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