Hey everybody, Thought I would give one of these a go. Going to train a bit tonight, seeing my coach tomorrow and should find time over the weekend for more. Some will be regular kind of training people are familiar with, some will be a bit more niche and style specific. The latter I will attempt to explain a little more so as I go along. Plan for tonight is Tai chi/IMA; posture holding, body exercises, long form Shadow'boxing' Some bagwork/ striking. A little kettlebelll Some treadmill running/ low intensity, steady state Stretching/Yoga Meditiation Chat, tips, shared experience and feedback all are most welcome. I may also post some posture photos for reference here and there, maybe even video myself at some point. cheers
Ok, I managed to touch on most of that last night with the exception of doing the kettlebell and some shadowboxing. I had less time than I thought because I forgot my wife was babysitting for a friend. I think I may have over stretched or something as I have managed to give myself some lower back discomfort on one side.. Also did some foam roller. I worked some combinations on the bag, not going for power. Just mid intensity. My combinations and pad work is an area I'm looking to improve, will be doing some padwork tonight so was using the bag as a target and for a bit of feedback, the main idea being to practice some combos. Been taking a few postures from Chinese wrestlings 13 Shi Shan Tai Bao to work on. These are like Yoga standing postures. This one's called She-Shen-Tan-Hai (捨身探海; Searching for the sea) and one I like. Pretty challenging physically, I like (need) to focus on the single leg balance, connection through the body and breathing. I like this one in particular because I feel like an eagle doing it lol
Friday. Had a good 2hr session with my coach. body exercises (quite a lot) a couple of standing postures, 5 minutes each. 1. raise hands/seven stars 2. crane spreads wings tai chi tui shou (push hands) patterns x 3 light sparring drills involving striking/ evasion/ contact control/ counter striking 2 x 5 minute rounds sparring with mouth guard (striking/ foot sweeps) pad work Saturday Meditation Qigong Tai chi long form meditation Sunday zilch, nothing, nada (this is the really high level stuff) Having been impressed with my progress today, I may repeat todays work tomorrow which is now today..
Tuesday swings standing meditation tai chi long form boxing combinations on bag shadowboxing, freestyle burpees kettlebells swings stretching: hips and hamstrings Came across this 'top ten' boxing combinations on the net and thought I would give them a run through (on bag) last night. Nice: http://www.mightyfighter.com/top-10-best-boxing-combinations/
Wednesday Started with some posture holding, descending dragon - see pic, and some horse stance. Then on to stretching and Yoga. Then on to covering some of the '15 basics' exercises from the I Liq Chuan system. The 15 basics don't map to or equate to 15 exercises as such, they refer to themes and these each have variations - sometimes quite a few. For example a theme might be something like absorb and project; I covered some of that which is the basic of basics in this system as well as some 'side to side' movement and frontal circles Descending Dragon from Yiquan, this also appears in some other systems I know of eg. A branch of Wu style neigung.
Did a little training over the weekend. Not as much as I would have liked as we are looking to move house and have viewings going on at intermittant times. Saturday Tai chi long form and a few supplementary exercises inc: standing meditiation, swinging, rocking, bouncing, qigong, hamstring stretches Sunday Running
Hey So, last night: A few supplementary tai chi exercises and standing meditation, followed by long form. I practiced some reverse breathing whilst in standing meditiation also intention/mind is placed in dan tien in that exercise. Not too slow on the long form, maybe 15 minutes. I rank 20 minutes as medium paced, around 40/45 as slow: as a general guide for myself. Fast is around 4-6 minutes. Followed by some bodyweight exercise, high intensity. This little circuit x 3 press ups squat jumps mountain climbers Some stretching and short meditation to finish. Doing something a little different tonight, not martial arts but should get a pretty decent workout: I've been asked to play football (soccer), it's been years but I'm really looking forward to it!
Hi, So I played football last Thursday evening for over an hour.. Lots of running around! I found it pretty hardgoing in the second half of the game, been a long time since I have run around for that length of time chasing a ball. Friday evening I had a 2 hour session with my coach. We went through our solo exercises and push hands patterns, similar to previous session. We then drilled a technique: leg cutting. Which progressed from basic drilling to drilling entries against strikes. We finished as before with some free sparring (mouthgaurd and 10oz gloves) and padwork. My performance in the sparring was noticably down on the previous session, I think this was down to fatigue from the previous evenings running around. It really seemed to catch up with me and felt like I had no gas in the tank. Had a rest day on Saturday. Sunday I did some taiji long form (20-25m) and some supplementary exercises. Also a stretching session for my hips and hamstrings.
Been enjoying reading your log, don't want you to feel no ones following since there's no thanks function anymore. Seems like you've got a good balance in your training.
Hey all, time for a little update Firstly, cheers Ned, nice to know for sure. Was a bit slack on the training front last week. Had a lot of work and was getting home a little later than I'd like with the added bonus of negotiating a price for what very possibly will be our new home. Oh heck, enough of the excuses already! So Friday managed to get round to doing something.. Did my stretching/ breathing and Yoga poses for my hips and hamstrings - I need to pay a lot of attention to this as I have been suffering from Pyriformis syndrome for the past few years. It has definitely left its mark on my training. Long story short sometimes I feel good other times it's both literally and figuratively a royal pain in the butt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piriformis_syndrome Moved into some tai chi neigung covering the primary forces of ward off (peng), rollback (lu), press (ji) and push (an), by themselves and also in some pairs eg. rollback to press. and also threw in a bit of "bump" (kao) for good measure. Followed by tai chi long form (medium/slow pace) and finishing with holding some postures. I usually always include 'opening' and 'closing' standing meditations before and after my form training. This is basically standing Taoist meditation, hands placed over Dan Tien. It's perhaps somewhat ritualistic and symbolic, and you could question the practicality or purpose. However I find that psychologically it helps me to frame the practice and by entering and leaving the meditative state in this ritualised way may (or may not..) help one to absorb the form training contents deeper into the subconscious mind/body. Anyway I seem to like it and it's become a little habitual anyway. Saturday Standing meditations, supplementary exercises; spinning/ turning on central axis, bowing, basic silk reeling and some 'winding'. For those not familiar winding is like taking a towel and ringing it.. only it's not a towel it's your arms and legs cross connected through centre. long form, medium/slow pace stretching shadow boxing (freestyle) Some open hand striking on heavy bag, mixed in with some close in striking: elbows/ knees. Then did a circuit x 2 consisting of 2 med ball (10kg) exercises and 2 kettlebell (16kg) exercises. Finishing up with some body weight jump lunges.
Thursday 16.2.17 standing medium/fast tai chi formwork I have a recent urge to brush up on my fast tai chi. It's been a while, so it'll be something to hit over the weekend. I'll probably build into it by working from medium/fast upto I guess whatever i can muster up whilst keeping form tight, precise and hmm crisp? One thing i like about that kind of practice is that you can't really think, so quite often I go off script here and there. It's rare, or maybe even impossible for me to do a couple of iterations of fast form exactly the same. So in that regard it can be a bit more fun and exploritory (in a different way) to slower forms practice. What tends to change or come out in faster forms is a kind of back and forth rythm at times and more lively stepping, more fajin, generally tighter, more compact, more combat flavours and intent.
Friday 17.2.17 stretching and foam rolling standing meditation supplementary exercises, focusing on loosening tai chi long form, medium fast; toward the faster end of the scale. Some bagua practice; circle walking, swimming body exercises Holding posture; 'tame the tiger'. This shows up in bagau as well as Yiquan tai chi long form; mixed practice of medium/fast as well as slow sections with posture holding, 'leg lifting', some one legged stances and low postures held. Some 'free movement' practice, some free style shadow boxing, interspersed with some solo movement drills. tai chi long form, fast. nailed this at around 5 minutes, felt good. standing meditation Sunday 19.2.17 standing meditation loosening qigong martial neigung exercises; dan tien work, bowing, winding tai chi long form medium/slow low stance work standing meditation stretching
Wednesday 22.2.17 standing: 'opening' meditation swings tai chi form medim/fast push ups sit throughs arrow push ups reverse plank bridge bridge hindu push ups alternating superman hold single leg bridge T plank switches arch ups/ arch hold hand stand wall walk and hold push up to plank stretching standing: 'hold the ball', closing meditation
Friday 24.2.17 stretching foam rolling standing meditation rocking exercise high plank full squat and holds reverse breathing qigong martial neigung exercises for; open close, frontal plane, absorb project, condense expand, dan tien pulse, bowing solo form exercise; slant flying with switch step, ward off to rollback with switch step free form shadowboxing standing meditation
Monday 27.2.17 standing meditation loosening exercises bowing/ reverse breathing neigung tai chi form, medium slow hold the balll standing posture standing meditation
Wednesday 1.3.17 stretching/ yoga (tai chi) slant flying fajin practice One of the poses that I do a lot of is Half Lord of the Fishes Pose - Ardha Matsyendrāsana. This is great for opening up the hip area and getting a good stretch across the glutes, an area where I really need the help!
Thursday 2.3.17 no particular order push ups plank to push up wall walk to handstand - not very good at this yet, but I'm determined to get there! hindu squats jump squats hard sprints OTSpot hopping kettlebell double hand swings single hand alternate swings figure 8 squat swing cleans shoulder press turkish get ups - left side felt weaker, something to work on here. stretching
Friday 3.3.17 standing meditation loosening exercises various neigong tai chi long form x 2 stretching Sunday 5.3.17 loosening/ meditation/ neigong tai chi long form, middle frame bagua, 2 x mother palms. single & double palmchange. swimming body exercises ILC basics; frontal, horizontal and sagital planes heavy bag striking, 2 rounds running
Hey, Had a horrible cold since my last training, just feeling a bit perkier today. haven't felt like training but have a session tonight with my coach. He's been away on holiday so it will be nice to get back to it. Now spring is in the air I feel like it will be a good time to start getting some more BJJ under my belt, it's something I've been wanting to do for a while and I don't think I can let myself put it off any longer. It's a tricky one as I want to get back to a bit of ILC too over the spring and summer. Sam Chin is in town soon, so I really need to get some personal practice in before that, so my basics are not too rusty. Am only doing 1 workshop day 18th March. A few other bits i'm interested to do this year is a neigong day with Serge Augier in London coming up in May. And I'm also quite keen to make it to the MAP Meet this year.