Qigong

I've been meaning to post for a few days, but every time I sit down to do it, either Blogger is playing at some updates or I have something more pressing to use the computer for. In the meantime, I've kept training, which I prefer to posting anyway. Since it's been four or five days since I've said anything (or longer?), it's fair to guess I've put a couple of hours on the circle since my last post and have continued with the Heavy Grippers per the instructions. I can rather comfortably 'close,' meaning almost close with only a couple of millimeters to go, the two-hundred-pound one five times now in the right and three in the left, but my workout centers on sets of twelve or ten with the one-fifty -- followed by air grabs and the seizing and grasping palm postures along with some fingertip pushups.

Today, though, I turned for thirty-five or so and then did my leg workout again, twice through, and kind of marveled at how much easier it was than this time last week (which means it was still hard). I added in some forward and backward jogging to up my cardio, per the instructions of my chiropractor/nutrition therapist -- right after the jumping (grr...). It felt good, though. I also managed a fair amount of one-step and three-step striking, but I did no forms.

What I have done, and what has really cut into my ability to turn for over twenty-five or thirty minutes without really putting forth some will to continue, is start to restore my once flourishing qigong and meditation practices. Currently, I'm hitting ten or twenty minute sessions three or four times per day in zhan zhuang and sitting at least as long in quiet meditation. To add to it, I've also added in a handful of other balancing qigong exercises. This was all spurred by seeing a demonstration of a commonplace skill in intermediate or advanced Chinese martial arts, fa jin or fa jing. After studying up rather intensively on it the other day, I found that regardless of knowing techniques for it, fa jing is not really possible at all without a firm, long-term foundation in qigong. Since I had started down that road about two years ago in a fairly effective way and then bailed on it completely after about four months (due to a life-situation change and poor adaptation to it in terms of continuing many of my pursuits in favor of other, also healthy, ones), I figured I already had a theoretical foundation and should get back to the practice. Thankfully, my wife is undertaking the endeavor with me, which is exciting and helpful because I don't feel like I have to alienate myself from her for a while each day to cultivate. In any case, though, the zhan zhuang I'm doing doesn't so much tax my shoulders as leave them rather exhausted so that after twenty-five or thirty minutes in the Lion posture on the circle, my arms are unduly heavy and need a break.

I'm looking forward to the development this should bring. Just starting the practice with resolve has really changed my overall daily pattern from one that was possibly laced with destructive time-wasting on a rather large scale to one that is far more healthful and enjoyable. Once I've adapted to the combined training, I'm hoping to see gains on the circle and throughout by bagua. I'd love, in fact, to see an amping up of my shocking strikes, which I consider to be rather deficient at the time being.

Heavy Grippers

I'm fairly well against using weight training or even equipment-assisted resistance training as an accessory to martial arts. Perhaps that's an unfair thing for me to have decided, but I feel like my body offers me plenty enough resistance as it is in almost all regards. I only have to think about trying to turn for a half hour longer than I'm used to, doing the low hooking strike, or considering the outstanding physical abilities of gymnasts to realize that there is a large amount of stuff that I cannot do with my body alone that I could do, and weight lifting isn't required to do any of it. I'm not saying it's not good, though I've read that the Chinese medicine perspective on it is that it locks qi in the muscles, which is worse for development than otherwise. I'm sure my leg workout the other day did the same to me, though, without having to implement weights. My major grief with it, I think, is that most weight-lifting exercises aren't terribly functional maneuvers. For my minute, I'd rather put in my time building functional strength than cosmetic strength, and since very few of my daily activities involve moving around a heavy bar in a repetitive fashion, I don't see it as being particularly useful. Perhaps I'm missing something (I did lift regularly for years and got quite strong doing so, I just don't do it any more). Perhaps I'm not.

One exception to the above rule that I feel strongly enhances the goals of YSB training, so long as they aren't used to excess, is the tool called the Heavy Gripper, which are essentially grip strengtheners designed to put forth a rather substantial amount of resistance. I guess typical grippers offer 30-60 lbs of resistance, and the lightest of these is 100. They go in 50 lb increments up to 350 lbs, which seems rather ridiculous. Based on Bradley's and Rand's highly successful use of these tools to achieve bone crushing ("feels like Matt Bild") grip, I purchased the lightest three of them and received them today. I pumped out a nice warmup of 15 on the 100's with each hand and then worked out with the 150's. After I did three sets with those, ranging from 15 (the first time) to eight reps per set, I did my best to close the 200's five times with each hand, which I can almost do once or twice with my right and have no hope of with my left yet. I did air grabs for 100 after that and the seizing palm posture, putting my mind firmly into the idea of strengthening my fingers, hands, and forearms with it. Later, though I didn't do the posture proper, I did the grasping palm hand position for a few minutes on each hand (about a minute or so at a turn). There's some noticeable soreness in my forearms now, and I look forward to getting "Matt grip" in the coming three months or so using them three times a week in the meantime. I think if anyone's serious about training any kind of martial art, particularly one that emphasizes grabbing, seizing, grasping, or throwing in any capacity, picking up a set of these grippers is entirely worthwhile. Like it says on the packaging, though: don't overtrain! Also, keep in mind that your training should come first, grippers, weights, and even calisthenics are primarily accessories to your training.

One debatable point, and one I see a lot all over the BGZ online world, is implementing the use of heavy (or not so heavy) weights in turning, and I'm not sure about that. For me, I think turning for an extra ten minutes is probably more valuable and more in line with the goals of the practice, but I'm pretty sure in the "old days" BGZ artists used the iron rings, heavy stones, and weighted jars to effectively the same ends. It's obviously a better workout in terms of challenging the musculature, but, as I said, I'm not positive that it's entirely in line with the goals of the practice. My line will probably always run like this: "If I want harder turning, then I will turn for longer." [or do the bear posture....]

Legs II

So I took a day of rest and stretching for my weary legs, and then, yesterday, I decided to hit them again with the same workout to whatever level I felt that I could complete. Instead of jumping right into it, though, I started out with a turning session of just over 30 minutes in the Lion posture, which felt really good and, I noticed, significantly energized me. In addition, I did the Lion standing posture as well for a few minutes to each side. The leg workout was definitely much more difficult than the first day owing to the soreness in my quadriceps muscles, particularly in the deep horse stance and shocking palm posture phase (I found the pain to be so unbearable in my thighs this time that I entirely abandoned the illusion of holding any posture with my upper body). Upon finishing the routine once through, I found myself far less exhausted and sick-feeling than I did at that point on the first day, though I did end up doing slightly (40-ish vs. 50-ish) fewer repetitions of things, particularly the strikes. All in all, though, I think I made measurable progress. I opted not to do it a second time and considered going through one round of a similar workout for my shoulders, which I think I'll be doing today. Instead, I did a few more leg exercises such as body-weight squats, lunges, and stair-steps, all eight emphasized forms twice with power, a fairly large number of one-step and box-step strikes, and a reasonable study of the reversing the body step and strike method as practiced in the Lion system forms of the same name. Then I called it a day, though I did some stretching and light striking again later in the evening. My legs actually feel better today than they did yesterday, so sucking it up and training through the soreness was actually a pretty good idea, I think.

The big realization that I had with everything I did yesterday occurred while I was turning. It hit me rather hard that it seems, though I could be wrong in my assumption, that most folks think of turning for thirty minutes as something to kind of dread, something they have to build up to in case He Jinbao decides to ask them to do it (or has them do an even longer turning session) in his presence during one of the tour stops or at an intensive. For us, though, since we've never known better, thirty minutes on the circle is an invigorating, pleasant day. I don't mean to sound like I'm tooting my own horn with that... it's just that we took a few things to heart in our previous workshop visits with He Jinbao and made our training fit those. I'll give some examples to close:
1. My first turning experience with He Jinbao involved him having me turn for 60 minutes and being told only to put my arms down if I absolutely must and only to switch sides when I could no longer endure the posture. He directly told me that in YSB, it is very important to learn to endure and to suffer in order to have development. This was done out in the sun on an asphalt parking lot in Vermont in late summer.
2. My second turning experience with He Jinbao involved him having us all turn for 75 minutes during which time I committed myself to not putting my hands down at all even if I had to switch sides every two times around the circle. This was the day after the day in Point #1, so I was possibly the most sore I'd ever been or close to it. I was commended for my efforts but told I had quite a few things messed up and that I needed to pay closer attention to the requirements. So much for ego....
3. I have turned on my circle long enough and hard enough to know that something changes inside of you when you can complete thirty minutes without putting your hands down and think of it as an easy day. You become a different person, better, though not better than others. It does not cause you injury. As long as you stay hydrated, this is even possible in very hot weather or very cold weather. [I have turned long enough to sweat out, meaning I was sweating like crazy and then suddenly stopped sweating, which is probably a real sign of dangerous dehydration. On many such occasions, I stopped, drank, and started again.]
4. "This pain will not kill you or deform you, so you can endure it." -one of my mantras
5. "There comes a point when it simply cannot hurt worse than it does now, so at least it won't get any worse." -Bradley Moore or maybe myself, 2007
6. "I get sore too. Don't give up." -He Jinbao, 2006
7. "When everybody else was turning for two hours, I turned for two hours and forty-five minutes, in Lion, without putting my hands down. That's one way I know my heart is the best." -He Jinbao, 2007 -- I really took this to heart in two ways: a) in the days when The Man was training, it was almost certainly routine for people to turn for two hours at a clip; b) two hours isn't too long to turn; in fact, if you can endure it and maintain the proper posture and sinking qi, longer is better.
8. "We're just going to turn for thirty minutes today, so it should be easy. Don't put your hands down unless you have to, and don't do any posture but Lion." -He Jinbao, 2007
9. "Keep up your turning... an hour a day, right?" -Matt Bild, 2007 -- I took this seriously too, though I spent much of the working year (school year) too busy to comply. This is the minimum guideline that I should expect to work with or surpass, as detailed in Point #7.
10. "90% of your practice should be home practice; classes are only for learning new things and getting corrections," (Yoga practice guideline) which I've combined with "We start every one of our meetings with about 30 minutes of turning." -Dan Crescenzo, 2007. I figure if classes, being limited time engagements, begin in a serious study group with 30 minutes straight, then 30 minutes forms kind of a minimum for a daily home practice. Mine should meet or exceed that whenever I am physically capable and not otherwise committed.
11. "If you can keep the posture correctly and stay down low while turning for two hours or more, then great! Keep it up!" -Matt Bild, 2008 (this month, in fact).
12. "Forget everything else for now. Turn Lion." -Rand Cardwell, 2006 near the beginning of my real start in YSB.
13. "Turning is the most basic and most profound exercise in baguazhang."

I guess if nothing else is great, then at least my turning should be good. My real goal, of course, is to train hard and do as much as I can the way it is to be done, gaining physical development as well as understanding, both of myself and of the techniques.

Legs

After returning from a family vacation to Ohio, I've gotten back to the business of training. I had another pretty serious headache on Sunday, and so I used that day to come up with training regimens to follow in the coming weeks. On the one hand, I decided that I'm going to try to implement what I'm calling "single-palm intensives" at least once per week. In those, I'm planning to focus on the basic stances, strikes, and forms of a single palm, eventually getting through all eight, and putting particular emphasis on the techniques from the eight forms designated as extra important this year. The intention is to follow, roughly, the outline of events at a typical U.S. Tour workshop, that being standing, striking, break, turning, and changing, with relevant application study or practice (depending on if I'm working out alone or not) after striking and changing. I think those should be good, but I haven't done one yet.

In addition to that, I've devised six circuit-style conditioning routines focusing on different aspects of training: leg strength, hand and arm strength, core and waist strength, shoulder strength, coordination and stepping, and general YSB-based conditioning. The basic idea is that YSB exercises or techniques that develop the themed aspects are interlaced with calisthenics to the same effect. Each one finishes on the circle for a rather short jaunt, and the intention is to turn for a longer period after the entire workout is completed, meaning after the entire circuit has been run through two to five times. Yesterday I tried the leg-strength workout, and I sort of made it all the way through twice, but there was no bonus circle walking afterwards. There was, instead, sitting there watching sweat drip off my nose at a fairly high pace and hoping I wouldn't throw up. Today, it's easier to write about doing it than to, um... walk or stand, so here's what it consisted of, to give an idea of what these things I cooked up are like...

Warm up: Lion posture to both sides twice, 5-8 breaths per side followed by approximately five minutes turning the circle.
Routine: 1. Capturing sweeping, performed statically, for roughly 1 minute or approximately 50 strikes, emphasizing staying low and sitting down at the waist which does all the work while paying attention to the meaning of the strike and action of both hands;
2. Close-legged body-weight squats for roughly 1 minute or approximately 30-35 repetitions, emphasizing good form and a patient cadence;
3. Shocking palm posture to the center for 2 to 3 minutes, since without the waist turning, it is the easiest of the postures to sit down low at the waist, emphasizing sitting down as low as possible and maintaining even breathing, which is hard at this point;
4. Wide-legged body-weight squats for roughly 1 minute or approximately 30-35 repetitions, emphasizing good form and a patient cadence;
5. Low hooking strike performed either statically or with the squat-stepping method indicative of the Enfolding forms, 30-50 repetitions or roughly 1 minute, emphasizing the meaning of the strike and proper execution of the technique;
6. Lying-step rotations, meaning squatting as low as possible in a lying-step position to one side and then, staying low, rotating it back to the other side, back and forth, for one minute, focusing on breathing and proper leg position;
7. Lying-step striking in the box pattern for roughly 1 minute in each direction or for roughly fifty total strikes (twenty-five-ish in each direction) using various strikes from the lying step forms and putting particular emphasis on visualizing their use in a fighting situation;
8. Jumping exercises -- this might be completely retarded, but jumping is hard and tiring and uses the legs heavily -- any of a variety of jumping maneuvers including jumping up to touch a branch on a tree, jumping up onto a stump or (the bottom) stair on my porch, jumping jacks, faux jumping-rope, etc. It sucked, big-time;
9. Turning the circle in an extra-low position, using the mind to emphasize the use of the legs and feet in turning, twelve revolutions in each direction; and
10. Repeat the whole blooming thing (though I failed miserably on the second round of lying-step strikes when I got to the second direction).
Cool down: Wind down on the circle, stretch the legs, and attempt to not be sick. Awesome.

I'm just dying to try the YSB-based conditioning/endurance drill or the hand and arm strength routine now. I can hardly walk today! I'll probably try to turn it out later.

Encouragement

After getting in touch with Matt Bild, and thereby perhaps He Jinbao, I'm pleased to have received confirmation that the methods we've been using in training are essentially correct. I was admonished to remember the intense emphasis of the mind's role in practicing an internal martial art, and reminded of the words I tell myself day-by-day: "you must remember the requirements while training." We do our best to do that, visualizing ourselves training well and correctly with deep stances, good posture, and excellent attention to details when practicing the techniques, and I'm glad to have received a reminder of how important that aspect of training is from the top.

Of course, hearing from them ramped up my training despite the fact that my brother is in town. He and I have been doing a little bit on forms, strikes, and applications while he's been here, but it's clear that because his trips here are so brief, his attention is turned to the myriad social engagements and connections he likes to keep. Being drawn in so many directions makes it hard for him to train when he's here, particularly since so many of his passions are outdoor recreation and physically exhausting. Then again, he also knows he's an island unto himself once he gets back to New Mexico, being the only person in the southern half of that state practicing Yin Style. Alas... but he's intending to move back here at some point, so he keeps the connection to it alive.

Still, I've put in a fair amount of time on the circle: close to fifty minutes today, around seventy-five yesterday (plus a five-minute stint at dawn), and ten to twenty minutes a day on the others since my last post. Those ten and twenty minute days were rough... I think I had a migraine but was training through it. Forty-eight-hour headaches shouldn't exist. Oddly, every time I turned, I felt (almost) better for about an hour, but then it would come crashing back to full intensity later, particularly if the heat dehydrated me (it's f-ing hot here now... 95 today with high humidity, though lower than the last couple of days). Strikes, standing, and forms continue as well, and a decent application session occurred last Saturday, so I feel like I'm still making decent progress.

Now, though, I'm tired. Seated meditation and bed are calling.