I was interested in how much fitness training you do in a class vs actual kung fu practice. So for a warm up for example, how long and intense would this be in your class.
In fact what % of your classes are fitness and what is kung fu. Or do you consider it to be the same?
Just wondered really.
It’s not Kung Fu if it doesn’t make you sweat. 
Seriously though, it depends on the class.
During Kickboxing classes it’s about 50/50 between drills and general fitness stuff like running, pushups, situps, etc.
During beginner/intermediate TCMA classes it’s about 20% general fitness stuff and then just old fashioned hard work.
During intermediate/advanced TCMA classes it’s about 10% general fintess and that is mainly stretching.
I generally don’t do the jiu jutsu class (no time!) but from what I have seen it’s about 10% physical fitness drills.
Gumdo classes don’t have general fitness segments; that’s OK, the Gumdo is hard enough on it’s own. 
I started a thread about how much I hate it when they make you exercise in class and got flamed by a lot of people, but the cool people agreed with me.
I don’t hate it for the sake of not liking exercise, but I hate it because I’m not paying money to have someone count while I do pushups, and the exercises that you do it class may mess up some outside training program you have (like weightlifting or whatever, especially if you’re on a powerlifting cycle or something).
I agree.
I think the preponderance of the drills of that nature in the Beginner class is because lots of newbies need to be told to do those general fitness drills or they never do.
As for the kickboxing class - I think it’s to avoid having an hour of full-contact sparring to supervise. 
I don’t know for certain.
Originally posted by IronFist
[B]I started a thread about how much I hate it when they make you exercise in class and got flamed by a lot of people, but the cool people agreed with me.
I don’t hate it for the sake of not liking exercise, but I hate it because I’m not paying money to have someone count while I do pushups, and the exercises that you do it class may mess up some outside training program you have (like weightlifting or whatever, especially if you’re on a powerlifting cycle or something). [/B]
I tend to agree with IF as long as the teacher encourages their students to maintain their fitness outside of class. To me, class is for learning and practicing technique. There should be some component of conditioning, but the bulk of the fitness and conditioning work should be left for outside of class.
Having said that, I guess it also depends on the demographic of the class. Maybe a solution is to offer a conditioning class separately?
I left a class school before because it was over 50% exercises and many of them unrelated to the not-very-good kungfu that was being taught there. That sifu also had push-ups as part of his grading.
8 years and 14 (no fat!) kilos ago, I took a sample hung gar class, the sifu was cool and said because I had a lot of exp in other arts he would let me try the basic and the advanced classes. I couldn’t keep up with the advanced class: it was really hard work.! Actually, I did keep it up out of sheer determination and couldn’t walk properly for the next week! Those were mostly fu-related exercises so I didn’t mind. Nowadays I could handle it anyway.
My MMA class has a jumping jacks, running on the spot between squat drills, star-jumping sideways and reversing etc… but I don’t mind, it seems pretty closely related to the kind of muscle work you need for that kind of fighting. It’s still only for the first 20 mins or so of a 1.5 hr class, just a very intensive 20 mins!
Guess what I’m saying is that it depends on the class! But generally I don’t like it for the reasons that Ironfist stated.
The only exception would be if someone was so absolutely busy that they never had time to exercise outside of class.
But, I think exercises in class should be optional. You should either be able to sit out if you want, or start the class 20 minutes early (or keep it 20 minutes late) for the people who want to exercise.
We do some classes with lots of calistenics, some with literally none. Same with stretching. We are taught that it is our own resposability to be warmed up before class, so not to expect any stretching or calistanics to start off slow.
That said, most of the workout is teaching us new exercizes that will help build the lesser used muscle groups, finding out how the class is progressing on building said muscle groups up, or checking to see if we as a group are physically ready for some new technique or other.
Yeah every now and again we might have to do some of the conditioning we’re meant to do outside of class, to remind you you’re meant to be doing it outside of class.
My class is about 1/3 conditioning. Of that about half is general stretching warm up type excercises and the remaining are related to kung fu: Either stance or drill based conditioning such as kick, sweep or punch drills and/or bag work or isometric training and qi gong.
The upper ranks have to pass a phsyical requirement test every year to stay active in the club.
I do about a third fitness when I am teaching and the rest in Kung fu practice, which by its nature is fitness based.
I would like to do less and rely on students to do this in thier own time. However, the reality is that for many, who train only once a week, they just don’t put the time in.
On the back of this, I separated a class just for those who cross train 3 or 4 sessions with me and do a set that is more advanced so I get to teach kung fu and not be an aerobics instructor with out the music.
You do exercises at the beginning of class so that you are already a little tired when you practice technique. The stress of training while being tired is more realsitic than just standing around going “OK, grab my hand. The other hand. No…your other hand.”
Our classes are 3 hours long … at least half of it spent with boxing gloves and gear drilling specific ideas/technique.
You can always tell the new guys with some prior experience because they get there early and start doing splits and kicking over their head trying to make their pants make that crisp snapping sound.
We don’t believe in stretching before class. “Do what you can afford” is pretty much our motto. There is no pre-fight stretching and warm up like Bruce Lee in The Dragon. With time, you aquire savings and credit and can afford more and more, it happens naturally from training.
I’ve been thinking a little about this and my perspective has changed some since I started Capoeira.
I used to be the type to say that fitness training should be left out of a martial arts class. Some martial arts wil get you fit anyway, whether you like it or not.
Recently, in Capoeira ( I noticed a similar issue with Shaolin Longfist) I’ve learned that you can’t do capoeira unless you’re in pretty good shape. It demands a lot from you to keep up and to be able to do a lot of the moves. I’m not saying it’s the worlds answer to fitness, I’m just saying that without fitness, you can’t do it very well at all.
Saying that, some people don’t do fitness outside of class. This translates to bad capoeira in class. My attitude in training has always been that while you can get so far on your own talent, you can get ****her by training with others who are working atleast as hard as you. That means that if these people aren’t forced to keep up (I know they shouldn’t have to be but serisouly, it drags the quality of the training down since the martial arts and certainly capoeira are highly interactive.).
For example, there are a couple of high school girls in our class. One of them is in enough shape to mostly keep up. The other needs a lot of work. We were drilling the other night and I was in a groove. When it came time to drill with her, we kept having to stop so she could catch her breath.
I guess what I’m saying is that atleast for more strenuous arts, maybe some physical trainig and conditioning should be plugged in. Maybe just in basic classes?
Yeah, I need to get in to better shape just to learn a form right now… lol, which is good, because the whole dropping a weight class for fighting wasn’t motivating me enough…
Out of the 6 days a week my school is open, we have three days which involve conditioning that isn’t directly related to a MA drill. It’s ~15 minutes long each of these days and is pretty basic. We also do about 10 min. of stretching on those days.
Now when you lump the general fitness time in with all of our drills, forms, etc., by the end of those classes you are completely gassed. If I attended every class, 6 days a week, general fitness would encompass ~10% of our class time.
Personally, I don’t mind doing conditioning like that. I don’t really have the time to exercise independently outside of class. Also, like MK said, we have to do our forms work and drills while we are tired. It makes for a much more challenging experience. Plus, there’s something to be said for suffering as a group. Somehow it makes it a little easier.
And I see why my sifu does it, also. Most of the people in my class either don’t have time to condition on their own, or just don’t do it. In order to keep everybody physically able to handle what we do, he has to ensure that people are maintaining similar levels of fitness. And this is how to do that.
Originally posted by EvolutionFist
Our classes are 3 hours long …
Wow. :eek: That’s a long class!
Edit - I meant :eek:, not :rolleyes:
class length is certainly an issue you have to consider. If your class is only an hour long then you need to maximize your time. My capoeira class is technically only an hour long but it can run as long as 2.5 to 3 because we end up staying after it’s over to work on stuff.
Originally posted by norther practitioner
Yeah, I need to get in to better shape just to learn a form right now…
I hear that!
In a form I did a while ago there was a diving shoulder roll followed by two kicks from the ground followed by a shoulder roll back up to standing with a double spear hand. I had never tried a set of movements with that level of difficulty before.
Originally posted by SimonM
[B]I agree.
I think the preponderance of the drills of that nature in the Beginner class is because lots of newbies need to be told to do those general fitness drills or they never do.[/b]
No, it’s to make sure that you are in shape. in my bjj, thai and judo classes, we do alot of fitness training - it’s integrated into everything we do. For example, in thai, there is bag/pad work. in judo, there are uchi komis and randori. in bjj, there are drills we repeat quickly, for example a spinning arm bar from the guard. These things will increase your fitness level at the same time you are developing your skills. we also spend the beginning of class doing calesthenics.
Let’s say a class is getting ready for a competition (which we are, as the arnold’s are in 9 weeks and judo nationals. there are also some guys competing in a local mma event this month.) naturally, we want to make a good showing, so we have to make sure that we are ready. Not everyone who competes is as motivated as others, so you really can’t rely on them to train outside of class. In class, the instructors and coaches will make sure you bust your arse to get ready for the competition. The easiest way to get there is to stay in competition shape year round, no? So we train hard constantly, but vary our drills and such when preparing for competition.