We’ve talked about full-contact mixed martial arts, now let’s talk about some non-contact based martial arts. All martial arts was traditionally designed for combat or self-defense. Before learning to strike, many martial arts begin with a set routine are designed to refine techniques, stances and build overall foundation. Nowadays, there are practitioners that specialize in these routines and are used to compete in a non-contact point based system.
Since these routines are non-contact in nature, this section of martial arts have evolved to incorporate fluidity and grace to make techniques more attractive to the eye. What better to be able to beat people up and look good at the same time?
Although martial arts routines or foams are non-contact based, many technique within the foam can be quite demanding on the body. These include:
- Coordination: Much like the left-right-hook of boxing, linking various techniques together require great body awareness to coordinate hands and feet to complete execute the technique.
- Agility: Forms are designed to mimic real-life scenarios. The mindset of striking techniques are to hit without getting hit; thus, there is a heavy emphasis on making the speed and agility of the kick and punches faster.
- Balance: With a wide variety of stances that are imbedded into these forms, much balance is required to keep upright. The speed required for upper limb techniques would easily throw an amateur off balance.
- Power: In many advanced forms, airborne techniques are added into to increase the difficult of the foam and also to earn more points on the point based system. Your legs would need much power to get enough airtime to complete the movement.
Lacking in any of these demands can compromise performance in a competition. If continuous drilling of techniques just doesn’t seem to be improving your performance, it might be a good idea to get some input from a physiotherapist.
At Capital physiotherapy, our physiotherapist are experts in human movement and can help identify factors that can improve your performance. We can help development a holistic program to target these deficient factors and boost your performance.
We have clinics located in South Yarra, Balwyn and Footscray. If you’re around the area, give us a call and we’ll help you achieve develop a program to help place more points in your competition.