Happened into Furey's site off one of Tim's links and started reading about squats.

Now I agree with Furey about bodywieght training, but at first found his level of excitment over Hindu squats a wee bit overblown.

But I started thinkin about Stuart Olson's translation of "cultivating the chi"- in the chi gung set, the directions keep calling for squats(even though Mr. Olson does not squat in the photos).

I also remembered a chi gung set for Xing-Yi(by Chang Jaw-Dong) poeticaly called "pick up the moon from sea bottom" that is a squating movement.

Then while doing the opening movement in the Yang form I realized that while not really a squat, it is kinda the same movement as Furey's Hindu squat.

So I'm thinkin maybe there is somethin to this squatin bussiness.

But I think that before I start doin a 100 a day I'd like to hear what other folks think about em.

I think they're great. As are the 'hindu' push ups. The bridging is a killer though!

They make quite a difference, the three of 'em, especially after about a month of practice, you really start to notice results.

I've been doing them 3-4 times a week for the last 3 months & have noticed a definite increase in the size of my legs & calves. Plus you will get a springy, athletic feel (ie leap tall buildings in a single bound)to your legs. Just make sure you ease into them
Mike

"Ease into them"... ah yeah. I did 47 and (argh..mutha..)1/3 on Friday and was walkin funny until sunday afternoon.

Gotta question for Tim. I'm starting to include Furey's royal court into my routine, but I'm not going to give up doing my daily Zhan Zhuang. The problem is that after doing the squats, its damn hard to stand for 35 minutes( I still can but its not very pleasant). What do you think Tim, should I just persist until it gets easier; should I do the sguats afterwards( kinda goes against what I was taught about taking it easy after standing); or should I do the royal court in the evening instead?
Appreciate any insight you can offer.

!

Sounds familiar. My standing time has decreased recently due to that very thing!

I try standing after my evening form practice and I do the conditioning in the mornings, gets round the problem.

How do you do a Hindu Squat?

Go to Tim's Shen Wu site and from there to his Links, then on to Matt Furey's site. Read all about it( beware, Matt will try real hard to sell you something).

Seems that I kept seeing that standing should be at the begining of a practice session, and have done so. Consider after standing, doing only slow or gentle movements and as the session progresses get into the more vigorous things.

Second, when I found some movement was stressing the same body part as the standing, I would drop that movement (at least for a few months) and focus on the standing.

I hear what your saying. I learned several different ways: my first Chen style teacher had us stand at the end of class; later when I went out to San Jose and trained with Adam Hsu's people, they were big on "Ba Shi", 8 stances held one after the other, each for so many breaths, and before any other training( kinda like a Shaolin version of Zhan Zhuang). Finally I learned a method derived from I Chuan wherein a 8 brocades style exercise was done before standing, then movement(gentle) was done afterwards. I added some Yoga before the standing , figuring it was a lot like the 8 Brocades and couldn't hurt. It's worked the best in terms of improving my overall health, but I'm always looking for ways to improve. But perhaps it's just like some say, standing is all about training a certain type of muscle fiber not normally recruited in typical movement- trying to add training that focuses on normal muscle fiber recruitment is like taking two steps forward and three steps back.

Idaho Joe,
I can tell you my experience with yiquan and what I've learned thanks to that discipline. Standing allows a very specific 'naturalization' of all body activities (stretching the spine, healing internal organs, calming nervous system) and at the same time allows deep relaxation; it's not standing for the sake of standing but a very smart way to take the motion where it starts and for example chengbao (embracing the ball) it's the average of all body positions with all the joints 'open'. After deep relaxation has been achieved, relaxed positions can be dropped (used only to regain energy when we're tired, injured etc.) and one can move to create whole-body power (impossible without deep relaxation,of course) using a strong focusing in zangzhuang that will lead in time to complete tension of ALL muscles at the same time. A clever interaction of deep instant relaxation and instant absolute tension will produce explosive power.

Idaho Joe,
I'd suggest practicing standing and squatting/push ups/bridging at different times. You may even want to take a day off in between the 'Royal Court' exercises.

Practicing Stance Keeping is great, but if you want to grapple on the mat, you need some type of endurance calisthenics as well (and Hindu squats/push ups are time tested effective conditioning exercises).

Tim, thanks for the advice.
I think I will try doing the Royal court 3x a week in the evening( great exercises- already seen some improvement in my knees).BTW, my compliments on maintaining the best MA discussion board I've come across. It says much about your character that someone of your ability is willing to share free advice on the net.

Thanks Joe,
I learn something everyday here.

Are hindu push ups the same as cat push ups? I would really like to know.


Firefrost

Yes.

Thank you!

Firefrost

Hi Tim,

do the chinese IMA´s exercises like extremly slow pushups or squats? Maybe as part of neigong?

Thanks in advance,
Peter

Hi,

Ive just started doing the hindu squats,pushups, bridge etc. and was wondering if they are a good altenative to weight training. Would I get the same physique? and do supplements help in increasing my muscle growth if used in conjunction with these body weight exercises?

Has anyone ever done the 18 Lohan exercises? Some of them seem to be simiar to what is being described here.