Hi friends,

I'd like to submit my training program to you in order to get your comments:

-3 min Rumen Zhuang
-3 min Fu an Zhuang
-30 min Cheng Bao or JiJi Zhuang
-3 min Du Li or Zu Li Zhuang
-3 min Xiao Long or Fu Hu Zhuang
-10 min Shili and Muocabu
-10 min Fali

This is my daily program and I started Yi Quan about 9 months ago. Every comment is wellcome.

Thanx!

Pippo,

Are there any two-man drills and/or sparring in your Yi Quan class? Are the more senior students pretty good fighters?

Do you transition from one stance to the next all in one session? Do you do this regimen every day?

Has your program developed a great deal of strength? Has your program improved your martial ability?

Where are you studying right now?

Thanks.

HI BIRDEN,

NORMALLY I PRACTICE ALONE. I DO THE PROGRAM I MENTIONED IN SEQUENCE EVERY DAY. IN MY OPINION I DEVELOPPED SOME STRENGHT WITH THIS PROGRAM.

I STUDY IN ITALY (MILAN) BUT MY MASTER LIVES IN FLORENCE, SO I CANNOT ATTEND HIS REGULAR CLASSES. I JUST JOIN THE LESSONS ONES A MONTH MORE OR LESS.

I WILL APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS.

THANKS, PIPPO

All I can say is that your workout is intense and I guess I can't see how you wouldn't gain a great deal of strength from it. I take it that your focus is more on your strength and muscular endurance gains and less on any kind of martial aspects of the art.

Thanks for sharing.

With Yiquen, if you want to gain skill form the basic practice, it is important *how* you train. All this Zhanzhuang and Shili has some special applications of force in mind, and if you have not experienced them from someone who knows, it is hard to train the mental part of yiquan well. The movements look simple but include some rather tricky apllications of force.

Pippo,

No disrespect intended, but if your training goal is to become stronger, you'd be way stronger if you would have spent the same time lifting weights instead of standing still.

Hi all,

First of all thank you for answering, I appreciated. Also consider that I cannot answer "in real time" because of the jet-lag (I live in Italy).

Anyhow, let me tell you something more. I've been practiced martial arts for 17 year now. I started with karate shotokan in 1988 and continued it until 2000. I have been in the national team of kumite for 3 years, under the supervision of master Hiroshi Shirai and Takeshi Naito. After 2000 I tried muay thai, shoot boxe and wrestling. In all modesty I guess that I know what is fighting. My brother has been 4 times world champion of kumite and I sparring with him sometimes. So, I didn't start yi quan as a beginner. Unfortunately I had to face also real fight in the street. I know what can work and what cannot work in the real fight. Talking about yi quan, I think that the nerves training combined with the muscles relaxation is very important to understand the way to fight. Nevertheless I really appreciate to exchange some information with you collegues.

For example, I'd like to talk about the visualization. As per my understanding, visualization is helping to obtain two main results:

-relaxation;
-Nerves training;

My question is: is it so important to create a certain imagine and keep it in mind very clearly or it's better to try to feel the strenght with different images or also without any precise imagine? I say this because in some schools they force you to create a very precise imagine.

Thank you,

Cheers

I have to agree with Pip that something else is going on through this kind of standing practice. The way the muscle fibers are recruited to sustain this type of exercise is much different than normal calisthenics and weights. As standing practice should never substitute for weight lifting, I don't believe weight lifting can substitute for standing practice.

I would really like to hear more from Harold on YiQuan bcs he seems to know what he is talking about in regards to the martial aspects.

Birden, Pippo,

my (very limited) understanding of Yiquan is more on the theoretical side, since, sad to say, I never really got round to do any sparring or fighting. I recently had the opportunity to learn from somebody who knows about Yiquan fighting, and when he taught me Shili, he always showed the push hands application and told me to remember this special application when doing Shili. Mostly, the pushhands applications were tricky with regards to the direction of the force which is applied. One 'directional component' is used to unbalance/mislead the opponent, while the other induces the real attack. The unbalancing movements are very small, so it is hard to detect for the opponent.
Shili, among other things, helps you to 'hard-wire' these complicated force applications into your muscular and nervous system. Maybe 'visualization' is a dangerous word , since to me, this is all about blending the mind with the physical motions, which is more of a feedback process between your sensory apparatus and the part of the brain which conciouslly controls motions.
All the while it is important to use 'whole body power', and that is one reason for doing standing exercises for a long time before starting with Shili. See the articles of Koskuba on www.yiquan.org.uk

Harold,

Thanks for the post. Very interesting stuff you just mentioned. Have you read any of Jan Diepersloot's books on YiQuan and if so, what did you think of them and the author? Are there any good instructional videos/DVDs that may demonstrate the push-hand drills and the applications you just mentioned.

Thanks again.

Birden,

I never looked at the books of Diepersloot ... Yao Chengguang seems to have a comprehensive set of videos for sale, but apparently for a steep price. He is also known to be a tough guy . Bo Jiacong has a set of cheap VCD/DVD's but I do not remember the exact content of the push hands part. If you want to learn about the fighting part of Yiquan, you'd probably have to look for a good teacher, somehow you never learn such stuff from books or videos.
The problem is, Yiquan teachers who have learned to fight are probably rare, since, even if you have a good teacher, first you have to absorb the whole system and second need to gain experience through sparring, which takes a lot of time and dedication. On the other hand, learning the health part well is quite rewarding in itself.

Harold,

Excellent. Thanks again!

Birden