Time To Warm Up

 Time to Warm-Up!by E. Jude Gore, 5th Dan

I have been a band director for over 28 years and involved in music since I was ten.  My first involvement with the martial arts began a short time after being beat up at the local playground by a high school student when I was thirteen years old.   That inspired me to start taking Judo at the local YMCA.  I am not going to bore you with my autobiography (even though I have few stories that you would find….ahhhh....never-mind), but I would like to share with you how my approach to teaching music is similar to teaching karate.

I teach band at a local middle school and the students know that the first line of business in class will be to warm-up.  I like to keep them on guard and change what we do occasionally, but with the same goals in mind.  There are even times when I will ask the class to warm up on their own as I walk around, listen and make suggestions.  At this point, I want my students to be at their best for the next section of our practice. Now how many times have you been in a martial arts class that when you were done with the warm-up exercises you were too tired to practice with proper technique and good form?  I know that I have, so let’s talk “warm-up”.

One must keep in mind that the primary objective of a warm-up is to prepare mentally and physically for the practice session that follows.  It is important for a musician, as well as a martial artist, that they are mentally and physically ready to practice. Our karate class normally begins with a short meditation to clear our minds of the day’s events and to focus on the practice to come.  Students that give 100 percent without a proper warm-up are exposing themselves to possible injury.  Occasionally, a student will come into band and start playing as loud and as high on his trumpet as he can. Veins are protruding from his forehead and his face is as red as a beet.  This student is risking injury to his embouchure and playing ability.  I am sure you have seen similar situations in your karate class when a student comes in cold and starts kicking as high and as hard as they can without any type of proper warm-up.  In both cases, these students may or may not be affected by their actions, but why chance it.  A good warm-up would significantly decrease their chance of injury and allow them to practice with good form and technique.

Before I proceed further, I want to discuss objectives that I purposely avoid in a warm-up session and why.  Endurance for musicians is an important quality.  Would you hire a band that could only play for ten minutes and then need a fifty-minute break?  Endurance is a skill that musicians need to work on and develop outside of class.  After working on endurance, it is important for the musician to rest a sufficient amount of time to allow the muscles to rejuvenate.  You can understand how this would be difficult to achieve in a class situation due to time.   Flexibility and strength are similar qualities that are important to martial artist.  Do we stretch in our class warm-up?  Absolutely!  However, in class we stretch to help us avoid injury.  We do not over stretch to where the student is sore and his muscles are too tired to work on improving his technique. We have class twice a week.  This is an inadequate amount of time to become flexible without individual stretching at home.  I encourage my students to stretch each day when they have a few minutes to spare.  Slow relaxed stretching while watching a TV program is one of the ideas I suggest to my students.  Strength is also important.  I am sure you have attended classes and workshops that the warm-up has involved so many push-ups that you thought your arms were going to fall off.  This makes it very difficult to perform at your best.   If a student is fatigued to the point of practicing sloppy techniques, he is reinforcing bad form instead of developing good form.  I prefer to perform any strength and endurance exercises near the end of class, followed by an easy cool down.  Students are encouraged to work on these outside of class, as well.

Now that you know what I do not include in warm-ups, you may be wondering just what I do include. In music, we start with a series of exercises that focuses on tone production, proper technique and ensemble (listening to ourselves as well as others).  These exercises do not involve any extremes but concentrate on the mechanics of playing.  In karate class, we begin with some form of aerobic exercise followed by light stretching and moderate strengthening exercises.  These exercises can vary and quite often do.  Class becomes more interesting when the warm-up routines differ.  Several years ago, I worked out at a friend’s class in a nearby town.  For a warm-up, we started with slow punches from a ready stance and proceeded with blocking and kicking techniques.  As the class warmed-up so did the power and speed in the techniques.  It worked very well, was a nice change, and it helped reinforce the basics.  Recently I worked out at the Harrison County YMCA Karate Club, another AKS school under the instruction of Lonnie Sprouse, 3rd Dan.  Sensei Sprouse started the warm-ups with a series of light sparring drills.  This allowed the class to warm up aerobically and to review sparring techniques at the same time.  He followed it with light dynamic leg stretching and a few light strengthening exercises.  I felt energized and ready to work out from his warm up routine. These are just a few examples of how to you can change your workout and still accomplish your goals. 

It is important to remember that the purpose of the warm-up is just that: a series of light aerobic, stretching and strengthening exercises, which allow students to be mentally and physically ready to perform at their maximum potential.  Remember, it is a “warm-up”, not a “wear-out”.  Now it is time to work out so…Let’s warm up!