Yeah, me too. In fact, I am teaching Kung Fu to one of my Taiji students, soley so I have someone to drill techniques with.
Without practicing with a partner, all you’re learning to do is dance. Break out the tu-tu’s.
Heavy bag is good for working on power. You can kick/punch harder with an object there to stop you. Just hitting/kicking the air, you learn how to stop yourself.
That said, it is important to do solo training to work on combinations. In the air, your combos can flow freely.
That said, when practicing with a partner 2 things happen: 1) we hopefully go lighter than we do to the air or bag so we can both practice the next day; 2) partners don’t move like the air so we often can’t use combinations, and they don’t stand as still as a bag so we can hit them repeatedly with the same technique in the same spot.
That said, it helps to take a few hits. This trains the “shock factor” out of getting hit, and trains you to keep going.
Looking forward to reading refutes.
- partners don’t move like the air so we often can’t use combinations,
that’s all i disagree with…
Why?
combinations should be worked in a drill… it conditions the offensive partner to use more than one attack and conditions the defensive partner to defend a combo… for instance… lets say a lead hook, cross and rear leg roundhouse… just to keep it simple… the defender could catch the hook… slip or catch the cross and than check the kick… or whatever your style would answer that attack with… many schools i see are stuck on>>> reverse punch… block or some ish like that… does that make sense?..
Good thread!
IronFist
Free sparring with intended movements is what me and my friend do, to learn to incorporate certain techniques into a real fight. Pick a few moves, and chin na techs and spar with nothing but.
The air drills are good for speed and power, especially if done with weights on wrists and feet. I love wearing my ankle and hand weights and doing forms. Take them off to spar and it feels like your hands and feet are feathers.
Practicing with a friend and doing forms solo in the air are 2 ends to a nunchaku, with only one side you dont have anything really useful. (yes you could still club someone, but its a metaphor d@mnit) You need both to have efficiency.
Free sparring with intended movements is what me and my friend do, to learn to incorporate certain techniques into a real fight. Pick a few moves, and chin na techs and spar with nothing but.
yeah… basically…but I would not use the word sparring for the simple fact that sparring=trying to beat the other guy/gal… DRILL is what I use b’cuz the focus is more on technique… timing… rather than winning…
The air drills are good for speed and power,
i disagree…
especially if done with weights on wrists and feet.
your joints will ove you later in life… altho I don’t see anything wrong with doing solo exercise with weights in a slow controlled manner… but when I see people going all out w/weights… I wince…
IMHO…
Solo exercises are excellent for alot of things; learning martial technique isn’t one of them.
Large classes of people throwing mock-strikes into the air for hours has alot more to do with the good-bad teching continuum than any traditional-modern or sport-selfdefense continuum (or anything of that sort).
This doesn’t mean you throw out solo exercises. Alot of people believe there’s more to martial arts (and I’m speaking on a purely “martial” level here) than martial techniques. Solo exercises are great for these sorts of things. If you lift weights or do cardio, you’re allready putting this philosophy into practice implicitly.
Originally posted by Shaolin-Do
The air drills are good for speed and power, especially if done with weights on wrists and feet. I love wearing my ankle and hand weights and doing forms.
Think about the direction of force gravity is exerting on your body as a result of wearing those weights, and think about the corrosponding tension induced in your muscles to compensate. Are these vectors along the lines you want to train for the movements you are doing? If they’re not, is training your body to be unnessesarily tense a goal of your training? Do you think that the resulting posture you’ll make reflexive with this training is going to be ideal for these movements done without weights?
good thread, but did you have to start it at the same time when i added my regular solo practice back into my home workouts?
What I’ve found is that doing techniques in the air can be beneficial in terms of martial technique if you also regularly spar (IE, you won’t be good if ALL you do is practice in the air). I find if I drill a technique at home it gets it in my brain and I find I can use it in sparring much better than if I hadn’t done it in the air so many times. That said, I need to get a new heavy bag because my old one ripped out of the ceiling, and if I had a partner on call 24/7, I would be drilling those techs with him instead of in the air. Basically, at home I train shi.t solo, then in class I try shi.t out with a partner. It seems to work alright.
A good construct for a training session, IMO, is to start with solo training, working through the mechanics and correct form of a technique, then progress onto bagwork to work those same techs with power and accuracy against resistance. One without the other is a half measure. Then you can try those techs out in sparring and two man drilling to make them work against an actual person. All three stages are essential to proper development in my mind.
Also, if you’re on your own and you want to practice, what are you gonna do? Just say, “F#@$ it” and go and have a beer in front of the tv, or work through your basics and forms solo and improve your techs?
Then get your ass on the ground and work your strength and conditioning with bodyweight exercises, cardio training, weight lifting, etc. 
If you are alone, yeah do the solo drills, but what I am asking about is WHY do Solo drills for 2 hours, when you are in a class full of people? If you have them, I say use them, and save the solo stuff for when you just can’t stand sitting there with your other half and watching yet another episode of “Croc Hunter” and you really really need an excuse to get out in the yard and train.
Solo work IMO is very important for your training as well as partner play. Just more tools and you always don’t have a partner outside of class.
Be it bag work, shadow boxing, weight lifting, specific conditioning, weapon flow drills or for that matter any other solo drills you can think of.