Too silly, too silly
Not to rehijack this board, but I’ve got a question about stretching.
I’ve been doing some research and ran into the ususal Furey vs. Pavel divide and, in trying to validate one or the other via other research, am now completely paranoid about stretching at all.
So: 1) Is stretching your ligaments really that bad for you? 2) If so, how do I tell whether or not I’m stretching my muscles vs. ligaments (except for doing butterflys that is). 3) What’s up with this PNF stretching I’m reading so much about 4) How do I get my damn hips to open up? 4) what’s the difference between a muscle stretch and a ligament stretch? 5) Any sample programs that work for people? I’m getting to the stage where I should be able to kick to the level of my head and I’m patently not there (nowhere close).
I only ask this because as soon as I read about these “awful stretches” (which seemed to be everything I’ve ever been taught), I remembered this one guy in our dojo who’se been training for 30-some years and is without a doubt the most flexible man I’ve ever seen (he is, of course, in his mid-50s). From what I understand, his secret is simply yoga (and having done it for who knows how long), but I noticed in a seminar we attended where we did lots of these “harmful” stretches (i.e. one dude in the butterfly, one dude sitting facing that guy and pulling him down and the third guy standing on the legs of the butterflyer) and this guy would have been training in these methods for a significant part of his early career. Is this just an exception, or am I worried about nothing in particular (the reason I don’t just ask him is because we’ve got two compeltely different schedules and inquiries to others just ask me to ask him…).
There’s a difference between harmful and potentially harmful.
I did hatha yoga for a few years as a rugrat, so I’ve never had the troubles that so many do as adults in acquiring flexibility. However, I’ve seen a number of people achieve a great deal of flexibility as adults.
I’m not familiar with PNF stretching. What is it?
What I’ve read is that proprioceptive stretching is supposed to be quite effective.
IANAD, (ask in GD and hope for Qadgop or Paprika for more authoritative answers), but, stretching ligaments can be harmful if there’s damage done to the ligaments. IIRC, ligaments don’t have their own blood supply and count on the normal use and stretching to maintain their health. Gentle stretching of ligaments in the course of stretching your muscles shouldn’t be a problem. Stretching should be done in conjunction w/ exercises that strengthen the joint as well though, lest one create the potential for increased space inside the joint w/o a corresponding increase in the muscles of the joint that help provide stability. Increasing the length of ligaments w/o increasing the strength of other stabilizing factors could lead to a decrease in joint stability.
I would reccomend a regime of a wide variety of stretches for each particular area. Do only one or two kinds per area in a stint so that there’s less chance of damage resulting from overstressing a particular area. For example, if you could incorporate a half dozen different hamstring stretches into your workout, you would do one or two for a week and then the next week switch to another pair, and so on so that any incidental “micro-damage” could be healed by your body.
My experience w/ hatha yoga involved slow, comfortable poses. There wasn’t ever a sense of strain.
IIRC, tendons and ligaments take longer to change than muscles.
Patience, is as always, a crucial element of your arsenal when it comes to self development. I talked about stretching as growing flexibility, rather than stretching muscles. Stretching seems to imply the kind of thing that you’d do to Silly Putty, which, of course, isn’t at all what you’d want to do to yourself. You’ve just got to encourage a particular type of growth.
ps
Stay away from get flexible quick schemes and toruous machiones. Sometimes, if you don’t strecth evenly, you can set yourself up for a great deal of damage.
Here’s a link to PNF without describing what it really is (these are stretches that everyone knows): http://members.lycos.co.uk/Tamari/pnf.htm
For a more detailed description (one that’s so technical, it appears the author dosen’t even know what he’s talking about, then again, given some of this other stuff, it’s likely that he tried some guesswork rephrasing to avoid plagarism):
http://www.specialtactics.com/stretching_4.shtml#SEC36
Now that I go over it again (and look at those drawings), I understand it a bit better, however, I’ve run across literature in other places that talks about the stretches from the first group (especially the butterfly) as dangerous at best and damaging at worst.
I’m probably over-reacting though as I just realized that I’ve been stretching incorrectly and now trying to figure out how to do it right.
I really am going to respond to the answers to the scenario question I asked. Be kind of busy with a couple of small contracts and it is a long answer I want to post. I have it in my head but just need to type it out.
As for stretching. I am not a sport physician. I don’t pretend to be. I do thing the way I’ve been taught, and to the best of my knowledge. The thing is with that is that I’ve read books on it, and it seems everybody has their own opinion. When the sports doctors decide so will I. 
So how I do things:
I tend to favour gentle stretching for longer periods of timeom instead of a hard stretch for a short period of time. Hence, for example, in my class I expect you to be stretched out before class starts. If I did the stretching the way I like it before class, there would be no class time left.
What I generally recommend for people who want to improve their flexibility is “commercial stretching”. Essentially do a gentle stretch during the commercial breaks when you’re watching TV. I’ve had great success in people who have done it. Repeated light stretching in my experience has better results then occasional hard stretching.
I think that this is a goodern. I suspect that a lot of frequent, moderate stretching like this would be much more beneficial than occasional intense stretching.
I’ve kind of taken quotes from here and there. No response should be taken as an assault on that originating post or poster, or at least it is not my intent. Just my comments on what was posted.
This is good advice.
Things you can never know:
#1: The intent of the attacker, although somethings can give you clues. More on that later.
#2: The outcome of the encounter.
This deals with #2.
You may escape. You may win the fight. You may win the fight and be seriously injured. You may escape and be seriously injured. Etc.
The key to ensuring your survival regardless of any outcome other than the attacker kills you is to have help on the way. If this case it is not likely you’ll be able to call for help yourself, at least not directly to the people who count, i.e. police and paramedics. You need somebody else to do it for you. Screaming is the only way you can help yourself let them know that you’re in trouble. Yes, somebody might notice, but they might not.
An error from my own past. Probably one of the most serious fights I’ve ever been in was when I got stabbed in the back by some junkie. I won, but I never called for help. I made it about a dozen paces down the street after “winning” the fight before collapsing. Lucky for me somebody called the police and they called the paramedics.
This is not good advice.
Why not?
Because he is not after your purse, at least not only after your purse. As per #1 above, you can never know the intent of the attacker, but some things can give you clues.
Normally, these clues come from your instincts. No instincts apply in this case because you are not in the situation (hence the power of scenario based training). Note, there is some instinctiveness involved here, but it is different then the instincts I’m referring to in the previous sentence. So, instead I gave you the clues you would normally receive, assuming you take the time to develop your internal senses.
This is your instinct speaking. Seriously, a little voice in your head will chime in saying “This guy wants to hurt me”. Listen to it. He wants to hurt you.
The nature of his attack also gives you some clues. IMPORTANT Be very very careful about using these characteristics! These are valuable and typically pretty accurate but it is practically a lifetime in study to be able to learn the subtle differences!
When the attacker tries to drag you into the alley he is sending a signal. He wants privacy? Why? Does he need privacy to steal your purse? No… and that bring us to clue #2. The attacker grabbed your arm, not your purse. It speaks volumes about his intent. If he’d wanted to grab the purse he would have. In general, it would certainly make his job much easier. A thief instinctively wants to minimizes contact with his victim. This assailant is making no such attempt.
So, the natural reply is, why not try? If attempting to scream is a good idea, isn’t dropping the purse? No, because your purse may contain your main means of escape. It contains your car keys, if you own a car or it contains your money if you taking a bus or taxi. It is more valuable to you in your possession then thrown away. Note, that this is not as true if he was just a thief and obviously so; however, it does indicate that it isn’t such a bad idea to have some spare cash and car keys somewhere other than in your purse.
As for a distraction, the purse would be much more effective by planting in the attackers face, which would be a good tactic to employ. It might make him grab it with both hands, and at a minimum momentarily blinds him.
This is generally pretty decent advice for the specifics of what I asked. It represents a basic approach to self defense. Bang away until there is no more threat. It is effective because it meshes well with the animal mind. Any human being on the planet (lets not nitpick on babies and such please) can form a fist and throw it at the attacker. Early weapons were designed to enchance this very basic technique, i.e. rocks and pointy sticks (btw, yes I like the Monty Python sketch). It works. It has worked for countless number of people, so anybody who would deny it is foolish and wrong. Most short self defense courses, including my own, focus on this approach because there is no time to really teach anything better. So I like this as an answer to what to give as advice on what to do. It focuses on what it is vital. Attack, and let your animal mind do the rest.
A bit too unspecific. This kind of approach can lead to excessive freezing at the moment of the adrenal dump. It is vital to previsualize and ingrain into your instincts what you will do. Most people have their favorite techniques and you can probably see a dozen times on this board where I’ve stated “self defense is not a technical solution”. I stick by that, assuming the techniques choosen meet the self defense requirements. But choosing them and having them available instantly to your animal mind is vital, otherwise it’ll get looked into a “what should I do?”. It needs to be under attack->eye gouge.
This is very good thinking.
This is a very good technique, with one small modification. You should palm strike the chin. Then the hand wraps around the face. Interesting thing about this is that, and you can try this, is that with the palm on the chin when you wrap the hand up it goes right into the eyes. Works for the vast majority of hands and faces.
This is a very interesting comment and quite correct, of course; however, it initially might seem very important, but surprisingly isn’t. I’ve never had to teach somebody to keep fighting. What I do have to teach is to start. The animal mind is very powerful and once kicked into survival mode will not stop until survival is ensured. So, is it wrong to teach this? No, not really, it can be inspiring, but it isn’t necessary and too much focus shouldn’t be given to it.
This response is honest, if somewhat dangerous. It is vital not to hold any delusions; however, upon recognizing what you would do, and noticing that it isn’t exactly the best for your survival you need to start to construct a new mental image of what you would do. Visualize yourself taking a different course of action. Start to ingrain that into your instincts.
But be honest with yourself. Don’t overthink either. Some people think of a good solution and then tell themselves no I’d never do that and talk themselves down to something poor. This is as dangerous as delusional thinking.
Ultimately, only you know what’s going on inside your own head. Your first thought is your instinctive thought, so it is that which you will do. All you need to do; which I say as if it is terribly easy, is figure out whether that initial thought is really good for your survival or not.
Okay, so my first attempt at creating this got lost to the dreaded timeout on post. So this is a retype from notepad. I hope the formatting turns out. Any follow up questions or any desire for more clarity as to what I’m talking about are welcome.
Self-defense training video
http://fileserver.uechi-ryu.com/videos/fastdefense.wmv
If one can’t beat up one guy standing up, what makes people think that they can beat up a bunch of them:
http://www.subfighter.tv/vid/highlights/fight/Royce%20Gracie%20vs%20Kung%20Fu.wmv