I haven’t posted on fitness issues related to IMA practice in a while. So we’re long overdue. Bodyweight Culture (registartion required, but it’s free) is an excellent forum/website dedicated to providing bodyweight exercises that will help any martial artist attain a high level of strength and flexibility that will increase your abilities across the board.
Case in point, this clip of wonderful exercises:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU5BE8opXTA
This is uncommon stuff that you won’t find on most videos or in most books and here it is for free. This clip shows the “extended range of motion” idea behind the muscle change classic, long fist, and most other CMAs that can be used as an exercise method to increase your overall health and physical abilities.
Bagua people, in particular, should take note. The “turning body palm” and other palm movements often require that you turn nearly 360 degrees in an extended fashion, often while leaning over. Needless to say, these palm movements can be VERY difficult and are rarely accompanied by exercises that facilitate that kind of motion. Doing the palm over and over again may not be enough to aquire the skills to do the movement. The exercises in the clip (especially the variations around the 3:00 mark) will greatly facilitate such movement. Other martial artists will benefit by becoming strong, even at the end of their range of motion, by doing such exercises.
In general, the guy in the vid, Paul Zachik, has a phenomenal level of fitness that he has acquired without weights. His whole training regimen seems geared specifically to work with Chinese martial arts, and I have seen excellent articles by him in Kungfu-Qigong magazine.
Remember the saying, “all quanfa and no gongli make Jack make get his butt kicked” and then check out Paul’s stuff. 
13 responses so far ↓
1 tim // Feb 20, 2007 at 4:34 pm
It’s interesting to me that he describes his background as “eastern european sports methods.” I’ve had the opportunity (briefly) to hang out with some folks who came up in eastern european sports programs, and it seems to me they have a wealth of knowledge that is only just now making it to the USA, especially with respect to gymnastics conditioning.
For example– the whole “don’t bend the knees past 90 degrees.” This is pretty much gospel in exercise classes in the USA.
As my friend pointed out, in gymnastics, inevitably a person will land poorly, and the knees will pass that point. If he or she has never worked that range of motion, they will have no strength and the knee will pop. So it’s important to work the whole range of motion.
You could say the same thing about judo or any other combative– sooner or later your knees are going to end up “past 90″ so you better prepare for it.
Maybe I just liked the attitude the folks I met had, of finding the best way to train, and then doing it, with no excuses.
2 chessman71 // Feb 20, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Tim,
I think the 90 degree thing and other comments of that nature have value because they are aimed at the lazy, couch potato who will go out and try to get fit in a day or two. In other words, such comments are aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Of course, you’re absolutely right to point out that people who are more serious than that (like gymnasts, etc.) have much different considerations.
And you’re also correct IMO that the Eastern Europeans at this point have forgotten more than we know about sports science. But I hear Western Europe is EVEN worse. I was reading somewhere that soccer (football for some of you) is 50 YEARS behind other sports like NFL football, baseball, weightlifting, etc. in terms of keeping up with sports science. Shocking, isn’t it?
3 Casey // Feb 21, 2007 at 12:49 am
Wow, awesome stuff. Having a strong, flexible core is probably the most important single thing in being able to do Praying Mantis (and I’m sure it’s important to most other styles too). I think I’ll start doing these every day!
4 Hermann // Feb 21, 2007 at 8:54 am
First, as a (west) German, I agree that eastern Europe knew and still knows a lot about professional sports, gymnastics especially. But also remember that they had mostly state-run, forcefull doping programs, which made many east German women for example unable to have kids later, so they are sueing the German government right now. As a young 14 year old swimmer, who trained 2,5km a day, it was frustrating to watch them on the other side, growing taller and having boxers necks from steroids and anabolica, beating us by far.
Concerning football, you are right, Europeans lack behind many, many years, it seems to be a men kind thing, strong like bulls, but totally unfelxible. So the Germans did surprisingly well at the last world cup, having a coach who brought modern training methods form California.
Second, the spot you showed, did not impress me at all. In my Yang Taijiquan, we habe a warmup set of streching exercises call shujin 舒筋, where we have all those and quite some more moves, to be followed by Qigong and stepping, so I fell my chinese IMA education was much more rounded than any western school of gymnastics I had seen before. And don’t forget: there are lots of hyper-mobil gymnastic competitors, who suffer hard after their active carrier.
5 tim // Feb 21, 2007 at 9:34 am
I was talking about Olympic level programs. Like the old Dynamo setup the Soviets had. I know for a fact that they _did not_ dope the gymnasts.
For example, over 15 years ago they were taking blood from athletes and looking for micronutrient deficiencies, as was as hormone levels to track recovery time. This technology is only now filtering down the the recreational athlete level.
I know it’s been fashionable to bash systema lately, but I am also quite curious about their training protocol. Putting it bluntly, they were training the people at the tip of the spear, so they had lots of opportunities to test their stuff out and gather data.
6 tim // Feb 21, 2007 at 9:42 am
One more thing– the US is catching up in a lot of respects because of the money in professional sports. When huge endorsements are on the line , the money exists for research and training. Football and basketball are enormous money makers, and they have training budgets to match.
I don’t believe the hype that “money ruins martial arts.” That’s such utter bullshit. Look at guys like Li Shu Wen who learned only b/c they were from a rich family, or the fact that martial artists as a whole existed to serve as private law enforcement. The issue is, money for what? If the market is suburban soccer kids, sure , money is going to make for less effective martial arts (I’m speaking in the tactical sense).
However, if the market is, say, the US Army, or private military contractors (mercenaries) then money is an incentive. If you take a look at the kind of training that a place like Blackwater or Gunsite offers in a weekend or 1 week intensive you can see what I’m talking about. Can you pass a background check? Can you bring cold hard cash? Then you get your training. You aren’t doing horse stance in the rain to prove you are worthy. These are professionals who are buying skills to use– to stay alive and make money.
Finally, take a look at Japan. There is massive institutional support for judo and kendo since they are the official PT programs for the police force. Thus, there is a market for real training. Also, the police and JSDF provide(d) institutional support for the toshu kakuto/nippon kempo people as well, though I don’t know how much of that still goes on. Instructors aren’t being paid _by their students_, but rather by a state subsidy.
There’s nothing wrong with that– but I just think people need to be more …cognizant of the political economy, so to speak. This does play into Herman’s point regarding the Soviet state sponsored programs.
7 chessman71 // Feb 21, 2007 at 10:44 am
Casey,
Yeah, I think these exercises are great for a flexible, yet strong, core. Check out this guys other suff. He has lots of goodies there for FREE. Love it.
Hermann,
I must have been difficult knowing the East was training their people like that. I’d love to hear more about the shujin 舒筋 sometime.
Tim,
Blackwater and Gunsite? That is hardcore.
The massive institutional support that you’re talking about, especially in realtion to Japan, is NOT necessarily good. We had that type of government support here in Taiwan for many CMA’s in the past, and it lead to a lot of backward thinking, zero innovation, etc. And that includes the people supposedly training the police and military.
Having to compete on the open market without government interference (I took political economy in grad school, BTW
)is the way to go IMO.
8 tim // Feb 21, 2007 at 12:13 pm
It’s interesting you should say that the state subsidy in Taiwan didn’t work out so well.
Recently I’ve been watching a lot of the 70s footage of Hong Yixiang and his Tang Shou Dao guys. It seems to me that the tournaments in the 70s and early 80s drove innovation that those of us in the USA did not see in CMA at the same time.
You know the phrase, “co-opetition?” I think that’s really what you want, through some kind of mix of private-public partnership. I guess it has broken down in Taiwan since the ,uh change in government.
As another successful example, I point to the French judo program which is also heavily state subsidized. The government provides the training centers. I can’t remember if there is law enforcement/military institutional support as well. Last I looked, they were third behind Japan and Korea in the Olympic medal count.
9 Hermann // Feb 21, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Tim, I was talking about a little lower level, knowing nothing of the Russians, swimming international in different years level, my only intern. competition was in Monaco, France, when I was beaten by 3,6 sec. (a world apart) by my east German opponent, who’s coach was sentenced to 6 years probation for state doping in 1995, losing his licence (”Kids, we don’t have bananas nor swiss cheese from the alps, so you need to get your calcium and vitamins by the needle.”) Most of the athlets learned only after reunification that they were doped on a weekly level, one after the other, stopping weeks before competition. There were detailed scripts found, with code names and even amounts of given drugs or hormones (like cattle).
So, I turned to smoking, drinking and chasing girls with 15, doing some Shotokan at school (even the japanese summer Sensei was smoking heavily), till I stopped all body work with 19. With 24, I had come a long way to Taiwan, wanting to do something only for myself, ending up with IMA, so happy for that.
Still, I’m very unsure about how to sponsor any kind of bodily activity with the younger generation.
And what is Systema, have heard about it, but really no clue, sorry.
10 chessman71 // Feb 21, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Tim,
Where are you seeing lots of footage of Hong’s fighters in the LeiTai competitions? Feel free to contact me privately, if that would be better.
The decline in most CMAs here happened WITH state funding in place, loooong before the change over with the KMT. Many of the old guys were happy to take their state salaries and teach next to nothing, something that a free market wouldn’t have allowed. They received funding to do all sorts of stuff, but they mostly pocketed it.
For example, shuai jiao here is still heavily government funded and you’d be hardpressed to find a more disfunctional group in Taiwan.
11 Graham // Feb 21, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Thanks for posting that clip Dave - looks great - I’m going to give them a try.
What I really like is the way he doesn’t hold a stretched position, and doesn’t bounce - he just stretches to the max, then returns to where he came from. That I like.
12 Chad // Feb 21, 2007 at 9:44 pm
One thing that should be pointed out: The more advanced variations are very risky for most individuals. If you have any sort of back injury or problem those excercises could be potentialy harmful. Also, it’s hard to see in the clip but he is not primarily turning at the waist in those varient but at the hips. This is probablly the best way to do them as the spine in those positions will naturally be very immobile. Avoid the ligamenteous stretching of the lumbar and lower thorasic spine at all costs.
Herman is right. My sister in-law was a swimmer in Poland back under communism. She was kicked off the team because she wouldn’t juice with the other swimmers. This was in our equivalent to middle school (13 yrs old if I remember).
As far as government involvment, it would be extrodinarily bad right now. for proper gov funding you need to have universal and acceptable standards for what ever it is that is being funded. Most likely what would happen is that sectarian divisions and the simply voiciferous would set standards their art would/school/style advocates and others who dont conform would be SOL. Or, the standards for qualification would be set so low, the money would be negligable even for those who did get it. Since CMA are so varied and divergent, the competition for the moneys would be fierce and only exasserbate current sectarian divisions and/or rivalries.
This is one area where WUShu may have the right idea. unfortunately these standards were developed for an ulterior motive which has created some rather disturbing tends. But I would say something to that effect may be necessary if CMA is ever or could ever become viable for gov funding or what not. But the trick is finding universallly accepted standards that will not homogenize the hundreds of different practrices but rather bring them together.
13 Graham // Feb 22, 2007 at 1:16 am
“The more advanced variations are very risky for most individuals”…You’re right! I just tried these exercises at lunchtime and now I can’t stand up! …. Nah, just kidding
The backwards stetch is pretty extreme though and should be done very carefully… and obviously not attemtped to that extent if you have an injury in the lower back.
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