When training your Gung Fu on your own

[Wah Ren Jie]

Hey guys! I hope to elicit responses from Hung ga practitioners in particular, but I appreciate input from everybody.

When you're training at home on days when your gwoon is not available how do you structure your personal workouts. What do you tend to work on more and how long do you usually train. Do you find there is a structure to follow that helps one thing lead into the other. I find that there is so much material to choose from, I don't know where to start when my Sifu isn't available. Thougts?

It's when it is the most difficult thing to do that it's the most important that you do it!

[illusionfist]

15-30 minutes stretching (depends on how lazy i am that day)

10 minute warm up (punches, kicks, combinations)

5+ minutes of standing practice (depends on how many stances i work on)

5+ minutes of wall work (isometric kicks, kicking at variable heights, rapid kicking, etc)

Forms (slow then fast, working on most of my forms)

Forms dissection (pick a posture and dissect it. finding at least 3 variations of the faht, usually consists of my forms of the week, see below)*

*Depending on how much i've done, i usually pick one empty hand form and one weapon form per week and i just work on those sets, dissecting them and what not. If i have not been able to work out as much , i just do as many forms in one day as i can (along with regimen above, minus the dissection).

Peace /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[This message was edited by illusionfist on 11-09-00 at 02:48 PM.]

[thunder fist]

so if you have over 30 forms to practise and you do only 1 a week, 29 weeks later you perfom the 1st form.
thats not good training you should do at least 10 forms a night then take 1 apart that same night and still you would have done the kicking, punching, conditioning etc. that also depends on how much time you have and how full on you go in your training.

/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Kung Lek]

30 forms! wow, thassa lotta forms!

For my workout at home I do exactly the same calesthenics as in class to warm up.

I up the number of situps, push ups and v-lifts (not by much just x2 or x3)

Chi Kung focuses the workout for me personally. Ba Duan Jin that my Si fu has given me is very good for this if am going to do forms practice.
If I am not going to do forms work, I will do Nei Kung which is several exercises in continuation.

If it is an Iron Palm or conditioning workout, then cal first then that followed by dit da jow and finally meditation.

If it is forms, then cal first then forms. Usually I will practice ONE form that I have been given. Break it down and practice sections, then again in continuation, then meditate.

Sometimes I will practice two forms if they are short.

Usually when I practice forms, it will be exclusively southern sets or exclusively northern sets. I don't tend to mix the two as I find the energies used in what I have been taught to be noticably different.

so the start is always cal and stretch and the end is always meditation. What goes in between is all the stuff that my Si Fu has given me.

Two man drills I do at the club. We get the opportunity to do so in each and every class, so at this point in my training path, that amount is adequate for me and do not wish to practice two man drills with just anyone. That always 0r at least more often than not is just folly and not a good use of time or energy.

after some time in training, you will find that you will be picking things out like you would pick a book from a library. When you are learning your fundaments you have to practice them to death.

And when you are learning more advanced teachings, you STILL have to practice your fundaments (just not to death anymore hahaha).

Well, that's my workout sched. Big whoop eh? hahaha

peace

Kung Lek

[illusionfist]

You have a point there thunderfist, but too bad i dont have 30 forms to practice... /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Peace /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[T]

I work on my forms - I've been studying for some time and I am partical to the tiger crane form, I practice my forms both fast then slow (slow - allows me to pick apart any errors and emphasise on isometrics) Then I practice Polymetrics encorporating various Hung Ga Sparring tecniques. I really find great improvements this way both in forms and sparring.

[meltdawn]

Cool! I love these types of threads... we can really see how similar we are!!

I start the day with long Yang taiji at the break of dawn.

At lunch I do about 20 minutes of walking and about 10 of soft still and moving qigong.

On my own evenings I do the same as illusionfist. Except after stretching I do some desensitization stuff and whallop my heavy bag for about 10 minutes. I'll usually run through 5 or 6 forms fast, then work on one intensely, but if I'm learning a form that is very intense, I usually find myself only practicing it. Then I'll just go over all the others in my head.

What about weights? I find myself only working with hand weights now. My stance holding builds up my legs quite a bit. I was lifting heavily for about 6 months, but I found I was pushing myself too hard and getting little injuries that hurt my kung fu.

Do any of you run? That's what I need to do, but to be honest, I don't like it. Any suggestions?

Meltdawn

[Wah Ren Jie]

Meltdawn. Get wrist and ankle weights and walk up hill. Use an incline treadmill if you have it. It will give you the intensity of running without the pounding on your knees and back.

DF/ Je lei Sifu/ Paul S - If you're out there, I'd really like to know how you guys train at home. Peace.

It's when it is the most difficult thing to do that it's the most important that you do it!

[T]

I boxed for about 4 yrs, 1 yr competively and running is definetly one of the best ways to improve your wind. Try do run on a soft surface, avoid the streets if you can. As far as hating it well my advice is Just do it! You don't have to do long runs to gain stamina. I run only 2 miles every other day. You should incorporate wind sprint into the end of your run. For example I do four sets of wind sprint at the end of my 2 mile run with a 1 minute rest between sets. This training is greaqt for the ring!!!

Good luck

[tricky-fist]

I’ve found that I have to vary my at-home workouts in order to make them somewhat more palatable… luckily I’ve developed a cd “habit”, so usually injecting myself with some new music helps to make my workouts more enjoyable. I have a weekly cycle that works pretty well…

Every morning I practice several sets of basic punching and blocking drills in a high, mobile stance to warm-up. After that I go through my larger blocks in my low stances. I do several different dynamic stretches, followed by tiger-claw / stance training exercises. Depending on the day of the week my last exercises are consist of more punching drills in low stances, kicking drills or staff basics. No forms – basics only. The initial drills before the tiger claw training is for developing flow… everything after is foundation building.

On my off nights – no class nights – I have strength / attribute training sessions. I go through forms, but more as warm-ups or cool downs. Like I said before, my workouts vary from month to month. I recently substituted bag work with more strength training (push-ups, dips, chin-ups, squats, lunges) and my more stationary foundation stance training with more footwork oriented punching drills... I'll get back to the bag work this jan. when skating replaces jogging for cardio.

hope that gave you some ideas!

Respects,
TF

Art is limitation; the essence of any picture is the frame - G.K Chesterson

[Wah Ren Jie]

Do you use the brass forearm rings for your punch and block drills? I use them but I wonder if that will throw off your timing when attempting to block full speed without them.

Lin kuen bat lin gong, do lo yat cheung hung!

[Paul Skrypichayko]

Lin kuen bat lin gong, do lo yat cheung hung!

Basic martial arts without basic "gung" (hard work/skill), and you will have nothing in old age. My sifu has often said that to me to emphasize the importance of gung training and internal training.

We have to be realistic when talking about training in modern times.
-Most of us do not have much time, so we have to make the best use of it. Try to focus on the most important things, and try to do more than one thing at a time.
-Although all of us want to get good, a lot of people do not understand that they have to work their butts off.
-We aren't robots or machines. Once you get a good steady workout routine, you may want to change it every now and then so that you dont get bored or fed up with things.

So looking at some of these points, I've found that TV and movies are my friend. You can train almost anything while watching TV or listening to music; stance training, stretching, skipping, lifting weights, weapons work, punching, kicking, etc. This "changes the scenery" for you, and lets you do at least 2 things at once. If you want to economize further, do all of your weight lifting and hand techniques while in your stances.

Also, you dont have to spend money to be able to train martial arts. Bricks, sand, and potato sacks/rice sacks are your friends. Look at all the usefull things that are just lying around in this modern world. You can use almost anything for training.

You can use ankle weights, wrist weights, and weighted belts to enable you to train during most of the day. These are also easy to make if you cant buy them in your area, or you need a specific size and weight. Some people even carry around a few bricks in their backpacks.

I hope this helps and gives you some new ideas

[denali]

Paul, you must have a good sifu.

[Paul Skrypichayko]

ROFLMAO!

u think?
=P

[Wah Ren Jie]

Do-je!

Lin kuen bat lin gong, do lo yat cheung hung!

[premier]

well. I practise CLF, but that's close enough? =)I have normal gwoon training sessions 4 times a week. every thursday I go to a public sports center to practise on my own or with my friends. every tuesday and friday I just rest, stretch, do luohan 18 hands form and go trough my forms and chin na technques in my head. if I feel energetic, I might do slowly and gently some strike combinations.

when I'm at the public sports hall, I do:

normal warm-up.
check out the cheerleader, gymnastics and aerobic chicks.
Various strike combinations many times and both sides (sam sao, lung jen, fu mei gueuk, la jao)
Basic forms as long as I feel like it
Higher level forms as long as I feel like it
Weapons forms as long as I feel like it
check out the cheerleader, gymnastics and aerobic chicks again.

then they close the place and I have to go home. at home I do some gentle stretching.

of course my program changes all the time. basically I just try to do stuff that we didn't do on our normal training sessions. and if I notice some errors in my technique I practise that area.