Tension Management
In your daily life there is a baseline tension that you are so familiar with that you no longer even notice. This tension manifests in fatigue, pain, and stress that many people live with. Of course you see the benefit of reducing tension at work and in your personal life. But tension beyond a certain level, what I call the point of “necessary tension” can impact your ability to defend yourself as well.
Many of us who have studied the martial arts are accustomed to holding powerful stances during training and sparring. We have been taught to block and strike with great force. But this has an impact on your body that affects your ability to adapt and avoid injury in real-life defensive situations.
In Systema, the Russian martial art, tension is reduced and controlled such that your body is free to move naturally throughout combat. This is as interesting as it is unique.
Tension management is important in delivering strikes, but what I will focus on here is the way tension can prevent natural movement and ultimately cause injury in training and real attacks, as well as how to manage the level of tension in the body. This can and should be applied to every aspect of life, as it will lead to a more fluid and flexible existence.
When you engage large muscle groups, you in effect are connecting and combining the various parts of the body. This is good if you need to move a refrigerator, but not if you need to survive a knife attack in a dark alley. Once you have locked up the body, there is almost no way to unlock it. This becomes even worse under the stressful conditions of an attack. The tension builds up through the muscles and prevents you from changing the body’s alignment, direction, and response to new & escalating threats.
Try it out. Flex your entire upper body and attempt to move each shoulder independently, for example. Experiment and try to be fluid while holding excess tension. This should help you to see why people throw out their backs and experience other pain and/or injury during strenuous activity. Now imagine that the activity is avoiding being slashed by a blade, held and punched by multiple muggers, etc. In dangerous scenarios, you will need every advantage you can get. Allowing excess tension to rob you of the freedom to move and adapt could spell trouble even if you have trained.
There are many examples that could be stated to support this thesis. I will assume that is unnecessary at this point. Instead, let’s move on to what you can do to reduce tension under stress.
Breathing is very important, as holding your breath creates tension in and through the chest area. So breathe and keep your core flexible, preventing the spread of tension throughout the body. If you don’t think this is such a big deal, try it out. Hold your breath as long as you can and pay attention to your chest, back, and shoulders. Psychologically, this is difficult and many people experience a panic phenomenon. See if continuous breathing can reduce this tension and promote natural movement. And do yourself a favor, taking note throughout the day just how often you hold your breath (while driving, reading, concentrating, focusing, etc).
Now that you are breathing, learn to move various parts of the body independently. This can be developed in many ways. One example is holding a weight in one hand (which will cause that arm to move with greater resistance than the other) and start bending, extending, retracting, and swinging both arms. Breathe and try to relax the upper body, holding tension only in the hands and forearms (these are the only body parts that must be tense). Now add lower body movement, moving around while keeping the stomach, hips, and upper legs free of tension.
Proper body alignment is important too. People injure their backs when lifting heavy weight with a bend in the back. So pull your lower back into straight alignment (removing the arch), bend the legs a little, and keep the hips tucked directly under the centerline. Then try to move and perform activities using the absolute minimum muscular tension required to complete the task. You will learn just how much more the body can move and adapt if you let it.
This is a brief discussion of the topic to get you thinking. But consider how much energy is wasted, and how little benefit is added, when tension takes hold of us. In life, tension can impact our success, our happiness, and our relationships. In combat and defense, tension can put us in unnecessary danger. In any case, tension should be limited otherwise it will surely limit us.
Stand!
