Continuous Striking

Sometimes I strike purely to develop skill, sometimes I strike purely to develop power, and sometimes I do strikes to develop some of both of those things and to enhance endurance. Today, and at least for a few days here, I think I'll be focusing on Number Three. The method is "continuous striking," which I've done small-scale before, say just with static striking through a palm or with a small number of repetitions of each of the basics. Here's the routine, for anyone that wants to try it. I will warn you... I kind of had to go through it a few times slowly and without power, almost like a flowing dance, to make sure I had the pattern and footwork down.

First, choose two palms. I chose, today, Sweeping and Cutting. Then, choose a form. I chose, today, Holding and Lifting from Sweeping Palm. Then, get started! The routine begins with static striking, trying to pay attention to proper execution of power and meeting the requirements. After fifty strikes, which I counted, I did a fifty-first as an introduction into the box-stepping method. Four or five times around the box in each direction later, I'm back where I started, poised perfectly to take the same strike directly into the three-stepping method. Four or five times down and back in three-step, and I'm done with that strike. Instead of closing it up, though, I flowed directly into the next strike, repeating the entire triad for all six of my strikes. The intention had been to continue to do that directly into single-action strikes from the forms, but my fitness wasn't there. On the last of my strikes for the day, rising cutting, I had to choose between power and technique by the time I got to the three-step routine. I was fatigued, but I had done over 600 strikes without taking a break by then too. The nice part is that it doesn't take as long as hundreds of strikes usually take... maybe between fifteen and twenty minutes for the lot. The not nice part is how it makes you feel when you hit your edge.

After a break, which was longer than I had originally planned due to an overwhelming feeling that I might toss, I hit the strikes from the forms with the same routine, though I more or less halved everything. A few rounds of the form later, I was done, feeling it, and glad to be feeling it. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm going to turn for a bit before calling it a workout.