achieved in a single day or may not in a whole life too. When we start how we start and how we progress will determine the time to reach the Destination of spirituality.  

 4. Enjoy the Freedom

Freedom is not just doing whatever we want or whatever we can.

Freedom is just being away of unnecessary gathering of our life which we gathered physically as Things and relationships, Mentally as in unwanted thoughts and desires and emotions, and by the health the Deceases we received from the wrong life style. Unwanted knowledge we gathered from the technology and other sources.

When we get away from all these unwanted things we will reach the self freedom. The self freedom will let us think about the truth and the path to the truth and will lead us in the path and make us reach the destination the Truth(Moksha).

 5. Progressing  in the path of Enlightenment

Progressing in the path of Enlightenment should happen without any distractions. Yoga is helpful to make us concentrate on where we have to travel and the right path to our destination.

Progress can happen starting from Intellectual level to physical level and then go to mental level, or starts with Intellectual level and then mind and then to physical level.

There will be more than one path to the same destination. Who we travel is not important but the destination.

Also how fast you travel is also not important unless your concentration is not gets distracted from the travelling. 

6. Reach the Blissfulness with the help of a Guru

We talked about the destination which is Blissfulness of the super----_consciousness us. To do anything in life we need a Guru. Once we born we don’t even know how to talk and how to walk but our parents being a Guru and teaching us all the things to make our life efficient.

To do basic things we had a Guru ( our parents or Guardians ) . To know the Path to our destination we should definitely have a guru.

When we are ready to travel in the path of Sprituality (Yoga) we will find a Guru. And it will happen like a magic.

As There is a Saying in English

When a Student is ready , The teacher will Appear.

 

 

 7. Conclusion

 

Spirituality is the purpose of life. Not reaching the Moksha and living the Fake life as one of the person as a society for the society and by the society will not take ourselves anywhere than to the Death and the Rebirth.

Merging the Jeevathma (Individual self) with Paramathma ( universal Self) is Yoga. In Sanskrit it is called Yuj. The spiritual dimension of Yoga is actually the Purpose of Yoga. 

If Yoga become a subject in Schools and colleges to make everyone study and understand about the purpose of life. Then there will be an end to the Drama happening around the world and it may lead to an another creation happening in this universe. Whatever happens in the universe we can be a joyful super consciousness part of the Universal Energy.  

Why Stretching & Endurance is Important in Martial Arts ?

 Hello Everyone,

      Hope everyone Doing Great. Today's topic is about Stretching & Endurance training which take almost Half of your training time in your Martial arts class. Few may think i am here to learn Martial arts why should i spend More than 20 mins to do stretching & endurance. and Few think why Same Boring workouts every class. 

 I will give you the Answers below.

First in Fighting Aspect :

With out Flexibility and strength it is like Fighting your opponent with Eggs, Even if you hit in a Vital point, opponent not going to feel the pain but you are going to loose your Eggs. Instead we should be like Whip.

Whip is flexible and Fast, strong enough and So much Painful.

Without doing Stretching Exercises and Strengthening exercises and Endurance we cannot do Martial arts. There is no use if we do.

Second in Health Aspect :

To be Healthy we should Stretch our Muscles everyday and Some endurance to keep our Heart Healthy to pump the blood everywhere in our body. Which is very essential for our health. We all see Cats and Dogs Stretches their body every morning or after they wake-up from sleep. it is Natural. Humans don't do it naturally because we live artificial life.

And another question rises now, That why we do the same stretches and few endurance every class.?

Answer: we have the same body for the whole life. nothing is going to change. every joins and muscles going to be there wherever it was where we born right? So we need to do the same stretching and strengthening exercises in every class. 

Now i explain the Stretching and strengthening exercises we do and why.?

All the Stretching and endurance exercises we do in martial arts has taken from Yoga. We all know what is Yoga for. Obviously to keep us Fit and Healthy.

In yoga we call the Joints rotation exercises as Shukshama Vyayama.

Which activates all the small joints like Wrist, Elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles and fingers. 

and other workouts called Stithili karna vyayama

Which is some endurance like Jogging, Hopping, Butt kicks and High knees and also like Cobra stretch and Surya namaskar( we split it and do it ) as seperate vajrasana, sasankasana, chaturanga dandasana etc. also we practice Chakrasana and other Asanas to strengthen out spin and other body parts. In more of the Martial art classes they practice most of these Exercises without knowing there are doing Yoga. But it is Yoga.

As yoga is not only Physical work it also for Mind. 

Obviously Martial arts needs Mind work, Where do we get it from do you think?

Yes from Forms and Drills and also from the Exercises with proper Breathing.

So it is very important to do the same routine in every class without feeling boring. May be we can do the same thing differently and add some variants. But it is very important to work all your Joints and Muscles every day or at least every class. 

We do nothing useless in Martial art class. 

Our Body is very important for Fighting, Not only with your physical Enemy but also with Mental enemies of our Life. Good Body Holds Good Mind and Good Mind strive to have a good Body. 

All the very Best. Take care

Guru Manikandan

Learn to win - Martial arts school

www.chennaimartialarts.com

 

Martial Art is Nothing But Yoga with Fighting Skills

            Martial Art is Nothing But Yoga with Fighting Skills

     Yes, Before we talk about How Martial art is nothing But Yoga with Fighting skills. We must know what is Real Yoga.

     Yoga is not which has become more or only physical around the world, to succeed as a good business. (It happened to real Martial arts too). Real Yoga is not just Physical Asanas. It is which should lead us to spirituality ( not religious or becoming Monk) but understanding one self and to Join the Individual self with Universal self. Now we will see the important aspects of Yoga to understand how it helps us to keep us physically & mentally healthy.

In yoga we say Puncha kosha, which are

1. Anna maya Kosha ( Body which we build from food)

2. Pranamaya Kosha ( Energy level from Breathing)

3. Manomaya Kosha ( Mind & Thoughts)

4. Vijnanamaya Kosha ( Intellect)

5. Ananda maya Kosha ( Blissful state)

    We focus on each level to lead our self to Blissful state with proper training of our Body & energy with Asanas & pranayama, Mind with Meditation, Our intellect with Reading and listening to vedhas.

okay I don't want to go off  the track from the title by talking more about Yoga. 

Now we will see how the martial arts are nothing but Yoga.

    We do all the exercises in martial arts which are all Asanas from Yoga. Because of some teachers made it as adrenaline pumping workout routine to attract adults they increase the speed of doing asanas and Didn't bother about breathing method while doing those asanas which Improves our Anna maya kosha. And we do Breathing practice before and end of the class which improves Prana maya kosha ( Pranayama practice is very good for this).  And Meditation ( which improves our Manomaya kosha) was a part of Martial arts long ago, but Now it is not. Pranayama is a kind of meditation we can do with training. And the way of doing Katas and energy flow drills from martial arts teaches us to be relax our body and mind, and Wing chun form Sui lim tao which teaches us to keep our joints very relax when we fight. If we can do physical combat with full body and mind relaxed, then we can do any work in relaxed state. And with relaxation we will do everything to our best because when we are relaxed mentally and physically we can see everything clearly with no interruption and no hesitation. with no interruption mentally we do any work without error and with no hesitation we control the time and space which leads to success in a combat. Finally before or after a fight, It may be a combat or life situation we be calm all the time with understanding of Life. We be ready for anything with peace of mind. 

As we practice the fighting Art with calm mind and relaxed body we understand we don't have to fight because we can. And we also practice Love for the universe because we come to understand we and the universe are not different. When we understand the enemy who is standing in front of us is not different then us, We don't fight we blend with him and control his anger and ego as our own and defeat his mistake as ours. 

    Hope i said enough to understand how the Martial arts is Nothing but Yoga with Fighting skills. Please don't hesitate to Email me if you have any query. learntowinkarate@live.com

All the best

Guru Manikandan

Make sure your are not Disabled !!

     Hi all, I hope all of you enjoying the lock down as we don't have a choice. Today i am going to talk about Physical disability that we have or create in our body. 

What is disability?

Disability is not that missing of a limb. it is also not using it as per its capability. there is no different between who doesn't have legs and who is not walking with the legs he got. 

When we born we don't Move much because we were not trained our body to. But step by step we learn to walk , talk , run and try to do what ever we can do with our Body. It differs from person to person. People who miss to do Sport activities in Childhood, they also miss to Develop their physical ability. Human body is not as simple as we think, it is a very sophisticated Machine in the world. And we should know its capability and use it accordingly. Every single day without stretching our body and do some exercises we loss its capability slowly. More day we miss to exercise, Less efficient our body becomes.  

      Age is a factor which will reduce our physical ability. But our Mind can always lead the body to do its best. Decay of our body is a process of life, it happens in some time in our life when we get too old, we should always fight for our health with great physical ability. when we have good physical ability it also improves our mental ability. We may feel it every day in our life. If we don't feel physically good in a day, we unable to do any work with our full efficiency and we make some errors and finally the day ends with dissatisfaction which leads to stress and the stress leads to illness and the illness leads to physical damage and it cycles. 

Waking up in the early morning and do some stretches and breathing practices and some exercises which keeps us strong and healthy. at least Stretching our body everyday is very important, We may see Cats & Dogs stretching their body once they wake up. It is not made by humans as a business to make people to do exercises. It is our duty to keep us happy with good health.

Happy Yoga Day 

All the Best.

Guru Manikandan