LMA Training Thesis 2 (Patreon)

• LMA Curriculum 

A growing number of activists and marginalized community members are getting interested in strength training and martial arts. But we shouldn't think only about strength and offensive power. As liberatory participants, we should think just as much about injury prevention, healing, and reclamation of the body.

Rather than hurting our bodies, warm-ups, conditioning, and martial arts should liberate our bodies. How we breathe during warm-ups and conditioning should carry over to our techniques. It's learning to exhale and brace for impact. It's breathing to engage our trunks to strengthen our bodies while preventing injury. Our posture from exercise should stay with us. Fundamental motor skills can be used between exercises or throughout the day. Self-defense is the bodies we restore along the way.

LMA is part physical therapy. It's not just for combat, it's also meant to heal, strengthen, and rehabilitate. You get what you want from this program. You can do it with friends, as a personal practice, or as a way to dedicate time to yourself.

Rather than going through the motion, freeing the body means enthusiasm with the body. You might think practicing the same thing is boring, but if you put passion into it, you'll feel a difference and enjoy the repetition. Sometimes what you need isn't more broadness but depth and wisdom. Liberation isn't found in the number of possibilities but in the depth of those possibilities.

– Sam