A question about lower spine alignment in internal martial arts and life

A reader, Tom, commented recently on my post about training standing strengthening postures (a post I could probably add to at this point--maybe a future topic if I get around to it). Tom writes,

I'm running into some lower back issues with the flattening of the lumbar spine that occurs with the admonition to tuck (the coccyx). Lumbar discs, particularly at L5-S1, are compressed and held under compression for extended periods during YSB standing practice. It's one thing for a tuck to be a momentary phase during dynamic movement (of the spine), but to hold the tuck seems questionable to me.

The short version of my answer to this question is that I think that "tuck" is the wrong word and "drop" is the right one. For the elaborated-upon answer, keep reading.

A note on negative feedback loops in training motivation

I've been in a real trap as far as my training goes lately. I've been keeping up with it, but it's been forced, and it's been weak. There are a variety of reasons this negative feedback loop--and that's exactly what it is--got started, and unravelling it by studying some classic motivation theory seems to have done the trick to get me back on track.

What are you training for? A Catch-22

In any martial art, but particularly (from my experience) in Yin Style Bagua (though this might be more broadly applicable to internal martial arts), there is a certain Catch-22 to good and effective training. It really comes down to what you're training for.

Feeling stuck? Train something you "already know"

Training Yin Style Bagua is hard for a variety of reasons. One reason is the sheer physical demand. Another is the amount of material that demands attention. A third is the intense mental requirement to get the techniques right. Another still is that all of this creates a nice, sticky web that tends to make training get really, really stagnant sometimes and tends to make progress feel incremental at best and invisible at worst. If you're stuck in one of these stagnant phases of training, what can you do? Go back to something you "already know" and haven't trained in a while.

Bagua standing strengthening practice--are you doing it right?

Apparently I don't post enough about Yin Style Baguazhang's standing strengthening (zhan zhuang-- sort of) practice. Guilty as charged. Let's see what I can say about it here to correct that, and in the process, we'll find out if you're doing it right or not.

Re: Turning the circle, keeping it real (by me) on Yin Style Bagua -- Knoxville

If you've seen it, great. If you haven't, check out my post on the blog I made for our study group concerning circle turning practice: Yin Style Bagua -- Knoxville: Turning the circle, keeping it real. As the day went on, I thought more about what I wrote, and I have more to say about it. Since I feel that what I have to say about it is more personal than "official," I'm saying it on this blog instead of on the group training blog.

The six characteristic terms of Yin Style Baguazhang

Yin Style Baguazhang is a formidable martial art. This is partly due to its deep theoretical underpinning and strict adherence to that in practical training. As is frequent with Chinese arts, there is a list of six terms that define how to practice Yin Style Baguazhang correctly. These, of course, are more broadly applicable to any martial art, if the practitioner wants to do it well. From my perspective, making these ideas explicit has been instrumental in taking my own training to new heights. These terms define how Yin Style Baguazhang should be practiced at all times.
The six terms are: stable, accurate, vicious, cold, crisp, and fast.

Volume ladder training protocol for massive development

There is a particular key to training a martial art well, and that key is repetition. In Yin Style Baguazhang, things are no different, and as every practitioner knows, massive repetitions of the basic drills and exercises are expected and required to move forward. Of course, these repetitions cannot be performed blindly if development is desired; there must a be a constant endeavor to improve coupled with smart training techniques and constant refinement. Still, doing huge numbers of repetitions is a daunting task that can begin to feel like grinding, possibly leading to burnout, stagnant training, or frustration. A bodybuilding protocol called the "volume ladder" can be implemented, however, to help with this situation.

Training tip: How to improve your endurance for circle turning practice

It's been a long time since I've posted. This is because I've begun, hopefully professionally, another writing project that more or less consumes all of my interested-in-writing time on any given day. My apologies to those of you who expected better.

That aside, I've been experimenting with another method that beginners can use to really improve their endurance when it comes to turning the circle, although this same method should work with some modification for any practice requiring endurance, including the other aspects of training Yin Style Baguazhang or any other martial art. I've adapted this method from the one that I used to study for my doctoral qualifying exams and have found it very useful in a number of regards. The chief benefit is that one can find steady, marked improvement without ever falling into the dangerous trap of over training, which even with practices like turning the circle can result in a net loss in valuable training time in the long run. The method employs incremental improvement from an intelligently chosen starting place. The idea is that each training session is taxing without being overkill. The result is remarkable, quick improvement.

Training tip: Train to a theme

Really, this post could be filed under "Ask Dr. Jimberly" since it stems from a question I got out our study group's training session last night, but I figured I'd file it under "training tips" instead. The basic gist of the question was on how to focus training properly to get a lot of benefit. Since this is a topic that we have experimented with quite a bit before seeking wisdom on the matter, largely due to training in relative isolation for quite a long time at first, I figure we've got something decent to say on the matter. It seems that in any martial art or skill, but particularly in Yin Style Baguazhang, it pays off for your time to "train to a theme."

Beast Mode: Burnout and what to do about it

Beast Mode is wearing on me. In fact, over the last week and especially for the last three days, despite doing some decent workouts and training in that time, I definitely cannot call what's going on "Beast Mode" any longer. I hit burnout, which I could have predicted. It's beyond the problem characterized in my last post about not having enough to eat for my training (which I've decided is mostly because of my head injury leading to a wrecked sense of smell and therefore taste leading to almost everything currently tasting really bad, sort of like vomit). This is straight up "I've done enough hard workouts for now" style burnout.

Beast Mode and eating -- calorie intake and overtraining

So... Beast Mode is catching up with me, apparently. I haven't lost the mental fire and have kept pushing myself to do the workouts at my fullest capacity, but honestly, over the last several days, the physical gusto has just kind of been dwindling. This happened one day last week too. I noticed it particularly during last night's conditioning workout (details below) and in essentially everything I did with my training today. My body just feels tired and heavy, and the will to keep going is twice as hard as usual to maintain. I would figure that this is a symptom of overtraining, but I don't have any of the other primary symptoms of that issue right now (elevated heart rate upon waking, poor sleep, etc.). The problem is, I believe, undereating.

A Yin Style Baguazhang beginner's guide to what you need and what should you do with it

Suppose you're just starting out on your adventure in training Yin Style Baguazhang, or perhaps you've been at it for a while and want to be sure you've covered the bases. There's not a whole lot of stuff out there, as you've probably found, but there are some things. This post is meant to be a little introductory guide to what you need to get, a little commentary on that and other YSB material out there, and a quick note about how much you should train. Since this topic is potentially huge, I'll do what I can to stay brief with it!

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.

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.