Looking for advice on creating a daily WC training schedule. I have recently started a full time job with unstable hours and am trying not to neglect my training any more then necessary. Keep in mind the following:
anything else goes…
Little Idea Form / Siu Lim Tao (from 5 minutes to 25 minutes).
Punching something or in the air 100-1000 punches
Chum Kiu form and/or
Stepping across the floor and doing the various hand techniques and add kicking too, also practice a lot of turning.
Kicking something or in the air
Three pole kicking dummy or do the kicks in the air
Bil Jee form
Wooden dummy, on the dummy or in the air - also train all kinds of stepping forwards, backwards, sideways etc.
Knife form
Stepping with various knife exercises
Long Pole form
Practice various isolated pole actions
probably all this only takes about 30-40 minutes
Then before or after or on a different day you can do regular fitness stuff like:
Do Bobby Taboada’s stick routine in the air with power and speed.
Go and find someone to teach who can be your practice partner. Put up a sign somewhere and offer a Wing Chun practice club. Just be honest regarding your skill level and you shouldn’t have any problems.
Another extreme is the training procedure from my first teacher Patrick Chow:
Ray
Depends on how much of the Forms you know e.g do you know bil jee or chum kiu, do you have a wooden dummy?
If you do a good warm up and stretches multiple punches, sil lim tau and dummy form a few times ,that fills time really well and you will be very good at the basics, the more advanced you get the more important you realise they are, then do your stance training kim yang ma, Ma po stance training short mid and long range stepping, work on your breathing. mix each training session up a bit.
If you have a Wooden dummy you can do abstract training on it and train for hours.
Grab a friend and train them up to do drills, dun chi and chi sau if you get board of the dummy lol
Do Bobby Taboada’s stick routine in the air with power and speed.
Ray, what is this?
That’s Escrima stuff that I used to do. Bobby Taboada has a shadow boxing routine that he does at a good clip on one of his tapes. The exact sequence is
is not too important. Anyway it’s like a boxer that does 20 minutes of shadow boxing except you have a stick in your hand. You can’t quite do it with Butterfly knives but with short knives it would work. You just do all the cuts and slashes at all kinds of angles and put it into a smooth mix. Nothing much to do with Wing Chun though so just forget I said that. Replace the above with random Wooden Dummy actions that are performed in a smooth continuous fashion. Also try it on a partner i.e. do nonstop hitting , pushing and pulling, sweeping continuously for 20 minutes. It’s a good workout for both people.
Ray
Ray,
Thanks for all the advice. I couldn’t help but notice your location. My girlfriend and I have been debating moving to Victoria for a while now. I was wondering if you could suggest a good school over there, in case we do decide to move.
Joe
It depends on what you are looking for exactly. There are lots of good martial artists here of all styles. If you go to Kata Trading a martial arts store in town you can talk to Mike Chin who is very experienced in lots of stuff (iron palm, Judo, Aikido, Wing Chun, Taekwondo, Escrima etc.). He knows who teaches what in town.
Ray
Dude,
why not train with Ray and his group? -I would if I was over that way…
You’re not going to be locked into any particular lineage, or any one narrow way of thinking in a school like his. Whatever your goals, I’m sure you can pursue them in a fruitful way along with those guys.
-Lawrence
Any chance you could post a small clip of that for the forum, -or at least e-mail it my way?
-L
Hi Lawrence,
I sent you an Email about that. I don’t think I can post a clip of Bobby because it’s not my material to do with as I choose. Also I am just trying to figure out how to do all the video stuff, post clips, edit tapes and make DVD’s.
Ray
Once a month, my Sifu has the guys do a nice little workout routine. First, 100 punches, then 10 pushups. Second, 100 pak-dar’s, then 10 pushups with the hands under the shoulders. 100 ton dars, 10 wide pushups.
You get the idea. It starts getting very tiring as you get more involved in the hand movements and different types of pushups. It takes about an hour to do, and comprises of basic, midlevel, and advanced movements. After awhile, holding your arms up and remembering what you’re supposed to do is an excercise all by itself, let alone actually doing it.
daly training
hi ray this is my current progam at the momemnt, monday tues day we dnesday, powerwalking 1 hour in the morning sil lim tao chum kill bill jee changing punches different level thursday friday kicking arnis roland dantes monern arnis 12 strikes a and footwork and a little knife very very basic as i am olny a begainer in arnis , russellsherry
Hello from Nova Scotia
Hi there, Joe! This is Christian, the Wing Chun guy from Nelson.
Welcome to the forum. I see you’re in Lethbridge? Best of luck finding a school. Good places to look are the bulletin boards of fitness centres, post-secondary institutions, and cultural centres.
Concerning training schedules: There is a Wing Chun Saying: “Do the form once a day, every day; more wouldn’t hurt.”
As far as attribute development (speed, strength, stamina, etc.) and skill development goes, I reccomend circuit training. In an hour and a half, I would say 14 minutes of warmup and stretching, 1 minute break, 17 minutes of circuit training, 1 minute break, 27 minutes of form, 1 minute break, 29 minutes of bag/dummy work, 1 minute break, 14 minutes of conditioning, 1 minute break, and 14 minutes of standing meditation would be a good start.
Circuit training: choose a mix of six martial and athletic exercises and drills. Drills and exercises should be plyometric and martial in nature whenever possible. An example circuit would be 120 seconds of full speed running-step chain punching, 60 second rest, 120 seconds of stationary kicking to chest (right kicks), 60 second rest, 120 seconds of knees to the ribs, 60 second rest, 120 seconds of double side-chop double front chop, 60 second rest, 120 seconds of stationary kicking to chest (left kicks), 60 second rest, 120 seconds of sit ups.
Make your own circuit, in the order that you want. Remember to GIVE IT YOUR ALL when you circuit train. Stick to the time schedule and GO HARD! As you get into a regular habit of circuit training, you can incorporate it into your training AFTER form instead of before. As you do your form, the drills that you need to train will reveal themselves to you. This will allow you to incorporate the drills into the circuit training.
See you on the forum!
Christian
Christian,
Great to hear from you again! I things are going well for you over there in the east. My new roommate, also from Nelson, turned out to be quite a talented Hsing-I/Bagwa practitioner (he studied for several years user Sifu Eastman) so we put our heads together and came up with an alternating training schedule we both use. Having switched to part-time, we get more time to train. unfortunately, it is still very rushed and we often only get to focus on one form, one application ect. It looks something like this:
Day1
meditation
Stretching
-a.legs
-b. back
-c. wrist/ankles
5 elemental palms
Tai-Chi
speed drills
Groundfighting
Footwork
Sil Lum Tao
Hsing-I forms
day 2
stretching
-a.legs
-b. back
-c. wrist/ankles
Conditioning
Hsing-I applications/drills
Wing Chun applications/drills
Weapons
Chin-na
Sparring
Suggestions and critiquing welcome
yes.. I am sure you all do the things you mentioned.
Hi Joe,
Glad to hear you managed to hook up with a training partner from Nelson. Also glad to hear that you have more hours to train.
Regarding your training schedule:
If you’re feeling rushed, it’s probably because you’re trying to cram too much into one session. I don’t know how many days a week you have to train, but if it’s at least three, then I reccomend including all three days into your schedule planning.
There’s a Gong Fu saying: “Three times a week and you progress, Two times a week and you maintain, Once a week and you lose.” Take this to heart and strive to have at least three days of training.
If, however, you only have the two days but still want to train everything on your list, then I reccomend a two week, four day schedule. Every day could include one of the forms, as well as drills such as footwork and applications. Meditation and conditioning could be once a week (not necessarily on the same day), and you could alternate between groundfighting and sparring on different weeks. It might look something like this:
week 1
----Day 1
---------Stretching
--------------legs…
--------------arms…
--------------etc…
---------Meditation
---------Form (Sil Lum Tao)
---------Stand-up Drills and Applications
--------------kicks…
--------------punches…
--------------etc…
----Day 2
---------Stretching
---------Form (Wu Xing Zhang)
---------Qin Na and Groundfighting Drills and Applications
--------------throws…
--------------locks…
--------------etc…
---------Conditioning
--------------hands…
--------------arms…
--------------etc…
Week 2
----Day 1
---------Stretching
---------Meditation
---------Form (Hsing I)
---------speed drills
--------------chain punching…
--------------plyometric drills…
--------------etc…
----Day 2
---------Stretching
---------Form (Tai Ji)
---------Weapons sparring
--------------weapon vs. weapon…
--------------weapon vs. empty hand…
--------------etc.
---------Empty Hand sparring
--------------San Shou…
--------------Sparring from Chi Sao/Push Hands…
--------------etc…
This is obviously just an example. If you’re lucky and have three training days available, make a schedule accordingly. Otherwise, keep the number of training session goals high enough that you stay interested but low enough that you can spend quality time with each exercise. Plus, you won’t feel as rushed. If you can’t fit your goals comfortably into one week, fit them into two.
Keep in Touch
Christian