The Calling continues! The Adventure marches on!
The goal of Pulp Fiction Renaissance has always been about helping you embrace the Heroism of your Dreams locked deep inside your soul…
Dreams that were once bright and vibrant and public in childhood…
Dreams that as the years have rolled on like a trampling steamroller have been hidden and locked away inside the deep dark recesses of your heart.
Let’s be honest.
Dark voices from the mass of humanity, from followers of the herd to the hivemind’s shamanistic chieftains alike…they tell you that those dreams are impossible, unrealistic, outmoded, childish.
They tell you “no one could possibly believe in those dreams, much less live them…”
But that’s not what Pulp Fiction Renaissance is about, is it?
DREAMERS OF THE DAY
Pulp Fiction Renaissance is all about helping you realize that those dreams are possible…and to give you the tools to make them a reality!
I’m reminded of the words of that real-life Pulp Fiction Hero, the Great Lawrence of Arabia, who helped his Arab friends take out the genocidal Jihadi Ottoman Empire.
“All men dream, but not equally,” Lawrence of Arabia said. “Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind awake in the day to find that it was all vanity.
“But the dreamers of the day,” he revealed, “they are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with eyes wide open, and make them possible.
“This I did.”
Let’s give you the tools to make you a Dreamer of the Day.
But just are those tools, you ask?
TWO TOOLS, TWO APPLICATIONS
The results are in, there are really only two modes of Physical Training when we look at the big strategic picture.
And they all boil down to the role of the spine.
As I have written about before, there are primarily two views of training when it comes to the spine.
Both are very good…but both have two very different applications.
And the lack of success many trainees experience is the result of not knowing which tool is used for which application!
Those two tools are:
- Stiff Core Spinal Bracing
- Head Over Foot Side Bending
Let’s take a look at each of these tools in turn!
PLAY UPON THIS DESIRE
When many young men start out on the Heroic Path, they instinctively realize that the first step is to get physically fit…fit enough to be able to fight like the Great Heroes of Old!
They realize deep within their souls that the raw material of the body must be finely tuned to express the heroism of the soul that is hiding within.
So they start working out…and the beginning of the path always seems to be in lifting weights.
The lifting of weights is a dangerous occupation…if you don’t do it right, you can seriously injure yourself, or worse!
So beginners, after suffering an injury or two, want to make sure they are doing things right…and an entire industry has developed to play upon this desire.
The fitness and training industry’s subsequent obsession with “proper form” has made a fetish out of one particular style of training:
Spinal Bracing.
JUST WHAT IS IT?
Spinal Bracing is exactly what it sounds like…
It’s keeping your spine immoveable, straight up and down, with your core pressurized and tight…all to protect it from injury.
Now when lifting heavy weights, Spinal Bracing is generally a pretty good bet, especially in moves like Squats and Deadlifts…movements that exist in the Sagittal Plane of Motion.
And that can be with any kind of weight too…Barbells, Dumbbells, Kettlebells, you name it!
But many in the fitness and training industry have claimed that success in sports, combat, and life all revolve around Spinal Bracing!
And this is where we run into trouble!
FATE OF THE MAGINOT LINE
These young men upon the Heroic Path, as they lift heavier and get stronger and protect their spines from injury with Spinal Bracing, they notice many improvements at first…
They can move more weight, they have bigger muscle mass, even more testosterone!
But there is a major problem…revealed slowly in daily life and then dramatically within the ring, the octagon, the mats!
They find that with all of their Spinal Bracing training that has allowed them to lift such heavy weights with ease, they now move like lego figures…stiff, immobile, and slow!
Like the Great and Mighty Maginot Line that guarded the Franco-German Border in WWII, their solid but slow and immovable defenses are easily out-flanked by the fast moving and hard-hitting athletic foes…Panzers of the ring, the octagon, the mats!
They have become, in the immortal words of greats like Pavel Tsatsouline and Zach Even-Esh, “strong and useless.”
I know…because I have lived this journey!
I have been that Maginot Line!
HARDWIRED AUTOMATICALLY
“You fight as you train, so train as you fight,” goes the old adage made famous by the likes of Gen. Al Grey, Gen. Paul Van Riper, and Gen. Charles Krulak.
And when training exclusively with Spinal Bracing, the neurological system is hardwired to move in this stiff and slow lego figure manner…hardwired to do it automatically without thinking!
That means that when you go into the ring, the octagon, or the mats, your battle has already been lost…long before you ever stepped foot onto these sacred combat sports battle spaces!
No matter how much weight you can lift, no matter how strongly you can brace your core, no matter how stiff you can keep your spine…it doesn’t seem to help at all as you are outpaced and outclassed by faster, swifter strikers and grapplers!
The only thing it helps with is to make your durable…durable to take a beating!
But nobody gets into combat sports to take beating!
They get into combat sports to win!
Lucky for you, you can win…but only if you change this strategy of defeat…
WHAT THE FISH KNEW
David Weck is the creator of the Bosu Ball. He is also a very critical thinker with deep Esoteric roots in the Oriental Splendor of the Far East.
He explains that movement in sports, combat, and life itself boils down to the Piscean Theory of Locomotion.
Just what does that mean, you ask?
The Piscean Theory of Locomotion explains that human movement does not come from a stiff, immoveable braced spine, but instead a flexed spine.
He teaches this with a very simple motion he calls “Head Over Foot”.
You do it by walking, but not just any old walking.
First you bring one hip forward to take a step, and at the same time you bring the same side shoulder backwards.
This movement is powered by a side bending of the spine at the Latissimus Dorsi muscle, and the head automatically moves over the same side foot.
The side bending motion of the spine at the Latissimus Dorsi that powers this movement is similar to the way a fish’s spine moves when it swims…hence the name “Piscean Theory of Locomotion”, for “Pisces” is Latin for “Fish”!
David Weck explains it in this way:
“When you side bend in the frontal plane, the biomechanical reality is that you create an axial rotation, counter rotation of the shoulders and the hips.”
FLEXING, EXTENDING, ROTATING…OH MY!
Let’s take a closer look at everything that is going on in this Head Over Foot Movement in technical, anatomical terms.
When the left side hip is brought forward to that step, it is flexing forward in the Sagittal Plane.
When the left side shoulder is brought backward at the same time, it is moving backward, and this backwards movement is also flexing in the Sagittal Plane.
This is powered because the left side of the spine is flexing sideways in the Frontal Plane from the Latissimus Dorsi muscle,
At the same time as all of this happening, the opposite side of the body is doing…you guessed it, the exact opposite!
When the right side hip is kept backwards, it is extending backwards in the Sagittal Plane.
When the right side shoulder is brought forward at the same time, it is extending forward in the Sagittal Plane.
This is powered because the right side of the spine is extending sideways in the Frontal Plane from the Latissimus Dorsi Muscle.
And together this Compound Movement of Multi-Joints…Hips, Shoulders, and Spine, creates Rotational movement in the Transverse Plane.
This allows for external rotation to occur at the same time that the left hip flexes forward and external rotation to occur at the same time that the left shoulder flexes backward…all in the Transverse Plane.
Meanwhile, this allows for internal rotation to occur at the same time that the right hip extends backwards, and internal rotation to occur at the same time that the right shoulder extends forward…all in the Transverse Plane.
STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH
Again, David Weck explains it best…
“Now, the key to that [motion described above] is side bending,” Weck lets on. “Side bending is the key to rotational power. It is the key to optimizing extension and flexion in the body.
“Side bending is the great untapped resource that most don’t know about. It’s the key. Side bending.
“We have something called the spinal engine because the spine is curved when you side bend, it creates rotation.
“Think about throwing a baseball without side bending (if you’re just rotating). So if you can’t side bend, you can’t have power. It’s actually bad for the spine to rotate without side bending.
“Hitting, throwing, any athletic movement, you have to bend to rotate with power. It’s the same for running and the same for walking.”
THE COMBAT SPORTS CONNECTION
It is Boxing Coach Tom Yankello that accurately observed that all Rotational Sports have the same mechanics…Football, Baseball, Golf, Tennis, Boxing…you name it!
Of course, it is Boxing which concerns us here…and when you think about it, Head Over Foot is the key to its mastery!
When you throw a Right Cross, what happens?
The right shoulder extends forward, the right hip extends backward, the right side of the spine extends sideways, and the right hip and right shoulder alike internally rotate!
At the same time, the left shoulder flexes backward, the left hip flexes forward, the left spine flexes sideways, and the left hip and left shoulder alike externally rotate…and this loads up your power to throw a Left Straight!
And it’s not different for Grappling either! As Dan Gable-trained and Karl Gotch-mentored master wrestler Matt Furey famously said in the grappling game:
“I knew from experience that the techniques I performed with a circular movement were difficult to defend against…These movements helped make my techniques harder to interpret and thus more difficult to counter.” [1]
So you see, when it comes to Combat Sports, Spinal Bracing isn’t the way to go.
Head Over Foot is the Key!
Sincerely,
Richard Barrett
02-08-2024
Written at 4:54 PM, at a McDonald’s somewhere in the USA…
Sources Cited
[1] Furey, Matt. Expect to Win – Hate to Lose. Associated Creators, LP: Tampa, FL. 2011. Pg. 119.
PULP FICTION RENAISSANCE 