In sampling a few arts, I've heard a variety of thoughts on relaxation and would love to get thoughts on this from an MMA perspective. How relaxed is too relaxed? How much tension is too much tension? What complementary muscle groups do you activate/deactivate in different scenarios?
Reasonable questions. I'm not sure if I am qualified to answer, but I will try.
Relaxation is key to many aspects of martial arts, IMHO. Being able to generate power using body mechanics as opposed to pure muscle are the reason behind that. When a punch is thrown with the power of the hips, shoulder, rotating spine, etc, it can have a great deal of power, especially as opposed to simple 'thrust' made using with only the power of the muscles in the arm and/or shoulder.
Too much relaxation? Not sure. One has to remain upright for punches and kicks, I guess. And there is a tightening upon impact that is important - this is sometimes referred to as 'chinkuchi' in several Okinawan karate styles - or 'the tension of the body upon impact'. I don't want to get drawn into a side-argument about what the word means, because it's one of those religious arguments that nobody wins and everybody gets their feelings hurt, but as I understand it, it refers to the moment of impact, when the punch or kick lands, and the muscles and body structure are aligned, and for a brief moment, locked. So that much tenseness would be required, I would guess.
However, I commonly see new students who have a very difficult time relaxing, and they are very tense at all times. This seems to adversely affect nearly everything they do in martial arts. They are not balanced when they strike; they lean forward, trying to drive in the strike. They tire easily - being tense all the time burns a lot of energy! They tend to forget to keep breathing while they do exercises or kata or even spar. They are quite easy to anticipate, since their strikes and kicks all require mechanical wind-up to generate power before being thrown.
I cannot punch someone by pushing a rope at them. However, I also cannot transfer all of the potential energy my entire body can generate by pushing them with a stick.
Consider a whip. It is relaxed. When it is used, it hits with tremendous power, but the strike must be calculated to arrive at the peak of the power curve of the whip. If it arrives before or after the 'crack', it doesn't do any real damage. A wave is a similar concept. Water flows back and forth, and you can stand up in in hip-deep water at the ocean's edge. But when the wave hits, it moves you. If you are at the point of the crash of the wave, it can knock you silly, drag you under, and kill you.
The wave and the whip are relaxed, very relaxed. They move easily and freely through space until they reach their point of focus, and if that point is also the point where you happen to be standing, you're going to feel the power.
So for me, relaxation is the key. Tenseness is what I expect in the moment the strike lands. Soft, fluid, fast, and then BAM hard; with all the muscles and bones of my body lined up to contribute to that impact.
Hope this helps!
No thoughts.
