Green Dragon Studios

[Ho Chun]

I think I understand what the thread is about. You seem to be surprised that the man was strong and wasn't stiff. So you assumed that he must "specialize" in the more flexible material that GD offers.

Am I correct?

[chessman71]

I think I understand what the thread is about. You seem to be surprised that the man was strong and wasn't stiff. So you assumed that he must "specialize" in the more flexible material that GD offers.

Am I correct?

That's a paraphrase of what I said above but your previous statement was about kung fu people in general and had nothing to do with GD. So just what is your point?

Dave C.

[Ho Chun]

The point is simply this; all kung fu people should be strong and soft. Period.
You said that you thought that this GD guy had to be specializing in some sort of flexible stuff, when the point is that all kung fu people do, don't we?

No big deal, I was surprised by your observations,(of the GD dude) so I made a comment about it.

Isn't this what the forum is for?

[WinterPalm]

The Black Tiger system that I study includes in it a variety of dynamic tension forms and the opening to every form has a dynamic tension component. This is similar to the opening for a hung gar form. I have never found this to make me overly tense, however, I would suggest that maybe you guys are learning from tapes and not from a Sifu? That could make all the difference in the world! I go a couple months without performing a form in front of my Sifu and then when I do, especially the tension set that I know, I end up having a lot to work on and correct.
My Sifu has trained this art and these forms for several decades and is very relaxed, and very calm. His movements are free of the tension you guys have spoken of and when he hits, it is solid.
I personally believe that these forms and exercises are really great but you need a teacher that can show you how to do them correctly. I would not learn from a tape something like this.

Perhaps, as to the predicament of tension after performing the set, which I usually feel really focused and relaxed, you are not doing it right? I know that in the form I do it involves concentrated contractions and then brief periods of relaxation followed by more contractions all coordinated with breathing. THis might be what you are missing in your videos?

[chessman71]

The point is simply this; all kung fu people should be strong and soft. Period.
You said that you thought that this GD guy had to be specializing in some sort of flexible stuff, when the point is that all kung fu people do, don't we?

No big deal, I was surprised by your observations,(of the GD dude) so I made a comment about it.

Isn't this what the forum is for?

And my point is that if you had bothered to read the thread, as it is now clear to me that you haven't, you would have seen my posts and Royal Dragon's in which we said that the GD people DO NOT appear to be both strong and soft at the same time. They appear to be strong but have amazing amounts of residual tension i.e. not soft at all, even in their taiji. Go back and read the thread.

Dave C.

[chessman71]

The Black Tiger system that I study includes in it a variety of dynamic tension forms and the opening to every form has a dynamic tension component. This is similar to the opening for a hung gar form. I have never found this to make me overly tense, however, I would suggest that maybe you guys are learning from tapes and not from a Sifu? That could make all the difference in the world! I go a couple months without performing a form in front of my Sifu and then when I do, especially the tension set that I know, I end up having a lot to work on and correct.
My Sifu has trained this art and these forms for several decades and is very relaxed, and very calm. His movements are free of the tension you guys have spoken of and when he hits, it is solid.
I personally believe that these forms and exercises are really great but you need a teacher that can show you how to do them correctly. I would not learn from a tape something like this.

Perhaps, as to the predicament of tension after performing the set, which I usually feel really focused and relaxed, you are not doing it right? I know that in the form I do it involves concentrated contractions and then brief periods of relaxation followed by more contractions all coordinated with breathing. THis might be what you are missing in your videos?

You point about learning stuff like this from videos is well taken. But have you ever seen the strength tapes from Green Dragon? That's what this thread is really about.

If you do, you'll see that those guys are really tense looking, and that's just when they are standing normally. Plus, they don't learn from videos, they are from the home studio that produces the videos (obviously since they are in the videos themselves). If they exhibit that much tension with personal instruction then I'm not sure if the instruction is the problem or the material itself, whether it's from video or not..

If your teacher can make it work without that tension, then that's good.

Dave C.

[WinterPalm]

I would say that you should not learn from these guys off a tape or, if they are unhealthy in regards to residual tension, one should not learn off them or, at the least, consult the head teacher in as polite a manner as possible and figure out was is going on. Perhaps the fellows teaching the videos are also bodybuilders?

[David Jamieson]

WP-

Your sifu gave me a couple of the GD tapes on Bagua.

All in all they are pretty good, the format and instruction is fine. It ain't the material and it is more likely not the best learning format for some people.

Personally, I have a hard time learning from videos overall. But I do find there are some that are really decent material wise.

China's Hidden treasures series, the GD tapes, wing lams stuff = all good material provided one follows the instruction to the letter.

[chessman71]

Perhaps the fellows teaching the videos are also bodybuilders?

No, in fact they aren't. On one of the tapes I owned, they talked about how Margie Smith and two of the other female demonstrators had done a bench press test just to see what they were capable of as compared to weightlifters. I don't remember the exact poundages, but they were impressive for people that don't lift. And that was the whole point. GD people do not lift weights, they do this Chinese strength training through tension forms.

I got the impression that they are actively discouraged from lifting in order to not pollute the claims of the results that their type of training can bring.

So we can't chalk the residual tension up to bodybuilding. It has to be something else.

Dave C.

[IronFist]

No, in fact they aren't. On one of the tapes I owned, they talked about how Margie Smith and two of the other female demonstrators had done a bench press test just to see what they were capable of as compared to weightlifters. I don't remember the exact poundages, but they were impressive for people that don't lift.

That's strange, given that long, dynamic tension sets will not build maximal (1 rep max) strength. Maybe it was a bench press test for reps with a lower weight or something.

[Royal Dragon]

Question, since weight lifting is basically a muscular contraction, and building strenth is basically takeing that contraction to it's max by progressively increasing resistance, why wouldn't dynamic tension do the same?

I mean, your basically just useing an antagonistic muscle to load the primary muscle, instead of a dead weight, right? Either way, you are still loading the primary muscle being worked wiht an ever progressive resistance, right? How does IT know the difference between a weight, and resistance from another muscle?

Resistance is resistance right? Progressive resistance, is...progressive resistance,right?

[IronFist]

Question, since weight lifting is basically a muscular contraction, and building strenth is basically takeing that contraction to it's max by progressively increasing resistance, why wouldn't dynamic tension do the same?

Good question. I can tell you're thinking.

Gains in muscular strength come from neurological adaptation to a stimulus. Since an increase in muscle mass is not required to increase maximal strength (as evidenced by 120lb powerlifters), the increase in strength must be due to something else. That "something else" is your body basically becoming more efficient at using your muscles, or your muscles learning to contract "harder." The body accomplishes this by increasing the load (pounds) over time. As powerlifters and strength athletes know, you can't increase your maximal strength past a certain point just by increasing reps; you must increase the actual amount of resistance.

I mean, your basically just useing an antagonistic muscle to load the primary muscle, instead of a dead weight, right? Either way, you are still loading the primary muscle being worked wiht an ever progressive resistance, right? How does IT know the difference between a weight, and resistance from another muscle?

The difference is that with dynamic tension, you're never increasing the load under which the muscle must contract. Think of if you were to bench press and you could only use 150lbs and never increase the weight. At first it might be hard. You could maybe do 2 reps. Over time you'd get 5, 6, etc. Maybe after a while you could bench 150lbs for 20 reps. Maybe even 30 reps. But you won't have increased your raw strength any. Once you got past 5 or 10 reps (or a certain time under tension, but lets stick with reps for now) with that weight your raw strength didn't increase anymore.

The same is true with dynamic tension. Say you're doing a strength set like Stone Warrior or something. You start at whatever they want you to start at, and over time build up to 36 reps of each of the 21 exercises and it takes you 90 minutes, as they say it will. You've basically just increased your muscles' endurance at performing those motions. Since over the months it took you to build up to the 90 minutes you never actually increased the amount of resistance, you never really got any stronger.

Resistance is resistance right? Progressive resistance, is...progressive resistance,right?

You have to think about what is progressive: is it increasing weight, or is it increasing reps/endurance/time under tension? To use another example, when a long distance runner increases his max running distance from 5 miles to 10 miles he didn't increase his sprinting speed at all.

Make sense? Let me know if I should explain something further.

[Royal Dragon]

The difference is that with dynamic tension, you're never increasing the load under which the muscle must contract.

Reply]
Why can't you just squeez hard enough to reach failure in a certian number of reps,and just keep increasing the level of tension, so that no matter how much you develop, you still fail at the same number of reps? That's what I allways did with San Zhen.

By doing that, the level of tension/resistance from antagonists is ever increasing as your strength grows. It's the same progression as weights now, only the resistance is comming from another source, ie an antagonistic muscle group instead of a bar bell.

Resistance is resistance, right?

[Ho Chun]

[I] Resistance is resistance, right?

I couldn't agree more.

And as your strength grows, so does the amount of resistance.

[David Jamieson]

THe diffrences are in what is functional strength vs isolated muscular strength.

body builders are strong, but do not have the same functional strength as say, iron workers.

nowadays, people who are training in mma and ma in general look for those types of resistance training exercises and devices that devlelop functional strength.
The kind of strength that translates directly to the task they are focusing on.
There are a lot of old traditional Kungfu ways that do this, but for the most part these have all but dissappeared from training regimens in favour of set training.

anywho, just saying.