Well, well: my post on what I’m looking for in IMA got a heck of a lot of traffic. A couple of things happened since then that bring me back to it…
Last Friday, I had class with Master Zhou. I’m at the point now where I really need to practice a lot more. The biggest problem for me is that the stances are very low, and the muscles involved just aren’t strong enough! No quick answers to this one: just lots of repetition and eating bitter…
Afterwards, I went for solo practice. I got quite a few repetitions of the CMC-37 form done, as I wanted to work on clearing the mind, and on softness (another thing that keeps coming up with Master Zhou is the tenseness of my shoulders and lower back, which I’m finding really tough to eliminate). I planned to move on to bagua, but at that point an acquaintance came by and I stopped to talk. This guy has been training in martial arts from childhood, and eventually switched to focus exclusively on Wing Chun. He gave me some demonstrations, and I have to say that he is good. He used his gua very well to shift his stance, always facing me as I circled him. He’s very soft, as taiji and the other internal martial arts are meant to be, and very fast. He said that the branch of Wing Chun he’s studying also has a lot of qigong, so it’s a very rounded, balanced style. Another thing that really resonated was when he said that when he met his teacher, he knew that this was who he had always been looking for – which was why he then dropped all his other martial arts studies, to work exclusively with this teacher.
I think I’m still looking for that ‘one’ teacher. That’s kind of my reply to adz’s comment… I’m studying with different teachers because I’m trying to find the one who can teach application and qigong and – ideally – healing techniques: an integrated system. A tall order, I know, but that’s no reason not to look…
Heh: why don’t I switch to study wing chun? Well… I really like taiji and bagua. Not sure I can explain why entirely, but these two are the styles for me…
Also in reply to adz: I feel the clock ticking. Heck, someone posted on sgwutan a while ago, asking whether 23 was too old to start learning wushu, and I’m a lot older than that! I may have started teaching myself taiji when I was 17, but I’m afraid to say that until I came to Singapore a few years ago, I was only taught the ‘dance’ of taiji. When I arrived here, I had heard of taiji being a martial art, but I’d never met anyone who could confirm this or show me how it might be used. So, I consider myself to only really have started learning a couple of years ago… time is short!
—- Edited 30/08/2007 to remove content based on a misunderstanding —-
Hi
Well, I’m not sure how old you are, but I can tell you I am 43, and I think it’s not too old to learn wushu.
I will answer at the same time your implied question on what to do when the muscles “just aren’t strong enough”. It is my opinion, but your mileage may vary, that you shouldn’t do too many reps of something you can’t do too well yet. Do enough that you get more and more comfortable with the form, remember it well and so on, but don’t push yourself to the point where you ocasionally fail. Rather, it is my opinion that at this point you should simply work on conditioning. I can’t tell you what exercises are best, but in my case, I basically worked to be able to do 10 single leg squats on each leg. I used Pavel Tsatsouline’s book “The naked warrior” and went with it – you can download it for free at
http://www.scribd.com/doc/187605/Pavel-Tsatsouline-The-Naked-Warrior
I think initially conditioning is a better use of your free time than too much forms training. Being able to do 10 single leg squats, even though Pavel says 20 is best (:-)) REALLY improved my form and gave me a lot of confidence in it. And I did that at the age of 43, so you should be able to do it too… Admitedly, I’m still working on my one arm push ups, but still… Doing some hardcore stance training in a reasonably low horse should also help. If you could work yourself up to 10 minutes, chances are you would find it much easier to do the Bagua form.
Best
[...] a lot these involved low postures, and very slow movement – painful in the short term, good for building strength and endurance in the long term. Body strengthening methods, new attacks… way more than I’m going to [...]
Oh, I’ve noticed this book in Borders, but hadn’t opened it… Thanks for the link!
You’re absolutely right, that a solid grounding in the basic postures is essential to get the most of the forms. I need to do more on that… ouch!
Yeah. I was lazy about that for years and the fact that I’m good at learning forms and getting movements right sort of patched it for awhile. Some basic strength conditioning is a must for MArtists. You don’t really need to do more than 20 minutes 4 x a week and your abilities will go through the roof. Strength training has some of the best return to investment ratio of all. You’ll make 90% of your improvements over 2 years and from there you can coast. Except if you want to be a hardcore athlete (which I don’t).
Hi
May I ask where can I learn more about the Wing Chun school which your friend is from?
To be honest, I’m not actually sure; like I said, he’s an acquaintance rather than a friend. I think he’s learning from the Kong-Chow Wui Koon, but I might be wrong.
[...] bit later on, Master Ku came along with his student, P. – who I mentioned before. Jono talked for some time to Master Ku in Cantonese; I chatted to P. A pigeon landed by one of the [...]