“I ain’t as good as I once was
I got a few years on me now
But there was a time, back in my prime
When I could really lay it down”
In class recently, I had one of my adult students, in his fifties come to class and tell me he had some “bad news.” Well, he presented me with the classic “good news/bad news scenario” The good news was he was inviting me and my family to his bonus daughter’s birthday party, the bad has he injured his Achilles tendon while practicing his patterns in his home dojang!
Many of us know this classic Toby Keith song, when it came out, in 2005 I felt it then. I mean, so much had happened in my 20’s and 30s, I felt it. Now, 20 years later, the song could be written solely about me. This is true with many martial artists, especially those of us who started very young and were trim throughout our first 30 years.
When I first started martial arts, calisthenics was part of the class, and doing pushups as both physical training and punishment was just going to happen. And always on our knuckles. Sit-ups, jumping jacks, and stretching were at least 15 mins to 30 depending on if the class was 60 or 90, or more minutes.
As we gained in rank with my Korean and Japanese instructors, we no longer did the “workouts” but went straight into training (the round eyes still did the physical education part). The reason was we were there to learn a skill and a workout isn’t part of that. Some classes were just too complex at times to do pushups. And the average person, especially as they get older, has school, jobs, and kids don’t work out the same. So, the idea was to train as you live. Of course, everyone today knows the benefits of having arobustt physical fitness regime. But that is a discipline that is hard to keep with so many responsibilities.
With kids, I do feel it is beneficial to keep a block of time with a physical routine, as they aren’t getting the same workouts as I and others of
my generation got during the day, the Department of Education in the USA puts physical fitness as a low priority. However, outside of simple stretching, we should be focusing on martial techniques. We as a society today have so many things to get our attention that physical fitness while as stated is important, unless your “Jones Martial Fitness” then stick to your stated purpose. A Martial arts/Sports instructor!
If you insist on a physical fitness standard, then you will set some, especially some adults up for failure. They may never live up to the physical aspects of your program. If you are charging a fee to teach martial arts, and most of your class is nothing but physical fitness and games, then, are you teaching martial arts? So many tend to become those “combat fitness” classes I see popping up at our local YMCA and other fitness centers. Again, physical fitness is important no matter how old you are. But, beyond basic warm up and even warm-downs, are you providing martial art instruction or a glorified gym class?
It was taught to me at a young age that we should train as we live. If you are an elite athlete then you train as one, if you are morbidly obese then you train as such, and if you are just the “average, run of the mill” type, you train as that. If physical exercise isn’t in your domain (again, it is beneficial to everyone) then why are so many making it a requirement for martial arts classes or worse, testing? If you are competing a lot, then, yes, even if it just patterns, you need to increase your physical cardio to improve your technique, but, if you are taking classes for the skill and knowledge then, is it wise to lose up to half of your class time to “gym class?”
