I find it funny that many of the lessons that I learned in martial arts came from my years of competing at Olympic weightlifting. Although I was far from the best, many people who surrounded me where Masters in their own right. Olympic Champions, World Champions and National Champions ,what a great impression it all made on me.
To clean the weight means to approach the bar, squat down with two arms gripping the bar, keeping your back tight , using your legs and with the right timing shooting your hips forward ,extending your body and shrugging your traps and bringing the weight to your chest in a standing position. The next part would be to Jerk the weight to and over head position with arms locked to complete the entire lift.
My technique was far from perfect. I would often use my back too soon, which would either cause me to miss or make things more difficult. Being young and strong can only take you so far in competing. There comes a point that you have reached your limit and without proper technique you can not go any further. How often my friends would tell me to go on the side and work with an empty bar or something far less that I would normally handle. I remember how much I would mentally resist, because seeing my friends lifting heavier weights would make me more frustrated because I was too inexperienced to realize the benefit of working on form to help me lift at a higher level.
Teaching Martial Arts today , I often see myself as in years ago. So often I tell students to slow down, don’t rush, structure is more important than speed. It is the rare individual that can see the bigger picture and be willing to work on form. If more people can look at themselves from the outside and be more patient in learning, more progress will be made. Unfortunately we all need to experience the failures to realize our successes.
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