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.