Why it is a teacher’s most potent training tool.
When I was first introduced to martial arts I was fourteen years old (53 years ago). Because of the structure of teaching (students were trained and encouraged to administer techniques to opponents with lethal consequences) children were forbidden to practice it. Because I was big for my age and lied about how old I was, I was allowed to become a student.
The instruction was brutal. I had to spend hours on the Makiwara Board (a wooden post embedded in the floor with eight inches of bloody twine rope wrapped around the top of it (the blood came from people punching it))punching the rope to build calcium on the knuckles. The calcium buildup was to help you break through the protective barrier of an attacker wearing bamboo armor.
The then practitioner's mindset was to harden one's body and mind to be able to survive in the inevitability of war. Instructors back then did not concern themselves with the feelings, emotions, or pain that students underwent only that they were made mentally and physically tough. With that in mind instructors (the good ones) would brutalize their students by doing things like asking them to lie down on the floor and jump on their stomach, and then surprise hit them with a bamboo stick making a welt and bleed when they were performing patterns, have them hold another student seated on their shoulders while they did hundreds of kick and more.
An exasperating aspect of the class was that the instructor's English was limited so that other American-born students learned mostly by following his lead instead of articulations, which made it impossible to understand why we did things. Patterns were taught as a way to catalog useful techniques and sequences in hand-to-hand combat.
With time, martial arts instruction and teaching grew into what we know is a highly well-thought-out process of delivery of an application for self-defense and a one-of-a-kind exercise program. This brings me to today’s subject of the hidden benefits of the karate pattern.
When the old masters happened upon something, they did not concern themselves with how it works; their process was more like, it works, good, keep it, and let’s move on. On the other hand, today’s instructors (at least most of us) concern ourselves with why it works so that we can better serve the needs of our students.
As I stated earlier, initially patterns were taught as a way of cataloging sequences of moves that are useful in a self-defense situation at a student's level of proficiency. Until recently even, I did not comprehend the incredible benefits that are derived from performing a pattern. Let’s take a look at a few of them:
Increased concentration:
Martial arts moves (though not complicated) are foreign to the body. (They are not things that we do in an average day.) Couple that with the fact that martial arts in general forces your body to operation counter-intuitively. When we walk we naturally have an opposite hand and foot stride which keeps us balanced. In martial arts when we perform lunge punches and other similar attacks we change our stride from opposite foot and hand to same foot and hand. Functioning in this way is very coordination demanding and takes a lot of concentrated effort. Additionally, students have to remember which way to turn, how many steps to take, and what technique they should be doing.
Spatial awareness:
Martial arts students are required to end a pattern in the same place where they started. When they end a pattern they should be within an inch (no more) of the place they began. To do this they must become acutely aware of their surroundings: doors, walls, pictures, other people, etc. Students must concentrate intently on their surroundings and know at all times where they are in relationship to those things. This is especially useful to young children who may become separated from an adult on a trip to somewhere they’ve never been.
Improved coordination:
When performing patterns techniques are thrown in groups or bunches. Because of the unusual variety of techniques: punches, kicks, chops, elbows, turns, etc. it takes a lot of coordination to do a pattern. An interesting thing about the coordination that it takes to do a pattern is, because students are constantly, improving their coordination as they develop by the time that they get to advanced patterns that take more coordination they are easy for a student to do.
Here is a fun fact: Exposure to patterns to improve coordination is the number one reason that professional athletes from other sports do martial arts in their off-seasons.
Improved mental clarity through oxygen build-up:
Patterns are anabolic workouts that increase your metabolism and force the performer to breathe heavily while doing it. Breathing heavily for sustained periods causes your body to take in an abundance of oxygen which is carried to the brain and promotes clarity of thought. Currently, medical specialists are looking at this aspect of doing patterns to assist the elderly to retain memory.
Improved strength through oxygen build-up:
When working strenuously muscles demand more oxygen. Oxygen is to a muscle what gasoline is to a car, fuel. Because performing patterns make the practitioner breathe heavily for sustained periods muscles can absorb more oxygen which equates to greater strength and longer endurance.
True story: Not long ago (at age 67), I noticed that the tune and texture of my muscles were beginning to deteriorate. I decided to lift weights to retard the process. I had always been, rather, beefy and assumed that after a short period in the gym I would be able to lift the amount of weight that I did when I was younger. Unfortunately, I did not allow for the twenty-year age difference from when I last lifted heavily. I struggled along for weeks frustratingly getting to a point called a “plateau which is an exercise ceiling “and then losing ground the next workout. One day, I decided to do patterns between my sets because I knew about the oxygen build-up and wanted to test a theory. It worked! I was able to break through my ceiling and move to another level.
Weight loss through increased metabolism:
Martial arts pattern workouts are anabolic. Anabolic workouts increase your metabolism by something called “oxygen overflow” (that is they cause you to inhale two to three times more oxygen than you normally need).
Oxygen is fuel for your metabolism. When you absorb too much oxygen it causes your metabolism to work overtime to burn the overflow. While your metabolism is burning the oxygen it is also burning calories. A lot of information has been written about “aerobic” exercises as a way to burn fat calories and lose weight, almost nothing about anabolic workouts.
I have been an exercise instructor for forty years. In my humble opinion, anabolic workouts blow aerobic workouts out of the water for weight loss both in speed and efficiency that is why professional sports coaches choose anabolic workouts for weight loss and cardiovascular proficiency.
Improved muscle performance:
Like your metabolism, your muscles use oxygen to fuel performance (mainly speed and endurance). As we get older our muscles' ability to absorb and process oxygen diminishes. When you perform a pattern your muscles get exercise by powerfully contracting and relaxing when punching and kicking. The overflow of oxygen developed when doing the pattern is then used by muscles to improve strength and endurance.
Brain exercise through mental imagery
Countless, papers have been written about the importance of reading as a means of strengthening cognitive performance. While most people acknowledge that reading is a good brain exercise most don’t understand why. Reading promotes imagery (the ability to visualize mentally). It is the creating of images that exercise the brain. When someone performs a pattern they visualize themselves being attacked by different opponents from different angles thus exercising the brain.
Improved short burst wind performance:
Because patterns are performed in short bursts that cause oxygen overflow the result is a cardiovascular system that is conditioned to tolerate short demanding wind bursts such as suddenly having to run up a flight of stairs or chase after a missed bus.
Improved balance:
Many patterns demand that you stand on one foot and perform multiple defensive moves. When you place your foot on the floor again it must be placed in an exact spot that will allow you to continue to perform, this takes and improves balance. A pattern may also require you to leap into the air and come down ready to move to the next technique.
Prevention VS the Cure:
I believe that the younger a person starts learning how to perform patterns the easier it will be for him/her to “make-the-cut” when trying to get on a team or secure the prized position of a team like running back, pitcher, goalie, etc.
I encourage every parent who reads this story to help their child see the benefits of performing patterns and develop a love for them. In the long run, their sports performance and survival skills will be better for it.
Finally, The martial arts industry has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic. If you know someone who may enjoy lessons, please don’t hesitate to recommend us!
May you have everything that you want, and want everything that you have.
MB