Sunday, August 30, 2009

Yin Style Baguazhang Is Coming to Knoxville!

I know I already mentioned this, but it bears repeating since it's a major goings-on in my training-related life (which is what this blog is about). Yin Style Baguazhang International is coming to Knoxville, TN, in just under a month! (Don't know much about Yin Style Baguazhang? Start here for the YSB International page!)

When: The seminar is going to be awesome for four consecutive days: Thursday, September 24, through Sunday, September 27, starting early in the morning (8-ish), continuing until lunch at 12, picking back up at 1:30-ish, and finishing in the evening between 5:30 and 6. That's more than eight hours a day of instruction from He Jinbao and Matt Bild.

Where: In West Knoxville, near the I-40/I-140 intersection. Contact us directly for more details. At the moment, some of the seminar will likely be held in Maryville (25-30 minutes south of Knoxville via I-140) as well since we will have much-appreciated access to a mat-covered floor there.

How Much: The cost will be $100 per person per day, which is a good deal since He Jinbao is the lineage holder of this branch of Baguazhang. This compares pretty favorably with what you'd find in a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) seminar hosted by someone in a comparable position in the hierarchy (e.g. seminars with some of the Gracie family's students -- not a Gracie -- run in the $50-100 for two hours range).

Who: Anyone interested in experiencing the training practices of Yin Style Baguazhang firsthand with direct access to the best guys the art has. Folks with martial arts backgrounds that would like to develop or deepen their training are particularly likely to benefit. In fact, even if practicing Yin Style Bagua isn't one of your goals, your self-defense ability and overall martial arts training is very likely to be enhanced by this kind of experience.

What: The focus will be on the Lion System of Yin Style Baguazhang, which is also what this blog is about (don't know what Yin Style Baguazhang is? Click here to find out more!). The basic practices of the art as they pertain to that particular branch of it will be taught and explored in details. While the specific material on each day will be different, over the course of the seminar the following will certainly be addressed: striking drilling practice, combinations practice, forms practice, standing strengthening practice, turning the circle practice, dadao (Chinese big saber) practice, and applications of the techniques. Usually these seminars also leave open the opportunity for Q&A with the teachers, which is especially good when folks come and ask martial-arts-related questions. The opportunity to get direct, personal feedback from them is also available at those times as well.

What Else:
  • In addition to He Jinbao and Matt Bild, several of the senior students in Yin Style Bagua from across the U.S. will almost certainly be in attendance, providing examples to follow and training advice for folks less experienced in the art.
  • We're hoping for a pretty good turnout, so if you read this and are interested or know someone that might be, please follow this link and contact Bradley Moore for further specifics.
  • Any and all are welcome to come if they are interested and can make it. Experience in the martial arts is helpful but not required, and it is worth noting that the workout will be rather physically demanding.
  • Folks within a short drive of the Knoxville area that already train in an art and that are interested in tasting something new and good are especially encouraged to contact us and try to make it up for as much of the seminar as possible.
  • Local schools or groups that think they might be interested and would like for Bradley and I to come by and give you a primer before the seminar are also encouraged to contact us (it would be helpful for you if you did that). You can do so here or by contacting one of us using the e-mail addresses here.
  • Local individuals that thing they might be interested and would like the same kind of attention, contact us about coming and visiting our study group and its regular meetings in a park in Maryville on Monday nights. For the time being, our study group is meeting for free, so you'd only be out on some time.
  • This is an internal martial art, but "qi warriors" probably won't find what they're expecting. Being realistic and pragmatic, Yin Style Baguazhang isn't advertising magical powers or anything of the sort; just intelligent, mature, well-designed martial arts techniques play center stage here. He Jinbao's skill is high enough to be worthy of some legends, though... at least in my humble estimation (which I'm sure I can find quite a bit of backup on from the folks who know him!).

Friday, August 28, 2009

Turning: Tips for Starting Out

Turning is definitely a cornerstone practice of baguazhang. In fact, as has been mentioned countless times before and bears repeating countless more times, it is fair to say that turning the circle is probably baguazhang's most basic and yet most profound practice. It is easy enough to do, and yet it is very difficult to do well. Because my circle was hit by a truck and then found to be too big for my purposes, I've got to embark on the process of turning without my anchor all over again, and I've developed some tips in the process. For the record, I just started my real new circle today, and I would have pictures to show you except that my wife is off having an awesome time with our camera right now.

The first thing I think I can tell you fairly enough about turning is that it really helps to have a place that you do the vast majority of it... a single place. I've spent the last couple of months without such a place, though I have a variety of acceptable locations that I've been using, and every one of them has something wrong with it. First, I want it to be outside. I have an indoor turning place, but it's definitely not my preferred spot and is reserved for times when it's really wet out or really cold. I particularly don't like cleaning up the floor when I'm done turning inside, and I keep this slight fear in the back of my head that I'm going to wreck the floor eventually if I keep it up. Second, it has to be comfortable. Here in East Tennessee, f-ing everything is a hill. Even the hills have hills on them. I thought I had the only flat-enough place in my yard to turn, which is the one that I've forsaken. Luckily, I found another one. It also needs not to be too exposed. It's a bit uncomfortable turning in a spot that directly faces a road. I've been videotaped and photographed who knows how many times (vidoed twice, actually, but I don't know about the pictures) turning in a spot that directly faced my street at my old place, which wasn't even busy. It's okay to turn in a public place, but it's nicer when it's a bit more private. There are fewer distractions to contend with.

The real benefit of finding a good place to turn is that the location becomes significant, even though it really isn't. It's easy to become attached to that place, which of course is not so good except that it becomes a place that is almost sacred in a way, hallowed ground for the practitioner. Like other "sacred" spots, that allows that space to serve the main function of sanctity: reseting your mind to focus on the task at hand, which in this case is turning. If you turn anywhere and everywhere, good for you, but there's just something about having your spot to turn on that really makes you feel like it's time to get down to business doing just that one thing. Eventually, you'll have to let that place go, but that's alright too.

Here's how to go about finding a space and "claiming" it. First, take your time. Wander around the area you have to work with and take a look-see and see what you see. Does this place or that look good. Stand and turn around a little. How do things look now? Then go try a couple of other candidates if you can find any. Do the same thing. Then you can pick your favorite: the one that resonates with you and your personality best. Once you have that, you might want to turn on it right away for about three to five minutes. I did that today and immediately found that the place I picked wasn't as good as I thought. At first it seemed perfect, but as I got into turning, I could feel how lumpy the ground was there and that it was less level than I suspected. Moving over to my second choice turned out to be a great thing to do. Don't be afraid to move around a few inches or feet in any direction to find the best place in your little area. Little annoyances now will be big annoyances fifty miles around the never-ending bend. Once you've settled on a place that you're pretty sure you can be happy with, turn on it. Do it for a good while. If it's in grass, go until you've made a pretty good mark on the grass. Not only will that make you feel like you've accomplished something and get a decent turn in for you, it will also help to mark the spot so that next time you turn, you can find the same place much more easily and beat it into even better submission. That's like a feedback loop, and besides, the desire to go beat your circle into a beautifully formed sight is maybe that little bit of extra motivation that gets you turning for a half an hour more a week or so than you would have otherwise.

Once you've got a circle, you can get into your turning. Even if you don't have one, however, or if you want to follow the above guideline, you've got to start your turning somewhere. This next list of tips is really helpful for beginners as well as more experienced people that really want to focus their training and development.

Start Simple and Build Up
You don't have to dive directly into some esoteric, hard posture and turn with it. In fact, it's best if you don't. Start by feeling the natural curve of turning, trying to maintain your circle. When you feel good, put more attention in your legs and try to develop your stepping a little, making it more formal. When that feels good, add weight to your legs and try to sink. Do all of that before you even lift your hands from your side. That might be your first few weeks of turning practice, as a matter of fact. You want to get good at this, so you don't have to be in a hurry. Eventually, adopt a posture with your arms, but don't worry about strength or tension. Get used to the change in your body and alignment and slowly add strength over time. Eventually try to bring it all together. For a beginner, this might take six months. That's fine. For a more established practitioner, taking the time to redo this might revamp your attention to details you've been missing, so taking a week out of your normal routine turning to refine various aspects of it can have a major benefit on your practice.

Be Consistent
Turning a little every day is much more valuable than going all-out today and forgetting about it tomorrow and the next day. They say you need to turn for a while to really get development, but you don't have to turn for a long time to get skill and to stay connected to the practice. If you do it all in the same place (whenever possible) the building effect of this suggestion can have an even bigger impact. You might want to try to turn for an hour a day every day, and if you have it and the ability, good for you. If not, do what you can but try to make it a daily habit.

Do the Best You Can Do Today
You turned for an hour and a half yesterday and kept really solid focus and attention and did a great job with everything and were totally stoked about it and then today it pissed you off big time when you couldn't seem to get a clear head and your arms were as limp as dishrags? Cool, welcome to being normal. Your job is to do the very best you can with turning every time you turn, realizing fully that you're a different chick or dude every time you hit the circle. Some days, turning just works great. Some days, it's a chore. Some days, it sucks outright and hurts like hell. All days, do the best you can with what you've got that day.

Do Not Measure Your Performance Against Others
If your mom can turn for an hour and you can only turn for twenty minutes, don't get all mad at yourself or at your mom (n.b. your mom here is standing in for "someone else"). You should only measure your performance against yourself over time -- not even against "yesterday." Are you turning better than you were a month ago? Six months ago? Two years ago? (Are you even still turning after two years?!? If so, then freaking good for you!) As long as you're seeing improvement over time, then you're doing alright. If you're six or ten months down the road and not really improving, then you might need to soul-search and find out why. Maybe something's standing in your way? Maybe you're not putting as much into the practice as you should be? Maybe you're in a major rut for whatever reasons life might have thrown at you?

Do Not Base Your Turning on a Clock, a Number of Revolutions, or Some Other Crap that Isn't Worth a Damn
Yes, you can use those methods as a measuring stick or motivational tool, so don't throw them out, but realize they aren't the goal of the exercise. This is a statement of quality must outmatch quantity. If your body today only has ten good minutes in it, get those good ten minutes, push for a little while longer, and let that be how it is (always push a little past what you think is what is great and you'll get better over time... no stress = no improvement, usually). The real goal is improvement over time, not five hundred go-arounds. If you're more worried about a clock or number of revolutions than the quality of your turning, then your turning is going to be crap. If you're forcing the exercise, you're not doing it right. You should be pushing yourself, sure, but not forcing things to the point where the posture or stepping are failing.

Turn to Get Better at Turning
Do you remember my last post? If you do, then you know why you're turning (small scale): to get better at turning. Pay attention to details and requirements so that the goal is achieved. Like in the last point, if you don't get a really long time in, so what... as long as you feel like you honestly got better at turning or at least some aspect of the practice. This is where breaking the exercise down and rebuilding it from the ground up can really have a benefit even for established practitioners. Drop your hands sometimes and really check your legs out. Are you sinking right? Are you stepping correctly? Are you paying attention to all of the fine details of the footwork and body? Turn that way for a long time and see how things change over time. You might be surprised at what you need to work on. You can do the same thing adopting an easier hands-posture than Lion or one of the other animal postures (e.g. "lower posture," a beginner's/health-building posture). See what adding in the hands, even in an easier place, does to your feet. You might go through the whole process of adding your hands in to an animal posture loosely and then adding strength, spending some time in each place to see how it affects the whole. Refine, refine, refine! It's hard to pay attention to 100 things at once. You might also ignore the legs a little and focus on the upper body (but isn't that what we usually end up doing when we pretend we're training seriously anyway? ...no comment on my practice...). Eventually put it all back together and start paying attention to the more subtle requirements (if you know them). See what comes up! Most importantly, keep your head in this game!!!

Turn to Get Better at Baguazhang
Ah ha, now we've hit it: the real point of turning. Whatever your goals with Baguazhang are, they are enhanced by turning as long as your point in turning is to enhance your Baguazhang: be that as a martial art, a health-building practice, a moving meditation, or whatever-else-have-you. This has to underscore the entire practice because it is really the entire purpose for the practice of turning the circle: to get better at the art in which turning serves as a cornerstone. Keep that in the back of your mind while you turn and reflect on it while you wind-down afterwards. Ask yourself, out loud if you have to, "how did this benefit my bagua?" Try to find answers. If you don't have any, then you might need to break things down and look at the requirements all over again or listen more closely to the changes that should be taking place, slowly over time spent in a regular and dedicated turning practice, in your body and mind.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Train FOR Something: Skills-Oriented Training

I've mentioned this kind of thing before, but it bears mentioning again and again. When you train, go train for something specific, in particular to get better at something specific.

Here are two examples of exercise-related/training-related goals, phrased in a fairly generic sense:
  1. I'm going to work this exercise until I can do it 150 times without stopping!
  2. I'm going to work this exercise until I'm very good at it, trying to pay attention to find and learn the proper mechanics and execution along the way!
Obviously, the second goal is a superior goal for a number of reasons. The first goal, first of all, is easier to meet because it's very specific. That's great if you're totally new to exercise or just trying to get some cosmetic results, but it's total crap if you want to actually master a technique, which is usually the goal of martial arts training. Who cares if you can do a technique 150 times without stopping if you can't do it once correctly? If what you're training is martial arts, then doing something wrong 150 times (while somewhat better than doing it none) is not going to do you much good if the (hopefully) unlikely situation that you have to use it comes up. Granted, if the exercise is something like squats (great for strengthening the legs and butt), you probably don't have to "use" it ever except as an accessory to a technique you're trying to perform, but still, doesn't it seem to mesh so much more deeply with the idea of training an internal or even just an intelligent martial art to extend those ideas to everything we do, exercise included? Of course it does!

Making your goals skills-oriented makes for a harder, more rewarding road. If you work hard and honestly to get good at something, chances are pretty good that you'll be able to do it several or many times in a row, but you'll have obtained more along the way: a deeper understanding of the technique or exercise. It's a difficult goal to meet, however, because it's abstract and lacks a clear finishing point. You know when you can do 150 squats without stopping (body-weight squats, of course), but you cannot know when you've honestly mastered a technique fully. Of course, that can be discouraging, but for a mature, serious person (like a good martial artist has to be), it's more of an opportunity than an impossibility. "Cool! I'll always have room to develop in this practice!" is the way you can look at it instead of "Shit! I'll never completely get this!"

Basically, any exercise you choose to do as part of your training can have benefit. The question you have to ask yourself is how much benefit a given exercise per unit of time that you have to train. Dr. Xie Peiqi apparently used to say something like "we're all given the same twenty-four hours in a day, so what matters is how we choose to use them." Realistically, with jobs and family and living, most of us might have an hour or two a day on average to dedicate to our training, which really isn't much (ten or fifteen hours out of 168 in a week, i.e. less than 10% of our time). That means our choices on how to spend our training hours have to be optimal. No matter which exercises you pick: standing strengthening, turning, striking, drilling, forms, dadao practice in any of those dimensions, applications, or accessory training like cardio, weight training, stretching, or what-have-you, you have to look at your goals in terms of developing certain skills. Stretching might seem much more valuable if you're too stiff to do certain movements (lying step, anyone?), and weights might really help you if you're weak. Weights can help you if you're strong as long as you're creative and serious enough to focus your weight training on meaningful exercises and routines that actually enhance your training, determined enough to make sure you put your mind into those exercises, and mature enough to drop the silly, empty, bullshit exercises that make up the majority of what is done with weights in the wide world of exercise -- no matter what they might make you look or feel like if you do a lot of them (is bench press really going to make you a better fighter? I somehow doubt it...).

Most importantly (in fact, so importantly that I'm going to repeat it even though I already wrote it), put your mind into your training, even if it's not a martial technique. If you're jogging to increase your wind, then put your mind into your breathing while you're jogging. That's the reason you're jogging, right? If you're lifting a weight to increase your ability to hit hard, make sure that the exercise you choose somehow uses the same muscles that are involved and that you focus on feeling those muscles, imagining how their strength translates into striking power. If you're stretching, then put your mind into your body and try to feel your tightness... and then try to let your mind help you release it. Bring your internal to your external, and you can really maximize what you're getting out of your training time.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

My Wrist, By Request: Trigger Points and Tendinitis

The dadao can really wreck your wrist if you're not careful, as can some of the other practices if you repetitively overdo them like I apparently did in London. My left wrist, which I've mentioned a couple of times already, has been unduly sore and less training-worthy ever since I got back. Since I got asked what I've done to help it, since I have helped it a lot, I decided to make a post about it.

The culprits that cause joint pain in the wrist are usually limited to three or four things: broken/dislocated bones, torn ligaments (sprains), tendinitis, and trigger points. I suppose you could do those first two with the saber or training, but I see those as being more likely by doing applications irresponsibly than by doing the training regimens. The last two, however, are more common, and luckily, one is easily treatable. In fact, if you have tendinitis, it's a virtual certainty that a fair proportion of your limitation in movement, discomfort, (abnormal) weakness, or pain is caused by trigger points in some nearby muscles as well. Treating those trigger points can relieve you of some of that trouble. Since all you can really do for tendinitis (if it really is just tendinitis) is ice it and rest it, eventually starting some stretching after time goes on, there's not much to say about that treatment. It is the case, however, that as often as not (probably more often, actually) trigger point issues create symptoms that are nearly identical to tendinitis that doesn't really exist.

I'm not going to detail tremendously here what trigger points are or how they arise, but knowing a little about them helps quite a bit. Essentially, if you overwork or misuse a muscle in any way, the potential to develop a trigger point is there. Even excessive resting can cause them, particularly if the muscles aren't taken through their natural ranges of motion (sitting is an example of this which causes many trigger points in the iliopsoas muscles --which cause stiffness and low-back pain-- just due to the fact that sitting in a chair naturally shortens those muscles and lets them stay that way). Trigger points are like tiny bands of contracted muscle fibers within your muscles, and they almost never resolve themselves on their own. They do, however, have two phases: active and latent. In their latent phase, they slightly restrict movement and have a high potential for becoming suddenly active, though they don't usually hurt much. In their active phase, they create tremendous discomfort. More often than not, the following truth should rule your thinking about trigger points: trigger points almost always refer pain to a place other than where they are, i.e. the problem isn't always where it hurts.

How can you get rid of trigger points? There are a few methods, none of which are fun: certain doctors can inject them with salene or procaine, they can be made very cold and then stretched (under the supervision of a trained professional), or they can be massaged (for free at home!). The massage is quite painful. In fact, you can identify where a trigger point is in your musculature because it's a spot that is inordinately painful ("exquisitely tender" is the term used by Davies, an expert in the field -- this book is almost a must-buy for anyone that does anything remotely athletic or abjectly unathletic). Once you find the spot and make it hurt with the massage, you have to hold onto it until it doesn't hurt. Basically, the process sucks, but you're looking at a few minutes of rather big discomfort to cure you of possibly months or years of increasingly degenerative discomfort and restriction in range of movement. The choice is pretty clear.

For the wrist, most of the time the problem isn't in the wrist, although it can be. It's usually reassuring to poke around the area that hurts and see if anything local is causing the problem. Depending on what hurts, it very well may be (the ligaments in the wrist can contain trigger points as well, notably the one between the thumb and the radius bone). More often than not, though, wrist pain arises further up in the forearm in the muscles that flex and extend the wrist and fingers (flexors, extensors). If your symptoms more strongly match "tennis elbow of the wrist," then your extensors are more of the problem. If your symptoms more strongly match "golfer's elbow of the wrist," then your flexors are more of the problem. In either case, rather aggressive, deep-tissue massage (typically using tools like balls or sticks) on the bellies of those muscles as well as (especially!) their attachments near the elbows will help. The massage is painful and slow, so you might need to set aside ten minutes to a half an hour to do it, and you should do it at least twice daily for a week to see really big improvement. After massaging, whenever possible, it is extremely helpful to ice the areas that you massaged for a few minutes.

My basic suggestions to anyone with wrist pain is that you search thoroughly in your forearms (extensors are on its back and flexors are on its front) for tender knots in the muscles and then press them hard, especially if they reproduce your wrist symptoms in any way (those are the main things you're looking for). That's not the whole ball of wax, unfortunately, for wrist pain.

You might find trigger points further up that cause pain in the wrist as well. Some examples of places to look might surprise you. This list isn't exhaustive, but here are some suggestions: brachialis, brachioradialis, pectoralis minor, subclavius, and the scalenes. You might also check the musculature of the thumb and, again, the local tissue in the wrist. The best massage technique I've experienced is to press hard enough so that the pain index (scale of 1-10, 1 being essentially no pain, 10 being unbearably excruciating) hits between 6 and 8 and then hold it long enough so that the pain diminishes to the 3-5 range. It seems like that will probably never happen, but it will... just keep breathing and trying to relax, and eventually your muscle relaxes and the trigger points let go. After treating and before icing, stretching those muscles is also advisable, though stretching trigger-point-afflicted muscles without massage first tends to make the problems worse, not better. You may find many, even dozens of such spots in your forearms if your wrists hurt. Sorry, but that's just how that works.

A last note: you will probably try to guard against the invasion of the massage tool (tennis balls and golf balls are particularly good, placed in a sock and then leaned upon against a wall). That's natural, but you want to try to breathe, focus, and let those muscles relax. Guarding will not help you as much and can create other problems (trigger points in other muscles). Also, you may bruise from the treatment, and if you do, then you should not continue pushing on that spot until the bruise goes away. Finally, don't interrupt the blood flow in main arteries or push hard on nerves. The first is identifiable by feeling a very strong pulse and then when you let go a flood of warm liquid inside your skin. The second is identifiable because it causes a lot of local pain (usually) and distal numbness. If leaning on a ball is making your fingers go dead-numb, that's bad.

Good luck and happy hunting!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Don't Let Your Training Get You Down

Yin Style Baguazhang is a tough art to train, as are many, though this one in particular is described as having "rather dry" training methods that make it difficult to learn. It's also a very deep art that requires a serious commitment to become skilled. Because of how its presented in seminars, because of the immense size of the art, or because of the seemingly endless layers of complexity in the techniques (just properly "finding the forces" of the techniques is said to take three to five years of serious investgation!!!), it's easy to start to feel like there's more to do than we have time for in this art if we really want to get it. To compound that, there's life, which seems to interject an awful lot of stuff into our days that just put the block on training. Piled even on top of that are words we've almost all heard that go like this: "you have to stand/turn/practice/etc. for a long time to get development." Putting all of that together is a recipe for discouragement in training in the real world.

Here are some different words to remember: "Five minutes of training is more training than zero minutes of training."

Sure, you're not going to get a whole lot of development in five minutes, but if it's all you have for your training today or this week, then you're going to get more development in those five minutes if you use them training than if you don't. Maybe you could stand strengthening. Standing strengthening for five minutes with real effort is pretty hard and can get you some development. Maybe you could focus carefully and intently on the mechanics of a particular strike that you either really like or really feel deficient on. Using your brain at full power for five minutes on feeling the mechanics of a strike can actually bring about a real change in your understanding of that strike as long as you follow up on that with some solid training later when you have more of a chance. For me, at least, that follow-up is 100% easier to talk myself into (sometimes I have talk myself out of it so that I can work or do chores or some such) if I've investigated the strike and renewed my interest in it, even if only for a few minutes... like I've whet my appetite and can't wait to find out more. Five minutes of turning isn't a great way to get development, but it is a great way to use five minutes if it's all you have, particularly if you put your training intention on the right things: focus very intently on one particular aspect of posture or mechanics, like the proper use of the legs in stepping or the proper way to lift the crown and tuck the tailbone while still managing to walk "naturally."

The thing is, it's just too easy with an art like this to feel like you're not giving it, or the opportunity you have to train in it, the attention that it is really due. Then it's easy to beat yourself up about that, and that's not why anyone's training: to feel like they have another obligation or something to be disappointed in themselves over. You have to get over that and train when you have time to train and take what you can from that time. Having only five minutes that you could use to train and then not training in those because you just deem that it's not long enough to do anything is the only way you're really shortchanging yourself. Having a life that presents you with only five minutes that you can train on a particular day is just that: having a life (and we all have them!).

A long time ago, I was given two pieces of advice about training in Yin Style that apply more generally, and I still think about them on a regular basis:
  1. "Five minutes of turning (read: training) is more than no minutes of turning (read: training);"
  2. "At every point in your life, you have three directions to choose from: you can do something that moves you forward, something that keeps you still, or something that moves you backwards in whatever you're working on. It's up to you to choose which one of those you want."
I think a lot of folks that train in martial arts, particularly Yin Style Baguazhang or other internal arts, have this idea that the only way to get great development is to train for hours on end most of the days of the week. To become a total expert like a lineage holder, that might be true. Honestly, though, essentially all of us will not become "lineage holders" without doing something idiotic like making up our own lineage, so that's kind of moot. The truth of the matter is that the only way to get great development is to train as much as your life and circumstance allows you to, which includes and allows for your interest in cooking, having a family, wanting to go to Cancun and lay out on the beach and do nothing for a few days, or whatever else. If you decide you really, truly want more development, then you'll find yourself reorganizing your life around fulfilling that want, but the measurement is entirely personal and therefore that kind of change isn't required or even expected.

It's tough to keep your chin up, but remember what I remember: "Five minutes is more than no minutes," and you'll progress. If you do five minutes and find that you suddenly have ten, then great. If you do five minutes and find that you're running late, then at least you got five minutes.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Accessories Workout, With Pictures!

I figure it's about time I start putting some pictures on here. So... I did a workout today and took some of the process. Since I didn't have a photographer and didn't want to goof around with the timer and all of that, they're all from my perspective. That makes them probably quite a bit different from what you're used to seeing... awesome. I'm definitely the "different" sort of guy. The only pictures I took were of some of my saber stuff and some accessories, although my workout integrated those kinds of things with yard work and empty-hand drills -- standing, some turning, and striking drills. All-told, I went at it for about two hours before I decided I was too excited about putting up some pictures and too thirsty to continue.

baguadao or baguazhang dado with dumbbell and gripperHere are the tools of my trade today: saber (freshly polished), twenty pound dumbbell (for accessory exercising), and Heavy Gripper 200 lb (also for accessory exercising). They made for quite the little workout.



After the photo opportunity, I launched into some standing and striking and then picked up my saber for some harder work. The goal was to turn in the Green Dragon Shoots to the Sea posture for fifty revolutions in each direction, however many times I had to go in each directly to accomplish that goal. This picture is a perspective shot of me in the posture. Notice that the saber tip is at eyebrow height.

I followed that exercise up, which was hard, with tracing the saber to the count of fifty in each hand and then dumbbell shoulder presses (two sets of twelve) to further tax the muscles that hold the saber up, although my hands were way more taxed by the posture than my shoulders were. Here's a perspective shot of the "closed" position with one of my lovely maple trees in the background.


After the dumbbell, I did a set of ten with the gripper. Actually, I did a set of ten with it after each of my three turning exercises with the saber. It's really hard to close. Two hundred pounds is a lot of required force. Then again, four people in London told me that they believe that I have, in the words of the Iced-JohannesBerg himself, "the bone-crushing strength in my hands." I only use these things about once a week and only after crazy saber and crazy ox-tongue palm workouts, which I think do more for the grip anyway (unless I do seizing and grasping postures... I'll do grippers after those too... whew, burner).


After doing some yard work and some more empty-hand drills and another round of standing Lion (I'll have to take a perspective shot of that sometime... I can't believe I didn't think of it), I decided I should turn with the saber in Lion posture. Good thinking. That was hard. It took four sets, but I went thirty times in each direction. Can someone say shoulders? I almost couldn't by the time I was done.


Since the Lion section of the Nine Dragon Saber form seems to have a lot of chopping in it, I think more than any section except the Rooster one, I decided to do hook-chop after that: twice in each hand so that I ended up with 30 total on each side (18, 12 for the breakdown). That was kind of hard. Here's a perspective shot of that, which was hard to take because I posed for it after the sets. I followed that up with lateral and front shoulder raises with the dumbbell (ten each in each hand) and then the gripper again and then more empty-hand striking drills of the zig-zag stepping variety.

Okay, so what would I do after that? A short turn in the Lion posture, of course, and then... good times of all good times:
You're damn right you know what that is. Turning in the Qilin (Unicorn) posture. That sucked bad at that point, and so I only went twenty times around in the right and fifteen in the left (my left wrist still isn't 100%). That took four sets to get to. I've really got to turn more with that thing, seriously. I don't even think that I'm twisting my arm under far enough since looking at the picture indicates to me that the blade isn't pointing straight up. Damn, yo. The followup to this monster is the most Qilin/Unicorn feeling of the basic saber drills that I could think of: arcing. I can do a bunch of those, so I did fifty on each side in one go. Then I picked up the dumbbell and did curls and then forearm curls (one set of twelve of each) and threw that thing on the ground because my forearms felt like they were going to pop. In response, I did another set with the gripper and tried not to cry.

Afterwards, I busted out some more striking drills, working striking combinations from the Lion System basics and did a little more yard work before deciding to hang it up for the day and get to other things. I'll probably do a bit more in a little bit now that I've had plenty to drink and a little to eat, and then I'm planning to stretch and do my Taoist energy exercises that I've recommited myself to (for the third time) before bed.

As I went out, my wife saw me, and so I showed her how shiny my newly polished saber is. She snapped a picture of me admiring it. By the time my workout was over, I was as shiny as it... probably shinier. So... that's how I rolled today. What fun!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Fire and Ice

"Sometimes you've got to think about presentation; you've got to make it look good for people."

He Jinbao said that to us while discussing variations on the Nine Dragon Saber form in our seminar in London this summer, and the extra little kick thrown in by Matt was "You've got to think about fire and ice sometimes." Since I don't speak Chinese, I don't know if Matt or JB said "fire and ice," but I'm assuming for now that it was Matt. I could be wrong.

I do know that Matt made "The Billionaire" and I do a fire-and-ice drill one day, and today I brought that drill to Bradley. The drill itself is completely insignificant to this post and almost insignificant to training: it's one drill out of several dozens and probably one that most people that work the dadao are have done: stab forward and then pull back, squatting into a low stance and supporing the saber arm with the back of the wrist, using the waist to drive the movement, of course.

The point here is really that doing this fire-and-ice drill made a normally "boring" drill a lot more fun, in other words, it increased the excitement that we had for the drill and encouraged us to do more drills in a similar way -- more drills, in fact, than we would have done had we not walked down this road. The basic idea for "fire and ice" is that you and some partners get together and do the drills a bit like a synchronized swimming team, so to speak. For us, we stabbed directly at the points of each other's saber so that they ended a few inches or a foot or so apart (measured ahead of time). Then we moved in step with one another. This drill would be particularly cool with a larger group also. I know for sure that it drove me to do more of them and gave me something different to focus on while I was doing the drill, so it really pepped it up for me.

The thing is, group training in Yin Style is an interesting phenomenon. As far as I can tell, it has some very useful purposes:
  • Introducing the art to less-experienced practitioners or helping to advance their practice;
  • Group accountability/encouragement to do more and better drills;
  • Commeraderie;
  • The ability to see and be seen, primarily for correction's sake;
  • Share ideas and training tips;
  • Practice applications.
There are surely others, but making an exhaustive list of such a thing on the spot is difficult, particularly when you get familiarity blindness (meaning we all know the benefits of group training and are so familiar with them that it's hard to see and say those things clearly sometimes in an exhaustive list). One thing that is particularly good about Yin Style (although it's true for every martial art, even if it's not explicitly encouraged) is that solo drilling really takes center stage, and the hard truth of the matter is this: you don't need a group to do it or to do it well (although for the corrections/learning aspects it's really helpful). Thus, why use your group meeting times for focusing primarily on the things you should be doing at home, training on your own?

That's where doing drills with the fire-and-ice mentality comes in. The drills are the same, but they feel and look different. If we all stand in rows and just do them, that's fine, but it's very similar to what we are experiencing in our solo practice just with more people around (who might be added distractions?). Fire and ice gives a different kind of purpose and a certain novelty to the exercises, and it is certainly not something you can do on your own. As far as training practicality goes, more attention to distance and positioning are required for the drills, so those aspects of training become more realistic than when drilling solo, say out in the middle of your driveway (in case you don't want to tear up your grass or something).

Apparently, fire and ice can be applied to the form as well. In fact, it was mentioned, since we were doing the form in fours, how cool it would look if we all did the "boatman plunges his pole" maneuver so that our saber tips all pointed to the middle of the room at the same time. Then it was suggested that we should all think about our positioning and movement so that we could accommodate that goal. Then we didn't do it, not even once. Looking back at it now, I think of it as a missed opportunity. Putting some thought into these kinds of things, not as a center of your practice but rather as a peripheral sort of drill can add depth and fun to what otherwise might seem tedious, repetitive, dry, or even boring. Plus, when we do it, we get to look cool, and how cool is that?

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Yin Yoga -- Fix It If It's Broken

This post is about supplementing your Yin Style (or any martial arts) practice with a form of yoga called Yin Yoga. Yeah, yeah, I know... supplemental practices! Yeah, yeah, I know... I've mentioned this before! The thing is that this particular branch of yoga is really helpful for putting you back together after hard training, particularly when your joints are aching and sore or if you have any kind of chronic pain. The practices are primarily suited for the lower body, probably from the ribs down -- particularly in the hips and lower back, and they're really, really helpful (though difficult to do because they're so easy and somewhat uncomfortable) for helping fix tension in those areas. I'm a big fan of the practice... I just wish I could find/make time (will?) to do more of it.

Here's the basic rundown of Yin Yoga if you've never heard of it. First of all, this "Yin" is Yin like Yin and Yang, not like Yin Fu. The basic idea is that a few carefully chosen poses are selected, primarily for their ability to affect connective tissue in the "yin areas" of the body, practiced according to three basic rules (that need attention to prevent injury), and are held for what seem to be ridiculously dangerous amounts of time. The theory is that this gives the body time to stop resisting the stretches and allows the connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, fascia, dura, etc) to be directly affected. Furthermore, the theory is that the qi meridian systems of the body are also directly affected (removing blockages and stimulating flow, for instances).

The rules are simple enough:
  1. Find your appropriate position, which means making sure that you've chosen yin-suitable postures, that you've entered into them correctly, and that you've appropriately found "your edge," discussed briefly below, and not exceeded that;
  2. Breathe deeply and relax, focusing the attention inward to the tissues being affected;
  3. Wait.
"Your edge" in Yin Yoga means finding the place in the posture for which your body starts to feel some affect but is not being taxed. There are particular cues that you can read up on or become educated on (if you take a class in it... good idea if you've never done it or don't have a helper) that will tell you if you've gone too far in most poses. The best rule of thumb, though, is to remember that it's "YIN" Yoga, and therefore the proper position is usually where your body will go without having to put in any extra effort. That means you don't pull yourself into poses, you let yourself fall into them (Yin... check). Gravity (Yin) is the main operator once you're in position. You should be mostly "comfortable" in these poses (though I wouldn't describe it that way), apparently.

"Wait" in Yin Yoga means that you hold the pose until the natural resistances of the body and mind stop. That means that you're going to be there for a while, maybe two or three minutes, maybe twenty in a more advanced practice (I've never exceeded about six, actually, but I'm not serious). It also means that in a class or a single practice session, you can't expect to do too much and should probably plan out what you intend to do with specific goals in mind ahead of time. The natural resistances of the body are some forms of tension or discomfort that the body will relax through. Those of the mind are boredom, thinking it's futile or stupid, a wandering mind (off the given task and affected tissue), and that sort of thing. Pushing through these boundaries has to be done with some caution, though! Specifically, you want to learn to distinguish between a tension that you can let go of and a signal (or cry!) from your body to let go and back off. Your body's signals have to be respected here or injuries will result, but at the same time the resisting tension in the body has to be perservered through, so some listening skill (to your own body now) has to be present to do this practice safely and well.

How can it enhance Yin Style practice (or any other martial art, for that matter)? It first of all helps cure chronic stiffness and pain and seems to naturally stimulate the flow of blood and qi in the body, removing blockages and the like. It should also increase flexibility, mental focus, internal awareness, and meditative capacity while serving as a form of meditation in and of itself. It can help you learn about your body and get to know it. It can put you back together when training makes you sore or gives you lasting muscular or connective-tissue-based injuries. As long as it's done safely, the only danger I see in this practice compromising progress in a martial art is the amount of time it takes, though it's very easy to train this right before bed and greatly enhance the quality of sleep that you get.

For those of you that follow what I say about trigger points or know about them on your own merits, I'm starting to suspect after taking a Yin Yoga class today with my wife that practicing the stretches in this style of yoga might work to deactivate trigger points in perhaps a heretofore uninvestigated way. Stretching, it's well known, can cause trigger points to get worse, not better, and frequently does just that. Spray and stretch, however, is a technique to treat trigger points that uses stretching (after an administering of cold to the area) that has a good deal of efficacy. I strongly suspect that yin yoga, given the time frames in which the poses are held can have a similar effect on trigger points and the muscles that contain them (if done safely in a responsible, intelligent manner that honors and respects the body doing them!). I don't know, but if I ever go into that line of work, I will probably make it one of my research tasks to find out. Maybe I'll even get a second Ph.D.... (yeah right... those SUCK to get).

You might consider it, anyway. The website linked to above, I'm told, is one of the best, containing much of the information of the book Yinsights, which is probably the best book on the subject. I'm going to keep at it; that's for sure.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

What and Why Training Journals

One of the training tools that I've been experimenting with since sometime in May (and holding kind of close to my chest) is what I would call a "what and why" training journal. I'm not as good at keeping it as I should be, but that's partially because I have a tendency to become a little o.c.d. with journaling my training. Still, I think it is a very valuable tool to increase ability in an art that requires a large amount of attention to detail.

The point of the training journal is simple and explained clearly by its name: "what and why." Essentially, I try to write down what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. The basic ideas on the what and why are twofold, though. First, I keep tabs on what training I'm actually doing, sometimes writing it down before I do it to give myself a commitment to fulfill. Secondly, I keep tabs on what I'm doing when I'm training so I can pay attention to the requirements of the techniques along with He Jinbao's suggestion that we "should never train the same thing in the same way twice." In other words, I try to make things more palpable for myself in terms of what I'm doing and how I'm doing it so that I can refine my training more efficiently. Particularly I might make short notes about what kinds of things seemed to work and what kinds didn't.

The why part of the journal is also self-explanatory: I'm answering the question "why am I doing this?" There are two sides to that, though. First, there is what training goals or needs it is satisfying. For instance, for a while I felt very weak in my shocking strikes (and even wrote about it on here, I think). I gave them a low grade, so to speak, in terms of where I felt like I was with them versus where I thought I should be with them. Thus, part of the why for my shocking strike improvement effort was "to improve the quality of my shocking strikes, primarily in terms of output of power consistent with what I know about the shocking force." The other part of why is equally important: applications. These moves are martial. Why am I doing them? Obviously to improve my fighting skill, and so part of my why journaling is detailing what in uses I know or imagine these techniques could be employed. I believe this aspect is very important to coming up with useful drills, combinations, etc., as well as developing the technique appropriately. Even if all I care about is health development in my martial arts training, the inherent health development is wrapped up in the proper execution of the martial arts techniques. Thus, if I don't know how to use them, I probably cannot do them to full effectiveness and thus miss some of that health development. If I want to learn to fight, then focusing on this aspect of training is of obviously high importance, so I find this to be one of the most valuable aspects of the journaling process.

Another thing that journaling does to really enhance your training is it teaches you to think about things in terms of how you would write them down: in other words, you have to critically analyze and carefully pay attention to what you're doing in order to get everything you want out of them.

Maybe this won't work for everyone, but a "what and why" training journal has really helped me deepen my practice. I'm glad I shared.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Growing the Group

One of our major goals here in Knoxville, TN, is to grow our group, and we're finding it very difficult. Of course, we want to do it ethically, which makes things a bit harder. Here's a little bit of our group history along with the trials and tribulations we find in growing.

A Good Beginning
When I started training a few years ago, we had a facility and some folks. I think my brother and I made the fifth and sixth members of the study group, actually, when we started. The facility was pretty good: spacious, matted, and well-lit, if a little exposed to the elements for an indoor place (it was a warehouse at a martial arts supply company, so if it was hot outside, it was hot inside, and if it was cold outside, it was cold inside). It was also free, which was pretty good, due to connections that our founding member had (and no longer has for a variety of reasons, half of which are good). The group grew pretty steadily, if slowly, there to a maximum of about eight or nine, even though some people (like my brother) left the group over the course of that time. Things were actually pretty promising back then, and it looked like we would have some real growth over time, reaching our goal of roughly 15-20 serious members in relatively short order. Then we lost the facility, and things basically went to crap.

The Dark Year
This year wasn't really dark, and it actually lasted almost eighteen months. In fact, I think some of us made some huge progress in the year that followed losing the facility, although 90% of it was on a completely individual basis since we couldn't find another facility for the same very reasonable price (free). A few of the most serious among us still got together from time to time, but the "students" at that point mostly started to vanish. By the time we found the place we're training now, which isn't really that good, the group had dwindled essentially to the three of us that now form the "core" in Knoxville, one of whom has a lot of family and work-related issues that have hindered his training of late. It was up to us to start growing again.

A New Place to Train
While out on a walk with my wife one night last year, I found a pavilion behind a school that satisfied a few of our most important criteria: lighted (we meet in the evenings), covered (it rains a lot here), and free (it's in an area that is a public park outside of "extended school hours"). Awesome... except that it's in Maryville, TN (a town about thirty miles south of Knoxville), and it doesn't have walls (something people tend to look for in a martial arts school, it seems). It's also exactly the same temperature as outside, which is rough in the hottest and coldest months of the year, and there's absolutely no protection from bugs (mosquitoes, most notably). It hasn't been a huge boon for us in terms of attracting new members, but it's been better than not having a place at all. That's where we've been since sometime last summer, and it works more or less. We do, on the plus side, have some exposure... but no one really stops to ask us what we're up to (except the one guy that did, who trains with us now). That's kind of the history of the group, many details omitted. We technically have four official members now, which isn't really very many, and we really want to grow. Using our apparently unpersuasive talking skills, we've managed to acquire around a dozen people that claim that they want to come and train, but none of them have actually done that yet. We've also had our share of "tourists" as the London group calls them: people who come and train one to three times and then never come back.

Advertising
I decided a while ago to try advertising on CraigsList, though I'm not sure why I continue it at this point except that I know it drives an awful lot of traffic to our group's website (which could use an update...). We've had quite a few e-mails from it and a few guys have actually come and tried it out (all tourists, I think). The general responses contain questions that underscore my essential reason for publishing this post (wondering what to do about these problems):
  • "Why don't we get belts?"
  • "Why is it free?"
  • "Where do you get your training?"
  • "Are you sure it isn't in Knoxville? Will it be soon/ever?"
  • "Really, why is it free?"
  • "I'm not going to pay for one class per week.; why don't you have classes more often?" (...it's free... ???)
  • "No, really, why is it free? Is it really free?"
The main issue, apparently, is that people seem not to want one of my favorite parts of all of this: it's free. That's dubious. My latest experiment has been to post a new ad (today) to CraigsList that says "the first few lessons are free" to see if there's a greater response with an expectation to pay. I intend to misdirect people that ask about the money with "why don't you come try it before we worry about that...," a classic used-car salesman technique. Why the hell don't people want free stuff? I don't get it.

Potential Solutions
We've discussed the following plans: get business cards/flyers, market ourselves slightly more aggressively, and dupe people on the money issue. The first two of those are fairly straightforward and consistent with what's going on with HQ. The duping is funny and probably won't ever really happen. It would go down like this: "Classes are $X per month for the first three months, and then we'll discuss the more serious payment options if you want to stick with it at that point." Then, what we do is put all of the money those people pay into a box or an account until we have said discussion, at which point we tell them it's really free and hand back $3X to them because we're not interested in that (we don't have a facility, we don't have bills, and we don't have insurance... it's free). Everyone would laugh except the person that wants to know why (s)he didn't get told that it was free from the get-go.

Ethical Recruitment Concerns
There are a lot of martial arts schools in the area. I have a strong connection with one, and the other main members among us have connections with others. We kind of have a hard and fast rule that we don't advertise to those people at all. Stealing students is not something we're interested in. Something else, though, that I'd be interested in hearing some suggestions about are the following three situations, neither of which we've had to deal with yet but may have to eventually:
  • A person that used to go to a school that we're connected with quits that school and then, via whatever means, ends up coming to us to train (mildly sticky); or
  • A person that currently does train in one of those schools comes to us (under their own power and craft... we don't advertise to them!) and wants to come train with us (moderately sticky), and then
  • Gives up on the school because of the awesomeness of baguazhang (very sticky).
I figure the first of those options is likely to happen at essentially any given time. People know us, and particularly in those schools have seen our growth in the martial arts realm since starting Yin Style. I figure it's the least sticky and not really an issue, though I bet "you're stealing my students" will still be an uttered issue despite our obvious attempts not to do that. The second of those scenarios might or might not ever happen. I don't know. I don't really want to find out. I figure that the people that migrate in that way, if any ever do, will either be tourists or fall into the third category pretty quickly (based on effectiveness + free = better deal than not free, as long as effectiveness is comparable). Some might be dual trainers, which keeps things probably pretty sticky, but it's really the third group that make me nervous.

Our goal is definitely not to steal students, but Yin Style Baguazhang has a reputation for having people start on its path and then forsake all other arts that they've trained to dedicate more to YSB. Our founding member is that way... he has literally renounced his entire karate background because of his commitment to Yin Style (wanting to have a belt-burning party before we talked him out of setting anything on fire because of the pointlessness of that).

Any suggestions on ways that might effectively help a small group grow are strongly welcomed, particularly if they include great advice on how to get past the "why is it free?" question (our usual answer is "because we love doing this and have no expenses in it, so we don't feel the need to charge for it"). Advice about the "ethical dilemmas" present in having a public study group that exists near commercial martial arts facilities are welcomed also. Locals that are interested in training or that know people that are interested in training are strongly encouraged to leave a comment indicating that to me or to contact one of us directly by finding our e-mails on either the local group's website or the YSB International website (see the sidebar for links).
"The most important thing when studying the martial arts is not to be lazy. These skills are not easily attained. For them, one must endure a lot of suffering." -He Jinbao