"All Around Fitness"

I am hoping to get some opinions on general fitness and WC but I certainly do not want to re-start the ever present "weight training" thread! I am more concerned with questions such as "does WC promote physical health on it's own?" By this I mean- do the basic exercises you do in class or training (SNT, CK, BJ, the dummy, the pole...) promote a higher level of physical health above and beyond normal day to day activites? I suppose any exercise in general is good but do pak sau drills, daan chi-sau, and high energy chi-sau improve your health? Do you do these activities for enough sustained time to effect a cardiovascular improvement or to increase general strength and stamina?

If you are of the opinion that size and strength do not matter and play no part in the effectiveness of WC then you must also be of the opinion that an improvement in health and strength through and for WC is a pointless consideration. Can an overweight, out of shape, 50 year old woman, who gets short of breath after even minimal effort, walk into a WC school and after a year or two of training be able to handle a young, strong, physically fit male through sensitivity and structure alone?

Personally I have been surprised to see even the slightest teenage girl, or an overweight short of breath woman or man, show great improvement in skill through the correct use of structure and sensitivity to the point where playing chi-sau with them becomes more and more of a challenge every day! The question, though, is would their skill be even higher if they trained general fitness along side of the WC training (NOT weight training!)?

Thanks!

Jason K. Walz

J K Walz wrote:

I am more concerned with questions such as "does WC promote physical health on it's own?" JKW

IMHO, no it doesn't. If you want to better your health, eat right and exercise regularly; if you want to learn to fight, then practice a kuen faat (fighting method) like WCK. TN

Terence

practicing wing chun for an hour or two a day WILL help you physically. it may not create huge bulging muscles or let you run a marathon, or even make you loose weight, but it IS physical exertion to some degree, and will improve your health. if improving health is your only concern, that hour or two could probably be put to better use - but when it comes to being more healthy, there are definately worse things you could do than wing chun.

If anyone has ever done CK and BJ at combat speed they now how exhausting it can be doing just CK 5 times in a row. Also at my school we encourage everyone to shadow punch atleast 200 punches a day. it can make you physically fit if you go at it with the right energy. Proper breathing also promotes good Cardio.

45 degree fist--- you are getting the right idea.
Doing more of martial things beats the repetitiveness of jogging.

Do wing chun footwork as long as you want to-non stop- for instance. It will improve your footwork and help with the heart rate etc.

I'm the proverbial overweight unfit 35 year old. I'm six feet and weigh 265 lbs. and can eat a pound of m&m's in a single bound. :D But since I started Wing Chun in April 2000 I have been surprised often that I can handle fitter people and younger people. The only time I have problems is sparring. After 15 minutes I start running out of steam but can keep going for an hour. Doing multiple fighting scenarios.is extremely tiring 3 on 1, 4 on1, 5 on 1, 6 on 1. Because I have to really move my body with extreme speed (for me) I last possibly 20-30 seconds and then I collapse. With 1 on 1 I just always aim for the center of my partner and keep pressing forward and always shift when a powerful force is shoved into me. That serves me well and takes care of most situations. Example: Last week we had a visitor from another school. He would constantly twist both my arms around like a pretzel. I didn't fight it or kwan sao it or nothing. Why? He needed two of his arms to wrap two of my arms. He would have to release one to hit. So I would wait until he released one arm (he didn't want to kick so I obliged). Constantly applying forward motion with little muscular tension would always resolve it in my favor. He would release one hand to strike and I would always shift for a shoulder strike, do a low bong sao and step in between his legs. My body intercepted his striking arm. He couldn't strike AND now I owned his space, center of gravity and his structure. And it almost always ended up with one of my hands near his crotch where i could strike or grab (he wasn't wearing a cup). After a dozen times or so of my hand being near his crotch he started changing his strategy. :)

The point is: I didn't need to struggle or use a lot of muscular overworking. I just needed the knowledge and training to know what to do in the most efficient way with the least effort to get maximum results. :)

You can do hard chi sao, spar, repeat third, second form, tensed up 1st form (like an isometric exercise), dummy, pole, and knives and really get a work out, lower your stance, one-legged first form, 2000 to 5000 punches, arm drills, leg drills, other hand drills (tensed and relaxed for contrast). I've heard music conductors live longer lives because they use their arms constantly. Well, we chi sao.

One thing that's always fascinated me. When lightly sparring with a relatively new student they are always inefficient with their moves. Constantly moving around while I just aim for their center and move forward. They tire so fast even if they work out. But I can always tell a smoker. They can never take it. Doesn't matter if they are 18 years old and on the track and football team. If they smoke they always give up before I do. Now I don't hardly workout so something else is going on. And this isn't just a one time thing. Every young smoker (18-25) I've dealt with just collapses after a little while with me. I may huff and puff a bit but they mostly end up on the floor breathing like crazy. Don't smoke! It's so sad. Here's this big fat lug frustrating their everymove and barely work up a sweat while this young man is getting angry and frustrated that they can't do anything much - even if they're really muscularly strong.

Wing Chun: Made for a woman, but exploited by the fat slob of a man who can't go up three floors without sweating ;)

Happy New Year!

Andrew P

I'm 48. I'm neither unfit nor proverbial.

"Fitness" is always activity-specific, and also depends on your definition.

Practicing Wing Chun makes you better at Wing Chun.If you measure strength, endurance, flexibility, etc. for the average WC student as opposed to the person who does little or no exercise, you're probably going to find they score better, because they are doing some phyical activity instead of none. But you're not going to end up with the weightlifting ability of a powerlifter or the running endurance of a marathoner.

I had and still have pretty good cardio for standup - "boxing" and "kickboxing", speaking generically, before we started doing BJJ. I had zero in the way of stamina for ground grappling, but that developed over time to where I can now roll for six or seven five minute rounds. When we started adding standup grapping and takedowns, that was a whole new ballgame again and I'd be gassed after a couple of minutes. Fitness and cardio are highly activity-specific, though in combat-related activity I think a lot of this comes down to your body learning how to move with greater biomechanical efficiency, and learning when you can relax and when you have to push hard.

No offence, but if you start getting tired after 15 minutes of sparring but can go for an hour I don't think you're sparring very hard. Even pro boxers only go 12 three minute rounds with a minute break, for a total of 47 minutes, and that's about as hard as anything gets. I doubt that even the most superbly conditioned fighter could go all out for more than ten minutes straight without gassing to a significant degree.

Good post Anerlich--- specially in pointing out the activity specific nature of conditioning.

joy c

Correction: light sparring, not heavy. Too lazy to do otherwise.:) Agree with Anerlich.

AndrewP

I think wc should be the only thing you do in class, ie. no need for excercise. I think excercise is important but better done in your own time.


I did karate for 10 years, which I think is almost the opposite of WC. In the Karate I did, the class was basically excercise and not so much technical instruction. Lots of sparring was OK, but I believe the end result of my training was that I was physically strong and fit with little knowledge of how to really fight.
Now I have better idea but I dont have the physical fitness. Of course being both skilled and fit would be the best.

Almost all the skills I learnt at Karate are now useless to me after becoming less fit, but I think WC skills stick to you even if you havent trained in a while or become old.

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Originally posted by Miles Teg
I think wc should be the only thing you do in class, ie. no need for excercise. I think excercise is important but better done in your own time.

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Skill work in Wing Chun is the most important thing in class time. Good conditioning is important to me personally, but there is conditioning from Wing Chun.

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I did karate for 10 years, which I think is almost the opposite of WC. In the Karate I did, the class was basically excercise and not so much technical instruction. Lots of sparring was OK, but I believe the end result of my training was that I was physically strong and fit with little knowledge of how to really fight.
Now I have better idea but I dont have the physical fitness. Of course being both skilled and fit would be the best.

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I have a sort of similar experience of karate. I found that by yoga and stretching, running, lifting weights, and skipping rope, my karate "skills" miraculously improved through greater leg strength, flexibility, and endurance. Certainly the amount of punishment that I could sustain and remain operative was improved. Although I don't engage in fighting, kick boxing, or karate anymore, I feel my current self defense skills are superior to mine at that time in my training. Still, if folks have never gotten into tip top shape, they'll never appreciate what they are missing as carryover into both martial arts and life in general. Plus, chicks dig it. :)

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Almost all the skills I learnt at Karate are now useless to me after becoming less fit, but I think WC skills stick to you even if you havent trained in a while or become old.

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My karate skills are enhanced by my Wing Chun understanding and training. I can't imagine calling on them though. Wing Chun beats karate any day from my experience. But as Bruce Lee used to lament, it's hard to see how some paunchy old guy looks the part of a martial artist. Every high level martial artist I've seen looks the part.

Regards,

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Originally posted by Grendel
Skill work in Wing Chun is the most important thing in class time. Good conditioning is important to me personally, but there is conditioning from Wing Chun.

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I definitely agree with this point. I do fitness work on my own time at the gym. WC class time is too valuable to wasted with push-ups, sit-ups and the like. While there is definitely some conditioning involved in WC training, I prefer it be a by-product of some drills or ch sao.

Matrix