Body alignment

Discussion in 'General Martial Arts Discussion' started by Summertime, May 15, 2011.

  1. Summertime

    Summertime Valued Member

    I keep seing this term, here on MAP as well as on other places. Body alignment. I have a rough, intuitive idea of what it means, but I like to know very precisely what words mean. Is there anyone out there who could possibly help me?

    The most basic meaning of "alignment" would be to put things into a straight line, but I don't really think that applies here...? English is not my native language, so please bear with me if I don't find the obvious.

    Below is a collection of quotes with various word combinations with "alignment" in them, which I think have roughly the same meaning. Many of them (but not all) is collected here on MAP. Many of them (but not all) is from the Ninjutsu forum, since that is where I started looking.

     
  2. Banpen Fugyo

    Banpen Fugyo 10000 Changes No Surprise

    Hmm... I'll try to explain using the quotes you used:

    Proper alignment in this context would be correct posture and pelvic tilt. For instance, if your back is arched and/or your pelvis is tilted too far forward/right/left/etc

    Same deal. If your posture is off, you'll notice because your balance will be as well.

    In these terms, the poster is probably saying that because (in his opinion) ninjutsu practitioners dont practice attacks at full speed/intensity, they are slack with proper movement/posture/stuff I talked about earlier.

    For example, if someone is used to just throwing a weak rear handed boxing-style straight punch without proper pivot of the rear foot, knee, hips, and shoulder, then when he throws a full speed punch he might be significantly less powerful than a weaker person with proper form.

    Ive been pigeon-toed my whole life, meaning I find myself stepping forward with my toe pointed inward, rather than my toe pointing forward. When this happens, my knee is also pointing sideways, rather than forward. If I were to continue practicing without trying to correct this improper alignment I would be weakening my knee because I am trying to make it bend/move in a way that it was not meant to.

    This has to do with "power line". An easy example would be to think of 2 arrows. One is perfectly straight. The other is has a small bend on the shaft. Not only will the bent one be more inaccurate, but since the power isnt perfectly behind the arrowhead, it wont penetrate as well.

    The rest are pretty much the same as what Ive said. Hope that helps.
     
  3. Summertime

    Summertime Valued Member

    Can we have synonymns for alignment, that works in all - or some - martial arts contexts where the word is used?

    It has a lot to do with body structure, that's obvious. So why don't we just say "body structure" instead of "alignment"? What does the term "body alignment" add, which isn't implicit if we say "body structure"?
     
  4. Banpen Fugyo

    Banpen Fugyo 10000 Changes No Surprise

    Usually these can be interchanged in general conversation.

    On the martial arts boards they can be as well, but when talking about "body alignment" it can sometimes have more of a "linear" connotation to it. For instance a "power line", linear force or how well your body parts line up behind a punch/kick.

    Just depends on the context.

    Alignment:
    Definition: lining up
    Synonyms: adjustment, arrangement, calibration, order, positioning, sequence, sighting

    Structure:
    Definition: makeup, form
    Synonyms: anatomy, architecture, arrangement, build, complex, configuration, conformation, construction, design, fabric, fabrication, format, formation, frame, framework, interrelation, make, morphology, network, order, organization, skeleton, system, texture
     
  5. Fu_Bag

    Fu_Bag Valued Member

  6. Rebel Wado

    Rebel Wado Valued Member

    To be honest, the term alignment can be confusing... you kind of need more of a context and previous experience with a concept in order to figure out what some people are saying. Plus some people actually don't know what they are talking about and are just like a parrot, repeating what others have told them but without the understanding of what it is they are really saying.

    The term "alignment" should be very specific in description. If you ask someone what they mean by alignment, depending on how they answer the question, they should either be able to demonstrate what they mean or explain it with words or diagrams.

    Alignment does not always mean a straight line, either. Sometimes it is used to mean parallel lines connected in the middle. For example, if you bend at the knees, you can lean your upper body forward and still maintain balance. The line of the spine can be parallel to the line of the shin on the right leg for right side attack or parallel to the left shin for left side attack. The key is in the hips. If someone breaks your balance at the hips, you will see that this alignment is broken.

    One confusing aspect of alignment is it is often talked about as how your body works, but alignment really is in response to a force, whether that is gravity or some other force. When you punch a heavy bag, the alignment is not just how pieces of your body line up, it is also how they line up with what you are hitting and with the force from the impact of the punch.

    So long story short, alignment should be used for specific contexts and should be able to be demonstrated in action. Basically, you align your body for attack through a target. The specific pieces of the body that are aligned depend on the situation and context. IMHO.

    Body structure, however, IME, is more to do with delivery system. It is probably closer to saying posture. Good body structure allows for good alignment. Body structure, however, is built through experience as much as repetition. An example would be that say you train for months to develop the right alignment for a power punch, then you go into randori against three attackers and you are all nervous, your shoulders tense up, and your hips float. Even though you have trained to hit a bag with good alignment, due to adrenaline and lack of experience in simulated or real combat, you lose your structure. Instead of a power punch with all your body behind it, you end up mainly punching just with your arms.

    Just examples.


    That was a good interview, thanks.

    I didn't actually see much about alignment and structure particularly, but it was a good read.
     
  7. Summertime

    Summertime Valued Member

    That was a very nice post, Rebel Wado.

    Does it actually have to be lines, at all? Can it be entire systems of lines - vectors, in physics lingo? Checking the word alignment in itself

    actually quite a few of the synonyms do not imply anything with straight lines. An arrangement may contain straight lines, or not.

    You obviously have these terms very clearly defined for yourself! Where did you learn this? Do physiotherapists etc. talk about body alignment? Is it a martial arts term only, a Japanese term, originally a Latin term, German, French? If anyone has an exact translation of the word to another language, please share it.

    Are we talking mainly about the bones here? But really, the stuff that decides the position of the sceleton is the muscles, so I guess the muscles must be responsible for alignment. Then is the question how you teach your muscles to align your bones properly. (Is that where the Feldenkrais article found its way into this discussion?)
     
  8. Rebel Wado

    Rebel Wado Valued Member

    Yes, we are talking mostly about skeletal alignment combined with angle of attack and positioning. Basically, the weakest link is what usually breaks if alignment is off. However, there is also the alignment to the enemy, so not only does your alignment need to be considered but also the alignment relative to the enemy's alignment. For example, a TKD round house kick can hit strongly to the solar plexus if you and your to opponent are sideways to each other at the point of the kick's impact with the ball of the foot. So you have the alignment of the ball of the foot hitting as near to perpendicular to the target for the most force and least chance of injury to the kicker.

    It's not purely the use of muscles responsible for the alignment, it is more the muscle memory responsible because the alignment must exist correctly while in a relaxed state, not just when braced for impact. IME.
     
  9. Ace of Clubs

    Ace of Clubs Banned Banned

    Natural alignment or also known as good alignment (on the ninjutsu sub-forum) is the correct way to align your body without putting unnecessary pressure on joints, muscles, tendons and bones.

    Here is a good image to illustrate my point.

    [​IMG]

    The first four examples are poorly aligned bodies. They aren't straight and don't 'sit' well. It's like a well constructed building. If a skyscraper is not properly aligned and sitting well on the foundation it's going to put pressure on the frame and damage the building.

    Good body alignment is good skeletal alignment, correct posture and effective weight bearing.
     
  10. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    correct alignment in MA terms, to give a general-ish personal definition, is when the parts of the body generate force (and transmit force between them) in such a manner that the gross resulting force goes in a direction that is optimal for the end goal of the movement being performed. in theory this goes for most of, if not every single mobile section of the body, although in practical terms not all can be reliably controlled, and not all will have a significant effect on the "final" applied force (for example head posture affects balance and movement, but it would be downright stupid to suggest making faces or wiggling your ears to affect it further, in the same way that thumb position will not have any practical effect on a palm strike, beyond the need to keep it out of the way of the striking vector, whereas what you do with your wrist, which does include moving the fingers, can affect the kind of impact that results).

    my $0.02 worth :)
     
  11. robocoastie

    robocoastie Valued Member

    Fish of Doom summed it up all. I think the term "body mechanics" may apply better than "alignment" in some of those quotes. For example Internal Kung Fu styles have a radically different body mechanic in that when one part moves all parts move rather than just the hips as some styles have it.
     
  12. Jphaas

    Jphaas Valued Member

    Many people tend to use the terms alignment and structure almost interchangably but in actuality, alignment is a component of structure. For example, looking at a natural standing posture, good alignment would be:

    • Crown up
    • Chin down
    • Shoulders packed down
    • Spine lifting up (through crown)
    • Spine pulling down (through tail bone)
    • Hips under shoulders
    • Knees under hips
    • Mid-foot balance

    This puts the whole body into proper alignment. Structure also includes (in my lexicon) the balance of tensions within the body's soft tissues. Think of spine as the mast of a sail boat while the soft tissue (fascia) act as the stays keeping the tensional balance.

    Check out this clip on tensegrity to pull it all together:
    http://youtu.be/rOQw-GR8A4o
     
  13. Summertime

    Summertime Valued Member

    So to you, it is the bones that should be aligned. That makes completely sense regarding the response to force (gravity or other force) that Ace of Clubs is speaking about.

    Really good video!

    Ace, this makes me chuckle - just a little bit, but still.

    Man, I'm asking for help in understanding the word "alignment" and you help me by defining natural or good alignment as the corrent way to align the body :p That's not all you wrote, no :) but occasionally you native speakers give us poor foreigners a hard time. If you replaced "align" in the phrase "the correct way to align your body" with another word - which word would you choose?

    Btw, doesn't your example of "good alignment" has his weight a little bit too far back, almost at the heel? I thought somewhere at the middle would be more optimal. Actually I think he looks like he is awkwardly aware that he is close to falling backwards.
     

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