Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour 2011: St. Petersburg, FL, Oct. 27-30

Although no one needs an extra excuse to visit beautiful St. Petersburg, FL, this year's Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour, 2011 edition, tour stop, taught by He Jinbao, gives us all one more reason to head to the sub-tropics. This U.S. Fall Tour stop this year by YSB, International features the  Lion System at an intermediate level, like the seminar in Knoxville the week before, featuring different material so that those with the opportunity to hit both stops definitely should!

Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour 2011: Knoxville, TN, Oct. 20-23

I hold a special place in my heart and on my blog for the Knoxville, TN, visit of the Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour, 2011 edition, taught by He Jinbao! It's home! Our U.S. Fall Tour stop this year by YSB, International features the  Lion System at an intermediate level. In Knoxville, though our training will actually take place in Maryville, just south of Knoxville, we look forward to a great seminar this year. Any and all are welcome! Definitely come see us and train with us! I'd like to extend a special invitation to any and all martial artists in the Knoxville area that want to experience real baguazhang, want to deepen the fighting arts they already practice, and that want to learn practical fighting techniques of awesome effectiveness... plus all the ones that really like hard, old-school drilling for skill.

The curriculum will be on the chopping, hooking, seizing, and grasping palms of the Lion System, and as mentioned before, it will be at an intermediate level, so while it isn't required, some familiarization with the Lion System will be very helpful. Consider getting the foundational videos to prep yourself, which can be found on a link on this post of mine about getting started in Yin Style.

Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour 2011: Berlin, CT, Oct. 13-16

The Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour, 2011 edition, is coming to Berlin, CT, near Hartford! Like the other seminars on the 2011 tour circuit, it will be taught by He Jinbao. It makes the fourth U.S. Fall Tour stop this year by YSB, International and features the Phoenix System at an intermediate level, getting into some of the deeper material including the subtle and effective transforming palm striking methods.

Like all of the Fall Tour stops, the Connecticut stop is open to anyone and everyone that is interested in attending. The curriculum will cover the dodging, extending, shocking, and transforming palms of the Phoenix System, and as mentioned before, it will be at an intermediate level, so while it isn't required, some familiarization with the Phoenix System or Yin Style in general will be very helpful. Consider getting the foundational videos to prep yourself, which can be found on a link on this post of mine about getting started in Yin Style.

Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour 2011: Haverhill, MA, Oct. 6-9

The second visit of the Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour, 2011 edition, to Haverhill, MA, just north of Boston, taught by He Jinbao, is less than a month away! This third U.S. Fall Tour stop this year by YSB, International features the  Lion System at an intermediate level. Here practitioners will have a great opportunity to deepen their understanding of the foundational system of Yin Style Baguazhang.

Like all of the Fall Tour stops, the Massachusetts stop is open to anyone and everyone that is interested in attending. The curriculum will be on the shocking, blocking, seizing, and grasping palms of the Lion System, and as mentioned before, it will be at an intermediate level, so while it isn't required, some familiarization with the Lion System will be very helpful. Consider getting the foundational videos to prep yourself, which can be found on a link on this post of mine about getting started in Yin Style.

Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour 2011: Boulder, CO, Sept. 29-Oct.2

The Boulder, CO, Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour, 2011 edition, workshop with He Jinbao is right around the corner now, starting in just three weeks! The Tour stop in Colorado is the second U.S. Fall Tour this year by YSB, International, and it features the Phoenix System at a foundational level. That means that people that are new to the art or that want to expand their training outside of the Lion System need to be looking toward the Rockies to get a taste of this fast, whirling animal that emits whip-like power from the shoulder.

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.

Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour 2011: San Fancisco, CA, Sept. 22-25, 2011

The San Francisco, CA, Yin Style Baguazhang Fall Tour, 2011 edition, workshop with He Jinbao is less than a month away, and it will officially kick of the U.S. Fall Tour this year by YSB, International. Those people interested in experiencing real baguazhang first-hand and doing so with the lineage holder of a very respectable system in the art should pay close attention to this one. Not to make it sound too much like an advertisement, if you've had interest in baguazhang, Chinese martial arts in general, or Yin Style in specific but don't know the first thing about it, this is the seminar for you!

Yin Style Baguazhang International U.S. Fall Tour 2011, Knoxville and beyond

He Jinbao of Beijing, China, with assistant and translator Matt Bild of Yin Style Baguazhang International are coming to the United States again in 2011 for the annual YSB U.S. Fall Tour of long-weekend workshops (including Knoxville, TN, for my local folks). If you don't know what Yin Style Bagua is all about yet, then you're missing out. These workshops offer a very rare opportunity train in real baguazhang directly with an absolute and recognized expert in the art, the lineage holder of Yin Style Baguazhang, in fact. Start here by checking out the official brief introduction to Yin Style Baguazhang video that showcases a bit from all eight animal systems, including He Jinbao demonstrating awesome fighting applications on some brave British volunteers.

Now that you've seen what you could be training at the seminar, continue reading below to get the key details about what's new in this year's series of workshops and for what is going on in each of the stops. This year's workshops will be presenting material out of the Lion, Phoenix, and Monkey Systems, as well as a continued introduction to the baguazhang jian (straight sword).

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."