BEING “DOJO FIT”

 by Phillip Starr

One of my close friends who teaches traditional Okinawan karate occasionally makes reference to studnts being “dojo fit.” I completely agree with him. Students sometimes take it upon themselves to improve their martial arts technique by engaging in a variety of exercises such as lifting heavy weights, running long distances, and so forth. My friend tells them that although they (and many athletes) may do such exercises regularly, that won't necessarily help to improve their karate. “You have to be 'dojo fit'”, he tells them.

Many years ago, a famous coach and fitness instructor for Olympic athletes as well as NASA astronauts, L. Morehouse, wrote a book entitled “Maximum Performance” explaining this phenomenon. It's long out of print but used copies are still available on Amazon.com. He explained why professional athletes engage only in exercises that will enhance their performance. Doing other exercise routines could eventually have a negative affect on their skills.

At the time this book was penned (1977), martial arts had not yet heavily impacted America, although they were becoming more and more common. The closest sport to martial arts that he investigated was boxing. His findings were very revealing! Since I studied his book, I've followed it very closely and I've found that his recommendations work extremely well!

All in all, it's a question of developing the proper muscle “tone.” If your exercise routines “tone” or “tune” the muscles to do things that are unrelated to your particular discipline, you're actually exercising to minimize your skill. At best, they simply won't impact your martial arts performance at all. My gong-fu teacher had an understanding of this. One of my classmates was very fond of playing football but my teacher cautioned him about engaging in a number of the exercises that had been recommended for athletes wishing to excel in the sport.

He told him that such training would eventually have a negative impact on his gong-fu and he related it to tuning a musical instrument. One stringed instrument wouldn't necessarily be tuned in exactly the same way as another. My guzheng (Chinese zither) is tuned in the key of D, whereas a guitar is tuned differently. If you tried to tune them to the same key, one of them would sound terrible.

I strongly recommend getting a copy of Maximum Performance and studying it very thoroughly so that you can apply it to your own training and the training of your students.