I know that it’s not your typical wing chun training method, but I’ve recently been introduced to skipping. After a year of injury I’m trying to get in shape again. Actually, I’m still injured, but I’m fed up with abstaining from any kind of physical exercise. And I want to get in shape again.

Here are my requirements for my physical training programme:

• it must include a fair bit of cardio vascular exercise. I’m after endurance and a lean, mean physique (girlfriend’s orders). Gone are the days of pushing the weight training past silly points as I don’t think my body can take it now!
• it must include a large wing chun element.

To address the cardio element of training, I’ve started skipping. I know, get him! There are never any decent skipping ropes lying about in my gym, but fortunately I rememmbered I’d received a rope as a gift last Christmas so I dug that out. Sehr gut! The skipping is used only on my leg training days – Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I combine it with my wing chun training. It goes a little something like this:

1. Do 5 minutes on the stair machine (not the chair machine as I keep calling it – I get up, I sit down, I get up, I sit down!). That serves as a gentle warm up. I increase the speed on the stair machine every minute and at the end I’ve got a light sweat and I’m breathing fast.
2. Skip for 30 seconds
3. Stand on one leg for an ever increasing duration (see below)
4. Horse stance for the same period of time as above
5. Stretch legs in box splits and then in forward splits
6. Repeat from 2 again

This “ever increasing duration” – whassat? Over cautious as ever, and wishing to avoid any further injury, I gradually build up the time I stand on each leg. For example, I stand on my left leg with right leg raised (thigh parallel to the ground) for a count of 10 and then repeat standing on my right leg. In the next cycle it’s for a count of 20, and I keep increasing by 10 each time. So far, I go up to a count of 60 but I intend to increase that.

And the time that I stand on one leg is matched by the time I’m in horse stance so if I count to 40 on one leg, I also count to 40 in horse stance.

The only downside of this cycle (if it is a downside) is that I’m out of breath, shaking, and my pulse is racing when I’m standing on one leg and trying to keep my balance. It’s the polar opposite of bringing body and mind to stillness and sometimes it’s hard to balance. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know. Maybe improving your ability to balance when out of breath and stressed is a good thing. Maybe if I can balance on one leg after a “sprint” session then I can more easily balance on one leg when at rest.

Skipping Games

Not having an impressive repertoire of “skipping games” is an understatement. I think it’s good to mix up and vary anything you do repetitively – unless you’re practising a technique – so I’m going to have to work on the skipping and do a bit of research. I have two skipping modes: jumping with both feet off the floor at the same time and also just alternating the feet on the floor (like running) with the rope passing beneath the feet each time.

Being a skipping newb, I’m quite impressed with my running whilst skipping efforts. I can get quite a speed up so it looks like I almost know what I’m doing. But I need more variety! I know boxers tend to do a lot of skipping and I’ve seen the odd one doing some intricate things with their rope (matron!) so I’m sure a little youtube time will yield something I can use.

Motivation

I’m feeling motivated about building up my endurance and stamina because of a small conversation I had with one of my fellow wing chunners last week. He’s from the old school days of our class, way before my time, and he recently came back after a 5 year hiatus. He was telling me that in the old days, the training was much more intense. Much more rigorous.  They would do chi sau with their legs (we don’t do that these days) and more often than not he would go home with bruised shins. Siu lim tau on one leg for 2 hours at a time, that sort of thing. He would also chi sau with a friend for an hour before class started and then go off and chi sau for a few more hours after class finished. They were certainly more serious about it back then.

I find this kind of talk inspiring. It makes me want to push it a bit harder. So that is what I shall do.

That’s right, lunchtime chi sau returns. Over a year ago, I started chi sauing regularly at lunchtime with someone from class. That was a good move as the consistency of training pushed my chi sau skill up.

But then I got injured and had to put that idea in hold. My wing chun partner was fairly busy at the time, so I guess if there was ever a good time to get an inhury, that was it. And of course, over the last year my training has suffered.

But my wing chun friend rang me up and asked if we could do some chi sau today. I was going to go to the gym, but doing a bit of wing chun practise was far more appealing. My shoulder was OK on the whole, but I felt a couple of twinges towards the end. We were chi sauing for a good 30 minutes, which is more than I’ve done for a while.

It’s true that chi sauing with the same partner does get you used to responding in the same way to a particular technique, but the benefits of “getting used” to someone’s style far outweigh the disadvantages of not practising at all! One way that we will avoid falling into the same old routine as far as combinations of techniques goes is by practising techniques and drills learnt in class. The problem with stuff we learn in class is that we hardly ever get a chance to practise it. Then when the next class comes around, we’ve forgotten the technique.

The only thing I’m worried about at this stage is how well my shoulder will hold out. Fortunately for me, my partner’s skill is betetr than last time I chi saued with him and his hands are less heavy. If teh pressure on my shoulder causes it to ache then I’ll just have to work within my limits.

As sigung will be visiting us later this month, I have decided to ditch the weight training and focus on my wing chun. It’s the 2nd November today and sigung is coming on the 22nd so it feel a little like cramming for an exam.

Due to an injury, I haven’t been training as much as I used to, but I’ve had enough of walking on eggshells to protect my injured shoulder. Instead, I’ll just train as normal and when (or if) my shoulder becomes painful I’ll just stop until it feels better. It’ll either get worse enough to be treated or it won’t really be an impediment at all.

Anyway, I’ve devised another training routine. The times I have available to train are in the mornings before work starts for around 20 minutes and lunchtimes for about 30 minutes. The restrictions are that in the morning my muscles are cold so I can’t do anything wildly strenuous, and at lunch I can’t turn properly on the gym floor because my trainers stick. What this means in real terms is that it’s not good to just stay in siu lim tau for 20 minutes in the morning, and I can’t do anything that involves turning (like chum kiu) at lunch.

With that in mind, here’s the drill:

Morning Wing Chun

I can divide my morning training between:

• chum kiu – this is perfect for mornings because I can adapt the intensity to suit how cold or warmed up my body is. The first time I do chum kiu will be much slower and softer than the last time I do it when I’m more warmed up.
• turning
• techniques – kwan sau, gaan sau, bong sau etc

Lunchtime Wing Chun

Because by lunchtime my body is much more warmed up, it can do the following:

• siu lim tau
• leg training. This covers a multitude of sins now, like standing in horse stance, standing on one leg and general stretching.
• striking – punching, chopping, palm strikes etc.
• fist clenching

In February I gave up my gym membership because I thought what little I was doing in the gym I could do at home instead. Yeah, right! Since I stopped going to the gym, I rarely did anything at home and have become a mess.

Well, I paid for a whole year’s membership at my gym again and have just started going again. I go every lunchtime and I feel great. Not only am I getting the exercise I was missing – regularly, I’m doing something constructive and I’m also getting a break from the stresses of work. Win-win. Win.

Anyway, seeing as it’s been a while since I’ve done any proper exercise, I thought I’d break myself in gently. To this end, I do the following. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are “weights” days and Tuesday and Thursday are cardio days. This is the kind of setup I used to have and it worked well.

Weights Days

I don’t get much time in the gym because I go in my lunch “hour”. Much of that hour is spent getting there and back and showering (not in that order!). I probably get 30 minutes of exercise time, so this routine is streamlined for speed. You migh think this is mad, but I go from one exercise to another without a break. No time for breaks. There are six exercises in a cycle and I do one low weight cycle as a warm up followed by two full intensity cycles. The exercises are designed to work different muscles. Here are the muscles, along with the possible exercises that can be performed to work them. This is the order that the exercises are performed, too:

1. Pectorals – fly machine, dumbbell flyes.
2. Triceps – tricep extension machine, tricep extension using free weights.
3. Traps – wide grip rowing machine, narrow grip rowing machine, pullups.
4. Chest and triceps – bench press.
5. Quadriceps – leg press.
6. Biceps – bicep curls.

After performing those three cycles, I do two lots of abs exercises, either tummy crunches or full situps (old school!).

Cardio Days

Cardio days are simple days. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I do 15 minutes on the stair machine and then 15 minutes on one of the cross trainers. I finish off with two sets of abs exercises (crunches or situps).

Now I’m first to admit that this isn’t going to turn me into Jay Cutler. But compared to what I’ve been doing for the last 10 months (zilch), I might feel like Jay Cutler! Plus, you have to work within your limitations. I only get 30 minutes exercise time, so teh routine I’ve knocked together is pretty good.

Exercise Routines To Come

I was browsing bodybuilding.com today and found the Ben Affleck workout program which I thought I might try. The routine on the page I linked to is pretty comprehensive, and I don’t think I have the time to do that, but there is a cut down routine in this video and that seems doable.

Doesn’t that make you want to put down that beer and start training?

I’ve often heard Wing Chun referred to as “lazy man’s kung fu“, and now I’m adopting that ethos myself. Strictly speaking, this is not by choice. My choice is to have unlimited time so that I can do everything I want to, but nobody listens when I choose that

So if, like me, you have too little time and too many projects making demands of you, you have to reprioritise. Wing Chun, being further down my priorities list than things like “running my business”, has taken a hit on the amount of time I can devote to it. I’m being sensible about it though. Just because I can’t afford the time to be as devoted a student as I was 2 years ago, this doesn’t mean I have to abandon my Wing Chun training completely.

It actually feels like I’m returning to the style of training I used when I first started. I’m now doing a little bit before work for maybe 15 or 20 minutes like I used to when I first began. Often I miss a morning, for whatever reason, but at least I’m doing something every week. My training is fairly low key, too: turning on the spot whilst doing a bong sau/tan sau – that kind of thing. By the time I start training more consistently, my bong sau will be the envy of everyone! Every now and then a bit of siu lim tau, and the odd lunchtime in the gym I’ll do some leg training.

In the gym I’ve also been known to do Chum Kiu but the biggest problem with that is the way my trainers stick to the gym’s floor like they’re superglued. There is no way anyone can dun ma under these circumstances! I’ve even tried turning in my socks, but that’s only a little better.

The biggest change in my training is that my class attendance has become more sporadic. This bothers me, but external events are not always in your control. Cookies and crumbling spring to mind. Still, we do what we can. If I want to make myself feel better about my “lazy” training style, I think of the guy who had been training for about as long as me and then didn’t touch Wing Chun for maybe 5 years. He turned up to class one day and chi saued with me like he’s never been away. If he can do that after 5 years of not doing any Wing Chun, then my sporadic training will keep things ticking over until my circumstances change and I can do a bit more training.

My Wing Chun Training Routine

At the moment, I’m mixing and matching the following:

• Siu Lim Tau
• Chum Kiu
• Turning (whilst doing bong sau, tan sau, kwan sau)
• Punching
• Leg training

Additional things I need to incorporate into my training:

• Fist clenching followed by finger stretching
• Combinations of techniques like chop-punch-punch-palm-palm (just made that up!)
• Footwork
• Stretching
• Horse stance (regarding stretching and horse stance – anything that makes you healthier is good)

Since I injured my shoulder last August (it’s still not right) I’ve not trained with the same vigour. In fact, the injury had quite an impact on my training. Pulling my elbows in on the fuk sau when chi sauing really puts pressure on your shoulders (if they’re damaged anyway) and this caused pain. Not being able to chi sau properly and not being able to do siu lim tau as well as I used to (extending the tan sau and fuk sau in the first section hurt), just put me off training altogether. Siu lim tau and chi sau are really integral parts of your wing chun training. “What’s left if I can’t do those?” I thought. Continue Reading

Inevitably there have been some changes in my approach to my Wing Chun training since I decided to return to weight training. The extra demands on my time mean that some adjustments to my routine were necessary, but there are also changes taking place to my body.

The Effect Of Weight Training On Wing Chun

The first change is in how my body feels when I train Wing Chun. Previously I’d usually felt relaxed, straining and shaking Siu Lim Tau legs aside, but now my shoulders ache and get tired more. The weight training is doing that. When I, as a lot of weight trainers do, train in the gym, I do the exercise to failure so that the “gains” are greater. If your muscles ache the following day, this is a cause for rejoicing because then your muscles will grow more as they recover! The downside is that when I pull my elbow in during Siu Lim Tau the strain on my shoulders is more painful than before. This is not a show stopping problem, just something that causes discomfort.

Likewise, when I’m chi sauing for any length of time, my shoulder muscles suffer. I’m predicting that this is a temporary problem just from past experience of weight training. The next-day-aching is the goal but eventually your muscles get so used to the exercise that this aching disappears and you “plateaux”. This is why weight trainers vary the exercises and routines they do; so that they can get work their muscles in a slightly different way, and getting the next-day-ache is a signal that you’ve pushed yourself. I’m thinking that after a short while my body will have been conditioned enough that there won’t be any aches the following day and I won’t have such painful shoulders when I do my Wing Chun.

Optimising Your Wing Chun Time

The second change is a sad one really. In doing more exercise I’ve had to sacrifice Wing Chun time. Instead of doing  an hour of Wing Chun every morning, as I did for the first 6 months of this year, I’m now doing just 2 sessions per week of maybe 30 minutes each. This is just to fit 3 mornings of weight training and two mornings of cardio combined with Wing Chun (the cardio serves as a warm up before my Wing Chun practice). I’ve experimented with doing some Wing Chun after weight training, but that is just laughable! My muscles are so exhausted that there is no way I can do anything with precision! I never noticed that before.

Actually, this was a sad change as I’ve now found a room that I can practise in at work in my lunch hour. This is excellent news because it means that I can virtually reinstate that lost Wing Chun hour. It appears that you can have your cake and eat it. I can weight train and train Wing Chun. Even on my weight training days, my muscles have recovered sufficiently by lunchtime so I can then train. I’ve just done 20 minutes of Tsum Kiu in the Secret Room and boy do I feel better for it. Scared the **** out of the secretary when she came in for some paperclips though…

Over the past few weeks I’ve been practising one particular thing over and over again to improve my coordination. The meaning of coordination changes from one subject to another: in football I suppose coordination might be specific to the ability to do things like run, pick up a ball and pass it quickly. In Wing Chun, the coordination I’m talking about is the ability to put combinations of techniques together in a smooth and flowing manner.

The combination I’ve been practising is this:

• tan da (tan sau block and simultaneous punch).
• yan jeung (palm strike) with the tan sau hand. Other hand becomes a guarding wu sau.
• pek jeung (chop) with the other hand. Other hand becomes a wu sau.
• Repeat on the other side

All the strikes are performed against an imaginary foe directly in front of you. At first the movements may seem strange and you might feel uncoordinated. It’s important to break down the movements and perform them so slowly that you perform them correctly. Speed is not important at this stage. Only when you can perform the movements correctly should you try and speed things up. There’s no point in being able to do lightning fast strikes with sloppy technique.

You may never find yourself in a position where you can use a tan da – palm strike – pek jeung like this, but that’s not the point of the exercise. The aim is to become familiar with the transition between techniques with alternating hands. The fact that you can flow smoothly from a palm strike with one hand to a chop with the other means that you will be able to flow easily from a punch with one hand to a palm strike with the other (more or less!).

I remember when I first started WIng Chun, I felt really awkward doing even simple tasks like punching with my left hand. It felt awkward, simply because I’d not done it enough times. Through repetition, though, you can build familiarity with a particular technique so that you can use it at any time, quickly and efficiently.  Through building familiarity with how the technique feels, you can know when the technique is appropriate to the situation you find yourself in. Without that familiarity, you may find yourself trying to showhorn a technique into a situation that just doesn’t fit.

Variations On A Theme

I’ve tried putting the focus on different things when I do this exercise, like the following:

• turning (as in Tsum Kiu) when using the technique. So with left tand sau, you turn to the left etc.
• picking one technique and increasing its power in that technique only. For example, put the power into the punch only. The difficult one for me to put power into is the palm strike  after the tan sau. It takes a concerted effort to make it look like I’m not just wiping something off!
• try and get a flow going so that all techniques are performed smoothly at the same speed, and there is no break between cycles.

After hammering the combination above for a few weeks, I’m amazed at the speed and ease I can now execute it. It now looks like I do kung fu!

The last two weeks have been horrendous for training, with last week being especially bad. Problems at work have meant that instead of being in the gym doing Wing Chun at 7am, I’ve actually been in the office working at that time.  And this is working without a break until 6pm. I’ve only managed one class per week, which I suppose isn’t too bad, but I really felt the absence of the morning sessions.

However, the crisis is over (for now) and I was back in the gym this morning.

More Cardio!

With my routine getting back to normal again, I’ve decided to change the focus of my training. Instead of dedicating my gym time exclusively to Wing Chun, as I have been doing for the last 5 months, I’m going to compromise and include some “proper exercise” too. My Wing Chun training doesn’t include any aerobic exercise and I think that that’s an important component to consider. My job is sedentary in the extreme and so I need a structured approach to getting aerobic exercise, otherwise I just won’t get any. Therefore, in the 90 minutes or so I have in the gym before work, I’m going to balance things out by reducing my Wing Chun time and increasing (err… starting…) my cardio time.

This morning, for example, I did the following:

• 5 minutes walking on the treadmill as a warmup
• 15 minutes on the stair machine for aerobic exercise
• 5 minutes doing pressups and situps for brick-like pectorals
• 20 minutes siu lim tau

For the sake of vanity, I thought I’d do something about getting my pecs back, hence the pressups! Well, the holidays are coming, after all…

Provisional Training Timetable

Here are my thoughts on how I’m going to split my Wing Chun training with my conventional gym training. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be my cardio days, consisting of routines similar to that outlined above. As I get fitter, I’ll increase the stair machine time (or time spent on a similar aerobic machine). Tuesday and Thursday will be weights days. Yay!

The cardio exercise will be easier to combine with the Wing Chun because after 20 minutes of earobic exercise I’m merely out of breathe. In contrast, after a hard weight training session, my muscles are quivering like jelly and thoroughly exhausted. Imagine holding out your tan sau still after you’ve wreaked havoc on your biceps doing curls! This means that whatever Wing Chun I do on the weights days must come before the weight training. No problem.

Because I’m only doing two days of weight training, I’m going to do full body workouts on those days. Otherwise I’ll be training a particular body part only once per week.

Part of the reason for me starting this site was to bolster my enthusiasm for Wing Chun. I used to suffer a lack of motivation to go to class. Once I got there, I would have a ball – the problem was in getting myself to leave the house. It’s not because I’m lazy: quite the contrary. I probably have far too many interests and they are all vying for my time. It wasn’t uncommon for me to have arguments in my head on my drive home from work, one side putting forward the pros and the other side putting forward the cons of going to class that night.

The Wing Chun Demons In My Head

Check out the schizo banter in my head:

• “My Wing Chun is improving, I should ride the wave and go to class and get even better”
• “My Wing Chun is improving, so it’s not that important if I miss tonight’s class”
• “I went on Saturday, so I don’t need to go tonight (Monday)”
• “The house is a mess, I really need to clean it – and it has to be tonight”
• “I’m knackered after a gruelling weekend of booze, so I’ll stay in tonight”
• “I’m really motivated about making origami paper ducks so I should stay in and make the most of that motivation”

Sadly, the demons in my head were mostly on the side of missing Wing Chun classes. This is why I had to use different methods to boost my Wing Chun motivation.

Top Tips To Improve Wing Chun Motivation

The following tips are not specific to Wing Chun, but are universal. You can apply them to other areas of your life.

• Do more. Yes, I know that sounds odd, but the more I do, the more I like it. I’m sure you will be the same. Also, the better you get, the more encouraged you will feel.
• Look back and see the progress you’ve made. Credit where credit’s due, you’ve made progress. You’re further down the path than you were even mere months ago.
• Watch inspiring videos, with talented practitioners in them. Youtube hosts a smorgasbord of Wing Chun idiots – but there are also some geniuses too. Watch them and feel inspired.
• Project forward and imagine how good you will be in 2 years time. In 5 years time. If your future self could travel back in time, your present self would get its ass kicked big style. It might get dirty. Better your future bad ass self stay the hell where it is because it’s so damn dangerous.
• Be healthier. Drink less alcohol (I don’t mean become a monk), eat better foods, get enough sleep, do regular exercise. All these things conspire to make you feel better and the better you feel, the more you will want to engage with the world.
• Find other interests that complement your Wing Chun habit. For example, this website serves that purpose for me – and helps keep me interested. Interestingly, my classes often provide food for thought on this blog.
• Make contact with other people who have similar interests. I’ve emailed a couple of Wing Chun martial artists on youtube already. I’m not saying you should go and stalk these people too, but other ideas are to get together with classmates and practise outside of class. Our club has a regular class meal every month and its good to maintain regular contact with other members of our kung fu family.
• Vary your practice. I, for one, probably don’t change my routine as often as I should. There are so many things to practise; one model I might follow is to focus on just a few techniques for maybe a week and then choose different techniques for next week. This way my routine doesn’t become stale. Also, think about different ways to employ the same technique i.e. different applications. For example, take footwork.  I can practise the dummy form I know, but I can also improvise moving around a fictitious opponent and really concentrate on my steps. As a further variation I can then introduce some hand movements (gaan sau, kwan sau etc) to spice it up. Variety being the key not just to maintain interest, but to improve skill too.
• Make use of any friendly (or not so friendly!) rivalry that exists between you and your partner. For example there are two colleagues that come to my mind. One uses too much strength, and is sometimes quite reckless with his flailing fists. I use this  to spur me on to become better so that I can withstand and deflect his brute force attacks more subtley – in the Wing Chun way. So he motivates me to train more and work harder. The other guy has been learning Wing Chun for only a year but he has improved (and still improves) tremendously. I like this guy and think he has a good attitude. He really gives me a run for my money. I don’t mind as much if he gets the better of me, because he is using good technique and not brute force. Nevertheless, I still use the experience to motivate me to improve my skill. He is improving so fast that I really have to train regularly and be on my toes.
• Go to seminars/workshops and use them to spur you on. You don’t want to show yourself up in front of all those people you don’t know, do you? Get training!
• Prepare. You can do this on two levels:

1. You can prepare what you will train the day before you actually train. This means that you don’t run out of stuff to do halfway through. A few times I’ve been scratching my head thinking about what I should do next and instead of continuing, I’ve just left it at that and stopped training that day. Don’t give yourself time to think. Plan every minute of your training. Now I arrive at the gym and I know I’m going to spend 15 minutes on a warm up, 15 minutes doing Tsum Kiu, 20 minutes doing Siu Lim Tau and then 25 minutes on turning exercises.
2. The other level involves planning your training that week. Plan to go to class Monday and Wednesday and also to train one hour before work Monday to Friday. If you do this, you won’t give yourself the chance to choose the Inaction Due To Uncertainty option.

Motivational Success

The above tips have really worked for me, so I hope they’ll be of use to you. The thing I’ve done that has helped me most is restructure my training timetable. I used to squeeze 15 minutes in before work started, and think that that was enough. Now, I schedule in an hour before work and stick to it religiously. Because it’s consistent and substantial practice, I can actually feel myself improving and that makes me feel like I want to do more.

I’ve also started chi sauing with people outside of class and that helps with the training you can’t practise on your own.

Another big motivator is the upcoming Wing Chun residential. I don’t want to get destroyed by the daily 90 minute siu lim taus that are on the cards, so I’m putting the hours in now.

Let me know if you use different ways to motivate yourself and I’ll steal your ideas, publish them here and take the credit