Monthly Archives: June 2013

Shuai Jiao – A Primer

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Shuai_jiao_platform

Shuai Jiao is one of the major disciplines of our school’s curriculum.  Simply put, Shuai Jiao is the Mandarin Chinese term for wrestling.  It is one of the oldest recorded martial arts in the world with legends of formal military practice going back to 2697 BC.  It’s underlying purpose was to throw the opponent to the ground in such a way to kill or otherwise incapacitate the opponent.  For hundreds of years, shuai jiao became one of the foundations of most of the major Chinese martial styles, although in more recent times it has become a popular sport within Northern China.  It is also likely that shuai jiao was the parent of or influencer of other asian arts that focus on grappling and wrestling techniques, such as jiu-jitsu, judo, and aikido.

The Mind Of A Warrior

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“It is because a mirror has no commitment to any image that it can clearly and accurately reflect any image before it.  The mind of a warrior is like a mirror in that it has no commitment to any outcome and is free to let form and purpose result on the spot, according to the situation.”

Yagyu Munenori (1571-1646) founder of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu style of swordsmanship. The Way of the Living Sword.  Trans. D.E Tarver

Ask The High Rank

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If you have a nagging question about how a technique is applied or if you are doing a part of a form correctly, ask the high rank.  Traditionally, before or after class you should find the highest rank available and ask your question.  If the highest rank is busy talking with someone else or training, then find the second highest rank to ask your question to.  It goes down the line to the third highest rank and so on.  No matter how trivial or insignificant you feel the question might be – the high rank have been around for awhile and it’s their responsibility to pass on what they know to the lower rank.

Never a straight arm…

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Empty Stance - Front

One basic martial principle is to never fully extend your arm.  It follows that you never let an opponent straighten your arm.  An incredibly strong arm – once straightened – becomes as weak as a twig to someone who knows how to break or lock it in such a way that you become helpless.  In class, be sure to always keep a bend in the elbow when punching… punch with power, but only extend around 90% of the way.

Sticky Hands

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qinna-old02One very important concept in kung fu, particularly chin na is something called, “sticky hands”.  The idea is that as soon as someone makes the mistake of grabbing onto you, they’re stuck to you like a fly on a spiderweb typically by your hand(s) pressing their hand to your body.  Even if they try to escape – it will be too late.  Applying a chin na technique quickly follows “sticky hands” and your aggressor at this point is probably wishing he could get away.  By the time the chin na movement is completed he is wincing in pain and likely begging you to let go.

The key to “sticky hands” is to smoothly press your opponent’s hand onto your body (wherever you’re being grabbed) and continue to “smoothly” execute your chin na technique.  Successfully applying a chin na technique requires a good deal of time and practice to learn the technique and master the joint locking, footwork, power, weight, etc. that goes along with it.  However, chin na is a very practical aspect of your martial art and the first step to making it work is understanding the concept of “sticky hands”.

Developing Martial Fluency… Like Learning To Play A Musical Instrument

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Piano-Practice

There are many reasons to train, but for most, the ability to defend oneself with a high degree of skill is the most compelling.  Our school teaches fighting arts that were created by martial geniuses hundreds of years ago – before the advent of firearms.  Back then, being able to defend oneself with your bare hands or weapons could mean the difference between life or death.  Martial fluency can only be attained through a serious attitude and consistent, hard work and proper instruction.  Coincidentally, the original meaning of “kung fu” actually refers to any skill achieved through hard work and practice – not necessarily martial arts.

Learning to play a musical instrument is quite similar to learning our school’s kung fu.  In the beginning, you will likely feel awkward with the instrument and there will be growing pains as you take direction from your teacher.  You may even have second thoughts as to continuing.  You familiarize yourself with the basic notes and a few simple chords and begin learning to read music.  This is painstaking and can take weeks and month of daily practice.  As you progress, basic songs and musical pieces are learned and practiced and more advanced chords are learned.  Years go by, you continue to practice the basics and your instructor continues to push your abilities by teaching new techniques and musical pieces.  You begin to feel pretty confident about your playing and happily perform the songs you know for friends and family.  Many more years of diligent practice pass and you feel quite comfortable with your instrument and enjoy playing and practice more than ever.  It truly gives you joy.  You advance with even more difficult and challenging music, can play with your eyes closed, and can even replay music simply from hearing it.  You have become better than you ever thought you would and feel as fluent playing music as you do talking.  That is musical “kung fu” and an incredibly similar path is followed at our school to attaining martial fluency.  With no question, both musical and fighting ability become more fun – more addictive – the better you get.

Both musical and martial fluency are available to those willing to dedicate themselves consistently for years – there are no short cuts.  The only difference is that martial kung fu requires more sweat!

Breath Through The Nose

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It will be heard many times in class, “Breath through your nose!”  There is good reason for this – both from a western and an eastern standpoint.

Western medicine offers a number of scientific reasons why breathing through the nose is superior to breathing through the mouth.  Nasal breathing provides better air filtration than oral breathing due to its cleansing passage through the nostrils and sinuses.  Additionally, the nasal passage warms the air as well as lubricates it so as to lessen further damage to the throat.  You will notice a big, big difference between breathing through your nose or your mouth when training in the cold or when you have a sore throat or laryngitis.

Eastern medicine and most Chinese martial arts suggest breathing through the nose exclusively – although there are some styles that exhale through the mouth.  There are a number of reasons for breathing through the nose.  It is thought that the regulation of your internal energy (chi) can only be accomplished when your breath has been regulated properly via nasal breathing.  Controlling your breath thru the nose when overly exhausted (such as holding stances for a very long time or doing a thousand kicks) or when excited is necessary to control your energy and avoid stomach cramps that often come from breathing through your mouth.  This is particularly important in sparring or in an actual fight as nasal breathing assists in withstanding attacks to the abdomen.  Should you get kicked in the stomach while breathing through your mouth, you are in for trouble.  Whereas, breathing through your nose (with proper training) provides more protection.

You should still train with a congested nose due to sickness or allergies.  Although it will be difficult, try your best to breath through your nose anyway.  It may require focus and effort, but it is often the case that the congestion is gone by the end of class if you get lost in your training.  If the congestion is too great, bow out of class to blow your nose and hurry back.  Then, try again to focus on breathing through your nose.

Self-Study: Pull-Ups/Chin-Ups

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Like push-ups, pull-ups (and chin-ups) are an outstanding upper body workout that can really benefit your overall level of fitness and kung fu training.  Unlike push-ups, however, they do require a pull-up bar and they are a bit more difficult to execute.  The reason why they are so difficult is the required strength per pound of body weight to complete even one.  People carrying extra body fat will find pull-ups more difficult than those who don’t because the extra body weight is literally weighing them down.  That said, a simple way to do more pull-ups is to lose body fat (maintain a diet of high quality calories and eliminate calories that don’t provide any nutritional benefit), train hard at least every other day, and practice pull ups daily (or at least every other day.)

Pull-ups are the perfect complementary exercise to push-ups for developing upper body strength.  As the names suggest, one is pushing and the other is pulling.  These different actions work different muscle groups.  Pushing something simultaneously engages triceps, chest, shoulder, and midsection.  Pulling exercises work most of the remaining upper body muscles such as:  biceps, forearms, upper back muscles, and midsection.  Together, push-ups and pull-ups are all anyone really needs to develop upper “body armor”.

In fact, pull-ups are such a barometer of physical fitness that many armed forces around the world use them to determine how fit a member is.  The U.S. Marine Corps uses pull-ups as one of three components in its Physical Fitness Test (the other two being crunches and a three-mile run.)  Most of these groups want to see 15-20 pull-ups done consecutively before feet touch the ground.  That is a good goal to have.  If you can manage to get 3 sets of 20 reps of pull-ups you will truly have high level of fitness.  If you can do that many one arm pull-ups, very few people will have your level of upper body strength.

There are a number of pull-up variations and methods for developing a pull-ups.  We’ll start from the most basic and move up to the more advanced:

1.  Australian Pull-Ups (an upside-down push-up)

Australian Pull-Up

These are a great introduction to pull-ups/chin-ups as they develop many of the same muscles, but aren’t as difficult as your feet are touching ground and supporting the body as much as needed.  Accessibility can be a problem.  Parks with jungle gyms or even putting a broom handle/pole on the seats of two chairs will do the job.  When you can get to 20 straight Australian Pull-Ups, you will be on well on your way to doing regular pull-ups.

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2.  Chin-Ups (Palms facing athlete)

Chin-up

Chin-Ups are slightly easier than Pull-Ups, but work many of the same muscles.  If you can’t do one chin-up, either continue to work on the Australian pull-ups or get a chair and start from the top of the pull-up and resist going down as much as possible.  Even better, hold for 5 seconds at the top, at the midpoint, and at the bottom.  Continue to do that until you can do a chin-up.  Gradually build until you can do 50 chin-ups in a day and then try to string together 3 sets of 20 pull-ups in a row.

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3.  Pull-Ups (palms face away from athlete)

Pull-ups

Pull-ups are what many people confuse with Chin-Ups… pull-ups have palms facing away.  Strict pull-ups are when the arms and back “pull” the body up and down in a linear fashion without much swinging.  “Kipping” pull-ups occur when the body swings (kips) in order to get to the top of the chin-up.  Typically, people revert to kipping when they approach failure during the final strict pull-ups and they do whatever it takes to get their chin above the bar.  The kip works a few different muscle groups from the strict.  Either one is fine to do as long as you do them consistently and to failure.  How wide you grip the bar is a similar story.  Narrow grips on the bar work many of the same muscle groups as wide grips, but they also work other muscles too.  Switching these up is a smart way to increase difficulty and strengthen more areas of the body.

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4.  Muscle-ups

Muscle-Ups

Muscle-ups are something we most commonly see gymnasts do in competition.  Typically, the practitioner does a kipping pull up to get their waste on the bar and then pushes up with their arms until straight.  This exercise can be thought of as combining a pull-up with a dip.  For this reason, it’s level of difficulty is fairly high. Try them if your at a park with a high bar.

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5.  Clapping Pull-Ups

Clap Pull-Up

For those who can do a good number of straight pull-ups, adding a clap at the top of the pull-up can up the ante with explosive speed and power.  Like all pull-ups, you must have a good deal of strength per pound to accomplish clapping pull-ups.  These typically require a kip to get enough momentum to clap and get your hands back on the bar.

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6.  One Arm Chin-Ups

One Arm Chin Up

One Arm Chin-Ups are the most difficult of all the chin-up/pull-up options, with maybe an exception being weighted pull-ups/chin-ups.  As the pictures suggest, you need to grab the wrist of the arm not pulling to maintain a center of balance while performing a one-armed chin-up.  No weight machines or plates are needed for those exceedingly strong people who can perform a number of one-armed chin-ups in a row.

Minor Injuries – A Blessing In Disguise

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In the course of your training, it is highly possible that at some point you will come to class with some kind of pain from a minor injury.  Maybe you slammed your knee on a coffee table or jammed your fingers playing basketball.  Maybe in the last sparring class you banged your shin pretty hard.  No matter how careful you are, how well you sleep, how nutritiously you eat, there will be times when you will have to train when in pain.  Before taking class be sure to tell whoever is instructing about your injury.  In fact, use common sense to decide whether you should even go to class.  Realize, however, that it usually makes sense t0 train with minor injuries as you will likely be removed from part of class that might aggravate your injury and given something else to do that furthers your training.  Training with a minor injury (although painful) is often a blessing in disguise.

Training while injured can be a blessing in two ways.  The first revolves around what you did (or didn’t do) to get injured in the first place, especially if it occurred in class.  Many times the pain was caused by doing something incorrectly.  Perhaps you didn’t defend property or you executed a poor offensive technique or counter technique.   Maybe you fell wrong or weren’t listening to your body. Analyze the injury’s cause and learn to not do it again.

In the real world, there is no guarantee that you will have all of your weapons available to you in the event of a contest.  The second blessing is learning how to spar and apply techniques without the use of one or more hands and/or feet.  Students can sometimes become stagnant with their training and focus too much on their dominant side’s hands or feet techniques.  Damaging one of the dominant weapons forces you to learn and utilize techniques with the other hand or side of body.  This also forces you to utilize your entire body differently as all our techniques require the whole body to move in synchronization.  In san shou or sparring, put your damaged hand behind your back to protect it and do what it takes to defend yourself one-handed.  Be prepared to defend yourself with what you have – understanding you only have one hand, utilize your feet and leg for defensive movements.

If you have a damaged leg or foot, you need to decide if you want the damaged one to be your rear, weight-baring foot or your forward, non-weight baring foot.  Whatever you do, take care not to haphazardly use the damaged leg in some kind of technique that will injure it.  Proper footwork is key to move out of harms way and counter when you are damaged.  Should you train like this until your appendage is healed, these new techniques will likely stay with you as a part of your “arsenal” and you will agree that the damaged body part actually made you a better martial artist.

Sore Muscles

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If you are consistently not getting sore muscles after your workouts, there is a good chance you are not pushing yourself as you should.  Powerful punches, fast kicks, low stances, explosive movements will push you to the brink if you are giving 100%.  Sore muscles are the result of your effort in class and the sign you’re muscles are growing and getting stronger.  This does face the student with an issue that may be unknown to them – how to quickly recover those muscles to train again at full energy?

Here are a number of things to minimize muscle soreness and general exhaustion from hard workouts:

  1. High Quality Sleep – A good 7-8 hours of consistent sleep is incredibly important to repairing muscle fibers
  2. Replace Fluids – Drink water, sports drinks, or even chocolate milk immediately after class to replace fluids and provide muscles with some energy (in the case of sports drinks and chocolate milk) to begin muscle recovery.  Most students sweat a great deal in class and those lost fluids need to restored.
  3. Eat Properly – Although theories differ on how to maximize muscle recovery via nutrition, a common idea is to eat high-quality proteins and carbohydrates within an hour or so post-exercise (as well as re-hydrate to replace fluids lost – see #2).  Ideally, a tasty variety of meats, nuts, fruits and vegetables along with plenty of water.  Post-workout meals are ideally the largest meal of the day.
  4. Take It Easy – When having overly sore muscles, a lighter workout (as opposed to taking a day off) is often very helpful towards recovery as it breaks up the lactic acid in those muscles.  Having another intense workout can be detrimental as the muscles can become exhausted and joints can be exposed to dangerous stress.  Additionally, becoming totally exhausted and wasted can require a good deal of downtime to fully recover from and subjects your body to potential sickness.
  5. Stretching – After class, gently stretch your body.  It doesn’t have to be intense, but it should certainly include the muscles that were worked the hardest.
  6. Massage – Whether self-massaging or having a professional masseuse work on loosening sore muscles, it is good to relax thru massage.  This manual circulation of lactic acid and blood helps promote nutrient and waste product transport throughout the body.  Using a foam roller is an inexpensive way to self-massage yourself consistently.
  7. Ice Baths and Hot Baths –   This is probably more important for professional athletes (getting a high-quality eight hours of sleep is far more important), but can be something you do when getting sore or bruised through training.  The theory is that the extreme temperatures stimulate blood flow in the body and helps flush out waste products from the body.

Train hard and get sore muscles as it’s the sign your trying pushing yourself and getting stronger.  However, spend some time and energy to recover properly so you can train with all your energy the next day!

Hard Training – Not for the Faint of Heart

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Kung Fu training is hard.  Whether it’s your first class or 5,000th class, there is no way to get around it (at least at our school).  Intense and consistent physical conditioning is a pre-requisite to develop the “kung fu body” that can successfully employ martial techniques against one or many non-cooperative, determined opponents.

Hard training comes in many forms.  First, your muscles will consistently get sore from the numerous exercises and drills that have trained kung fu fighters for centuries.  More than anything, your legs and core will be pushed and pushed to get stronger and looser at the same time – no easy feat.  Kicks, stances, forms, sparring, and exercises will test your will to overcome exhaustion and pain.  For those simply wanting to get in shape, this will take care of you.  Second, you will undoubtedly receive bumps and bruises as you learn how to employ your newly learned martial techniques against both cooperative and uncooperative opponents in san shou and sparring.  These bumps and bruises will heal and sharpen your skills.  A simple way to think about it is that you must be willing to accept bumps and bruises from friends in a controlled environment in order to successfully defend yourself from those meaning to hurt or kill you in an uncontrolled environment.  It’s a small sacrifice.

There is more to having heart and courage than to simply withstand the physical struggles of training.  Having the heart to consistently attend class, maybe two or three classes a day, even when you are not feeling up to it shows heart.  Perhaps you have a minor injury and still train while taking care not to aggravate the injury .  Some might feel they’ve reached a plateau that can’t be improved upon and lose confidence.  By accepting that training is “the way” and a part of their life, these students will will have the courage to push onward  instead of giving up.  They will reflect honestly on their relative weaknesses and continue on their path knowing that effort and time are the overwhelming factors in breaking through plateaus and improving both their character and martial skill.

This is why traditional martial arts is so particularly valuable and important for children.  Kids facing their fears, weaknesses, struggles, and pains develops strength of character, which is so difficult to acquire.  This strength of character, physical fitness, and self-defense skill will prove invaluable to them as adults as it creates massive self-confidence.

Proper Posture

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Posture is important both in training and out of the school.  It is important in class as it develops proper weighting and balance in most movements (kicks, punches, san shou, shuai jiao, forms, chin na, sparring).  Should your posture be off, your technique will be off and your power, speed, fluidity won’t be maximized for optimum results.  Outside of class, your posture says a lot to those around you.  For those who don’t mean to harm you, your posture can indicate confidence or lack of confidence in your workplace or social environment.  For those who do mean to harm you, your posture can tell your assailant a good deal about you as a potential target.  For all these reasons, your kung fu training focuses a good deal on maintaining proper posture at all times and you must be especially cognizant of it in your practice.

Both in and outside of school, proper posture is to have the spine – including your neck – roughly perpendicular to the ground.  That said, you need to maintain the natural curves of a healthy spine,which has a natural curvature.  Keep in mind that there are hundreds of different kung fu styles and some of their principals differ from our school’s, including this principle.  At our school, you are to push your stances as low while maintaining a relaxed, perpendicular spine.  There are other aspects of posture, such as:

  • Shoulders are relaxed and not raised.  Any tension in them is released.
  • Chest has no tension and is not overly extended.  There is no rigidity in the upper torso.
  • Chin is not extended out and head is raised upward.
  • Lower back must be relaxed and not bent forward or back.

Outside of the school, slumping over tells people around you a great deal.  Poor posture is typically a sign of low energy, poor self-esteem, and a general lack of confidence.  Simply put, it displays weakness which is something potential aggressors innately recognize and use when deciding who they should prey upon.  On the other hand, proper posture – indicating strength and confidence – can thwart potential aggression.

Of course, posture is no substitute for fighting skill, which can only be gathered through hundreds and thousands of hours of intense, proper training.  However, it is interesting to think that proper posture is needed to develop fighting skill, yet it is also helpful to prevent fighting in the first place!

Three Basic Powers of Chin-Na

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The three basic powers of chin-na, using sticky hand techniques are:

1.  Apply the movement in a sudden, quick way so as to surprise the attacker while also breaking both their balance and mental, physical concentration of their attack.

2.  If the attacker tries to counter or make an adjustment to the movement, then more power is to be applied.  Enough so that the attacker is not only physically disadvantaged, but shouldn’t even be able to fix their eyes on the defender.

3.  Executing the technique in an overpowering and complete way.  This would not only disable the attacker’s counter movement or resistance, but usually damage their body as well.  This includes tearing muscles and/or tendons, as well as severely damaging or breaking joints.

Chin-na techniques are excellent control movements that can be used to deal with any type of attacker.  The first two powers are designed not only to stop an attacker, but also to insure the defender isn’t harmed as well.  The third power can be applied anytime.  But it must be kept in mind that it will most likely result in severe and permanent damage to the attacker.