Necessity is the mother of all invention.
How martial artists get creative with stuff that was never meant for training.
For martial arts people, this falls into two categories:
· Using things that you have laying around and adapting it to strength building applicable to training the body for combat.
· Training methods developed using convenient objects (or situations).
The resourcefulness and dedication of martial arts enthusiasts first became apparent to me when I saw a 1930’s photograph of Japanese Goju Kai karate founder Yamaguchi Gogen (AKA ‘the Cat’) lifting a barbell somewhere in Manchuria. But it was an improvised barbell, seemingly made from an axle and wheels from something meant to run on metal tracks. Yamaguchi, in his enthusiasm, had created an opportunity to build his muscles using something that was designed for another purpose.
There is quite a tradition of this among the Goju Ryu (Okinawan) and Goju Kai (Japanese) people.
In the few years I was training at an Okinawan Goju Ryu Dojo in the UK, I experienced quite a few of these supplementary training aids (See my post https://budojourneyman.substack.com/p/climbing-someone-elses-hill-to-look ).
What was interesting to me was that the items involved might have been things you could have found in a 19th century Okinawan farmstead, but not ones found in a late 20th century English home. For example; nobody in the UK uses a grindstone for rice, millet or corn, or has a use for tall terracotta storage jars or even stone padlocks.
In the Dojo I trained at (the Jundokan) these items had to be specially made to conform to tradition; ironic really if you think about it; the Okinawans developed their own sets of techniques and traditions of manipulating and handling these items, and these have been passed down as ‘traditions’, which begs the question; surely there are better modern pieces of kit that do the same thing?
Photo of training equipment in Miyagi Chojun’s backyard in Okinawa (postwar).
This is where you have a cultural collision between tradition and utility. A lesser version of the same kind of question that comes up when you find yourself asking what is the practical use of learning a sword art when nobody carries swords anymore?
In defence of the Okinawans working with ‘found objects’ I would say, it’s not the object itself, it’s what you do with it that counts.
From my experience the Goju Ryu did two quite clever things:
· They often insisted on working the weights exercises in stances, which clearly put physical stresses on the legs and hips, as well as reinforcing familiarity with the stances; but also the stances were still extensively worked even though some of the exercises were focussed on the shoulders and arms.
· The exercised mimicked the actions found in the Kihon and Kata; again, reinforcing the moves and techniques you are supposed to be learning to become efficient in your system.
It has to be said; it would be impossible to get the same kinds of benefits from modern weight training technology like the Nautilus style weights machines.
Modern approaches.
The irony of all this becomes compounded with what’s happening with the latest trendy weights and fitness industry methods. They seem to be going old school, retro technology. An example being tractor tyres; they are flipping them end over end, hitting them with hammers, in fact everything but the one thing you’d think was logical… rolling them.
The irony goes further, and this comes from the opinion of my friendly physiotherapist. He said that people who do all this tyre flipping are his most common patients for back injuries – no structured warm-up, no gradual increase in weights, no technique taught, straight into flipping tyres. If all you do in your normal day is sit at a desk, this kind of activity will mess you up.
There layeth the problem with all this improvised stuff; modern people do not possess the same bodies as their ancestors did. Earlier people, until relatively recently, led very active physical lives, out of necessity – think of the hunter gatherers, the pioneer farmers or the Native American warriors.
I am reminded of Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of Aikido; as a young man he was obsessed with strength. When he actually became a pioneer farmer up in Hokkaido, he deliberately worked his body to become as strong as he could get; even having special extra heavy tools made to develop his power further.
Powerhouse Ueshiba Sensei in 1922.
It is no coincidence or act of fate that American boxer Jack Dempsey came from a very physical background rooted in poverty. He developed a physique entirely suited to fighting through intense manual labour as a teenager working in coalyards and on the railways in the 1910’s. Jack Dempsey would have had no trouble flipping a tyre.
Jack Dempsey.
A word about using found items to assist in training, not related to strength training.
This image depicts a clever use of available equipment to create a situation where a very directed and constrained form of sparring might take place. (See image).
Here we have a bareknuckles contest taking place on board a British Royal Navy ship in 1812. It’s titled ‘Milling Below Decks’ (‘Milling’ is an old word that suggests ‘thrashing’ or ‘beating’, but in actual fact just meant ‘fighting’).
Bareknuckles Royal Navy style.
The gundecks on ships were typically restricted in height, hence what has happened here is the two fighters have to battle it out sitting down on either end of a gun chest; but note that they are tied to each end, so they can’t go forward and they can’t escape by going back. It’s an interesting challenge for the two fighters.
I saw this picture many years ago and decided to devise my own version of it for my students.
In our training studio we had some plastic aerobic step-class platforms, designed to be light and non-slip. What I did was sit two competitors one on each end of the step facing each other; it was the perfect length to be able to reach into each other’s zone and attack with their fists, and forced good defence because there was nowhere to go, except to fall off the end of the step (with only a tiny but humiliating drop). It worked really well and with no need to tie them on. We have done similar things fighting from the knees, Idori-style.
Boxing clubs have a similar approach using a tyre – see this example.
I know that there are many other methods, both in recent days and historically. But it just comes down to creativity.
Please feel free to add examples in the comments below.
Header Photo by Heidi Erickson on Unsplash
the examples i can think of are those seen in the Rocky films (all the way to Creed).
on face value, Rocky Balboa's methods look inefficient and perhaps ludicrous. obviously for cinematic effect. But then thinking about it for a minute, maybe, just maybe there's some actual gain to be had.