Solo Practice

Nei Jia: the Qigong and Taijiquan Forum Taijiquan and the Internal Martial Arts
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Hi,

I’m sure this subject comes up on a regular basis, but thought I’d
throw it out there anyway! :smiley:

I’m not sure if many of you face the same “problem” as me, but my teacher only teaches every Saturday (2 hour classes), which leaves me with a whole lot of time to practice alone until the next session. He encourages all his students to train everyday, which I try to do to the best of my ability.

How do you all structure your own solo training? How long are your sessions?

As I currently practice Tai Ji, my own practice revolves around doing the form and/or segments of the form.
My standard session is to do some standing (minimum of 15 minutes), then do some Nei Gong excercises (as warm ups) and then move on to the form. My total time training is usually an hour to an hour and a half.

Anyway, I’d be very interested in hearing from all of you (regardless of style), and if you have some suggestions I’d be interested in those as well.

Look forward to hearing your replies.

KG

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Hi KG.

I am in a similar boat to you.
Saturday lesson and plenty of solo practice.

I wish I had time during the week to attend one of our other Kwoons, but alas. (Family, Client visits, etc.)

Plus, most classes are timed in a way that I would get there halfway through the class.
Said that me and a few other Students meet on
an informal basis on Sunday mornings to train together.
Me being currently the highest “ranked” among the lot, get their a bit earlier and work on stuff/forms that the others haven’t learned yet.

We have no fixed schedule as such.

Normally start of with stretching, some breathing exercises, loosening exercises, etc.

Tui Shou for warmup before we start on Forms.

We normally do Forms once and than I will try to answer questions and give pointers.
After that normally a bit of Solo posture training before doing the Form again.

In my style more experienced students are supposed to help others.
Plus, it is also a great learning experience/tool.

Normally I train for about 2 hours the rest of about 1 1/2 hours.

Hope this is what you are after.

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While watching tv or using the computer, do standing. Of course, you’re not using your whole intent while standing (since you’re watching tv or doing something else) at least it is strengthening your frame.

Here’s what you can do in one hour
5 minutes - warm ups with some silk reeling and stuff
– you can focus on just warming up and getting into the “internal movment” groove
15 min standing
– an isometric exercise. Also you can focus on using your mind intent to move qi. I stand the basic standing post, single whip position, and/or lazily about tying coat position. I can’t do crane spreads wing posture since it is too taxing for my legs.
20 min sections of the form (or the entire form)
– since you used the first half of the six harmonies with standing (using heart to lead the mind to lead qi) now you can try combining the external part as well by doing the form. Here is where I get confused. If I overly exaggerate my six harmonies movement, it looks cool, but I lose the connection. But if I focus on connection too much, I’m not relaxed enough and don’t get the 6 harmonies movement down natually. So I need to work on that.
10 min pole shaking/fajing practices
– I need to buy a waxwood pole or spear for this. Haven’t done so yet. But I use my sword to practice. I point my sword either upward or downard with a straight arm and try to use my dantien to fajing or shake the blade. I make sure my arm’s dont move, just my dantien. This way, I’m hoping that I don’t rely on my local arm muscles too much. I don’t have a bag, so I fajing the air sometimes if I don’t use a sword.

That’s it. It’s short, but that’s all the time we have anyway right? Sometimes I swtich the standing and silk reeling around. If I had a willing partner, I would push hands too, but the ppl I push hands with do it way too competively for me to practice any techniques on a partner. Doing it on a live, resisting partner is good, but I want to get down the techniqe first on a dummy. But I can’t find a dummy to practice it on. Why can’t I find someone who’s willing to just stand there while I push them, qinna them, or throw them? Sheesh.

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From your list it may be that you are already or close to falling into a common mistake.

Practicing Qi Gong is a good thing at any time. However, it is NOT essential to be part of the Taijiquan workout/training…Qi gong by Qi Gong rules - Kung Fu by Kung Fu rules.

Significant portions of a true practice session will run counter to Qi Gong practice…

Warm ups - always needed…

You may consider adding in leg pressing with the bar (stretching), Stance drills…like:

Brush Knee and Twist Step across the training area over and over focusing on connecting the movement and getting the stance work good.

White Crane - focus on smooth and sinking into the empty stance…low and relaxed if possible

Lower Snake body across the area..on BOTH sides focusing on opening the hip joint and sinking

Kick with heel - both sides over and over maybe 20 each leg to start…

Lotus kick -BOTH sides…(this is the inside to outside crescent kick at the end of Yang style…)

Outside Inside crescent kick…the same number - many Taiji folks do the one in the form forgetting that if you have an outside, you also have an inside…you need to do both.

If you do a style with Fa Jing emphasis - Fa Jing drills with different striking methods…

Etc…all of this is called JibenGong - Basics. This practice is how your abilities become ingrained.

Then finish with the form…it will be harder to do after this…and require more focus.

Then you can vary it and do the form first…but ALWAYS JibenGong.

Then, if you add push hands (Tuishou)…ADD it do NOT substitute it in. Many do 90 minutes of practice…but if they do form..it is 90 minutes until they start Tuishou…then they do 30 minutes of form and 60 of Tuishou…this is WRONG. keep the old (90 of form) and ADD in the Tuishou time…this is the ONLY way to improve…continually press the level. The more you learn, the more time management and figuring out how to maintain a level becomes an issue.

Practice should make you sweat…

Then, you can cool down with Qi Gong…or choose to do Qi Gong in a separate practice time.

You need both - JibenGong and Qi Gong…

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Thanks for the responses so far! I really appreciate it.

red_fists,
Thanks for the breakdown of your “class”. What about your own individual training outside of group sessions?

Kumkuat,
Thanks for the suggestions. I do many of the things you suggest already! In terms of standing, I try to get the “feel” of the right posture whenever I’m standing around (in a line at the store, at work etc.). In our Tai Ji, we tend to use a lot of back weighted stances (like San Ti of Xing Yi) as our form is a “combined form”, which includes elements of Ba Gua and Xing Yi (Yi Quan). So, many times instead of standing in the “standing post”, I switch it up with San Ti stance keeping. Although I can only hold it for about 5 minutes on each leg.
Unfortunately, I have never been taught pole shaking exercises although we do have some empty hand fajing type exercises that I try to do in every session.

GLW,
I really appreciate the thorough breakdown of the “jibengong”. Many of the things that you mention as jibengong, are part of what I may have confused as Neigong. :slight_smile:
Recently (over the past week) I’ve been working a lot on the “stance drills” you mention. I was never told to do these, but it just seemed natural to practice in that way. Looks like I’m on the right track!

By the way, is it “wrong” to practice sections of the form, for instance just go through the first third of the form and repeat it several times etc.? Or should the form always be practiced as a “whole” so to speak?

To clarify one thing in terms of my standing practice, as I mentioned our form is a combined form of Tai Ji, and many of our standing practices derive from Yi Quan. We have many different standing postures, although currently I only do San Ti, Wuji and Standing post (embrace tree) postures.

Thanks again!
KG

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Actually, if you want to get good at doing the form and Taijiquan in general, you HAVE to break it down and do sections. You have to drill pieces and then do the entire thing to get the flow…

But drilling is absolutely necessary.

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Originally posted by Kempo Guy
Thanks for the breakdown of your “class”. What about your own individual training outside of group sessions?

Like I said my own individual training happens before the others arrive and I train the material that they haven’t learned.

There is no fixed schedule or routine, as I have found that on some days I am better a certain things than on others.

Plus, it also depends on what corrections/new stuff I learned the previous day under Sifu. Or what I feel needs extra attention.

Sunday’s lessons are informal, sometimes I am alone all morning, sometimes we get about 5 people together.
Even when the others are there we often do/train different things/forms.

Example: They would do our 1st Form,
I would do “single Fan” (bassically same Form)

Or I would do “Cloud Hands” while they do “Flowing horse’s mane style” in single posture training.

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" By the way, is it “wrong” to practice sections of the form, for instance just go through the first third of the form and repeat it several times etc.? Or should the form always be practiced as a “whole” so to speak? "

It seems as though all adjustments would be made during the form in T’ai Chi Ch’uan. It seems as though the techniques can be so demanding that to practice any thing besides standing meditation (prespecified-not every posture) could make you feel you’ve done work or or and feel flow in that posture. Yet it seems this isolation of techniques would at least in the long run slow your progress. The form allows strengthening of body/mind…and flow from one technique to the other (Not only internal flow but also the setting-up of muscle groups for more efficient and techniques that follow each other). Southern praying Mantis seems to have this setting-up of muscle groups to increase the devestation potential of later techniques (or the next technique). Occasionally going over something as a what-if, but not repeatedly Like training in external Kung-Fus.

Going through sections is still form.

However much one might do a section or technique that one theoretically should the whole form thirteen times that. Some-such

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NoKnow…

please tell that to the likes of Fu Zhongwen, Chen Xiaowang, Yang Chengfu, Sun Lutang, etc…

There are records of their training including such drills…as well as the same thing for every GOOD master I have met in over 25 years.

Drills are essential to Kung Fu development…regardless of internal or external style.

The only folks I have ever seen who do not do drills also do not do anything very well.

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Name dropper :slight_smile:

Records? Perhaps you have complete Knowledge of the training of the aforementioned. As my post did allow for such things as you call drills, find in the accounts of those you mentioned how much whole forms they did. I picked thirteen times more than the drills they might do. How many times more did each of those actually do?

(In case you don’t follow the above)

In what I said~ I allowed for drills~. Just that one would do a lot more whole forms than drills.

Hopefully, I would not tell someone that they were wrong if I didn’t agree with them. As drilling doesn’t seem to go against what I said, I likely wouldn’t tell someone withwhom I Agreed that they were wrong.

You seem connected. Ask the living ones (and the deceased, you seem really connected in T’ai Chi Ch’uan circles~), and they should merely tell you that I am Correct.

Thanks for the snyde reply. Perhaps with twenty-five years more at it you’ll grasp the basics you’ve been doing and have an even better awareness as to their applications~.

Whole form is best for getting Good~. Some drilling-ish is required to improve towards best correctness the form(s).

Basically, some-such, some might say.

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Aside from the lack of understandability of your post in most instances, you are a very perceptive frog in a well.

An Example…you do 85 Posture Yang style…16 minutes to 20 minutes for the routine.

You practice for 2 hours…you do 15 minutes warm up…15 cool down. Leaves you 1.5 hours.

Now…how MANY times in the routie do you do pick up needle at sea bottom…or fan through back..and the transition into those movements? How many do you do kick with heel or Fun Jiao (toe kick) in the entire routine… Comparatively, NOT that many. The form gives yo a flow for the form..but the key is in the indivdual movements and the connection from one to another.

The way to get that is to break it down.

And…YES…I do know what those people trained like. I spoke with Fu Laoshi on it. My teacher knew Sun Laoshi, and other like Gu Luxin and such…and I HAVE discussed this aspect in depth with them. The key is GOOD BASICS.

Too many people think that they can just do the form and it will magically happen. The reality is that there is so much more.

Solo practice is to do ALL of it…and if all you do between class is the form once…and drill basics the rest of the time, you will show much more improvement than the person who just does the form or who does the form 75% of the time and then a little basics.

But…do as you will…The exception I took was in your statement that drills were detrimental…when the opposite is actually true.

But…no matter, train how you will, it makes no difference to me.

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Professor Xavier meets the frog in the shallow well; I No_Know

“Solo practice is to do ALL of it…and if all you do between class is the form once…and drill basics the rest of the time, you will show much more improvement than the person who just does the form or who does the form 75% of the time and then a little basics”

Drills and drilling basics are Seperate things. Basics are seldom refined in drills. Too much trying to get stereotypical peer-pressure perception of technique that works.

A perception from the well at which I might did dwell; form Is a place to refine basics. And people tend to not drill basics, they might call it that but they are more at drilling~ techniques. And usually would drill the form of the technique and not the nature~ of the technique.~

Ribbit, I hope someone gets insight from your opinions.

GLW, it sounds as though you travel in good company. May your learning continue well.And may those who can benefit from your level of understanding do so.

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“they are more at drilling~ techniques. And usually would drill the form of the technique and not the nature~ of the technique.~”

nice :slight_smile:

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GLW,

When practicing the single movement drills during the “jibengong” practice, do you perform the movements at the same pace as when you do them during the form?

I’m surprised at the amount of replies we’ve got in this thread. You’d think there would be more people doing solo training??? :confused:
Or maybe this thread has been done to death before…? :rolleyes:

KG

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Hi KG.

When we do single movement drill, I keep the speed the same.
But we alternate the sides of the movement.

“Flowing Horse mane style(R), Flowing Horse Mane style (L), Flowing Horse Mane style (R), etc.”

Sifu will also often interrupt a Form and get us to do single movement drill for some time and than switch back to Form training.

Personally, I like single movement drills.

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Kempo guy,

depends on what you are training…

If you are training power (fa jing) and are at a beginning level, you may do the movement slow to set up the power generation and then at the point of power, explode as much as you can.

At a more advanced level, you may dril a movement quickly and still try to release power at the correct point of the movement…and do this over and over and on BOTH sides.

If you are tring to get the correct movement down…like the connection and natural flow of say…brush knee…you might do it low and slow (form speed) and treat it as if you were doing the form of only one move over and over. then you may move to doing connected pieces to work on the transition from one technique to another.

One of the keys to Taijiquan (and really all Chinese martial arts) is understanding the moment of time. In chinese, this is said as Shou yen shen fa bu (loosely translated that all parts owrk as a whole. By a moment of time, I mean that for each movement there is a natural end and beginning. To stop a movement before its natural conclusion is not flowing. It also prevnents you from being able to feel how to make the energy of the end of one movemnt become the starting energy of the next movement. to train this with the form is often too many variables so you take a section of things that can be done in a flowing process…then you do the right speed and feel where the end is and the beginning f each movement…look for where things align…where the circle of one part of the body changes to circling of another part…This is the hard part to verbally describe…but it is like trying to photograph a ballet dancer…things captured at the moment of time show the correct extension, beauty, and magic of the dancer…but if you are even a little bit off, you get crooked legs, arms akimbo…and any dancer looks like garbage…

Taijiquan has the same idea of moment of time…there is a natural extension that is NOT extened where the power changes from Yang to Yin…and doing things in drills helps you find this.

Taijiquan exists not in the full Yang or full Yin but in the transition and border between Yin and Yang…when a person can show these transitions and the flow from yin to yang…they have it