What do you people do all day

Nei Jia: the Qigong and Taijiquan Forum Taijiquan and the Internal Martial Arts
1

I truly respect anybody that practices Bagua for its martial side, as somebody who does work in and wants to further his standing in the private security sector I understand the time and amount of repudiative practice that goes into this.

I truly respect anyone who practice Bagua for the art and health, its a beautiful and benefical art.

On top of continuing my college courses and maintaining a social life (however limited it can be) as well as trying to get in what I consider to be a bear bones minimum of practice a day (somewhere between 60-90 min) I find I’m able to meet occupational hazards and stay in pretty good health. For Maoshan, Black Taoist, or anybody, what do you think is amount of time per-day to develop a good and competent fighter within Bagua or Xingyi?

The question arises from a flyer I saw yesterday form a local “Shaolin” school talking about just 20 min a day of circle walking to develop true internal power and devastating fighting skills.

I know this isn’t accurate, but something is better then nothing, I’m just curious on how long a day the higher level people in here feel is adequate time.

BTW is response to something I saw on-line, how long do most of you stay on the Internet? This took me about 5 min to type out, and now I’m done.

2

I truly respect anybody that practices Bagua for its martial side, as somebody who does work in and wants to further his standing in the private security sector I understand the time and amount of repudiative practice that goes into this.
I truly respect anyone who practice Bagua for the art and health, its a beautiful and benefical art.

On top of continuing my college courses and maintaining a social life (however limited it can be) as well as trying to get in what I consider to be a bear bones minimum of practice a day (somewhere between 60-90 min) I find I’m able to meet occupational hazards and stay in pretty good health. For Maoshan, Black Taoist, or anybody, what do you think is amount of time per-day to develop a good and competent fighter within Bagua or Xingyi?

The question arises from a flyer I saw yesterday form a local “Shaolin” school talking about just 20 min a day of circle walking to develop true internal power and devastating fighting skills.

I know this isn’t accurate, but something is better then nothing, I’m just curious on how long a day the higher level people in here feel is adequate time.

BTW is response to something I saw on-line, how long do most of you stay on the Internet? This took me about 5 min to type out, and now I’m done.

Hi Kevin,

Asking how long one should practice per day to become a competent fighter is like asking how long one should fish in order to catch enough for a family meal. Simple volume of time is not the crucial variable here. Learning does not occur in an exact linear fashion such that N number of hours = X amount of learning. Personally, I would recommend you devote more energy to exploring the other factors which affect your learning more than volume of time.

RE: the “Shaolin” school’s flyer claiming 20 minutes of circle walking/day would yield true internal power and devastating fighting skills. Hogwash. Not to mention that beginners almost never possess the ability to simultaneously exhibit proper form in circle walking AND to use the Yi (conscious intent) properly in order to make the exercise a useful qigong, circle walking, alone and in and of itself, never yielded ANY fighting skill. Circle walking can be thought of, to use a modern analogy, as a .zip file. There is an abundance of useful information stored within it, but unless and until the information is ‘unpacked’, it remains merely a pretty if repetitive coordination drill.

The ‘AHA!’ experience when one discovers the inherent application possibilities is where leaps in learning take place. This can come either from self-discovery or through the explanations of an instructor. Either way, this process has to occur before circle walking, the Single Palm Change, etc. can be used for real fighting.

3

Well, it’s not so much how long you practice each day, but how long you have been practicing. If all you can do is 20 minutes a day, then make it a quality 20 minutes. You may learn slower overall, but it is still going to take a long time before you reach mastery, years and decades.

Myself, I used to practice qigong for hours a day and when I started learning forms and stuff, I would do about 8 hours a day total. While I think that that amount of time each day is a good foundation, I also think for many people it is overdoing it a bit. I finally reached a point where my agenda of stuff to practice was too much to practice in one day, and now I have to alternate things. I mean, my list of qigongs to do, if I did them all once each and sequentially, ended up being 3 hours (as opposed to my starting out with just a few and practicing them for 3-4 hours), and with forms and stuff, the time limit was astronomical. When it got to where I had to watch the clock I decided it was time for a change. Now I alternate stuff, and since I have to work, I cannot get in near enough time for qigong in my opinion, but I get in what I can. My pratice sessions now run about 1-2 hours, with a little qigong to begin, some forms, maybe some weapons forms, and if I’m lucky I can get in some 2 person practice like Push Hands or something.

If you have only a couple of hours to practice, I would suggest doing qigong during the first third, or until you feel you need to move on to something else, doing forms (both empty-handed and weapons) during the middle part, and doing two-person stuff during the last part. I consider walking the circle mainly qigong, so I always did it immediately after standing qigongs, and went right into the circular form from there. I always walked the circle for 30 minutes or so, which is about the minimum I would recommend, but I had other things to practice with it after a while. The circle walking and standing qigongs are pretty much the foundation of Bagua, the basics of the basics, then you have your forms, and then your two person exercises, sparring etc, as the last of the basics. Just walking the circle will teach you a lot, but it will not teach you everything, and you should move onto something more advanced after a while, so the advertisement you saw was not quite correct. The circle walking is done in conjunction with the rest of your training after a while, and it is then that its benefits and real teaching start to appear, when you are able to correlate it with the more advanced stuff, which actually enhances your circle walking. In fact, one of the things that I was told but did not understand until several years after beginning walking the circle, is that the forms are there to enhance your circle walking and make it better, and not the other way around as many believe.

And I try to stay on the net as little as possible. But sometimes I get bored. :smiley:

“I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.”
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

4

Hmmm so your saying doesn’t matter about quantity but quality of practice. I would almost agree with that seeing how it makes some sense, but what about stanima/endurance and over-all body conditioning. I’m a firm believer in hard work and sweat to be martially powerful. I’m asking about martial practice and for usage in a very martial type line of work, not as hobby/health, I tend to think there is a great difference between the two and as one would practice such. Maybe length of time may not be to crucial deciding factor but to persist in a non stop, lots of confusion and stress situation, I doubt 30 min of qigong is gonna cut it at all, thus comes in the long circle walking and standing practice, the numberous push ups and pull ups, and heavy weapons practice, thats what I’m talkin about. I’m interested in here from guys that have spent some serious time is this type of training and for the same reasons, I know thats a slim majority but its worth seeing if they’ll speak up.

Induce the quality of your quantity, makes for a much better fighter

5

I think the amount you train can also depend on your level and experience. I have trained (not in an internal style) for 14 years, and find that 20 minutes a day is enough to maintain my level. If I want to improve I need to put in more time. Also, my instructor spends something like 15 minutes each morning and that is all he needs to improve.

Sam, where the hell do you find 8 hours a day to train? :slight_smile:

You have no chance to survive - make your time.

6

Actually, ABandit, the question should read where DID I find that much time. LOL. I used to practice that much back when I first started because I only worked part time and spent time and money on nothing else. But my practice sessions run about an hour or two every day now, if I can even squeeze that in. My suggestions on how to divide the time were based on someone not having a significant amount of time to spend on training every day. If you want my real opinion as to how much time you should spend training, it would be that you should spend every minute of every day training that you are not spending eating or sleeping. Every step you take should be training, every breath should be for qigong, every hand movement should be related to fighting. Actually, if you dream lucidly or travel astrally while sleeping, you can even train while your body rests. But that’s something you’ll have to experiment with on your own.

Train as much as you possibly can. But if you can only get 20 minutes in, then make it a quality 20 minutes. Seriously, though, how many hours a night do you sleep? Maybe you’re sleeping too much and that’s what’s eating into your practice time. :wink:

“I put forth my power and he was broken.
I withdrew my power and he was ground into fine dust.”
-Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice

7

Kevin,

You are correct that the amount of training you do is related to what you are training for. I am a web developer so I doubt I will ever need fighting skills in my job. That should answer your second question as to the amount of time I spend online per day. Almost all of it when I am not practicing! What you are training for will dictate the time per day you spend in practice And what the focus of your practice is. I spend 2 hours practicing in the morning and 1 hour in classes in the evening. Saturday, I spend an hour practicing Tai Chi Chuan and a 4 hour class in Bagua. Sunday is for basketball and rest. I totally agree with Sam, that in a sense you are practicing every moment since after a fair amount of time, kung fu changes the way you move, think, breath, eat, sleep, even sex. I feel totally comfortable that I could defend myself against anyone, even a skilled fighter, but I no longer train for that purpose. In the past when I trained to fight, I would spend probably 2 hours more on the pushups, situps, rope jumping, bag work, running, weights etc. etc. IMO This kind of training has absolutely no benefit in advancing your ability to use your skills beyond endurance. My personal training consists of a half hour for chi kung and 20 minutes to a half hour for stances. A half hour to 40 minutes on forms and a half hour on heavy weapons. Classes are for drilling, conditioning and learning new forms and applications. When I practice, I practice hard. This probably has little relevance to your first question since I am not in your occupational field although I have been recruited several times by law enforcement people who saw what I was doing and the results under pressure, and thought I would be a great person for the job. But I just don’t see putting myself in harms way. The amount of time you should spend on training depends on your level of talent, your level of effort, and your goals. As you can probably tell, my goal is not to be in any situation where I need to depend on martial arts to save my life. But if I find myself unable to avoid it, I should have the skills it takes to survive. If you have the intention to continue in the private security profession, you should practice at least twice as hard as I.
d

8

Right on count

count,

I’ve been focusing on praticing and less on writing for the past few weeks but I read the posts. I could not resist this one…you are right on your point with your response…its practice practice practice there is nothing else to discuss … this is my biggest battle to make sure I train a lot and train correctly.

keep up the good training

Acton may not always be happiness, but there is no a happiness without action."

Benjamin Disraeli

9

Kevin.

In order to answer the question properly, you first have to understand my perception of BaGua.

Ba-Gua is the PHD of the Martial Arts. It’s an advanced system based almost Totally on principles
8 of the 10 Disiples of Dong were taught principles to apply to what they already knew.
I could go on but that’s enough for this thread.

For what we do, 20min of circle walking is a bunch
of Bull. While Xing-Yi will develope a fighter
faster than Ba-Gua(in terms of techniques), you can’t stand in San Ti for 20min either and expect
the results of being a fighter.

As for how long? It depends on the individual, Some are talented, some are not. If you’ve had some experience(Martially)maybe a year. If not,
3yrs.

As for the Qigong aspect of this, yeah, 20min a day will get you results, but only halfa$$.
From my research into the Internal, the heath benefits were a side effect. No one who practices
for health is as healthy as the one who embraces
the art as a whole. Why be half ass about it. If your going to do it, then do it. All the health
claims we read about the arts were mainly about
the masters(fighters)not people who practice for health. Those who practice for health are only getting 50% of the benefits at best. I don’t want half, I want all of it.

For the Occupation your talking about, minimum 2hrs a day period. First hour stance, second hour conditioning and live fighting to perfect personal
skills(your strenth and weaknesses) the weekends,
4-8hrs. All aspects should be covered in respect to what your doing.

I understand Kevin, The Blacktaoist and myself
both do Bodyguard work for MoTown Records. and while it hasn’t happened yet, we expect to have to bring our students in on some of our jobs. so at this time our concentration is on conditioning.
If you can take a blow,you can give better than you got if you’ve trained properly.

The amount of time spent on any thing is useless
if what your doing is wrong. Like i always say
“Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice
makes perfect”.

Abandit,
I had the same amount of time and longer to train.
8hrs is not impossible to the dedicated person.
Sam happens to be one of the few. Me and my Best friend(a wu Styist)trained and fought together
for at lest 5hrs almost every day for 10yrs. and that was together,that had nothing to do with our indiviual practice.
It’s like Sam said, you practice all the time.
Every thing you do is practice. My friend and I
practiced everywhere, Bus stops, Train stations,
We fought everywhere. This isn’t 1801 it’s 2001
we don’t have the time that the Masters of old did
so never stop training.

Just for the record,
After recieving some e-mail from various people
about why we aren’t Online any more.
My classmate and I Have had enough of the bull
we’re fighters, we don’t talk . and especially
after meeting with some of the people whopost on this board who try to seem so deep. They had no Power what so ever. No bridge, No pushing skills,
or sensitivity for that matter. they couldn’t fight, etc. You guys know who you are.
You guys are the reason that most Martial Artist
look at the Internal as being only good for health
and useless in a fight. I don’t care who your teachers are living off thier rep isn’t going to save your ass.
My Classmate won’t post at all, he’s through. so he’s concentrating on his website. I look in from time to time just to see if a good topic is brought up, if I feel it I answer. I have respect for few people on this board. Most are wannabee’s
If your a student than act like one. you waste people’s time and stunt your own growth. Hell, both me and my classmate are still students, we
just tried to give the benefit of our experience
to those who need it and get from those who have to give. Me myself, I’ve been doing Ba-Gua for over 20yrs. It’s just now in recent times becomming popular and quite a few teachers have jumped on the commercial bandwagon. For those who came to see us I hope your re-evaluating your situation, unless yall like giving your money away

Who do i think is cool on this board?
Sam Wiley
Kevin
Chris McKinley
Count
Daniel Madar
Braden
BagwaBoxer

These are the only people on this board that actually have some thing to say.

I could go on but enough.
Sorry, but I feel this had to be said.

So to the true practitioners I bid you Peace
and may your training always breed results.

Maoshan

10

Dear Maoshan

>From my research into the Internal, the heath
>benefits were a side effect. No one who practices
>for health is as healthy as the one who embraces
>the art as a whole.

I think you are mixing here to different subjects. One is the reason for training and the other is the intensity.

I can train for health and embrace the art as a whole. It is even possible that one who is practicing for health is embracing it much more than the one who is practicing it for other reasons. I think most people really do not need the martial ability to survive in todays world. So practicing for health can be a much stronger motivation – especially when you have to deal with some health problems – than the nebulosity need the defend yourself sometimes in the future.

As far as I know Cheng Man Ching started his Taiji also for health reasons. Training for health does not mean that you abandon the martial side – it can be, but not necessarily – and simply take it as a hobby two times a week.

Kind regards
Guandi

11

Sam Wiley

Is a avg of 6 hours too much? :slight_smile:

You have no chance to survive - make your time.

12

Guandi:

I agree 100%. I train mainly for health, but still want to knowing all about my art. The reason you want to learn an art has nothing to do with your ability to learn it. Only close-mindedness prevents a person from learning.

…but we all know this.

“Deep down inside of all of us is the power to accomplish what we want to, if we’ll just stop looking elsewhere.”
Internal Arts Message Board

13

Ghandi

In order toget better you must be pushed, tested
and refined. It has already been affirmed that just about any physical activity is good for you.

today, even if you embrace the art as a whole while entering it for health, if you don’t have someone to test your mettle you will only go but so far.

Sure, most people today don’t need martial Arts
to survive, and it’s that mind set that will hinder thier highest potential. You see, what most people consider good health is totally superficial.Ex:
People that run marathon races for whatever amount of miles. When the race is over thier done.
If you were to say let’s do it again they whould look at you like your crazy. that’s one side.

The other is: A Tribe in Kenya Thats not as advanced (technology wise)as the west, that still hunt for thier food. will chase an antelop for 50mls kill it and bring it home and tomarrow get up and do it all over again. Who’s healthier?
It speaks for it self.

And as far as Cheng Man Ching is concerned,
Yes, in the mid 20’s He started learning from Yang Cheng Fu to help the TB he had. With in a year He was all but cured. Yes he entered for health reasons but he was a fighter and he had to be to be named as one of the inheriters. which means that he was constantly pushed to be better.
He Knew and fought many of the turn of the century masters. Cheng didn’t even teach the way he was taught. in fact, none of the cheng Fu lineage does. The watering down of of the style sacrificed a certain amount of it’s health benifits. Compare Cheng Fu’s style with Yang Ban Hou and Shou Hou. Yang isn’t considered part of the martial world anymore(Cheng Fu that is).

The mind controlls the body if the mind isn’t stressed to push the body, it won’t, which means
after some point you will stagnate. Even if your not aware of it. The concept of relax is benificial for the health over all and works regardless of the martial arts. We want more.

And wanting health is not enough, in fact, it can hinder your goal because the mind, not properly prepared for whats it’s doing (or not)will block the benefits because of anxiety of the desire of health. The mind has to be quiet in order for the body to do what needs to be done. In todays society, we think to much. you have to unlearn quite few things before you can actually begin to learn.

I’m not mixing, it’s all one and the same to me.
I call the Internal Arts Life Arts. I don’t catorgarize any of it. It’s every thing i do every day.
For those who do it strickly for health and are not pushed to the next level, Your recieving the bare minimum. Teachers don’t push because thier trying to get paid, if they push to hard, like most westerners, they’ll give it up. When i started learning, it was with the Chinese. the difference was like day and night. It wasn’t about the money with them, it was about perfecting them. Time, energy, and effert were
requiered all the time. With westerners, they do what they feel. and the teacher needs to keep a roof over his head. so what can you do? And there’s much evedance on this board alone on how westerners have lied to themselves that thier good
when they haven’t even touched the surface. Health or Fighting.

Mixed? I know exactly what I said, and i hope that this helped you understand what i said.

I mean I could go on and on, But if you don’t get it yet, you won’t.

Peace
Maoshan

14

I love Maoshan’s lists . . . sad to say I’m not on his list of “authentic” posters. Sigh. Guess I don’t practice hard enough. But considering he hasn’t met most of the people he listed, and almost none of the rest of us . . . it’s pure bullshit.

But that’s OK, because his main point about serious, focused, diligent practice and sparring/fighting to achieve a real level of skill is valid. I think the point could have been made without Maoshan’s personal slandering of people left off the list, however.

15

“Yang isn’t considered part of the martial world anymore(Cheng Fu that is).”

Isn’t considered part of the martial world by whom? And why not? Is there something wrong with it?

16

No disrespect but that last guy on your list “Bagwa Boxer” was a troll and used other names like bak mae_ and ironvest till he got kicked off. I doubt he even studied Bagua.

Peace

Daryl

17

What we do all day

I’m a writer.

Bagua is the perfect excuse to get up and walk around in circles for no reason what so ever.

8SP

18

Wujidude

Bull ****?
What’s wrong? Ego get the best of you? Or is it just out right jelousy? I spoke of the individuals
I’ve(so to speak)Conversed with since I began posting.I don’t know you. I’ve seen your name in passing, but that’s all.
And what does it matter that I didn’t list you?
If your secure in your training and progress, what does it matter? You need to check your Ego
man,traing is all this should be about.

Come to think of it, perhapes we might have crossed swords at some time in the past when I was posting a lot.I don’t remember if we were pro or con each other in the particular debate.

I simply listed my feelings of who I thought chould add some knowlege to this board. And yes,
I can say that. I’ve been doing BaGua Longer than most. The way BaGua is taught today, is not the way I was taught.My personel opinion is it’s been diluted(in terms of it’s usage,A True, moving root
Etc.
This is the reason we stoped posting.
I didn’t slander anyone, I spoke fact.
And the more I think about it, Your another one of those faceless individuals trying to come off
like a superior. You don’t like what I wrote, so now’s the time to denounce me?
You wild ,man.

Enough.

Mr. Nemo
There are plenty of San Shou Tai Ji Players today,
What I speak of is the real tech’s. It is a fact that Yang Cheng fu watered down the system.
When the main populance got it, this is what they got. Chen and the others didn’t go through this,I think. Most of the teachers of yang that I have met that taught it was for health and in fighting did a differnt system. Now don’t get me wrong, what they did was apply the priniples of thier tai chi, if it was a hard/soft style or not at all if a hard style. But none of them thought of the system as a combat system anymore, the real thing wasn’t being taught.
To learn true Yang is with Pan Hou Or Shou Hou
I had the oppertunity to met with a guy who Knew it. and he was good. I’ve never seen Yang done like that.
It’s what they said, and then, what I saw.
thats why I said it.

Peace Maoshan

[This message was edited by maoshan on 04-29-01 at 06:56 PM.]

19

wujidude,

Does it really matter if you are on the list or not? I would also like to think I had something to contribute, but if people don’t see my postings that way then that is fine. You take it or leave it.

maoshan has some interesting things to say, and some very strong opinions. I don’t agree with all of it, but that is my right as well :slight_smile:

You have no chance to survive - make your time.

20

Wooohoooo! I obviously had too much caffeine when I posted previously. Maoshan, sir . . . seems I misunderstood what you meant when you listed those folks. No, I wasn’t sobbing because I’m not in the “in” group . . . it just struck me that you were saying that people not on that little list had nothing worthwhile to say. Specifically, you said:

"Who do i think is cool on this board?

Sam Wiley
Kevin
Chris McKinley
Count
Daniel Madar
Braden
BagwaBoxer

These are the only people on this board that actually have something to say."

Obviously I took your statement the wrong way. Except for the last one, whom I don’t really recall, I’ve enjoy the contributions of all those guys to this forum, too, and have learned a lot from what they’ve posted. But there are a lot of people on here that I’ve enjoyed and learned from (Kevin Wallbridge, GLW and Taoboxer come to mind).

I don’t mind strong opinions, as long as they’re right on. I’ve always liked what you’ve had to say about the importance of strong practice and keeping the focus on the fighting aims of the art. Miss Novell Bell’s contributions, but he’s got his reasons (including practice) for putting his time into other things.