We’ve all heard that internal MA’s are excellent for health promotion. And, I suppose any art that requires you to be active will benefit your health. I’ve also heard that some “hard” gongs can take time off your life, such as extreme iron body training, etc.
But, are there any arts that don’t promote health? I mean, any arts that train the body to have unnatural posture, or unnatural movements, or anything that over time will have a detrimental effect on the body?
I read in a book once that Dragon style practicioners eventually develop rounded forward shoulders. That can’t be good. Unfortuantely, I forgot which book I read this in.
I´ve heard the same that some styles based on fighting are based on it so much that they develop their skill and do stuff that can harm their health.
I guess this goes for SOME hard qi-gong (at least,part)
Iron sand palm (spelling?) is told to be harmful.
Probably some karate styles (possibly others) with “eternal” tension",brutal body hardening and strange kata´s.
I won´t go further with this to avoid giving wrong ideas.
And probably in general,MA done wrong will possibly do harm in long run.Misunderstanding or arrogance towards proper “rules” of training.
Overall, I think that there are two (if you chose to count them both) that tend to cause the most frequent injury in the USA. One is Tae Kwon Do. I love TKD, and I have a very good friend who is a 2nd Dan, and he is constantly injured. Now I am not saying that if you study TKD you’ll get busted up, but the rapid spread of this art by under qualified instructors has busted up a lot of knees, hips, and feet.
The second, if you count it, is Tae Bo. Seriously. When I went to see a couple sugeons about my own knee problems (from studying shaolin wushu) they both mentioned that the who “cardiokick” craze has sent them more business than they care to have.
Dezhen - It is sad. The problem is that there are not usually different class levels. People join these Cardio classes to lose weight…but they are over weight and out of shape and cardio kickboxing is hard and very stressful on the body. As there is no logical progression, injury occurs.
Yup, there needs to be a definate progresion, hence hwy training in anything is a long term endeavour - no shortcuts… is it because of how the classes are taught? how the instructors are qualified or regulated? I do hope they can sort it out, as things like that are becoming very popular, so even more people will be injured.
Definately.
Most of the Mauy Thai people I know couldn’t fight MAist their own age due to extensive internal injuries gathered through the training and sparring
Sorry but I don’t but into that muay thai is a unhealthy martial art martial rumor, I have found that people use that as a hidden zing to on western boxing and muay thai in a weird attempt to take away from its effectivness in combat, are you talking about pro thai fighters in thaliand or are you talking about american thai fighters?
What associations did they fight in? What were there records? What training made them so messed up? What internal injuries?
They never really told me what specific injuries they have. Most of them just say that they are injured and changes the subject. I assume it is a private thing. To what I have get out of them, their upper body (chest area ) as well as head injuries seems to be the most severe. Some even said they suffer from on-again-off-again headaches.
They of Asian areas. And a few of the people know have indeed been to Thailand for pro competition.
reminds me of the time i was learnig nunchuka in karate, and i swung them under one arm, missed catching them and hit myself square on the back of the head they were solid oak
Ouch! Did something like that when I was studying Shotokan. Hit myself in the right thighbone with octagonal mohogany chucks. Haven’t touched them since.:eek:
Take any martial art and a bad teacher and you get a very unhealthy thing!..But I think that any thing that preaches that heavy contact to the head will make you a tougher and better fighter has a serious risk potential to your health.It is a question of times before you start to pay the price.
Yeah.
Good thoughts,you mentioned arts that I could not think of.
boxing,muay thai (boxing) I´ve also heard that TKD practice is likely to bust your knees.
But can be also a matter of how-to as previously said.
Overall, I think that there are two (if you chose to count them both) that tend to cause the most frequent injury in the USA. One is Tae Kwon Do. I love TKD, and I have a very good friend who is a 2nd Dan, and he is constantly injured.
I have some anecdotal evidence to back this up. My mom and sister started taking Tae Kwond Do with in a week my mom had blown out her MCL (Medial Crucial Ligament) in her knee. Apparently they were doing some weird partner stretching and doing it too quickly. On a positive note my Mom now studies Chen Taiji and loves it.
Anyways, I think any martial arts where the instructor is not qualified. Or if the instructor does not have an intimate knowledge of human anatomy and sports physiology can be potentially dangerous. Also, if the instructor pushes the students too quickly.
There are a lot of antiquated practices floating around that are simply not helpful and potentially dangerous. One that comes quickly to mind is bouncing in your stretches. While its probably OK to gently bounce when doing light stretching (it warms the muscles) I’ve seen people agressively bouncing which actually makes you tighter and increases your risk of injury.
These practices persist because it is hard to convince a MA teacher that a practice is harmful when they learned it from their MA teacher, especially if their teacher is very good. ( For example, bouncing might not have irreparably harmed the teacher’s kung fu but might have increased their rate of injury.) So the practice gets passed down the line.
they were solid oak