Martial arts A - Satori Martial Arts and Healing Center

exploring today’s touch therapies
Issue 114 • March - April 2005
www.massagemag.com
Martial arts
Not just for fighting
A
slate of Hollywood blockbusters
– The Matrix, Charlie’s Angels
and Kill Bill – brought Asian
martial arts back into cinematic vogue
after a 30-year absence. But while
these movies highlighted impressive
fight moves, devotees say that there
are many more benefits to be gained
from a regular martial arts practice.
“In real martial arts you work
every single [body] part, the internal
and the external, yin and yang, both
aspects all the time, and that translates
into a more complete person,” says
Pete Pukish, a massage therapist and
master instructor and owner of
Satori Martial Arts and Healing
Center in Roswell, Georgia.
“Learning about breath; understanding
the proper shifting of weight, distribution
and bone alignment; and any art that
balances all of the physical aspects of
training, flexibility, speed, power, agility
– all of these things will make for a better
massage therapist,” Pukish says.
In addition, a key component to
martial arts practices is the ability to
create a maximum effect through the
least energy expenditure. This is
achieved through joint manipulation,
pressure points and leverage. In other
words, working smarter, not harder.
“It helps you build up energy,” says
Jack Carter, a martial arts teacher in
Sacramento, California, who has
practiced massage therapy for 54
years. “When you have [a client] that’s
really negative, with a lot of things
wrong with their body, they [can]
take [energy] away from you.”
Physical Benefits
“Martial arts are aerobic and
anaerobic at the same time,” says Bill
Polk, a 5th-degree black belt in tae kwon
do, and a boxer and shiatsu therapist
in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He compares practicing martial
arts to dancing fast, with the added
anaerobic benefits of kicking and
punching, which provide strength
training.
Flexibility is also an important
aspect of all martial arts, according to
Polk. Performing high kicks and being
manipulated by practice partners
require a large range of flexibility.
This is why martial arts classes always
begin with extensive stretching.
Agility and balance are also
required. Like a dancer, you have to
master a certain degree of grace and
surefootedness to be a successful
martial artist.
Massage and martial arts
Martial artists have long used massage
therapy to relieve soreness and improve
performance. Some disciplines of
martial arts, such as Jiu Jitsu and Dan
Zan Ryu, incorporate massage as part
of their traditional healing arts.
At Satori Martial Arts and Healing
Center, the black-belt training program
requires a 150-hour certification in
Okazaki Restorative Massage, and
includes basic CPR and first aid,
anatomy and physiology, and how to
deal with injury from a Chinesemedicine perspective.
A school that emphasizes the art of
martial arts, says Pukish, will “approach
it from Western medicine… and will
overlap with Chinese medicine, [such
as] the five-element theory, and…
massage, acupuncture and herbs.”
Mind+body
The meditative aspect of martial
arts may be as important as the
physical, says practitioners. They go
hand in hand. Focus, quieting the
mind and allowing energy to move
through you, instead of exerting, are
elemental. While these aspects may be
more easily recognized in the meditative
arts, such as tai chi or qigong, Pukish
says they are present in all forms.
“The [martial] artist would perform
kata (the motion with its corresponding
mindset) and stay in that mode of
presence their entire life,” says Pukish.
“It would be a path.”
“Without my martial arts and my
massage practice, I wouldn’t be the
person that I am,” Polk says. “I always
get the same comment, ‘you look like
you’re 30.’ I am 50. I’ve never felt
better in my life.
- Deborah J. Meyers
Additional reporting by Kelle Walsh
_____________________________
To find out class schedules at Satori,
register for a class or take a free class
call (770) 521-1152
Visit the web site at
www.SatoriInternational.com