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.