what is a good way to improve balance?

Balance is a coordination between your eyes and ears. Your ears feel the change in direction you go, and your eyes confirm it. If they don't agree, the brain gets confused and you... lose your balance.

So aside from practice, be sure that your eyes are in good shape. It is not in hearing that is part of the balance, but of the tubes in your ears that fill with fluid that are part of the balance mechanism, so it's not effective for balance to have your hearing checked (although, as a matter of practical health, it should be done anyway).

In maintaining balance, it is imperative to manage your "center". If, for example, you stand on one leg and find yourself losing balance, then you need to drop your center. Start by relaxing the shoulders and exhaling, this tenseness keeps your center up (which raises your center of gravity, making you less able to maintain balance). Next, bend your standing knee only slightly - you rarely want it locked, because the knee forms a sort of "steering wheel" when trying to recover from lost balance.

If you are turning and need to maintain balance, the rules still apply, but you need to deal with new rules, too. Fixate your sight on a target in the distance, and when you turn your head, maintain that sight in the distance. Figure skaters and ballet dancers can help here with some routines. Just don't forget - lower your center and relax to maintain balance.

Does jumping throw you off? Lower your balance. And instead of landing on soles of your feet, land on the balls of toes and keep the knees bent and springy. As you land, be sure to exhale and lower your shoulders - this releases the tension that keeps your center raised.

It's easy to say practice standing on one leg, but there are many applications for balance, and the mistakes you make in martial arts are not often made when just standing on one leg. That's because in martial arts, you're thinking of a thousand things other things at once, but when standing on a leg, you're watching TV or listening to music - generally, you're relaxed and you don't even realize it.

So practice requires that you know what balance is, and knowing how it can become lost, and knowing how to recover from that loss. The "practice" means feeling the loss and recovering from it, not just standing on a leg.

Good practice routines involve doing the things giving you difficulty in super slo-motion. You may lose your balance, but you will note the point where you start to lose balance and that will offer insight as to what to correct and how to do it.

There may be two reasons.

One is posture - if your head isn't aligned properly with your body it affects balance a surprising amount. Stand against a wall and see if your bottom, shoulders and head all touch it. Make sure you tuck the abdomen in rather than standing artificially straight which tends to hollow the back. Allow your shoulders to drop - don't hold them back. Make sure your chin is slightly tucked in so the highest part of your head is the very centre of the crown.

Second is relaxation. If your upper body is tense it is very damaging to balance. Try concentrating on a spot about three inches below your naval and think of this as being the heaviest point where all your energy is concentrated. Practice this while you move. Make sure that all the muscles you are not actually using are relaxed - not floppy, but not bunched up. Keep going over your body checking every muscle group in turn to make sure it hasn't tensed up again.

Bearing all this in mind line up, relax and try a slow kick - keep concentrating on these points as you do it. I would be surprised if it doesn't make a difference. If it doesn't, keep practising until it does. Because it will!

Hannah gave a great answer! Something that I like to do, even after years of martial arts training is just standing. I like to turn on the tube, or the radio and just stand in the room for a while.

Watching TV can be done while you are practicing your stances which is great if you have any shows you're addicted to. (I'm only mentioning this, because I know that most of today's culture revolves around the television, and I'm not saying that you do.)

What I would recommend is to stand in your natural stance (hachi/hachiji dachi) and 'feel' your structural alignment. You should not be tense anywhere and you should not waver around while standing. Your feet should be square against the floor, with your blade, the ball, and your heel all pressing the floor with the same amount of pressure.

This video is also good for learning balance. Don't do the walking part as he instructs, just to the standing and balancing on to one foot and try with both sides. Do NOT rush the practice, because you must feel your body absorbing the weight and balancing itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wbdKSUus3U

You could try doing little balance exercises like standing on one leg for a certain amount of time, or if you have a wii fit doing the balance exercises on there. Some yoga poses are also very good for balance.

I'm a gymnast, I've done the British gymnastic awards so i hope i can be helpful to you

You may want to improve your musles so you can hold your balence with more stamina

But personally im not very strong but have quite good balence - just practice it and practice it

Maybe if you learnt a move that requires alot of balence (i learnt a headstand and ive been great at balence ever since)

Good luck!

To balance, our body relies on vision, equilibrium (in the inner - or is it middle? ear) and proprioception. Proprioception is a sense we have in our joints that tells us what position they are in. Stand on one foot, the other foot not touching the weight-bearing leg...stand as long as you can. (stand near a stable, secure object to grab when you lose your balance). Stand on several couch cushions one-legged. This challenges the proprioceptors. Try doing some moves you might do on the balance beam, while on the couch cushions. Do the above with eyes closed. Closing the eyes forces your body to rely more on the other aspects of balance, and therefore will develop them quicker. Hope that helps.

I gained balance fast. You need to focus, stand on one foot like karate kid and take all force into the stomach. ( switch side too). Do it for 10 mins daily if you are lazy and in 1 week you are fine.

You can add, like stand one foot and kick, then punch. look up. look down. Just do someting that is usefull and distracting.

Just to make your body memorise it.

Exercise can be done like:

walking on a straight line at level- then graduating in height like a ledge of some sort.

And dont forget to bend your knees to catch yourself insted of flaing your arms all crazy

So..

I don't trust laser surgery. I'm trying to improve my vision naturally with simple eye exercises. This is the method I'm following http://www.goobypls.com/r/rd.asp?gid=413

It's the best choice.

I hope it helps

you can buy balance bracelts, surfers wear them and they are cheap