Sweat

I hate martial arts warm ups. Correction. I hate the way a lot of martial arts people do warm ups.

The purpose, of course, is to prepare the body for the class. Stretch the muscles, loosen things up, and get the blood moving.

Too many times things are not done in this fashion. Often the warm up is by far the hardest part of the class. I consider this very counter productive. Why start the learning part of the evening already tired? It has been proven a million times that learning is reduced when the student is tired.

I am not against pushing hard. If an instructor wants to push me during training, I'm up for it. I go to Karate to do Karate. I like Karate fast, and Karate slow. I like Karate relaxed, and Karate with power. I don't like push ups. I can do push ups. I can do as many as anybody in the class. I consider them a waste of training time.

If a workout is desired to increase strength or some such, this should be done at the end of the class. Ten minutes of crunches? Do those after the training please. I'll do them gladly, and hold nothing back. I'll get more out of them at the end when they are not hurting the actual training.

People often claim that warm up activities are done to reduce the chance of injury. They then proceed to lead their students through a bunch of activities which are hideously bad for necks, or backs, or with a high chance of muscle tears. I have never hurt myself doing normal training. Well, maybe sometimes with kicks. I have hurt myself many times trying to do some stupid exercise.

My favourite warm up exercises are not exercises at all. I like a little stretching, maybe some hip circles to loosen things up, and then slow technique. Stepping slowly in stance, delivering slow techniques. This warms exactly the tissues that will be working fast later. After a few slow sets of arm movements, maybe some slow and low kicking. Again, warming exactly the parts that will soon be working hard. An added bonus is that one can work on form and precision of technique while warming up.

But what do I know? I've only been doing this for thirty years.