Hi All, We recently started sword cuts and as such now have to spend some considerable time kneeling down. Fine, I hear you say, and all you DBNs and BBs will have gone through it all in the past and probably still do to a greater or lesser extent. However, I found 25 minutes or so of kneeling on a hard wooden gym floor one of he most excrutiatingly agonizing things I have ever done!!! It was, to me, so truely painful. I know you will all think that I am some kind of wuss, and I am sure that everybody can manage it so much better than me, but what can I say? However to try and help me improve and get better, I would like to ask has anyone any tips to help me focus less on the pain I am feeling, and more on being able to do the sword cuts properly. Also, when we did the seminar in Amserdam before the tournament there last year, we did some sword meditation. Again this was kneeling down but not for so long. However at the end of it all, the SBN or PSBN (I am sorry I can not remember his name, but I believe he is from Washington) showed us two pressure points one on the back of the knee somewhere, and the other on the foot, to press and start the circulation flowing back into our legs before we stood up. Does anybody know what they are called so that I can look them up and then try this technique as standing up after sword cuts was a bit problematic!! Thanks for your help here and any good tips! All the best.
I think one of those points is Dohk Ki. Kneeling on hard wood floor for that long would not be fun. Can you ask/beg your instructor to allow you to flold up a towel either under or behind your knees?
You have to just build up your tolerance, granted wood floors are harder on your knees than carpeted floors. But once it gets too painful for you to continue, go ahead and stand up. There is no law saying you have to do meditations from kneeling position, its just the most formal way of doing it. Infact Im not sure if the position which you are in changes the technique development. I know certain positions help with certain things like kneeling supports your back and it tends to keep your hips centered and square, thus causing you to use your shoulders more on the twisting meditations. But Im not sure if it changes the actuall sword cut, which is the only thing you should be concerned with.
there is absolutely no reason for you to practice sword cuts only from the kneeling position. stand up. use a front stance and practice the cuts moving in various directions, hell for that matter make up your own hyung for your own training purpose. show it to absolutely no one.....ever take what you have learned and make it your own
at one of the seminars over here (uk) kjn alex said it was alright to do these cuts from sitting in cross leg position
Don't think of the pain as one with you ,but see it as part of your body. Analyze it. Control it as if it was like any other function of your body. Realize it is just a biological process. Imagen the atoms which form molecules and how your body is built and how your pain is just neurons reacting to what your body produces. Realize this is not you, you are not the pain. You have the choice to feel pain or not. lol works for me.
Cheers for this. I'll give this a go next time. Interestingly, we did more cuts from kneeling at out last training, this time on proper mats, and the pain wasn't too bad that time. However, they won't always be available, so I will try and use this approach. I'll let you know how it pans out. Cheers everyone for your advice (although cutting my legs off is a bit extreme LOL), and I like the idea of practicing cuts in front stance / my own "secret" hyung. I think a combination of building up the tolerance, and the imagining the pain as not part of me is probably what I will try for the kneeling aspects. As for the sword cuts, I will practice them as suggested kneeling, in front stance, sitting, standing, or however, to improve those moves. Thanks guys for all your help.
