Brea Shaolin Kung Fu Sparring

Sometimes life has a way of interfering with your kung fu training at the school.  It can arise from a new job, school, injury, relocation, extended vacation, or something else that simply prevents consistent attendance.  Hopefully, it isn’t anything permanent and you can return at some point.  Hopefully, your kung fu meant enough to you to retain much of what you were taught and to come back and re-start your training.

There are a number of things to consider when re-starting.  First, as you probably imagine, you are likely not going to be in “kung fu” shape.  You may have exercised and kept your body strong, but unless you consistently trained on your own there will definitely be some sore muscles after your first class.  In fact, there will likely be some sore muscles for weeks following your first class back depending on how often you train, your rank, and what you remember.

A key to successful re-engagement is to gradually increase your workload over a period of weeks and months (not days) and to stay consistent.  Take one class a day 3-4 days a week.  If you are sore, push yourself to continue to train those 3-4 days (more days a week may likely be too much and less days a week too little.)  Your body is relearning the movements and regaining the strength, endurance, and flexibility needed to make them work correctly.  If you are not sore from 3-4 days a week, you may try to add on an additional class or two, but don’t push yourself too hard in a hurry to get back to where you left off.  You can increase your workload and start training 2 hours at a time or add another day or two to your training.  Pressing too hard and too fast can cause injuries or even burnout.  In time, if gradually done, you can easily be back to 2-3 classes a day, 4-5 days a week in a matter of months and your skill level will climb.

Second, as with any new student, you need to begin with and focus on the basics.  Spend a good deal of time working on basic stances to build leg strength as well as the forms to develop endurance, balance and coordination.  Do not be in a rush to regain every form and technique that was once yours.  All in good time.  Quality of movement is paramount so take it one technique, one form at a time starting from the earliest things you were taught.  Patience, consistency, humility, and effort is everything when getting back (and staying) with your training.

Two of the primary reasons to train in martial arts is to develop martial ability and supreme physical health.  As you can imagine, the development of kung fu skill and personal fitness go hand in hand.  The more you train, the fitter, faster, stronger, more supple and enduring your body becomes.  Although there are many factors that come into play with everyday health and wellness (genetics, stress, environment, etc.), there are three major factors to health and continuing development of kung fu:  Sleep, Nutrition, and Training.

Sleep may seem like an obvious addition to the Health Trinity, but one out of five people in the country get less than six hours of sleep at night.  Most people (not all) need seven to eight hours every night.  It is particularly important when you train in martial arts as your body requires deep sleep to recover from the wear and tear of hard training.  Muscles need to repair themselves.  The occasional sprains and bruises associated with training need to heal.  This is accomplished most rapidly when a consistent 7-8 hours of sleep is had.  Should eight hours not be in the cards or simply not enough to feel rested, take a nap and catch up – it’s absolutely crucial to stay on track for both optimal health and progress in your kung fu skills.  You will learn the hard way by lingering injuries and lackluster performance if you don’t.

Nutrition is also a very important factor for developing optimum health and martial skill.  You might have adequate sleep and train consistently, but if you’re skipping meals routinely or eating meals that are nutritionally barren you will eventually find yourself sick, injured, or exhausted – likely a combination of them.  Think to yourself, “My body is my temple” and feed it appropriately.  Nutritionally dense foods like vegetables, fruit, meat, and nuts/seeds should be the staple of your diet.  Hard training will likely make you more hungry than normal.  Listen to your body and feed it what it needs, but again, try to minimize the foods and beverages that have no or low nutritional value.  You should know what these are, but if you don’t do some research on the internet or pick up a few books.

Training is the third of the Health Trinity.  Kung fu training offers its practitioners a variety of benefits including the development of full body physical strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination, release of tension and stress, among others.  With adequate sleep and excellent nutrition, students can make the most out of the time they spend training and eventually increase the number of hours they spend training each week.  The more you train, the better your kung fu will get and the healthier you will become.  After some time training, you will become extremely attune to your body.  Listen to it.  Push as hard as you can for as long as you can.  Train multiple hours a day, if possible.  It’s not meant to be easy.  However, listen to what your body is telling you and take a break when needed to recover.

Lacking any one of the three components of the Health Trinity negatively impacts the other two so do your best to stay on course with proper sleep, nutrition, and training.  Staying on track with each of the three will accelerate both your expanding fitness and martial ability.