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.

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.

As we’re already one third of the way into this year, I thought I’d do a progress report on my training. Well, I’ve not reached the lofty heights of a consistent 10 hours a week that I was aiming for, but I’m averaging more hours than my lazy alter ego managed last year. It seems I’m doing on average around 6 hours a week, which is roughly one hour a day. There’s two ways I can look at this. Being a perfectionist I can berate myself and say it’s nowhere near enough, and certainly not as much as I could easily do. But also being a postive person, I can see the value of setting targets that you don’t hit. If setting a target of 10 hours means that although I don’t reach it, I’m still doing 3 times as much as I was before, how can I complain?

The Cardio Connection

One way I am changing my training routine is by adding some cardio exercise. My wing chun training doesn’t give me enough aerobic exercise and I know I need it. I’ve found a way to integrate some into my training so that it actually helps the Wing Chun aspect. I thought I would start doing two long siu lim tau sessions per week (maybe 30 minute ones). The problem is, I really need to be warmed up for them or injuries prevail. So, in order to both warm up and get my aerobic exercise I’m going to precede my long siu lim taus with maybe 20 – 25 minutes of cardio work. Win win.

Also, I like having the muscle tone I used to have when I weight trained so I’ve started doing a mere 5 minutes of pressups and situps at the end of my Wing Chun training. Just as a compromise. Without breaks in between I do 5 pressups, 5 situps, 10 pressups, 10 situps, 15 pressups, 15 situps. I then have a little break to avoid passing out before doing 20 pressups and 20 situps. It’s not much for now (certainly not much compared to what I used to do), but I’ll aim to keep increasing that last pressup/situp cycle.