Ask Dr. Jimberly -- "Humongous Godzilla Sword" -- What's with the dadao anyway?

Here's another edition of Ask Dr. Jimberly, where I share questions and answers that I get about Yin Style Baguazhang with a wider audience: What's the deal with that "Humongous Godzilla Sword" (read: the Yin Style bagua dadao)?

Structured time makes better training

After years in the education field and in having dealt with organizing and running both lessons and workouts, I am completely convinced at this point that the place your workout or training session should begin is at a desk or table with pen and paper. Your goal is pretty simple: to transform the time you plan to spend working out into structured time, which is far more valuable than other kinds of time when it comes to getting things done.

Snow day! Train hard!

The other day I posted some training tips for training in cold weather, notably after we trained out in some cold. Today, something relatively rare happened in East Tennessee: it snowed and stuck. I took some advantage of the opportunity to test out some of my tips with a short training session outside (and even got a picture for you, although it's posed, from after some of my training). After going out today in snow and ice, I have a couple of things to add to that previous post.

Ask Dr. Jimberly -- Yin Style Bagua questions and answers -- About turning and breathing

Since I get questions in my email from time to time about training in Yin Style, and since people tend to be happy enough with my answers, I've decided a nice thing to do would be to put some of these questions and answers up on the blog, maintaining anonymity, so that others can hear them as well, just in case they happen to have the same questions. Now, to be fair, I have to point out that I'm not always going to be 100% correct with my answers and am responding to the best of my knowledge, and so you can try these things out for yourself, see if they work or not, and always feel encouraged to pass your questions along to higher authorities in the art.

Today's question is about turning and breathing, particularly what kind of breathing is appropriate for turning practice in Yin Style Baguazhang. The exact wording of the question is

I have a question about breathing. Do we use lower abdominal breathing or reverse breathing. Hope that you can help... Thank you

Here was my response to this worthy inquiry:

Training tips for cold weather

After reading "When Cold......", by George on the Beijing Yin Style study group's training blog, I decided to put together some of what I have to say about training in cold weather, which is, obviously, appropriate for the season for many practitioners right now and will be again soon enough for our Southern Hemisphere friends. Definitely check out George's post on Y.S.Behind Enemy Lines when you get a chance, and take his advice to heart since it's solid information. It's also a poignant topic for us right now since the Knoxville study group trained this week outdoors in 25-degree Fahrenheit (-4 Celsius) for a couple of hours while damp snow fell lightly on us.

Setting goals

One of the absolute most important aspects of finding success in any endeavor, particularly long-term endeavors like those presented by training a martial art, is proper goal setting. I've talked about this before (like here and here, for a couple of examples), and I'm going to mention it again because I've put more thought and effort into the project recently than ever before.

Flat back

A flat back... I have one.

At this year's successful seminar series, in which I was glad to participate in two tour stops, it was made literally painfully clear to me that I have an overly flat upper back, and that I am to work hard to correct this issue.

Working, working out, and training -- Exercises aren't created equally

Since it seems that I've had a bajillion things to do around the yard this summer, mostly involving a fair amount of physical labor, I've had some time to reflect upon how working, meaning hard, physical labor, working out, as in the gym, and training are similar and yet different. As it is easy to get caught up in substituting labor or a workout for training, particularly since both make you feel like you've accomplished something physical and eat into your training time and energy, I thought it might be worth putting something down about some of the differences, at least in my understanding.

An hour a day... Turning training tips for beginners: Getting your time up

Turning practice is difficult, and to follow Yin Style Baguazhang's demanding schedule for maximum development, it is a goal of all serious Yin Style practitioners to turn for an hour a day on every day that their schedule permits (particularly if there's a seminar or intensive coming up!). If you've ever turned, particularly the way we turn in Yin Style, then you know that an hour is a long time to turn.

Fall tour prep training

My training, usually pretty good, is up. I'm almost always sore, sleeping like a (very uncomfortably hot) log, and evidently rather dehydrated (proved by unquenchable thirst and my first calf cramp in my sleep in over a year). I'm training like a fiend, or at least like how I figure a fiend would train, because of the upcoming fall tour, the Knoxville, TN, stop in particular.

Yin Style Baguazhang International returns to Knoxville, TN, in Fall 2010

Undeniably, it has been a long time since I've posted anything on here, and what better reason to take up the charge of writing on this blog again than to announce this year's Yin Style Baguazhang International Fall Tour, including its Knoxville, TN, stop. This year's tour promises to be even better than ever, repeating much of the same in the way of organization as last year, this time with all-new material. If you want to read the announcement from last year's Yin Style Bagua Knoxville tour stop, click here.

New Yin Style Baguazhang links on my blog! Oh, and awesome tips to gauge your progress in a martial art like Yin Style Baguazhang

So I did a little hunting around and decided to add some links to my link list since the world of Yin Style Baguazhang is growing steadily, and my blog should probably reflect that.

I just can't get into MMA but keep feeling like I should... wtf?

I feel like I should be into MMA (mixed martial arts). After all, I fit the demographics pretty well, and worse, I feel tremendous passive social pressure to be into it.

Tip to get better at martial arts -- stop thinking you're good and train

I had a bit of an epiphany while I was driving today, hopefully to further my career (rather to start one?) -- the key to getting good at the martial arts is leaving room to get better, and that starts with realizing that you're not good yet, no matter how good you are.

On training Yin Style, to paraphrase Laozi

To paraphrase Laozi, here is a comment on training Yin Style Baguazhang:

Saluting Stockholm

I've seen the pictures on Facebook:YSB now, Stockholm... and while I can tell you with certainty that I'm not busting it like MB's busting you, I am saluting you in my own small way.

No reasons to cut corners

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's something about my cultural approach to training that I just can't shake, but at least a couple of times each year, despite things that I might write (and mean and stand behind) in high-press articles, I get all into researching "other" forms of "complementary" exercise. I'm not even sure why, and after doing it the other day and realizing something, it just seems kind of futile.

As far as cross-training goes, it can be a benefit to training in Yin Style Bagua or any martial art. The proper proportions, as indicated by those in-the-know are suggested by the following: Train what you are training for 2 hours for every 20 minutes of cross-training that you do. That way you can keep your focus on your training -- where training implies more than just working out, getting stronger, or getting in shape. Training implies skills-building. The thing is, with a martial art like Yin Style Baguazhang, I'm left strongly with the feeling "why bother" in regards to cross-training exercises when I really think about it.

You see, Yin Style Baguazhang is a very, very complete art that is very, very well thought-out. Not all arts are. The upshot of this completeness and intelligence in design is that YSB has everything in it that is needed for great development. You can add weights, stretching routines, cardio, caveman workouts, or what-have-you to your regimen, but the training is designed so that you don't even have to consider it, a major contrast with many arts.

Here's what got me the other night. I was hunting around on the web, researching wrist strengthening exercises since I and many other folks that talk with me seem to injure their wrists on the rock that is the bagua dadao. I've currently got some tendinitis (in the other wrist this time), and it's pretty common. If you've never hunted around for wrist-strengthening exercises, let me save you some time: not much that goes on in the gym does a whole hell of a lot for wrist strength. You can do forearm curls one way or the other, you can roll up a rope with a weight on it, you can rotate a dumbbell back and forth, and you can hold heavy things, particularly heavy things with thick bars. That's about it.

I was kind of pissed that all I could find about gaining wrist strength was a bunch of crap that I already knew that clearly didn't help with what I was needing help with. Then I thought about it for a minute... the saber's already perfect for this. Then I thought about it more. Do a hard seizing-palm-strengthening posture with one hand and feel the tendons and structure in the wrist with the other. I think we have a winner. Then think about grasping palm posture and all of the ox-tongue palm postures and all of the closed-fist postures. Compared with the silly stuff I was reading on the internet, the case was simply closed. YSB FTW.

So... pick your favorite exercise-related goal... think about it for a while. Yin Style trains that. You want stronger shoulders? stronger legs? stronger back? stronger arms? more endurance? more cardiovascular health? weight loss? (muscular) weight gain? enhanced tendon strength? functional strength and fitness? better grip? improved health? better balance? deeper flexibility? ass-kicking skills? to impress people with a giant-ass sword? Yin Style Baguazhang trains that, probably better than much else that you can find. One word comes to mind: superior.

Should you complement your training to develop certain goals more quickly? Sure, in relative proportions and if you really enjoy those complementary exercises and/or feel like you get a lot out of them. If you want a reason to avoid doing complementary exercises that you don't care for that much (or hate... read: running), then here's your excuse -- you can better use that time training something that Yin Style Bagua already offers and do it even better than you could with your complementary stuff.

Battle saber proves I'm weak

I train hard.

I got to thinking the other day, though, how much more ridiculous training with the saber would be if going to battle with the saber was a realistic possibility, supposing I was somehow such a soldier as my training with the saber somewhat suggests I pretend to be. Here's some of my realizations:

First, it's hard for me to do drills with the saber for a long time. In fact, it's hard to hold the saber for a long time. By a long time, I mean maybe a quarter or half of an hour. If I was training for battle with the saber, I'd have to hold and use the saber for several hours at a time without the option of putting it down and taking a little drink while my muscles feel like they're about to bust out of my skin.

Second, I'm getting better at the saber, but I'm by no means great. If I was going to battle with it, because I'd prefer not to die in such an engagement (which I surely would if I went to battle with it right now against anyone that knew how to fight with some kind of comparable armament), I'd have to be blinging great with the saber. "Eh, that was pretty good," just wouldn't cut it.

Third, I can put out some power with the saber on some techniques for a few techniques (see "first"), but if I was going to battle with the saber, I'd have to be going balls-to-the-walls for hours with it to be successful. Good Lord.

Fourth, did I mention not being able to put it down???

Why am I writing about this hee-haw-dom? Well, because it makes me think about what kinds of goals to have in saber training. To be really great with it by my standards now would be to be mediocre according to going-to-battle standards. I just thought it was something to try to keep in mind while training with the saber... imagine really using it for what swords were used for. Here's a picture of me doing one technique in a short series and doing it rather poorly at the best of my ability.
Disclaimer: I'm aware of the history of the bagua dadao as being designed to be a training implement and not necessarily a true battle weapon, although it quite clearly could be used as such. Whether or not it ever saw real combat or even if it would, that doesn't change the mentality that might (or should) underlie its training.

New Year's training resolutions 2010

I feel like I should start this off with some classic New Year's resolutions words that seem to spell disaster: "This year's going to be different...." Well, hopefully it is. I've been thinking an awful lot about my training over the past month, not least because of my stupid toe that was making doing much training outside of a seated position (yeah, right) quite difficult if not impossible. I'm back on the horse full-tilt again now, though, and here are some of the things I think make good New Year's training resolutions. As usual, feel fully free to make comments to add some of your own!

Do _______ more consistently (fill in the blank per your needs)
For me, what this one comes down to mostly is standing strengthening and turning. Those two aspects of training either end up being the main component of my training or almost evaporate completely, and those two situations seem to occur cyclically in a-few-months-long intervals. That's not good. Some standing; some turning; every week. I'm not sure that doing some of everything every day is that good of an idea any more. Then again, perhaps I'm just not training enough.

Be more balanced and organized in training
It's really been an easy trap for me to fall into to focus almost all of my training on the saber: when I first got it I was nuts about learning the entire Nine Dragon Saber form and being strong enough to be able to get through it all in one go; later, I went completely ape with some basic drills. Like weights, the saber gives quick, obvious results. The price of falling into that trap has been a decline in the amount of other exercises that I do, many of which were daily staples in the past.

Move more
Maybe I'm just a turd like this, but I tend to notice that doing moving-step striking drills and forms, some things I really should be doing a lot of, kind of get ignored all too often for standing-in-place methods, which are great but a bit limited in terms of developing use and better coordination (both being highly sought training aims). I'm going to try to up the moving-step this year significantly. If you're not brand-spanking-new to the art, you might consider it too, based at least on what JB had to say about it last summer.

Be organized/have a plan for your training
Note that this point applies to any martial artist or even any active person, so if you read this and don't practice Yin Style Bagua, keep this one near the front of your mind. This is perhaps one of my weakest links in developing a solid training regimen. I tend not to be very organized, to my own chagrin, and I'm sure my potential development suffers for it. Usually, my method is that I get up, think about what I might like to do that day or something that I haven't done in a while, and then I just do some of that. Since it's easy to get into ruts, I tend to do those things repetitively for a while and then either get stuck doing them far too much (to the detriment of other training) or end up fizzling out. An organized weekly plan seems like a better approach.

On that note, an organized daily agenda would also make a good addition to my training program -- here are the times that I train, and I stick to those times and train during them. Furthermore, I tend to do very well if I develop curriculum for myself (subject to my recurring downfall -- curriculum is easier to write down than it is to execute). Spending a little time each week or month developing curriculum and then choosing specific daily exercises to do along those lines would greatly benefit me.

Set speficic, measurable, realistic, attainable, short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals (Another note for everyone)
In that same vein, I really need to do better with my goal-setting. First, goals need to be specific, measurable, realistic, and attainable to work. That means:

• Specific - "I want to get in better shape" or "I want to be able to do xxxx technique better" would be very vague goals that are hard to meet. It's important to be specific in goal-setting so you know what you're working toward and when you've met that goal. "I want fluid, solid body movement in xxxx technique" is more specific and easier to attain.
• Measurable - In training Yin Style Bagua, this one is the rub. Measurable is easiest in terms of doing things by the numbers: "Turn for an hour," "Do 1000 of xxxx technique without needing a break," etc. Those kinds of goals aren't really great for internal arts (but are awesome for supplemental training activities). What's needed instead are measurements that are more subtle: getting lower in your stances and maintaining them longer; turning well for an hour; routinely turning well for 10 minutes before needing to change sides, etc. Doing xxxx activity at least ##% of the days this year is also good.
  
• Realistic - Setting a goal like turning for 1000 hours in a year might not be a realistic goal -- even if you have that kind of time, putting in almost 3 hours a day on average might be outside of your body's ability, particularly if you can't turn well for 3 hours in a day yet. Set goals that are realistic if you want to attain them.
• Attainable - "I want to be able to levitate." Cool. I think most people would get excited about developing that skill, but it's probably not attainable. Many people that practice martial arts, internal arts in particular, come up with some ridiculous ideas about what they'll get out of their training. Try to keep your goals in the "pretty clearly attainable" box, and you'll probably have a lot more success.

Goals also come in a variety of time scales. Generally speaking, shorter-term goals are more realistic and attainable, although longer-term goals can be more driving. Since this is an article about 2010 resolutions in training, I'll keep my longest-term goals at around a year.

1. Short-term goals: These are best set in the weekly-to-monthly time scale, depending on the goal. "Short-term" monthly would be in terms of development, and weekly might be in terms of hitting a particular variety of exercises or spending a set amount of time training or working on particular activities or techniques. These should be very attainable, which means there should only be a little bit of a change (in the positive direction) as compared with what you can do now.
2. Medium-term goals: These are best set in the monthly-to-quarterly time scale, again depending on what you're talking about. Learning a particular set or group of exercises or seeking out a noteworthy degree of development in a particular technique or method ("finding the force," for instance) would make for good medium-term goals.
3. Long-term goals: In the context of this article, these would be quarterly-to-yearly in length. You might be looking for a dramatic change in coordination, agility, flexibility, endurance, or strength on this time scale.
   

A little warning: I used to be very good about developing specific numbers-oriented goals in all three time scales, but they became a bit of an obsession that I'm now sure was detrimental to my development overall. I frequently pushed myself beyond my capacities (good, but only to an extent) and cared more about doing 2000 of xxxx technique by next Tuesday than I did about getting better at xxxx technique. Not good.

Quality first and then quantity
Based on my previous goal-setting line, let me admonish you that the easiest, most realistic and attainable, most clearly specific goals always involve numbers. Remember that for real development, you have to get it right first and then ramp up the numbers, so if you decide to attach numbers to your training (do X repetitions of activity xxxx, or do activity xxxx for X minutes), make absolutely sure that you don't count poor-quality. Your main focuses, I think, should be on doing things well and getting better at those things. If you're not meeting those goals first, then all the numbers in the world don't matter.

Another little warning here: numerical goals are an awesome way to ensure some overtraining issues will develop. Some that I've done or seen done in the past and now consider to be a bad idea are:

1. 100,000 pushups in a year (before I was doing bagua). That's a lot of damn pushups. I did it, but my pushup ability turned to crap. I could do a lot of sets of small numbers of pushups, but doing a large number in one go was right out. I'm not sure what kind of fitness that is, but it's certainly not optimal. I also was not getting stronger after the initial phase of the training.
2. 6,000 tracing the saber in a month (in each hand) -- originally conceived as 200 in each hand per day. I actually did 7000, for the record. This was specifically a test to see what that kind of training would do to my body. The result was similar to the pushups experiment because to keep up with the numbers, I felt like I really needed to trace the saber every day to do it. I think that caused some overtraining issues, though I definitely am stronger now that I did it.
3. 100,000 strikes in a year. Back before I knew anything about training (the first year and a half or so), this is how I approached doing lots of strikes: try to get some thousands of each one every year. I did a lot of poorly executed strikes and got in pretty good shape. I also got a bunch of injuries and didn't get a hell of a lot better at the techniques I was working on.
4. Turn for at least 30 minutes a day (on average) for a year (~180 hours or ~10,000 minutes). This was good for getting on the circle more, but it turned the practice into a serious chore that I started to dread. It's also really easy to get behind when work gets busy, and then it gets really easy to beat yourself up over it.
5. Run 4000 miles in a year. I didn't do this. F*** that! I have a friend that did it, and I can't imagine anything good coming out of it. This didn't have much to do with anything in the post actually; I just really like telling people that I know someone that ran 4000 miles in 2009 (on purpose).
   

Build the group
Most training in Yin Style Bagua is individual, and that's fine. A lot of good stuff comes out of training together: obvious need for curriculum, bringing new people to the art, comeraderie, partner practice, help and corrections, motivation to keep working, group accountability and encouragement, a sense of family and group unity. For us in Knoxville in particular, I really hope to see 2010 as a year in which we really build up the group aspect of our training: more frequent and regular meetings, more folks, more curriculum, a good location, etc. This is our group's roughest challenge, I think, and a big goal for us this year is to make our group a little more solid.