SevenStar…
i’m not sure what you mean by external workout. the moving isometrics would be considered external, in the traditional sense. if you’re referring to weightlifting, no, i don’t use weights.
i am picking a friend up from work this afternoon, who happens to be a member of a nearby gym. hopefully i can post results tonite.
oh yeah!
something i forgot to mention…a while back - last year sometime - there was an article on the (Sifu John Allen’s) Green Dragon womens weightlifting team. from what i remember, they consistently placed and/or won every competition they entered. they trained without the use of weights, ie traditional qigongs. i’ve tried searching the net for this info but could not find anything. if anyone has this magazine article, or can find info on the net, please post a link, send it to me or email me. the magaine was inside kung fu, i’m guessing.
punches, kicks, forms, pushups, iron buffalos, etc… that’s what I’m referring to. Is that included with “drills”?
“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass
SevenStar
the bulk of my drills are shuai jiao (chiao) throwing techniques and my 10 favorite techniques.
i work forms once or twice a week, usually on the weekends, because of time restrictions (read as: too much damn work).
what’s an iron buffalo?
no gym today either…
As an internal stylist (bagua mainly), I do neither weight training nor hard qigong, and I think that contributes to getting structure right (because you don’t have much strength to fall back on).
I would consider x-training for fitness, but I don’t think its very useful for fighting either. A fight should be over as soon as possible (and possibly before it starts). No weight training or hard qigong can condition a human being to withstand point strikes (such as a strike to the carotid sinus) or well directed physical strikes (to eg. the clavicles or knee ligaments). So I don’t think you need to consider “who can take more” punishment unless you’re hammering away at each other indiscriminately or sparring in competition. Having said that, though, there are still plenty of brute fighters (like muay thai fighters) I’d be trembling to come up against under a bad moon…
I think the most important element in street fighting is attitude. Anyone who is sufficiently agitated, psychotic or scared is dangerous.
“I don’t think its very useful for fighting either. A fight should be over as soon as possible (and possibly before it starts). No weight training or hard qigong can condition a human being to withstand point strikes (such as a strike to the carotid sinus) or well directed physical strikes (to eg. the clavicles or knee ligaments). So I don’t think you need to consider “who can take more” punishment unless you’re hammering away at each other indiscriminately or sparring in competition.”
you’re right, a fight SHOULD be over as soon as possible, but that’s not always the case. It may go longer than you anticipated, or you may have to run. If you train for the worst situation, you will be better off. Pressure point strikes are awesome, but once again, you can’t train for the optimal situation… During the bouncing, moving and adrenaline rushes involved in a fight, pressure points become a lot harder to hit, especially if you are new to that sort of thing. If you attempt your pressure point strikes and miss, you will wish you conditioned your body, as your opponent will be raining strikes on you. You may not be able to condition your body to withstand strikes to the clavicle or knee, but how many untrained fighters do you know that think about hitting either of those areas? There main targets are the face and body, which can be conditioned.
“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass
Iron Buffalos
Place your feet together on the ground and your hands shoulder width apart on the ground, a few inches or wo from your feet, so that your body forms an upside down V position. Swing your body towards the ground, forward and up, then back to the starting position. They work your shoulders pretty good. I have seen them referred to in an exercise magazine as superman pushups.
“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass
7 Star,
I know what you mean about point striking seeming finicky, but it’s hardly a case of hit one point and step back the triumphant victor - you should be “raining” those strikes on them! I’d also suggest that if you’ve got the time to invest in weight training and the like, then you’ve got the time to learn an internal system. There are so many vital points on the human body (which you can hit with so many surfaces on your own) that you’ve got to realise there’s bugger all anyone can do to keep you out.
My comments were also directed towards serious streetfighting, when your life is in danger. I don’t think you need to fight with inexperienced arseclowns in the first place, but if you do you’re hardly going to have to fall back on conditioning. Do them a favour and let them walk away.
Moreover, you should be worried about coming up against a streetfighter who will go through your joints like a blender. Nothing you can condition is so vital that you can’t live without it. How do you think you can condition your face, anyway?
So I still say - get in there quick and fight with intent. End it. If you’re talking about anything else, you’re not in the type of situation I’m on about.
I’ll pay the point about needing to be fit to run away, though 
SevenStar
are those Iron buffalos also called tiger stretches or tiger push ups?
how far in front of your feet do your hands start?
i used to enjoy weights when i did them years ago, but now i just do “traditional” stuff, and some pushups, crunches etc just for fun.
but i don’t really know or care too much what’s better than what, i just like to do my thang!
___________________________________________________________________________ “I’m just trying to lull you into a genuine sense of security!”
I think the iron buffolo is also called dive bomber push ups or hindu pushups for some people as well.
My comments were directed towards serious streetfighting as well. Last I checked, my city was in the top 10 in the country for murder, burglary, auto theft and rape - the crime rate here is three times higher than the national average. Here, the average streetfight is serious, usually either weapons or multiple attackers are involved, and the average streetfighter is trying to tear through you like a blender. they do not know about striking to the knees and other targets we know to look for, but when they strike at your face, they are trying to break your nose and rip your jaw off of its hinges. They are trying to punch a hole in your chest and stomach, they are trying to knock you unconscious with a chair or stick or whatever is nearby.
I don’t doubt the internal styles, matter of factly, I want to study bagua, but the closest teacher I know of is 7 hours away. My sifu also teaches taiji, but my interest in that is not quite as strong, so I don’t train in it. I know that you are not talking about a one hit deal with the pressure point strikes, but if you are just beginning, and you attempt to hit the temple, the point in the neck that corresponds to the bladder, the points on the side of the body that direct blood flow back to the heart, then the heart and miss them all, what next? These may be mistakes that a beginner in this type of striking might make.
As far as conditioning, you are right, nothing you can condition is so vital you can’t live without it, but if you aren’t conditioned to take strikes to those areas they can still end a fight. And as far as face conditioning, when you take a hard shot to the jaw, things begin to spin. You need to know how to deal with this, that’s more of a mental thing, but full contact fighting helps deal with it. Also, your neck and traps function as shock absorbers. By kdoing strengthening exercises for these areas, you can increase your ability to absorb a good shot to the head.
“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass
kumquat and fish
yes, they are also called hindu squats.
Start with your hands on the floor, shoulder-width apart.
Your feet are on the floor (no knees) and your legs are wider than shoulder-width apart.
Starting position is butt in the air, head looking back to your heels.
Bend your elbows and lower your body in a circular arc, until your arms are straight. Your chest is up and your hips are almost touching the ground.
Look to the ceiling. Exhale.
Push back toward your heels once again. Straightening your arms and stretching your legs, as in #3.
Repeat
We also do another variation, with the legs close together. The leg together variation, in my oppinion, are harder.
“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass
Damn that! I just wrote a lovely reply to those comments and then lost the lot. I’ll try again later when I’m less pissed off about it.
Okay, let’s try again. It was that comment about increasing the shock-absorption action of the neck by increasing its strength that interested me.
I’ve not been hit heavilly in a street fight, but in my training experience I’ve always found it easier to absorb (if not redirect) force by remaining as loose as possible. I actually trained for several years in karate before moving in to bagua, and although I was reasonably good by commercial karate standards, I used to get wiped-out in training drills with bagua fighters because I was just too tense. On one occassion I even injured several muscle groups in my neck by resisting the application of a “needle-at-sea-bottom” type neck kink (basically a sharp downwards jerk on the wrist, which incidentally also strikes several points at that location). With time I’ve grown very much looser, and some of the best internal fighters I’ve met have been looser still (and some even lighter than my own meagre 65kgs!).
The other thing that struck me about your post was that the type of conditioning you’re talking about in taking those “stun” blows is more psychological than pysical, and thus not a matter of hard qigong or weight training. Can one anticipate their response to such blows without expereiencing them? Probably not. (While I was involved in karate, I used to get weekly lessons in “taking a punch” from my so-obliging instructor. I doubt it helped my fighting ability except to encourage me to leave myself more open in sparring matches in pursuit of offensive shots… certainly not an adaptive characteristic for streetfighting!) But consider also the body’s natural response to the heavy stress of a fear situation - you get the steroid rush of adrenaline and the glucocorticoids. Athletes who are involved in contact sports are familiar with the difference this makes to both the stunning and painful effects of heavy blows.
Is point-striking something useful for beginners? Maybe not. But how many fights are you planning on having anyway? There’s time to learn. Moreover, the effectiveness of the internal arts in many ways comes back to intent (I’m sure the xingyi guys out there would agree). One doesn’t even entertain the notion of being hit - you just want to rip through your attacker like a wild animal. You want to exceed their level of viciousness - because that’s what is effective in real fighting. I became a vastly better fighter within weeks of beginning bagua, and to my mind that’s the reason why. Fighting isn’t a kind of dialogue in which blows are to be exchanged - its more of a screaming psychotic rant that cuts straight to the hate.
I think that all came out more nicely the first time, but there you go. I’ll try to finesse the argument if you want to point out some more weaknesses.
weights vs no
In “abbot hai teng” a shaolin documentary, the students indeed use weights. They are homeade, they use them up on posts and in ways you don’t see at Gold’s gym, but they are using them. I my opinion, you need to do some weight training for power and cardio (running,biking) for endurance along with your training.
“Maybe not. But how many fights are you planning on having anyway? There’s time to learn.”
Who plans to have them, other than pro and amateur fighters? Since I enjoy fighting in the ring, I actually do plan to have several, but you cannot predict when you will have a street fight. One of my KF brothers recently got into a fight in a bar. Some guy just from out of nowhere pushed and clocked him. My friend proceeded to take the guy down and subdue him. He didn’t want that fight, it just happened. You can’t train with the mindset of “I have time to learn” You have no way of knowing when you will be attacked.
“Moreover, the effectiveness of the internal arts in many ways comes back to intent (I’m sure the xingyi guys out there would agree). One doesn’t even entertain the notion of being hit - you just want to rip through your attacker like a wild animal.”
That’s a great mindset to be in. The sad reality is that more than likely, you will be hit. you must know how to deal with this.
“The other thing that struck me about your post was that the type of conditioning you’re talking about in taking those “stun” blows is more psychological than pysical, and thus not a matter of hard qigong or weight training”
you are correct. I stated that it was psychological. the head begins to spin and you tend to “forget” your training. The physical aspect had to do with absorbing the blow, not actually coping with it, which I’ll address next. both are necessary.
“I’ve not been hit heavilly in a street fight, but in my training experience I’ve always found it easier to absorb (if not redirect) force by remaining as loose as possible.”
I agree. but if you get hit in the face, you’ve already been hit - you can’t redirect that. I’m not saying tense your muscles when you get hit, I think that’s how you interpreted it. the traps function as shock absorbers, a surge protector of sorts. A developed neck and traps help lessen the shock of a blow to the head. I’ll find some valid medical documents to back that up, but in the meantime, I pulled this off of a shootfighting site:
“Neck muscle strength helps prevent knockouts and cervical injury during chokes or neck crank submissions.”
And I agree, losing a long post sucks!! That’s happened to me several times
“You ain’t got enough calcium to have a bone to pick wit me,
like a Gracie, I’ll choke a ***** out wit his own gi” - Rass Kass